Innerpeffray Library

"...that jewel inlaid in the fields of Perthshire,

the reading-room at Innerpeffray - "

from Robert Crawford's poem 'The Digital Library, St Andrews', written for National Poetry Day 2007

Jewel-like and well hidden, this library near Crieff, where I was on Saturday, enchants both with its location on a bend in the River Earn with a Roman road marching past, and by its incredible collection of ancient books. Scotland's oldest free public lending library, it opened here in 1763, and to scan the ledger with the records of the borrowers, where they walked from and what they borrowed, is to appreciate the hunger for knowledge.

Visitors these days can't borrow, but they can browse and whether it's the content of the books or the intrigue of printing, paper-making and binding that draws you in, there's a wealth on offer. The enthusiasm of keepers Colin and Ann Edgar will keep the mysteries opening with match-box sized bibles, unique books covering subjects as diverse as astrology, demonology, chiromancy, spiritualism, war, politics, law, agriculture, horticulture, natural history, history and literature. And in a number of languages. A personal favourite is the "Historie of foure footed beastes" by Edward Topsell, London 1607, from which the Mantichora above is extracted.

National Poetry Day - today!

see here for my contribution!

Wigtown Book Festival

Last week was Wigtown Book Festival, and here's the windswept main street with craft bookbinder Rachel Hazell suitably tousled by her workshop with local school pupils. I love the area, its soft green fertility, old stones, mud flats and the backdrop of the southern uplands. It was a time of gusts through sunshine, setting the leaves dancing just above the surface of roads and paths.

I've been to the festival several times but think this year, their tenth, was perhaps the most exciting programme. I only wish I could have stayed for longer. I started my two days there with an early morning dash to the ancient Cruggleton Church for the launch of Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence. This was a magical event in the hush of candelight, the church reached in its woody copse through a narrow corridor cut through towering maize. Sara's readings and her observations on exploring silence cut through the darkness as a single bird fluttered behind her head. I've been reading the book since I've been home and would highly recommend it for thoughtful writers, readers, walkers, and solitaries. Or perhaps for people whose lives are full of noise but think there might be something else out there. I've felt quite electrified by the accounts of her experiences and the links she draws to other traditions and experiences.

Ian Kelly's illustrated talk from his new biography of Casa Nova was highly entertaining and informative, full of interesting snippets such as his escape from five years' solitary confinement; the trade in 18th century Venice for fake penises when female sopranos had to pass checks to prove that they were castrati; and Casa Nova's observation in his final, sad years that the only prophylactic against anxiety is writing or reading.

As someone said, 'there's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes'. For my own event in which I was talking about my walking essays, the audience had to battle in through sheets of rain with inside-out umbrellas, but they made it, wrong or right clothes. I enjoyed this very much and felt privileged to talk about work in progress with the expert help of Sam Kelly in the chair, and a keen audience.

The best author's retreat imaginable awaited us with an open fire, a long table decorated with lilies, and a table offering the best chocolate brownies I've ever tasted from the deli at Whithorn. People came and went before and after their events, exchanging stories, ideas, even writing exercises suggested by the festival's writer in residence, George Anderson. It was hard to leave and get in the car for the long drive home.

The Aberfeldy Watermill

No sooner has one bookshop done something great, than another one does. My own local Aberfeldy Watermill , bathed today in September sunshine, has just won Independent Bookshop of the Year Award. It's very well deserved for their expert mix of good books, coffee and art. In a short time they've become a major local resource with an extraordinary commitment to getting children involved with books and a engaging a wider public with words in all sorts of ways - including creative writing workshops.

Neill Denny, chairman of the judges, said: "Tucked away in Aberfeldy, on the edge of the Scottish Highlands, the Watermill is a truly outstanding local bookshop. They have built up a shop people travel many miles to visit. Combining a bookshop, art gallery and coffee shop, the Watermill won for a number of reasons: authoritative bookselling, profitable and expanding trading, energetic local PR and marketing, helpful staff and exciting displays. This is a superb, successful store that offers a definitive model of how bookshops can thrive." Read more.

Hurrah, hurrah!

