Kettillonia: Backlist

Our Twenty-one Backlist Titles: Click on an image to see extracts
	DISGUISE. This collection by Shetland-based poet Alex Cluness is deceptive in more ways than one. Apparently simple, the poems lure you into the minds of eighteen different men filled with the hopes and despairs of being in love. Funny and poignant, they suggest that the porn star and the minister, the zen master and the boxer, the astronaut and the alcoholic have at least this much in common: that love can be the loneliest emotion in the universe. Alex Cluness, Disguise ISBN 1 902 944 19 4, 24 pp, £3.00 Read Extracts
	THE GLESS HOOSE. Four short stories written in her own rich Scots by Angus writer Mary McIntosh. Again, the concise directness of these stories belies the storm of emotions raging just below the surface – a storm that bursts through when a soldier in Bosnia comes face to face with his own hatred, when women try to break out of relationships with violent or useless men, or when a young lad, confronted by his own sexuality, acts on it and detonates an explosive reaction from his parents. Mary McIntosh, The Gless Hoose ISBN 1 902944 20 8, 20 pages, £3.00 Read Extracts
	SCOTTISH FAUST: Poems and ballads of eldritch lore. Writing in both Scots and English, Tom Hubbard revisits the Faust legend and gives it a Scottish accent. The ballad tradition is strongly present as the dusty-foot makar crosses and re-crosses the borders of reality and fantasy. Medieval polymath Michael Scot makes several appearances, while on the way homage is paid to Shakespeare, Berlioz, Dumas père, R.L. Stevenson, Ronald Stevenson and others. Tom Hubbard, Scottish Faust ISBN 1 902944 18 6, 32 pages, £3.00 Read Extracts
	ROCK IS WATER or A History of the Theories of Rain. Eagerly waited first collection from Colin Donati, well-known poet and songwriter in Edinburgh, whose work has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies. Containing 36 poems, Rock is Water is a dazzling array displaying Donati’s fascination with wordplay and structure, covering themes of natural history, the transience and durability of human achievement, time, history and both the surface and deep meanings of language. Colin Donati, Rock is Water ISBN 1 902944 15 1, 32 pages, £3.00 Review: "Donati's collection seems like some kind of Zen Calvinism, where you can stumble upon a revelation like 'Space Invader' in which Biblical text meets Atari graphics circa 1983, or the prose-poem 'The Interference Structure of Memory', in which wholly new methods of expression are introduced. Quotation would be obsolete: these are poems you have to read in their entirety. Donati is a poet bigger publishers should snap up." Scotland on Sunday ISBN 1 902944 15 1 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
OUT OF PRINT	SPALEBONE DAYS. Six finely written reminiscences which capture the smells, colours, sights and sounds of Stockbridge in Edinburgh in the 1950s, by poet Jim C. Wilson. Whether recalling going on holiday to unexotic Burntisland, going to the cinema to see Elvis Presley in Loving You, or simply going the messages (charged with the mortifying task of telling the butcher that he had sold his mother spalebone instead of silverside), Jim Wilson brings out the character of Edinburgh at a time which, though barely more than half a lifetime away, seems now almost as remote as the Victorian era. Jim C. Wilson, Spalebone Days, 32pp ISBN 1 902944 17 8 \| £3.00 \| OUT OF PRINT Read Extracts
	THE UNSEEN HOSPITAL. The fruits of a residency at Dumfries Royal Infirmary and Crichton Royal, this collection by Fife-based poet Maureen Sangster celebrates some of those workers who are not so visible in hospitals – among them the ladies of the sewing and linen services, porters, caterers and hairdressers. It is also a moving, thoughtful, humane and humorous meditation on health, life, death, recovery, sadness and happiness in a location – the hospital – where all of these things are brought sharply into focus. Includes line illustrations by the author. Maureen Sangster, The Unseen Hospital, 32pp. ISBN 1 902944 16 X \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
OUT OF PRINT	STIRLING SONNETS: James Robertson. A collection of sonnets by James Robertson, with illustrations by Owain Kirby, published in association with the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. ISBN: 1 902944 14 3 \| £2.50 \| Read Extracts
	SOFT SOAP: Delia Gallagher. Five scintillating short stories from Dundee writer and stand-up comic Delia Gallagher. Brimming with energy, poignant, angry, outrageously coorse, and very funny. Gallagher is very definitely a name to watch. 36 pages, £3.00. ISBN 1 902944 10 0 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
OUT OF PRINT	MR AND MRS PHILPOTT ON HOLIDAY AT AUCHTERAWE & OTHER POEMS: Helena Nelson. Meet the Philpotts, a perfectly ordinary couple whose ordinary lives are transformed into a series of small miracles in the course of this beautifully crafted sequence from poet and critic Helena Nelson. 28 pages ISBN 1 902944 11 9 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts \| OUT OF PRINT
OUT OF PRINT	FAE THE FLOUERS O EVIL: James Robertson. Twenty-three of Baudelaire's poems refashioned into Scots, a language which seems ideally suited for Baudelaire's dreich, dark images and startling flights of fantasy. 28 pages. ISBN 1 902944 12 7 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN: Lorna Moon. Almost forgotten today, Lorna Moon wrote a book of short stories based on her home village of Strichen, after emigrating to America where she became a Hollywood scriptwriter. These three tales - deftly satirising the petty jealousies and hypocrisies of a small community - appalled her family and former neighbours when they first appeared in 1925. They are still as sharp and witty today. 28 pages, ISBN 1 902944 13 5 \| £3.00. \| Read Extracts
	IN THE ORCHARD by Muriel Stuart. Praised by Hugh MacDiarmid as the best of the women poets writing during the Scottish Renaissance, Muriel Stuart, it turns out, was not Scottish at all, but English. MacDiarmid was right in other respects though - she was a superb poet, writing in the 1920s on sexual politics, love and nature with immense courage and profundity. Her neglected work includes such gems as 'The Seed Shop', 'Mrs Effingham's Swan Song' and the title poem of this selection, which is the first new edition of her poetry for more than seventy years (36 pages). "Superlatively good" - Thomas Hardy, on Muriel Stuart's poetry. "There is no English woman poet living today who is Muriel Stuart's peer." - Henry Savage (1926 introduction to an American edition of her poems) "Her power derives from her complete individuality of perception and her forthrightness of utterance. She stoops at no trimming or concealing." - Hugh MacDiarmid (1925). More Reviews ISBN 1 902944 09 7 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	HORACE IN TOLLCROSS by Angus Calder. Sheer delight is the best way to describe Angus Calder's translations from the odes of Horace, which he has relocated to central Edinburgh. Booze, women and song, foul weather, friendship and the odd dart flighted at fat-cats and New Labour mark these poems which form a brilliant portrait of Auld Reikie today. Carpe diem - seize the pamphlet! (32 pages) "A witty collection of poems inspired by the works of the great Roman author Horace and set in modern Edinburgh. It was as a satirist that Horace first found fame, and Calder is faithful to the spirit if not the letter. "Let's remember the dark darkness we're heading for/as we revel in jests and perceptions, tipsy/ in this delicious blink." -Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday. More Reviews \| OUT OF PRINT \| Read Extracts
	PATHFINDER by Ellie McDonald. Ellie writes and speaks of her native Dundee with total committment and honesty. her work is widely admired, but till now she has only had one collection published, The Gangan Fuit. This new pamphlet contains work that has appeared in Chapman as well as previously unpublished poems (16 pages). ISBN 1 902944 05 4 \| £3.00 \| Reviews \| Read Extracts
	A RISING FEVER by Ian McDonough. In this meticulously crafted sequence Ian McDonough addresses the constant bombardment of words and information that we are all subjected to - and makes sense of it. Here, language is honed down to the bare essentials. Originally from Brora, Sutherland, Ian is now based in Edinburgh, where he is a leading light in the Shore Poets. (16 pages) ISBN 1 902944 06 2 \| £3.00 \| Reviews \| Read Extracts
	HELLO, MAISTER SMYTH by Brent Hodgson. A new collection from New Zealand-born Brent Hodgson. Brent's talents are such that he can apply his unique brand of Scots with equal skill to moving translations from Chinese, quiet meditations and droll takes on life's absurdities. Who else is using the language of the makars to tackle such subjects as spaghetti hoops and python-wrestling? (20 pages) ISBN 1 902944 07 0\| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	I DREAM OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK by James Robertson. Poems inspired by the films of the dark genius of suspense. Where Hitchcock left off, these poems move on into unexpected and sometimes disturbing places. James Robertson is a poet and fiction writer, author of Scottish Ghost Stories, The Ragged Man's Complaint, Sound-Shadow, and co-editor of the Dictionary of Scottish Quotations. He is a regular reviewer for Scotland on Sunday. His first novel The Fanatic has just been published by Fourth Estate. (24 pages) "Impressive and highly enjoyable. Robertson demonstrates his/our complicity in Hitchcock's world of blondes and voyeurs and terror. The conversational, snatchily syntax-ed, yet finely controlled free verse of some of these poems recalls the great Edwin Morgan in one of his many modes." - Angus Calder. "Stunning" - SB Kelly, Scotland on Sunday. More Reviews \| Extracts \| OUT OF PRINT.
	TEMPLES FAE CREELS by Andrew McNeil. McNeil's poems open in Anstruther and move outwards, from childhood to adulthood, from local to universal themes, exploring questions of culture, language, community and inheritance. (20 pages) Andrew McNeil's work has been published widely in literary magazines, including Chapman, Fife Fringe, Lallans, Skinklin Star, Poetry Scotland and NorthWords. He is a primary teacher in Burntisland and lives with his family in Dunfermline. ISBN 1 902944 02 X \| £3.00 \| Reviews \| Read Extracts
	LA A' BHREITHEANAIS or THE DAY O JUDGMENT by Dugald Buchanan, translated into Scots by James Robertson. This long poem on the final confrontation between God and sinner is generally regarded as Buchanan's masterpiece. A terrifying and dramatic vision of eternal punishment, it is printed here in full, in dual Gaelic and Scots texts: a publishing first. Dugald Buchanan (1716-68) was born in Strathyre, and became an evangelical itinerant preacher and later a teacher at Kinloch Rannoch. "A fine poet, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures", he left only a handful of poems, which were published the year before his death.32pp "James Robertson's stirring translation into Scots of the work of an 18th-century Gaelic poet tormented by visions of hellfire and damnation. Buchanan's Apocalypse offers little hope for "murtherers, bevvy-merchants,/An aw that hure an curse an thieve", but this bilingual pamphlet gives him a welcome resurrection." - Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday. "A wonderful contribution to our literature, revivalistic and futuristic at the same time." - Angus Calder. ISBN 1 902944 04 8 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	THE GRAVY STAR by Hamish MacDonald. Extracts from this extraordinary novel, set in Glasgow and beyond. MacDonald's main character Farquhar McLay leads a traumatised existence beneath the streets of the city, seeking solace in the hills and countryside. Farquhar's skewed view of life is by turns bewildering, moving and hilarious. Hamish MacDonald is the author of Skeleton, a collection of poems and short fiction. He is also a stand-up comedian, sketch-writer, scriptwriter, playwright and actor. He wrote and performed in Redcoats, Turncoats and Petticoats at the 1998 Highland Festival and The Captain's Collection at the 1999 Highland Festival. (28 pages) ISBN 1 902944 03 8 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts.
	SAIR HEID CITY by Matthew Fitt. Another publishing first: extracts from But n Ben A Go-Go, as far as we know the only science fiction novel written entirely in Scots. In the island city of Port, Paolo Stevenson Broon is running out of time and money as he tries to locate the carrier of the virus which has struck down his beloved Nadia and left her cocooned in the high-security Rigo Imbeki Medical Center. A linguistic tour de force. Matthew Fitt was writer-in-residence at Hugh MacDiarmid's cottage, Brownsbank, near Biggar, from 1995 to 1997. His stories and poems, including the infamous 'Kate O' Shanter's Tale', have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, and in his collection Pure Radge. "O ony wrytin Scots the day, this maun be the name ti watch - a byordnar talent, an nae mistake... Gin whit's in the pamphlet stauns as a proper saimple, the publisher at haes the saul, the fecht an the gumption tae tak on [the haill novel] 'll gie the Scots leid the grittest upheeze it's haed sen the 'Drunk Man'." - Colin Donati, Lallans.(24 pages) Extracts \| OUT OF PRINT.

