BIO: WRITING 2019

I write on political and social change: history and culture and the arts. And in particular the arts and history of Scotland, the stories of old Scotia and Edina.. I grew up in Edinburgh, lived ten years in America (Chicago and Cincinnati) and I now live north of Scotland’s other major city, Glasgow. 

I write essays, short stories, letters, poems, children’s stories and articles. Music, poetry and art have had a profound effect on my life. I have always been scribbling in notebooks, since I was seven, but I only began to take my writing seriously over the past decade. 

I've letters published on topics - Our Culture of Violence (2005), Youth Facilities (1996), Killing Our Eco System, Readiness to Learn (2018), Why our Stories Matter, Breastfeeding (2017), many major arts reviews and others. 

Writers I admire - Ian Bell, Bob Dylan, Robert Burns, WB Yeats, Bryan Appleyard, TS Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Somerset Maugham, 

I have a lifetime of experience, both in education and raising my family. Life presents many challenges, that can make us stronger or defeat us – or a bit of both. I write about my travels and my time in America and Italy. While I have broad outlooks, I also value history, sense of place and heritage. I travelled abroad several road trips United States and to Italy and the pink early skies near Nice, south of France. 


*Photography.
I am also a photographer and shoot mainly portraits, including many famous names: which was my main passion when I studied art at school. I have taken portraits of famous authors, musicians and artists.
I try to capture time and moods in those intimate venues were something magic happens between performers and audience. 

I hope writing and photography can change minds and lives. 



Searching for Scotia: Burns named Edina ‘Scotia’s darling seat’
I would walk the ancient hills of Scotia’s capital Edina and gaze over to the Forth estuary:  and over to her imposing castle, her historic Royal Mile, her elegant Georgian new town, her art galleries - and the energy of her International Arts festival. I used to walk down her cobbled high street to college amid all her long forgotten stories, and near to the imposing Arthur’s Seat. 

From the quiet pathways of Arthur Seat there are long views over the city skyline, to the castle over to the Forth. I read poetry and got engrossed in my visits to Thins bookshop up the Bridges. I visited the art galleries, where the old portraits of the Stewart kings hung. And we sang songs of Robert Burns at our school choir. 

"This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas.” Alexander McColl Smith.