Atkinson-Pryce Books, Biggar

Atkinson Pryce in Biggar on the A702 thirty miles south of Edinburgh is a gem of an independent bookshop. It's easy to drive past but don't! Last Thursday they were celebrating their expansion into a second room, with the help of this amazing book-cake (it tasted good too). I was writer in residence for three years in Biggar at Brownsbank Cottage, last home to Hugh MacDiarmid and Valda Trevlyn Grieve and got to know this bookshop and its creative ways of encouraging reading and opening a door to great books in a small town. Congratulations to them on their new chapter!

The Silver Darlings

eh?

What would Neil Gunn have to say about the title of his novel about the early days of the herring industry on the coast of Caithness being adopted for rumps and sirloins in Wick?

'They forgot all about the ship; they forgot everything except the herrings, the little silver fish, the swift flashing ones, hundreds and thousands of them,the silver darlings.'
page 26, The Silver Darlings, Faber and Faber

Wick's streets are so full of words like this, displaying themselves on buildings, walls, windows. Many are left as shadows of a former use, ghosting under new names and titles and warnings. Some are barely legible now. I've been so struck by them, that I'm making a collection of photos here.

The House of Books has No Windows

This exhibition by Canadian Artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller is a must-see at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. Drawing us through portholes into imagined worlds, the installations intrigue, suggesting stories through movement, sound, silence. In 'Opera for a Small Room' a man's voice repeatedly comes back to a woman he saw walking down the road with her shoes in her hand, while his musical collection blasts out. There's a train, rain, a shaking chandelier, and a chaotic shack filled with his records and means of playing them. His story, his character, begins to coalesce from fragments, from our eavesdropping on his world, and isn't entirely comfortable.

'The Killing Machine', sinister and beautiful in equal parts has graceful machines sinuously set to perform some kind of torture as we watch.

In many of the installations both characters and stories remain unresolved. But strangely I didn't find this frustrating or unsatisfying. Rather like reading a short story, I was made to work, to fill the gaps and speculate about the meaning. These installations and the audio walks that Janet Cardiff is famous for and which I'll be working with in September, are permeated by fiction. And perhaps best of all, they stand on their own as an experience without the need of explanation - something I find a problem with much of the conceptual art that I see.

Read Laura Cumming's review in the Observer.

Festival thoughts

I always learn something from listening to writers talk. A startling new gem of wisdom, a reinforcement of my existing assumptions, or the articulation of something I half know and half don't know (perhaps the best of all). That's what makes a few days at the Edinburgh International Book Festival such a treat. My stars this time were the single author events where there was time for in-depth insights.

Anne Enwright read a story, Until The Girl Died from her new collection, Taking Pictures. It was a brilliant story and an actorly reading, full of humour and pain - a combination I envy and rarely attempt. She spoke of the 'deep creak', the resonance in her ironic humour - the perfect description. But I was also gratified to hear her say that she wrote the same story over and over, but because the content differs each time, her readers don't notice. My own intuitive writing hand has often tricked me in this way. Just as I think I'm writing a new story, in creeps a hot decision or change of plan, perhaps as I near the end of the first draft, that feels right, so right. Only then do I realise it's changed the story - made it about loss. Again.

Hanif Kureishi made me laugh a lot. Dead-pan, anarchic, he spoke about his new novel about a psycho-analyst, Something to tell You. He also spoke of his university teaching, comparing creative writing courses to mental hospitals, where people are to be encouraged in their madness, to be comfortable with it, to break the rules.

The point in each session where the questioning is opened to the audience is always a worrying one - will the questions be coherent, useful, fresh? The first question directed at A L Kennedy after she read a new, longish short story struck horror in my heart - what if I should get something similar? 'What aren't you married?' came the sweet voice from the audience. But rather than being affronted by the personal intrusion, or thrown by it, A L Kennedy gave a sad but thoughtful response about her position as a women writer who spends only 50% of her time at home, only 50% of her time in Britain; who works alone, is selfish with her time and needs a man who can be like a wife, prepared to indulge and nurture. Situation vacant.

She also spoke about teaching writing - how finding one's writerly voice can't be taught in a workshop, but has to be discovered; how fear has to be overcome in order to write. She quoted Mandela: 'It's not our inadequacy we fear. It's our power'.

