Lochend Park

I usually have a short walk round Lochend Park before going to the writing class I teach at the Ripple Project in the Lochend and Restalrig Community Hub. It's a small, very urban park with a sizeable pond. I'm fascinated by the drowned trees in the middle of the pond.

Yesterday I made friends with a shy coot, who hid away, but you can see it's funny feet in this photo.

The writing class went very well as it always does, everyone in the group is enthusiastic, full of imaginative stories and they all write brilliantly!

You can see more photos of Lochend Park in this post from last October.

Summer Courses

You can now book for my two summer courses at the Office of Lifelong Learning, University of Edinburgh!


10am - 4pm Monday 1 August Creative Writing Inspired by Nature to be held at the Water of Leith Visitor Centre. You can find out more and book a place here.


10.30am - 3.30pm Monday 8 August and Tuesday 9 August, Introduction to the Water of Leith. You can find out more and book a place here.


In other news, I'm delighted that one of my haiku (you can read it here) has been set to music by Tom Cipullo as part of his Insomnia cycle, which will premier at this concert of the Mirror Vision Ensemble at the Weill Recital Hall in the Carnegie Hall, New York on 24 May.



As ever, text in red takes you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Dates for your Diary

I am hoping to do a reading with Mary Johnston and Jane Wilde at Wordpower Books, 43-45 West Nicholson Street, Edinburgh at 11am, Saturday 11 June. So if you're in Edinburgh, please do come along!

I've also just had confirmed the dates for the summer courses I'll be running this August for the University of Edinburgh Office of Lifelong Learning:

10-4 Monday 1 August Writing Inspired by Nature at the Water of Leith Conservation Trust Visitor Centre, 24 Lanark Road, Edinburgh.

10.30 -3.30 Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 August (2 day course) Introduction to the Water of Leith. Day one at 11 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh day 2 at Water of Leith Conservation Trust Visitor Centre, 24 Lanark Road, Edinburgh.

There will be more details in the Office of Lifelong Learning Summer Brochure that will be out soon!

as ever, text in red contains hyperlinks to other sites where you can find out more!

Haiku Workshop

I facilitated a haiku workshop yesterday at the Salisbury Centre in Edinburgh. There weren't many people there, but everyone was really enthusiastic about reading and writing haiku. We had some very interesting discussions about the haiku form and the intent of haiku as well as spending a very inspiring time in the Salisbury Centre's beautiful garden that has lots of wooden benches in peaceful corners, ideal for thinking about and writing haiku. Luckily the weather stayed fine, the rain only started an hour later!

Thanks to everyone who attended and to the Salisbury Centre - there may be a possibility for me to offer similar workshops there again in the future!

Creative Workshops at Waste Innovations

We now have the full list of workshops to be held at Waste Innovations in Edinburgh:

My Poetry Workshop: TUESDAY APRIL 29TH 6PM (First of 8 consecutive weeks)
Kids Art Workshop: SATURDAY APRIL 26TH 10:30AM (First of 8 consecutive weeks)Teens Acting Workshop: SATURDAY APRIL 26TH 1:00PM (First of 8 consecutive weeks)
Half-Day Paper Making Workshop: FRIDAY MAY 2ND 1:30PM (First of 7 consecutive weeks)
Full-Day Paper Making Workshop: STARTING JUNE 6TH - first Friday of every month 10AM

More information about course costs and organisation from Waste Innovations. If you're interested in the poetry workshop and want to know more, just leave a comment here or email me....

Please note: due to flooding of the Eco Portal these workshops have been CANCELLED.

Dates of Poetry Workshops

For anyone reading this blog who is in Edinburgh (not many I know!) here are some details of the workshops I am facilitating. I think all these dates are subject to change:

The workshops at Waste Innovations have been cancelled again. No new dates I'm afraid!

Afternoon of Saturday 21 June - Haiku workshop at the Salisbury Centre. Further details to follow in this blog and in the Centre's summer programme which can be viewed here.

February 2009 - writing workshop at Vogrie Country Park, Midlothian. Date to be confirmed and details to follow!

Workshop at FREAK event, Edinburgh

I'm hoping to do a workshop on creative responses to environmental issues, with a practical crafting session at this event in Edinburgh. Free and Reactive Edinburgh Art Kollective is holding the event, which is free and will run from 10 -13 October in an old warehouse in the Granton area of the city. The event has an open access policy that will incorporate local residents’ art, performances, a showcase for local bands and DJ’s and also workshops where visitors can learn new skills from circus tricks to clothes customisation, dance to drama. It will be an opportunity for creative expression to become more accessible to everyone from all walks of life and of all age groups.


My workshop should be at around 2pm on the Saturday. I'll report back here to say how it went!

Update on Blogging Course

Thanks to all of you who shared your ideas on blogging and what you wished you had known when you started out! Unfortunately the course i was to be teaching this term has been cancelled due to lack of interest. It will hopefully happen next term and I'll save all your ideas until then and will credit everyone for their ideas. I now know not to rely on Edinburgh council having enough marketing in place for all their courses and will be doing much more active marketing myself next time round!

Your Ideas, please!

I've been asked by Edinburgh Council to teach a course on blogging starting from the week after next (as long as enough people are interested!). So I thought this week's Sunday Scribbling prompt 'Ideas' offered an ideal opportunity to ask other Sunday Scribblers and other visitors to share ideas about blogging. Areas where your ideas would be most useful are:

1) When you first started blogging, what would you have found most useful to know?

2) Why do you blog?

3) What are the best things about blogging?

4) What do you find difficult about blogging?

5) How do you keep yourself going as a blogger - how do you think up ideas for what to write about? (I will be suggesting my students visit Sunday Scribblings of course!).

Please feel free to also add in other ideas about blogging that you think may be interesting to beginner bloggers. I will of course give you credit for any of your ideas that I share with my student. Thanks!

Creative Writing Tutoring

I'm very excited to have been accepted as a creative writing tutor for The City of Edinburgh Council. I was originally accepted a couple of weeks ago as a 'supply tutor' but have been offered two full courses to tutor next term - one class of creative writing workshops and one on blogging for beginners. I'll post more details as they are confirmed, just in case any readers in Edinburgh know anyone who may be interested.

Recycled Art at the International Playbus Congress

I’m running a workshop on environmental art at the International Playbus Congress in Turin on Saturday 5 November. This workshop will explore recycling and reuse in collage work and the wider potential of collage in community work.

Participants have been asked to bring some materials, which combined with materials provided by the organisers, can be used in collages. In this first half we'll make greetings cards, bookmarks, notepaper and envelopes. After the creative work, we'll look at each others work and discuss how we approached the collage.

In the second half, participants will work in small groups to explore how they could use collage in their work. For example, children can make collages to show what they want included in a new play area; collage can be used in consultation work with children; people who have learning difficulties or who are illiterate; collage can help discussion about difficult issues and of course can stimulate recycling!

For more about this workshop please visit:
http://recycled-art.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk