In September 2025 writer-musician Karine Polwart walked the John Muir Way from west to east, gathering stories and observations for a new book. She was exploring the recent industrial and deeper geological past of the Forth Valley, stretching towards the East Lothian and Borders coastline, entwining ecology, folklore, memoir and songs that evoke this landscape, and her personal experience of living within it.

On the Kilsyth to Falkirk leg of the Way, Polwart walked with writer and visual artist Amanda Thomson. Thomson grew up in Kilsyth and Polwart grew up five miles east along the Forth and Clyde Canal, above the Stirlingshire village of Banknock. Both writers share a fascination for questions around human impacts on landscapes, social history, birdlore, botany, place-making and Scots language. And their connections to this particular route are deeply personal as well as artistic.

At the end of a day’s walking and blethers they held a public event, hosted by the Fruitmarket Gallery, at Forth Valley College, Falkirk, to share and discuss their work, how land and place informs it, and how their cross artform practices enrich it.

The event was programmed by Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery who are currently hosting Polwart as Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow in their ‘Attached to Land’ programme.

Amanda Thomson’s memoir Belonging was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing (2023). Her Scots Dictionary of Nature is published by Saraband.

• https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/event/kari...