I enjoyed my own session with Angus Dunn and Edinburgh Makar, Ron Butlin on Sunday evening. We had a good audience, including a substantial contingent from the British Council's international 'Bookcase' programme. Mercifully questions from the audience were about writing in the second person 'you', the merits of your work being used in a government educational programme, rather than about marital status.

Edinburgh Book Fringe

Not only are we revelling now in a fortnight of words, paper, and real live writers talking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, there is also a Book Fringe! The small, friendly, Word Power Books, have put together a fabulous programme of events and with their usual panache bring in from the margins the radical, the international and the literary. View the progamme here.

Northwords Now

Issue 9 of Northwords Now, the free literary magazine of the North, has arrived, and as usual it's brimming with new writing, reviews, features. It's made available in ever-increasing areas of Scotland - and inviting contributions 'from any corner of the planet'. This edition has an interview with Australian poet Les Murray on his recent visit to Ullapool, and a feature on Lotte Glob's new book Floating Stones documenting the launch of her ceramic 'stones' into 111 lochans around the Highlands, published in beautiful art-book style by my own dear neighbours, The Watermill of Aberfeldy. I was delighted when my story And the sky was full of crows was published by NN in 2006. It has since found a second home in my collection The Searching Glance which is reviewed in Issue 9, and includes the kind words: '...Linda Cracknell has the gift of making you see a whole picture with just the exact right handful of words'.

lyrics of exile

Last night every seat was full at the National Library of Scotland for an event some of us at Scottish PEN helped organise for Refugee Week. Iraqi exile Saadi Yousef (above), a major poet and translator of the Arab world who now lives in London, read musical words in English and Arabic. And Valerie Gillies in her final performance as Edinburgh's 'Makar' (poet Laureate) read from the work of four Iraqi poets in exile and then from her forthcoming poetry collection The Spring Teller - a book of landmark poems inspired by Scotland’s wells and springs to be published by Luath press. Introductions were made by Palestian poet Iyad Hayatleh who first heard Saadi read in Damascus in 1978. He now lives in Glasgow and gave a passionate reading of his own poem about the experience of exile, Trains, helping to make this a moving and lyrical evening.

Mostly a celebration of the riches of Iraqi writing, there was however a sombre reminder of the exodus of endangered writers and translators from Iraq following the war, a situation that PEN and its partners such as the International Cities of Refuge Network are working hard to address. Not only are many individual writers silenced, traumatised and removed from their audiences by such exile, but a cultural vacuum remains in the country which could take decades to foster again.

Where fiction and mountain rescue meet

MOUNTAIN STORY COMMEMORATES 100 YEARS OF S.O.S.

My short story about a mountain rescue, ‘The Weight of The Earth and the Lightness of the Human Heart’ is broadcast on Friday 4th July as part of a week of BBC Radio 4 stories themed, ‘S.O.S. – Save Our Souls’, to commemorate 100 years of the international distress signal. The story was recently published in my second short story collection ‘The Searching Glance’.

The story was inspired by my own adventures on foot in the hills, talking to a member of a mountain rescue team and learning about the mythology of the iconic hill, Schiehallion. The Producer summarises the story, ‘a climber teeters between life and death on a remote hillside as a rescue team search for him. This small human drama catches the attention of the mountain itself in a tale which skilfully blends love, loss and mythology in a lyrical ode to human tenacity’. Ralph Riach is the reader. The story is particularly apt for 2008 which marks the 75th anniversary of mountain rescue in Great Britain.

During the week, this and other commissioned stories by Colette Paul, Paul Magrs, Alison Joseph, and Stuart MacBride, include the most literal portrayal of an SOS signal to the loosest interpretation of a cry for help - and everything in between.

The following day I leave for the Alps, to follow in my father’s footsteps on his summit-bid of 1952. This is part of the project for which I was awarded a Creative Scotland Award in 2007 to write a series of ‘journey-essays’ inspired by human stories in ‘wilderness’ areas. The ten walking journeys include a Scottish drove road and ‘Mozarabic Trails’ in south-eastern Spain.

The Searching Glance gets read...