Our Twenty-one Backlist Titles: Click on an image to see extracts
	DISGUISE. This collection by Shetland-based poet Alex Cluness is deceptive in more ways than one. Apparently simple, the poems lure you into the minds of eighteen different men filled with the hopes and despairs of being in love. Funny and poignant, they suggest that the porn star and the minister, the zen master and the boxer, the astronaut and the alcoholic have at least this much in common: that love can be the loneliest emotion in the universe. Alex Cluness, Disguise ISBN 1 902 944 19 4, 24 pp, £3.00 Read Extracts
	THE GLESS HOOSE. Four short stories written in her own rich Scots by Angus writer Mary McIntosh. Again, the concise directness of these stories belies the storm of emotions raging just below the surface – a storm that bursts through when a soldier in Bosnia comes face to face with his own hatred, when women try to break out of relationships with violent or useless men, or when a young lad, confronted by his own sexuality, acts on it and detonates an explosive reaction from his parents. Mary McIntosh, The Gless Hoose ISBN 1 902944 20 8, 20 pages, £3.00 Read Extracts
	SCOTTISH FAUST: Poems and ballads of eldritch lore. Writing in both Scots and English, Tom Hubbard revisits the Faust legend and gives it a Scottish accent. The ballad tradition is strongly present as the dusty-foot makar crosses and re-crosses the borders of reality and fantasy. Medieval polymath Michael Scot makes several appearances, while on the way homage is paid to Shakespeare, Berlioz, Dumas père, R.L. Stevenson, Ronald Stevenson and others. Tom Hubbard, Scottish Faust ISBN 1 902944 18 6, 32 pages, £3.00 Read Extracts
	ROCK IS WATER or A History of the Theories of Rain. Eagerly waited first collection from Colin Donati, well-known poet and songwriter in Edinburgh, whose work has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies. Containing 36 poems, Rock is Water is a dazzling array displaying Donati’s fascination with wordplay and structure, covering themes of natural history, the transience and durability of human achievement, time, history and both the surface and deep meanings of language. Colin Donati, Rock is Water ISBN 1 902944 15 1, 32 pages, £3.00 Review: "Donati's collection seems like some kind of Zen Calvinism, where you can stumble upon a revelation like 'Space Invader' in which Biblical text meets Atari graphics circa 1983, or the prose-poem 'The Interference Structure of Memory', in which wholly new methods of expression are introduced. Quotation would be obsolete: these are poems you have to read in their entirety. Donati is a poet bigger publishers should snap up." Scotland on Sunday ISBN 1 902944 15 1 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
OUT OF PRINT	SPALEBONE DAYS. Six finely written reminiscences which capture the smells, colours, sights and sounds of Stockbridge in Edinburgh in the 1950s, by poet Jim C. Wilson. Whether recalling going on holiday to unexotic Burntisland, going to the cinema to see Elvis Presley in Loving You, or simply going the messages (charged with the mortifying task of telling the butcher that he had sold his mother spalebone instead of silverside), Jim Wilson brings out the character of Edinburgh at a time which, though barely more than half a lifetime away, seems now almost as remote as the Victorian era. Jim C. Wilson, Spalebone Days, 32pp ISBN 1 902944 17 8 \| £3.00 \| OUT OF PRINT Read Extracts
	THE UNSEEN HOSPITAL. The fruits of a residency at Dumfries Royal Infirmary and Crichton Royal, this collection by Fife-based poet Maureen Sangster celebrates some of those workers who are not so visible in hospitals – among them the ladies of the sewing and linen services, porters, caterers and hairdressers. It is also a moving, thoughtful, humane and humorous meditation on health, life, death, recovery, sadness and happiness in a location – the hospital – where all of these things are brought sharply into focus. Includes line illustrations by the author. Maureen Sangster, The Unseen Hospital, 32pp. ISBN 1 902944 16 X \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
OUT OF PRINT	STIRLING SONNETS: James Robertson. A collection of sonnets by James Robertson, with illustrations by Owain Kirby, published in association with the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. ISBN: 1 902944 14 3 \| £2.50 \| Read Extracts
	SOFT SOAP: Delia Gallagher. Five scintillating short stories from Dundee writer and stand-up comic Delia Gallagher. Brimming with energy, poignant, angry, outrageously coorse, and very funny. Gallagher is very definitely a name to watch. 36 pages, £3.00. ISBN 1 902944 10 0 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
OUT OF PRINT	MR AND MRS PHILPOTT ON HOLIDAY AT AUCHTERAWE & OTHER POEMS: Helena Nelson. Meet the Philpotts, a perfectly ordinary couple whose ordinary lives are transformed into a series of small miracles in the course of this beautifully crafted sequence from poet and critic Helena Nelson. 28 pages ISBN 1 902944 11 9 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts \| OUT OF PRINT
