Anne Connolly was born in Northern Ireland and her poetry frequently reflects the country and its people. She has taught throughout Britain working more recently as an independent advocate for and with older people in long-term care. Her poems have been published in Horizon, Salt Publishing; Magma; Mslexia; Poetry Scotland; Quarrtsiluni and The Tablet. Her pamphlet “ Downside Up” was published by Calder Wood Press in 2008 and her collection “Love-in-a-mist” ( 2011) is available HERE Anne currently organises the School of Poets at the Scottish Poetry Library. She is particularly interested in concrete and performance poetry and enjoys slamming.

Soot-prints

Outside pale mallow is still in bloom

opened all the way to the topmost buds.

December wind is tossing, tossing, but

branches will be pliant for another while,

frail, defiant in the face of snow.

It’s there in the pewter pink of clouds

that forecast better than computers.

Inside, his small head is resting on my chest,

replete while his exhausted mother steals

what sleep she can in these earliest of days.

Who knows what games this tiny fellow

plays throughout his snuffling, suckling-

what dreams his parents have for him

after the long haul of childhood?

Our father hunkered down to pattern soot-prints

round the hearth on Christmas Eve

crouched over old boots that gardened,

caught up clay by the patch of summer mint

where chewing gum sprang up overnight

white on aromatic sprigs strong enough

to launch the flight of our imagination.

Copyright Anne Connolly 2012

Jim Murdoch is a Scottish writer living just outside Glasgow. His poetry appeared regularly in small press magazines during the seventies and eighties. In the nineties he turned to prose-writing and has published three novels and a collection of poetry. His first novel, Living with the Truth, was published in 2008 and the sequel, Stranger than Fiction, in August 2009. The Whole Truth, an omnibus ebook containing both novels, was published in August 2011.

You can find out more about him on his literary blog, The Truth About Lies HERE and his website HERE

Praise for Milligan and Murphy (extract below):

Jim’s unique voice shines through … and just as well since he is a very fine writer indeed. I really recommend this book. — Guy Fraser-Sampson

No one can deny Murdoch’s writing chops. Milligan and Murphy is some kind of funny. — Loren Eaton

Milligan and Murphy (extract)

Milligan and Murphy were brothers. This was the way they introduced themselves to the world and such was the blatant straightfacedness that accompanied this assertion, that few felt remotely inclined to press the matter further. As it happens there was sufficient physical similarity between the two men to win over even the most sceptical of individuals. That said, most people had enough things to worry about without losing any sleep over the likes of these two. Needless to say, they weren’t actually brothers. No. For the record they were half-brothers; each had been dragged screaming from the innards of the same mother though a different father had been guilty for them winding up there. Both took after their mother in appearance if in no other way: all three of them were short, stout, snub-nosed and sleepy-eyed; more like lost puppies than evil dwarves, it must be said. Murphy’s father, a west coast farmer, a descendent of one of those sent there by Cromwell as an alternative to Hell, had inconsiderately passed away under mysterious circumstances subsequent to Murphy’s late arrival into this world but not close enough to the actual delivery for people to suppose the two events might in any way be connected. His mother, a woman of specific needs, kept her wits about her and disposed of their paltry thirteen acres for what she could get (which were mainly promises). With this, her son and more than a few wise words of wisdom ringing in her ears she set out in a horse and cart in search of a tolerable replacement. This she ran into in the guise of a certain Mr Milligan, a retailer of some small standing from an isolated village who, at the opportune moment, happened to be looking the wrong way whilst attempting to cross some street or other; the precise details are unimportant.

You can read the whole first chapter HERE

Welcome to our new blog page. We invited the Federation’s new Makar Maggie Rabatski to mark the occasion by saying a few words about being elected.

For I will consider the Federation of Writers (Scotland).

(acknowledging Christopher Smart’s ‘For I will consider my cat Jeoffrey…’)

For I have cause to be grateful and blessed by it in ten degrees.

For firstly the welcome and warmth it extends to all writers regardless of … well, regardless of anything really.

For secondly until I found it I had but two poems and one short story to my name.

For thirdly the GoMA Glasgow Writing group run by the Federation’s founder and first chairman, that Turkish Delight of sparkling waistcoats and sonnets, Marc Sherland.

For fourthly the writing themes he sets weekly to fire pens and imaginations -although the least said about Rupert the sooner I’ll feel better.

For fifthly the open mic opportunities which reduced my terror of public performance from utterly petrefied to…manageable if fortified by a glass of wine.

For sixthly New Voices Press and the editor from heaven Alan Green and his co-editors Moira McPartlin & Peter Savage for I’m still not down from the dance of my poetry pamphlet publication .

For seventhly the stalwarts of the committee. Seldom has so much work been done so willingly and so well by so few, led by Etta Dunn, Executive Convenor, paparazza and peerless spreader of the Federation word.

For eighthly teaching me that writing a few publishable poems does not necessarily a Treasurer make.

For ninthly my Makar predecessors Robin Cairns, A. C. Clarke, Sheila Templeton and Colin Will, a quartet of poets I tremble to follow.

For tenthly this huge surprise and honour of being chosen Makar Number 5, Eat your hearts out, Liz Lochhead and Carol Anne Duffy, I envy you nowt…except perhaps that annual barrel of sherry.

Maggie Rabatski Feb 2012