Delighted to find a five star review on Amazon.co.uk. It doesn't even appear to be written by my Mum. I hadn't realised that anyone took the trouble to write such well considered and beautifully written reviews for this outlet - but there it is, thanks to Emily MacArthur.

It's also rather a thrill to find The Searching Glance rubbing names with books by Anne Enwright, Roddy Doyle and Jhumpa Lahiri on the longlist for this year's Frank O'Connor Award - the richest award in the world for short fiction.

I read at the beginning of this week at the Robert Burns Centre in Dumfries with Sara Maitland, followed by a discussion on the short story chaired by local writer of many genres, Tom Pow. Sara's powerful collection Far North and Other Dark Tales characteristically, for her, draws on myths, legends and fairy tales, forms that as she pointed out, bely the notion that the short story form was only invented in the mid 19th century, see review.

Many of the issues we discussed are covered in an article that appeared this week in the Canadian 'The Record' - how short stories have come to be regarded as the black sheep of literature; why they are regarded by some publishers as mere writing practice for would-be novelists; and that question we short fiction writers pick away at: are short stories not published because they are not read, or not read because they are not published?

The Searching Glance in Penzance

A visit to Cornwall in Springtime and the fabulous independent Morrab Library for a reading from The Searching Glance and a talk. The Cornishman newspaper gave the event a lovely write-up. In particular I liked the reference to William Trevor's definition of the short story - "I think it is the art of the glimpse. If the novel is like an intricate Renaissance painting, the short story is an Impressionist painting. It should be an explosion of truth."

The Searching Glance launched at the Aberfeldy Watermill March 8th 08

This is what James Robertson had to say about the book:

'Linda Cracknell's attention to detail is impressive: she writes as a painter in oils might paint, using a palette rich in both colour and texture, and the people she brings to life seem at once both part of and alienated from the landscapes in which they move. These are quiet yet passionate stories, subtle and striking in their effect.'

Reviewed in Comment magazine....

See also a review of one of the stories on Laura Hird's website:

'Another story that stands out is Linda Cracknell’s ‘The Weight of the Earth and The Lightness of the Human Heart.’ Even if the title is something of a mouthful. It’s a beautiful story with a mysterious and mythic heart. A pagan heart. Set at Halloween, when a climber is lying on a mountain, freezing to death, the narrator is unnamed, undefined and most certainly not human.'

Also read extracts from two of the included stories: Angel Face and Night's High Noon

The Searching Glance

My book of short stories is in your bookshop any day now (or if it's not, please ask them to stock it!). I will have everything crossed for Salt Publishing on the 8th March when they hear the results of the 'Nielsen Innovation of the Year' of the Independent Publishing Awards for which they are shortlisted.

It's a brave act to publish short stories in the current climate - they are notoriously hard to market and unpopular with readers, bookshops, libraries. I would argue though, that this is partly lack of practice. Perhaps we need to read a short story more as we read a poem than a novel - more than once, carefully weighing it in our mind, being prepared to work hard at eliciting meaning. I like Richard Ford's view, that 'short stories are the high-wire act of literature', they require bravery from all of us - writer, publishers, readers... COURAGE!!

Kenya: protest dress

In July 2007, I met Kenyan journalist and activist Philo Ikonya when we were both delegates to the International PEN congress in Dakar, Senegal. I was lucky enough to capture her radiance in dress and physical presence in this photo which was then used in posters for her campaign at the end of 2007 when she stood for parliament to try and bring women into the political life of the country. She says the poster is now, 'still in many homes and in many places fading and torn and weather beaten...'

In the violent aftermath of the election, she has now chosen an apt form of personal protest at the lack of dialogue. As a signal of humility and in mourning for Kenya and its rising toll of dead and displaced, she is wearing a sackcloth.

She says: 'I need to express myself through what I am wearing, and to pass on that message, the sack cloth is very powerful. I shall continue dressing like this and urging other people to dress like this for as long as we do not have peace in Kenya; as long as we do not have justice and reform.' See the full story on the BBC.

Philo is a woman who dares to change the world. As I hear news from Kenya at a great, sad, distance, I'll look for hope in the courage of Philo and women like her who press for transformation through dialogue, and find ways of bringing women's voices into the debate.

And in her own words...

Where are my socks?

