Ross & Cromarty
Reading Groups (RCRG) grateful acknowledges the financial
assistance received from the Highland 2007 Communities Fund.
Only an April
fool would plan an event on 01 April and a Sunday to boot, but
we were determined to have our first Ross & Cromarty Readers’
Day in the wonderful, but very busy Strathpeffer Pavilion, and
this was the only date they could squeeze us in. We created a
variety of flexible attendance options, but our fears were
groundless as, despite it being the hottest day of the year so
far, we had full attendance at all sessions plus day visitors to
Strathpeffer even coming in off the street, lured by our
wonderful line up of authors.
A Readers’ Day
is not the same as a literature festival. It is more personal,
more informal and more interactive – participants have the
opportunity to meet with their chosen authors in small groups,
knowing that everyone in the group is as passionate about
reading as they are. The authors find it stimulating and
challenging having an informed and eager audience and usually
need do little more than start the conversational ball rolling –
it is the group who decides where that conversation will go, so
no two events will be the same.
Entering into
the spirit of Highland 2007 our five authors, chosen by members
of Ross & Cromarty reading groups, all live in the Highlands and
we were keen to explore to what extent the Highlands had
influenced their writing. This was the subject of our
‘ice-breaker’ panel session from which we could all see that we
were in for a treat of a day and moved on eagerly to our first
chosen author. Lunch, always an important part of the day where
participants really appreciate meeting each other and continuing
conversations with authors over book signings, was followed by a
second author session – no after-dinner sluggishness in evidence
at this event! The final summing-up was followed by the launch
of the adult section of the 2007 Neil Gunn Writing Competition,
an interesting focus on another great Highland author. For
further information and an application form for this competition
please click
here
The feedback
from this event couldn’t have been more positive and it is clear
that everyone had a great time. Angus Dunn praised it as the
best organised event of its kind he had spoken at and comments
such as ‘inspirational’ ‘excellent’’great venue’ and ‘fantastic
programme’ were accompanied by an almost universal demand that
this become a yearly event. Perhaps this comment sums up the
spirit of Readers’Days:
‘Lovely to meet
other people who enjoy books and to realise that they are normal
people with lives, family and somehow manage to make the time.’
Lin Anderson
Lynn Anderson
was born in Greenock of Scottish and Irish parents. A graduate of
Glasgow, Edinburgh,
and Napier
Universities, she has lived in many
parts of Scotland, Lin currently lives in Strathspey. She spent
five years living and working in northern Nigeria. Formerly a teacher of
computing, She began my writing career eight years ago. Her first
novel Driftnet Introduced Forensic Scientist Rhona MacLeod.
This book was a summer best seller in 2003
Lin says
"My father was a Detective Inspector in the CID in Greenock, so maybe I
inherited his interest in solving crime. DI Bill Wilson, Rhona’s
colleague and mentor, is based on my father, although I am definitely
not Rhona!"
Lin is a
very entertaining speaker and led an entertaining workshop where she
talked about popular character Rhona MacLeod and introduced her latest
novel Deadly Code, which is an exciting thriller based partly on
the island of Raasay and discussed her soon to be novel published
Dark Flight
Angus Peter Campbell
was born at a crossroads in 1952.
The T-junction was where South Boisdale (or AnLeth Mheadhanoch,
"Half of the middlequarter") meets the main drag north to south
between Daliburgh and Ludag. He may have first taken breath in
Daliburgh Hospital under the careful eye of Dr Alasdair Maclean,
in which case he had a more literary introduction to humanity
than most of us, but he cannot be sure. He "Emigrated to Oban to
attend secondary school and developed a keen interest in
literature with the encouragement of his English teacher Iain
Crichton Smith
He attended the University of
Edinburgh and later went on to take up a career in journalism.
He has written for the West Highland Free Press and has also
worked for Grampian Television and the BBC and he still
broadcasts regularly.
He took up tenure of Sgriobhaichde at
Sabhal Mor Ostaig in 1990, and published his first collection of
verse in 1992. He lectured at SMO through until 2000, producing
more poetry and Gaelic children's novels. He was awarded the
Bardic crown at the Mod in 2001 and the Iain Crichton Smith
Writing Fellowship in 2003. Angus Peter was hugely influenced by
the place where he was born and by the landscape in which he
grew up. He cites Sorley Maclean as a huge influence and has
recently written his first book in English Invisible Islands
(Otago, 2006)
Angus Peter is a storyteller in the grand
Gaelic tradition and anyone who has heard him speak will surely
agree that he is both entertaining and poetic, truly an
experience not to be missed!
Angus Peter Campbell
Emily Joy
Emily Joy
says that she was not the much longed for kind of only child, rather,
the "we never really planned on you, dear" kind. She started life as an
Airforce daughter in the Outer Hebrides, then moved to Singapore and
back to the UK when her father crashed his aeroplane into a water
buffalo.
She went to
Edinburgh University Medical School with grand plans to save lives and
discover sex. Instead she discovered squash, alcohol and the travel bug.
She worked for two years in New Zealand, before becoming a GP in York.
Soon she was dreaming of the world beyond her cosy back street surgery.
She spent two
years in Sierra Leone with Voluntary Service Overseas, she had to deal
with little water, no electricity, no oxygen and rebel invasions.
Her time in Sierra Leon was the inspiration for her book Green
Oranges on Lion Mountain
She now lives
in Strathpeffer and works as a GP. Her second book The
Accidental Optimist is a funny book about her experiences as a
mother, wife and lover of chocolate
Angus Dunn grew
up in the Highlands as part of a large 'incomer' family, made an early
connection between his acute sense of place and his certainty that he
would one day be a writer. Under the mistaken impression that it would
have something directly to do with creative writing, he took a degree in
English Literature at Aberdeen University.
Back in the Highlands, he
became known as a poet and as editor of the literary magazine,
Northwords. Angus is a joiner by trade trade, his writing time was
one day a week, on Sundays. Writing in the Sand began life as a
series of humorous cameos for the Virtual Cromarty website but soon
asserted itself as a novel. Angus still lives and works in Cromarty
Angus Dunn
Anne MacLeod
Anne
MacLeod was born in Aberfeldy
in 1951 but now lives in Fortrose and works in Inverness as a
dermatologist. She is
well known throughout Scotland for her poetry and fiction. Her novel
The Dark Ship is a Scottish best-seller;
She is an engaging and
dynamic reader, and beguiles audiences with readings of her poetry
or prose, Her workshops were very popular. Ann is much admired for
her amusing and passionate readings and workshops. She is a very popular
speaker with experience in leading a variety of workshops,
She has performed on radio
and in panel discussions and she is a knowledgeable and entertaining
speaker.
Anne is chairperson of Words
Inc, the group that runs Cromarty Book Festival, she was a founder
member of the Management Committee of Moniack Mhor, the Scottish
writers' centre affiliated to the Arvon Foundation, and is on the
Scottish Poetry Library Management Committee.