OUT OF PRINT	FAE THE FLOUERS O EVIL: James Robertson. Twenty-three of Baudelaire's poems refashioned into Scots, a language which seems ideally suited for Baudelaire's dreich, dark images and startling flights of fantasy. 28 pages. ISBN 1 902944 12 7 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN: Lorna Moon. Almost forgotten today, Lorna Moon wrote a book of short stories based on her home village of Strichen, after emigrating to America where she became a Hollywood scriptwriter. These three tales - deftly satirising the petty jealousies and hypocrisies of a small community - appalled her family and former neighbours when they first appeared in 1925. They are still as sharp and witty today. 28 pages, ISBN 1 902944 13 5 \| £3.00. \| Read Extracts
	IN THE ORCHARD by Muriel Stuart. Praised by Hugh MacDiarmid as the best of the women poets writing during the Scottish Renaissance, Muriel Stuart, it turns out, was not Scottish at all, but English. MacDiarmid was right in other respects though - she was a superb poet, writing in the 1920s on sexual politics, love and nature with immense courage and profundity. Her neglected work includes such gems as 'The Seed Shop', 'Mrs Effingham's Swan Song' and the title poem of this selection, which is the first new edition of her poetry for more than seventy years (36 pages). "Superlatively good" - Thomas Hardy, on Muriel Stuart's poetry. "There is no English woman poet living today who is Muriel Stuart's peer." - Henry Savage (1926 introduction to an American edition of her poems) "Her power derives from her complete individuality of perception and her forthrightness of utterance. She stoops at no trimming or concealing." - Hugh MacDiarmid (1925). More Reviews ISBN 1 902944 09 7 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	HORACE IN TOLLCROSS by Angus Calder. Sheer delight is the best way to describe Angus Calder's translations from the odes of Horace, which he has relocated to central Edinburgh. Booze, women and song, foul weather, friendship and the odd dart flighted at fat-cats and New Labour mark these poems which form a brilliant portrait of Auld Reikie today. Carpe diem - seize the pamphlet! (32 pages) "A witty collection of poems inspired by the works of the great Roman author Horace and set in modern Edinburgh. It was as a satirist that Horace first found fame, and Calder is faithful to the spirit if not the letter. "Let's remember the dark darkness we're heading for/as we revel in jests and perceptions, tipsy/ in this delicious blink." -Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday. More Reviews \| OUT OF PRINT \| Read Extracts
	PATHFINDER by Ellie McDonald. Ellie writes and speaks of her native Dundee with total committment and honesty. her work is widely admired, but till now she has only had one collection published, The Gangan Fuit. This new pamphlet contains work that has appeared in Chapman as well as previously unpublished poems (16 pages). ISBN 1 902944 05 4 \| £3.00 \| Reviews \| Read Extracts
	A RISING FEVER by Ian McDonough. In this meticulously crafted sequence Ian McDonough addresses the constant bombardment of words and information that we are all subjected to - and makes sense of it. Here, language is honed down to the bare essentials. Originally from Brora, Sutherland, Ian is now based in Edinburgh, where he is a leading light in the Shore Poets. (16 pages) ISBN 1 902944 06 2 \| £3.00 \| Reviews \| Read Extracts
	HELLO, MAISTER SMYTH by Brent Hodgson. A new collection from New Zealand-born Brent Hodgson. Brent's talents are such that he can apply his unique brand of Scots with equal skill to moving translations from Chinese, quiet meditations and droll takes on life's absurdities. Who else is using the language of the makars to tackle such subjects as spaghetti hoops and python-wrestling? (20 pages) ISBN 1 902944 07 0\| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	I DREAM OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK by James Robertson. Poems inspired by the films of the dark genius of suspense. Where Hitchcock left off, these poems move on into unexpected and sometimes disturbing places. James Robertson is a poet and fiction writer, author of Scottish Ghost Stories, The Ragged Man's Complaint, Sound-Shadow, and co-editor of the Dictionary of Scottish Quotations. He is a regular reviewer for Scotland on Sunday. His first novel The Fanatic has just been published by Fourth Estate. (24 pages) "Impressive and highly enjoyable. Robertson demonstrates his/our complicity in Hitchcock's world of blondes and voyeurs and terror. The conversational, snatchily syntax-ed, yet finely controlled free verse of some of these poems recalls the great Edwin Morgan in one of his many modes." - Angus Calder. "Stunning" - SB Kelly, Scotland on Sunday. More Reviews \| Extracts \| OUT OF PRINT.
