Conversation with poet and writer Jon Miller

Jon Miller lives near Ullapool and has had poetry published in a wide range of magazines.

He worked as an editor on Northwords Now, a literary magazine distributed throughout the Highlands and the rest of Scotland. He has been short-listed for the Wigtown Poetry Prize and long-listed for the Bridport Poetry Prize. He is a winner of the Neil Gunn Prize for Poetry Prize. He also won the prestigious International Book & Pamphlet Prize in 2022. His latest pamphlet is Past Tense Future Imperfect published by Smith|Doorstop.

Conversation with poet and writer Leonie Charlton.

Leonie Charlton lives in Argyll where she and her husband are tenants of a hill farm, and farm regeneratively with their herd of hill cattle. Her poems have been widely published in publications including Gutter, New Writing Scotland, Dark Mountain, Spelt Magazine, Northwords Now and The Blue Nib.

In 2021 she won Cinnamon Press Poetry Pamphlet Prize with her pamphlet Ten Minutes of Weather Away. She is compelled to write about how we, the human animal, relate and belong within the more-than-human world. Leonie completed her MLitt in Creative Writing at Stirling University in 2016, and in 2020 Sandstone Press published her travel memoir Marram – the story of travelling through the Outer Hebrides with Highland Ponies. Leonie completed her MLitt in Creative Writing at Stirling University in 2016, and in 2020 Sandstone Press published her travel memoir Marram – the story of travelling through the Outer Hebrides with Highland Ponies.

She is currently working part-time on a PhD with the University of the Highlands and Islands, and is using Poetic Inquiry to research into facets of Scotland’s ‘deer debate’.

Conversation with Cáit O'Neill McCullagh

Cáit began writing poetry at home in Easter Ross in December 2020. Since then, her poems have been widely published. Her poetry, in parts, is shaped by the languages and traditions of her Highland and Irish upbringings, and by her work as an archaeologist and ethnologist throughout the Highlands and Islands.

Cáit's debut pamphlet ‘The songs I sing are sisters’ was winner of the Dreich Classic Chapbook Competition (2022), and won a Saboteur Award in 2023.

Her first full-length collection of poems ‘The Bone Folder’ was published by Drunk Muse Press in July 2024.

It has been described as announcing ‘an unmistakable and distinctive talent’, and Cáit is lauded as ‘a bold and visionary writer who crafts the heartwood of language into luminous work that sings with life’.

Conversation with Chris Powici and kathleen reading poems by Leonie Charlton

Chris Powici lives in Perthshire, Scotland where he writes poems and essays. He has taught creative writing at The University of Stirling and The Open University, and is co-editor of New Writing Scotland. 

Chris is a former editor of Northwords Now and one of the people behind Paperboats (paperboats.org) a group of writers campaigning for action on climate change and other ecological threats. is latest poetry collection is Look, Breathe  by Red Squirrel Press

Conversation with John Glenday and Mandy Haggith

John Glenday is the author of four collections. ‘The Apple Ghost’ (Peterloo Poets 1989) won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award; ‘Undark’ (Peterloo Poets 1995) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and ‘Grain’ (Picador 2010) was shortlisted for both the Ted Hughes Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. His most recent collection, ‘The Golden Mean’ (Picador 2015) was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year and won the 2016 Roehampton Poetry Prize. His Selected Poems was published by Picador in 2020. He is the author of two pamphlets ‘mira’ (coast to coast to coast 2019 with Maria Isakova Bennett) and ‘The Firth’ (Mariscat Press 2020).
John is a highly experienced tutor and has facilitated numerous creative writing workshops and residentials including for Moniack Mhor Writers’ Centre, the Arvon Foundation, the Poetry School and the Banff Centre, Canada. He has worked for many years as a poetry mentor and currently runs a weekly walking and writing workshop for a mental health charity in Dundee.

Mandy Haggith was born and brought up in Northumberland. Since 1999 she has lived on a coastal wooded croft in Assynt, in the northwest highlands of Scotland, writing novels, poetry and non-fiction, and sailing.

Mandy is passionate about literature. She has had five collections of poetry published: letting light in, Castings, A-B-Tree, Why the Sky is Far Away and Briny. She has also edited an anthology of tree poems, Into the Forest. Her first novel, The Last Bear, was published by Two Ravens Press in 2008 and won the Robin Jenkins Literary Award in 2009. Her second novel, Bear Witness, was published by Saraband in 2013. Her third, The Walrus Mutterer, fourth, The Amber Seeker, and fifth, The Lyre Dancers, are a historical trilogy, set in the Iron Age, also published by Saraband. 

She has been awarded two Scottish Arts Council writer’s bursaries and two Creative Scotland artist awards, and has won or been shortlisted for several poetry competitions. She has been a Poet in Residence in the Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh and in Inverewe Garden.