Given the Choice

Susan Sellers

novel excerpt (Cillian Press, October 2013) Marion owns an artists’ agency in London and in the first passage Jean-Claude, a French painter Marion represents, is in New York on the eve of a solo show: ‘Jean-Claude leaned on the railings…

Cloudburst, Port Askaig, Michael Russell

Scottish Photographs

Michael Russell MSP

Alba Obsessed

Jana Laiz

What’s a nice Jewish girl from Long Island doing with an obsession for all things Scottish? I’m not sure I can explain. I can only tell you that it all started that day in the mid-1980s when I heard The …

The Wash

Douglas Dunn

So much time wasted wanting to be remembered / Ends with desire to be forgotten, / As one chirrup absent from the dawn chorus, / An unclaimed seat in the theatre, / A volume missing from the library shelf. /

Retirement

Douglas Dunn

Somehow it all gets done and over with — / The office emptied of its archival dross, / Papers re-read, or binned, the years of breath / Re-breathed, moment by moment. Why feel cross /

The Chronicles of Iona: Exile

Paula de Fougerolles

novel excerpt (Careswell Press, 2012) It is 563 A.D. The world has been plunged into chaos by the collapse of the Roman Empire and barbarian invasions: civilization holds on by a thread. Columba, a powerful abbot-prince from Ireland, is exiled …

Time Difference

Claudia Daventry

I liked meeting you, she says. I really liked meeting you. / From where I’m sitting, I picture her on her balcony / overlooking her city of grids and grey verticals. /

Selkie Song

Claudia Daventry

The selich (old Scots), or Selkie, is a mythical creature, a revenant, reborn from the soul of the drowned as a seal, which takes human form at night and comes to shore.

Foggy Morning, Strathlachlan, Michael Russell

Selfish

Claudia Daventry

Stiff linen under a glass dome in Paris: / Bofinger, in the 4^th near Place des Vosges / - hushed place where they bring in the white Limoges, / wine vinegar with shallots, and embarrass /

Showers in the Kilbrannon Sound, Michael Russell

Leaving Amsterdam

Claudia Daventry

To break away is relative. / I packed the rugs, the bed - and then / I threw the bedroom in.