My third poetry collection, The Raven's Song, explores myths of ravens and crows from Orkney, Shetland and British Columbia. The poems are based on independent research and the collection itself has been illustrated and designed by Edinburgh artist, Catherine Hiley. The collection has been launched in Edinburgh and Glasgow, with readings at the Kolkata International Literature Festival (2018); Purvai Festival, Isle of Lewis (2017) and the Edinburgh International Book Festival (2018). Some of the poems are based on Norse stories narrated by storytellers in Orkney, where I worked as George Mackay Brown Writing Fellow (2009-10). The publication was funded by Creative Scotland and Ankur Productions.

This project explores the degree(s) to which transformation myths of the raven as trickster affect memory and female subjectivity in different landscapes (Orkney and Canada), often recontextualising traditional stories. Texts consulted include A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World (Robert Bringhurst, 1999); The Raven Steals the Light (Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst, 1994 and 1996); and Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America: a Translation of Franz Boas's 1895 Edition Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Kutse Amerikas, eds. Randy Bouchard and Dorothy Kennedy, with a foreword by Claude Lévis-Strauss, Vancouver, 2002. Some poems were based on stories narrated by storytellers in Orkney, Tom Muir and Fran Flett Hollinrake. While working as George Mackay Brown Writing Fellow in Orkney (2009-10), I led exciting collaborative projects with various practitioners, including these storytellers. Some of the poems were inspired by stories narrated by these storytellers, using notes encountered years later, after moving back to Glasgow from Orkney. The publication was created in collaboration with artist Catherine Hiley, who designed and illustrated the collection using hand-drawn and silkscreen printed images, which respond directly to the writing. Many discussions in person and by e-mail, exchanging poems and images between writer and artist, led to the production of the book and its publication (which was funded entirely by Creative Scotland and Ankur Productions, including artists’ fees and printing costs). The work’s context sits within the wider discourse of art writing, explorations of embodied experience, transformation through writing poetry, and postcolonial female subjectivity.

I have read the poems from this book at various events, readings and festivals internationally, including at StAnza, St Andrews (2017); Apeejay International Literature Festival, Kolkata (2018); Purvai Festival, Isle of Lewis, 2017; Robert Louis Stevenson Festival, Grez-sur-Loing France (as part of my residency as RLS Fellow); and at the Lahti International Writers' Reunion, Lahti, Finland, June 2019. I have also read poems from this book on air for the Janice Forsyth Show, BBC Radio Scotland, August 2015.

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