	TEMPLES FAE CREELS by Andrew McNeil. McNeil's poems open in Anstruther and move outwards, from childhood to adulthood, from local to universal themes, exploring questions of culture, language, community and inheritance. (20 pages) Andrew McNeil's work has been published widely in literary magazines, including Chapman, Fife Fringe, Lallans, Skinklin Star, Poetry Scotland and NorthWords. He is a primary teacher in Burntisland and lives with his family in Dunfermline. ISBN 1 902944 02 X \| £3.00 \| Reviews \| Read Extracts
	LA A' BHREITHEANAIS or THE DAY O JUDGMENT by Dugald Buchanan, translated into Scots by James Robertson. This long poem on the final confrontation between God and sinner is generally regarded as Buchanan's masterpiece. A terrifying and dramatic vision of eternal punishment, it is printed here in full, in dual Gaelic and Scots texts: a publishing first. Dugald Buchanan (1716-68) was born in Strathyre, and became an evangelical itinerant preacher and later a teacher at Kinloch Rannoch. "A fine poet, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures", he left only a handful of poems, which were published the year before his death.32pp "James Robertson's stirring translation into Scots of the work of an 18th-century Gaelic poet tormented by visions of hellfire and damnation. Buchanan's Apocalypse offers little hope for "murtherers, bevvy-merchants,/An aw that hure an curse an thieve", but this bilingual pamphlet gives him a welcome resurrection." - Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday. "A wonderful contribution to our literature, revivalistic and futuristic at the same time." - Angus Calder. ISBN 1 902944 04 8 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts
	THE GRAVY STAR by Hamish MacDonald. Extracts from this extraordinary novel, set in Glasgow and beyond. MacDonald's main character Farquhar McLay leads a traumatised existence beneath the streets of the city, seeking solace in the hills and countryside. Farquhar's skewed view of life is by turns bewildering, moving and hilarious. Hamish MacDonald is the author of Skeleton, a collection of poems and short fiction. He is also a stand-up comedian, sketch-writer, scriptwriter, playwright and actor. He wrote and performed in Redcoats, Turncoats and Petticoats at the 1998 Highland Festival and The Captain's Collection at the 1999 Highland Festival. (28 pages) ISBN 1 902944 03 8 \| £3.00 \| Read Extracts.
	SAIR HEID CITY by Matthew Fitt. Another publishing first: extracts from But n Ben A Go-Go, as far as we know the only science fiction novel written entirely in Scots. In the island city of Port, Paolo Stevenson Broon is running out of time and money as he tries to locate the carrier of the virus which has struck down his beloved Nadia and left her cocooned in the high-security Rigo Imbeki Medical Center. A linguistic tour de force. Matthew Fitt was writer-in-residence at Hugh MacDiarmid's cottage, Brownsbank, near Biggar, from 1995 to 1997. His stories and poems, including the infamous 'Kate O' Shanter's Tale', have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, and in his collection Pure Radge. "O ony wrytin Scots the day, this maun be the name ti watch - a byordnar talent, an nae mistake... Gin whit's in the pamphlet stauns as a proper saimple, the publisher at haes the saul, the fecht an the gumption tae tak on [the haill novel] 'll gie the Scots leid the grittest upheeze it's haed sen the 'Drunk Man'." - Colin Donati, Lallans.(24 pages) Extracts \| OUT OF PRINT.