Why I Write

I've talked before about my job at Dundee University - I'm an RLF Fellow helping students with essays, planning, exam writing - anything and everything to do with words and the taming of them.  It's a great job and the RLF is a great organisation which, among so many other things, also produces short podcasts of writers talking about their work - things like how and why they write, the books that have influenced them, how writing changes the writer. 

And this week, I join them.  Here is my podcast on Why I Write.  Me, speaking very slowly, and being ver-y care-ful to e-nun-ci-ate ...

Reflective Pieces

A student last week wanted me to explain "a reflective piece" ...

Walking Mountain's First Review

You've seen my cat's enthusiasm for the proof copy of Walking Mountain, and now here's an in-house response from Birlinn's Jamie Harris (who, in my opinion, is enormously perspicacious and wise) - 

Well, I loved Silver Skin and Joan Lennon has done it again! Walking Mountain is a staggeringly imaginative story of wonder and adventure, taking you on an epic journey that will stay with you long after you turn the final page. The world is like nothing you’ve ever seen, told through a group of fantastic characters who find themselves standing between the world they know and complete disaster. It’s cosmic, it’s crazy, it’s wild and totally, totally brilliant. This book can’t come soon enough!*

AND here's another stage of the cover -

Pretty fine, don't you think?

* From a blog entry titled The Very Best of Birlinn Books You Must Read in 2017 - so we're in some select company!

Proof Copy of Walking Mountain Arrives and the Cat Goes Wild ...

Exciting times!  Well, I'm excited, any way!

Oh My Giddy

This week I was pleased to have my poem Oh My Giddy posted on the Dundee University Review of the Arts.  You can find it here.  Thank you, DURA!