My kerchiefs white glare,

You must know where they are,

Where are my socks?

My shoes must shine reflecting the tie pin

My buttons in a row you know,

Are tight enough to keep my beer belly in,

And other things that matter.

You must make sure,

Nothing is out of place.
I sneeze, they stare.

Salute the leader,

Salute the breeder,

And don’t share this power.

Mami, stare at your shoes till Sunday,

When you might wear them if no rain.

Socks, kerchiefs and pins you store,

In your stitches one by one this pain,

From left to right patience under pins,

That make your skirt hold along,

Stitch tight enough to keep soul in.

To keep little flesh tucked in.

You sneeze, they run,

You try to keep intestines tied,

And the blood from dripping down.

Cry for change.

Sing for change.

Lace up a shoe, for change,

Stitch for change,

Pin for change,

Sock for change,

Skirt for change,

Button up, for change,

Tie in change,

Bleed for change!

Before their very eyes.

Salute change and wear it,
Like a hat and in your gait,

This is indeed is power.

new publication: How culture and creativity can enrich the whole school curriculum

In 2006 I worked with Langholm Academy and its associated primary schools as part of a national research project 'Arts Across the Curriculum'. I was one of the artists who planned with and worked alongside teachers in the classroom to help bring a creative approach to the mainstream curriculum. It is gratifying to see the experience of this project, which was managed by CREATE, gathered into a publication to showcase the approach and its outcomes. 'Connect - How culture and creativity can enrich the whole school curriculum' is available as a pdf or in print form.

walking through stars in northern skies and northern Scotland

In Spring 2007 I was part of a tour of schools for the Highland Constellation Project . On our journey, we collected seven stars. Their pattern has become a new constellation - the Jumping Fish or Iasg a’ Leum (below) designed by Ullapool pupil, Alexander Stewart, in celebration of Highland Year of Culture 2007. Our journey involved star-gazing and stravaiging, describing pathways between beacons on two maps, and exploring time and history as represented above by Gill Russell. I wrote the story of those two constellations - one celestial, one terrestrial - setting within my text some of the jewels of writing that the children had produced in our workshops. Now this story, Walking through stars in northern skies and northern Scotland, together with visual pieces that artist Gill Russell catalysed, has been beautifully bound by Laura West into a rocket-shaped book. It is currently on display in the Scottish Parliament in 'Cridhe na Gaidhealtachd – Craft in the Highlands’ and later in 2008 will be touring around various Highland locations.

Endangered Speeches

Inverness highlights Iraqi writers in an evening of words and music

‘Endangered Speeches’, an evening of readings and music at Hootenanny’s, unites Inverness with cities all over the world that are marking ‘Day of the Imprisoned Writer’. On Sunday 11th November at 7.30pm a line up of writers representing both the Highlands, and writers in exile from their home countries, will read to highlight the current dangers to writers and freedom of expression in Iraq, and to celebrate its rich writing. Wafaa Razzaq, a well-known Iraqi poet and novelist now living in London will be a special guest. A book of her poetry that calls for world peace is currently under production as a film.

Other writers who will be reading from their own work and from selected Iraqi writings will be Roger Hutchinson – journalist and non-fiction writer (Calum’s Road), Cynthia Rogerson, novelist (Love Letters from my Death Bed), Iyad Hayatleh, a Palestinian poet based in Glasgow, and Mandy Haggith, novelist and poet (Castings). All are pictured right to left above with Jenni Calder, President of Scottish PEN. Hamish MacDonald will compere and Marc Clement of Blazing Fiddles and Nuala Kennedy will delight the audience with musical interludes.

Scottish PEN and the Moniack Mhor Writers’ Centre at Kiltarlity have joined forces to organise this event, focusing on the plight of writers caught up in the humanitarian crisis in which an estimated four million Iraqis are now displaced. Writers, translators and interpreters are particularly under threat for their writings and for alleged collaboration with coalition forces. PEN is calling on all governments to support Syria and Jordan’s measures to assist, and also to re-examine their own resettlement policies for Iraqi refugees.

‘Endangered Speeches’ tickets £4, available in advance from 01463 741675 or on the door. Hootenannay’s, 67 Church Street, Inverness.