Clouds in a Fair Isle Summer Sky

 

Lisa Evans on That Thing

Have a listen to Lisa Evans' take on surviving rejection and why it's a good idea we don't own copyright on our children, over on the RLF's Vox series.

The story's not over and The Understory

 

Good news! The story's not over and The Understory are now available as ebooks! You can find them here and here. 26 projects are so good!

Loving Lichen

 

One of the joys of being on Fair Isle is the gorgeousness of the lichen. And the helpful way it doesn't move about when you're trying to photograph it. The bird life here is gorgeous too but, well, quite flighty.

Grade That Wind

How well do you know your winds? 

Next Tuesday I'm hoping to catch a plane from Tingwall Airport to Fair Isle. It's not a long trip - only about 25 minutes - but it is VERY, VERY weather dependent and I've been obsessively checking the forecast. My Shetland friends tell me to stop - 'It'll just change anyway,' they say. Wise words. Good advice. Impossible to follow.

But I have learned at least some of my wind gradations (these are from the Beaufort Scale developed in 1805 by Sir Francis Beaufort for the Royal Navy and still used today):

Light

Gentle

Moderate

Fresh

Strong

And after that I just don't want to know. 

Is it a dance? Is it a poem? No, it's non-fiction!

 

This week I'm over on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure wondering if writing non-fiction is more of a poem or more of a dance?

Jazz as Democratic Discourse

 

One episode of an astonishing 3-year series of lectures and performances from Harvard University. Wynton Marsalis launched the series called 'Hidden in Plain View: Meanings in American Music' in 2011. YouTube has a bundle more of them - just luscious!