I see that it’s been nearly two years since I wrote a post for this truly occasional blog, so here’s a brief update.
I spent the 2022–23 academic year working as a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews, bookended by a couple of stints teaching for the Scottish Universities International Summer School in Edinburgh. So I gained more experience teaching creative writing, including prose as well as poetry, though I was also taking part in the UCU industrial action during this time, which disrupted some of the teaching.
On the writing and research side of things, I published poems in The Spectator, Frogmore Papers, Eemis Stane and Causeway/Cabhsair; I had one of my Scots poems translated into Gaelic for an anthology; and my academic article on chiasmus in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets inched closer to publication, though the peer review process has been fraught with delays.
Being a lecturer also gave me scope to become involved in some public engagement projects connected to writing in Scots: I gave a public talk (incorporating some singing) about the poet Marion Angus at last year’s StAnza poetry festival, and, as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration, I was commissioned to write and perform a short story based on part of the medieval Scots text The Seven Sages of Rome. You can read that story in Issue 3 of Eemis Stane (p. 18). I pursued a more extensive collaboration with the Peruvian poet and Burns scholar Carlos Llaza, which we called The Scots–Español Poetry Translation Exchange. We ended up recording quite a few videos of us reading the poems. Here’s one.
I’ve now returned to being self-employed (which I absolutely love), mainly doing editing and proofreading work (which I absolutely love). Are you one of those people who think I’m joking when I say that I love editing? Or do you, like me, salivate at the sight of a style guide? If the latter, this pic’s for you.
Most of my editing work is academic prose, but sometimes I get the chance to edit creative writing, including this MR James-esque ghost story, written by John Hunt and read here by the gorgeous voice of Michael Jayston – probably one of the last pieces of work this fine actor did. We went down to where he lived in Brighton to make the recording, which was fascinating to watch, and he was such a gentleman who took us out to lunch afterwards. The journey was quite an adventure due to train strikes, necessitating a five-minute sprint between St Pancras and King’s Cross to make the last train back to Edinburgh.
Luckily, I was able to do this as I’ve been going running quite regularly! Among many things I love about this self-employed existence is the time it affords me to get out for a run. I’ve now completed three half marathons, and this weekend I’m going to attempt my first (perhaps only?) marathon: the Endurancelife Northumberland Coastal Marathon, a scenic trail route up the Northumberland coast from Alnwick to Bamburgh. I’m doing this mainly for fun, but I’m also raising money for trees. Running is something I usually do solo, and I’ve realised I don’t particularly relish the feeling of being in a large field of runners, so the smaller crowd of the Hadrian’s Wall Half Marathon (last October) was more my scene than the Great North Run. I also love getting out into the countryside, so I’m looking forward to running a fair stretch of the Northumberland Coast AONB for the marathon.
So that’s where I’m currently at: pursuing a career path through and adjacent to the groves of academe, as well as careering down roads and trails in Sout East Scotland and North East England. I’ll try not to let another two years elapse before posting here again.