Vikki Reilly, Author at Books from Scotland

Corinna Campbell has followed up her magical picture book The Girl Who Stole the Stars with another beautiful picture book, The Boy Who Rescued a Rainbow. Here, Corinna takes us through the story and its message of what it means to have courage.

The Boy Who Rescued a Rainbow
By Corinna Campbell
Published by Little Door Books

The Boy Who Rescued a Rainbow by Corinna Campbell is published by Little Door Books, priced £7.99.

Scottish-Mexican poet Juana Adcock’s latest pamphlet, Vesitigial, is a collection of poems written after Alasdair Gray’s seminal work, Lanark. It was published in June by Stewed Rhubarb Press.

Vestigial
By Juana Adcock
Published by Stewed Rhubarb Press

Vestigial is a commissioned body of poems. How did the original commission come about and when did you write it?

I was commissioned to write a response to Lanark during the first two lockdowns, as part of the first Alasdair Gray conference and as a creative response to go alongside the academic papers. It took six months or a year to finish writing. I hadn’t read Lanark until the first lockdown. Before I’d started reading it, I’d thought about leaving Glasgow. I felt the city wasn’t working for me – typical lockdown crisis! But reading Lanark while going on these lockdown walks…the city looked completely different. I noticed things I’d never seen before. The original commission was just for one poem, but there were so many layers of stories, t was so hard to condense that into a single poem. I don’t know how anyone could have done that. It’s huge, anarchic, a labyrinth.

What was the response when you produced a pamphlet instead of a single poem?

I think Rodge Glass [Strathclyde University, Chair of the Alasdair Gray Conference Committee] was like ‘are you okay? Are you sure you’re not overextending yourself?’ I kept thinking, maybe I can write lots of different drafts and then choose one poem to focus on, the best one, and send that off. But I couldn’t choose. I just sent it off as lots of different poems. I presented it at the conference on Zoom, read a couple of poems, and then found a home for it a year or so later.

I suppose that shows just how much you connected to Lanark.

I found it really generative and it really did give me all these different ideas. It wasn’t just reading the book – I wrote to the Alasdair Grey Archive and asked if I could go. It was during a lockdown, so me for it was a huge adventure to get on a bus and go all the way to Maryhill! They were so generous. I was shown all these drafts, his own library, notes he’d added to books. If he wanted to correct something, he would add liquid paper and a Post It note, then write on that. Everything had all these layers. It connected me to a story Rodge told me – Alasdair Gray painted a mural for a church that was due to be demolished. He painted this elaborate mural, even when he knew the church wouldn’t exist for much longer. It made me think about the creative process in a different way – it’s about the process, not the end results.

What was it like at the archive?

It’s beautiful – it looks like it could have been his living room. There’s furniture from his flat, his original desk, bookshelves filled with his actual books. You actually feel that you’re in his space.

How did that feel as a writer, going into his space?

It was really somehow liberating. You get the feeling he was not some god that was out there making this consecrated art – he was a struggling artist, always skint, having to improvise with whatever elements he had around him. I was shown a notebook he rescued from a skip, this old accounting book he’d used as a sketchbook.

You’ve got your own collections of poetry out; what was it like, producing work written entirely after someone else? Did you feel any pressure?

I was worried I would be departing too far from Lanark. I kept wondering if I should include more recognisable elements or incorporate more classic scenes or bring in characters. But then I thought, no. What I think I’m responding to is his vision of the creative process, rather than the novel’s actual plot or its content. I was trying to get nearer to the way he thinks. I find that the most fascinating part of connecting with anyone’s work.

Quite often poets write in response to other poets, or poems, or artwork. What was it like writing poetry in response to a novel?

A narrative element came into the poetry, I feel. I was trying to think of poems but kept thinking about different stories. I could have kept going, writing loads of narrative poems, but I had to stop at some point! In classic Unthank style, it’s all a fight against bureaucracy and how powerless one is against the system. I did end up visiting art galleries and looking at the physicality of paintings, and thinking about the physicality of the archives though.

I think physicality really comes through with the different forms you use in Vestigial. ‘After Eden’ and its use of footnotes feels like those layers of Post It notes you saw in the archive. How did you find the forms you use?

There was a lot of stream of consciousness, scribbling away or typing away. Then when I’d look back at drafts I’d notice form, which I’d been thinking about a bit. In ‘My chi moves like arrows’, I use a lot of ‘<’, which looks like an actual arrow. It’s a math sign, also used in coding. When I switch my keyboard between English and Spanish, sometimes when I try and write a comma, < appears instead. So, I decided to make it part of the form, and it matches the theme of arrows, and the image of St Sebastian and his arrow wounds.

There are different languages at play in these poems too.

Yeah, there’s English, Spanish, a little Persian, and Dutch. It was always just a conglomeration of whatever was going on on my screen at the time. Usually when I’m writing drafts, probably half will be Spanish, some will be Spanglish, some English. There’s always an anarchy of languages going on that I have to go back and tidy up.

You’ve also invented your own definitions, the work is punctuated with these meanings of ‘vestigial’.

That was a last minute addition! All these poems without titles were going to be called ‘Vestigial’, but I didn’t like the word floating on the page on its own. So, I made these fake definitions and connected them to the poems. I liked the idea of creating these literary spaces where you can imagine a different reality where a certain word means something else. Similar, I suppose, to Unthank.

Vestigial by Juana Adcock is published by Stewed Rhubarb Press, priced £5.99.

With summer in the air there’s no finger time to turn your hand to something new – find below a recipe for a sweetcorn and cashew curry from Urvashi Roe’s Biting Biting: Snacking Gujarati-Style to test out for yourself. You won’t regret it.

Biting Biting: Snacking Gujarati-Style
By Urvashi Roe
Published by Kitchen Press

Makai Kaju nu Shaak
SWEETCORN AND CASHEW CURRY

Grilled corn rubbed over with butter or ghee, chilli powder and salt is a fantastic snack. We enjoy it often. But when you want something a bit more substantial this is the shaak to make. The cashews add such a wonderful nuttiness. My husband will eat this in one sitting if I let him.

Serves 4–6

100g cashew nuts
2 tbsp sunflower or rapeseed oil
2 tsp mustard seeds
4 tsp finely chopped green chillies
300g floury potatoes, cut into 3cm cubes
400ml tin coconut milk
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin powder
1½ tsp salt
3 sweetcorn cobs, cut into 6cm pieces
3 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander

Toast the cashew nuts in a dry wok over a medium heat until they start to brown and fill your kitchen with a wonderful nutty aroma. Set to one side.

Put the wok back on the heat, add the oil and heat for a few minutes, then add the mustard seeds and let them crackle and pop for a few seconds. Next, add the green chillies closely followed by the potatoes.

Turn the heat to low and stir in the coconut milk, turmeric, cumin and salt. Fill the empty coconut milk tin with water, scraping down the edges to get all of the coconut, and pour that in, stir and bring to a simmer.

Leave to cook for five minutes and then add the sweetcorn and toasted cashews, reserving a few to garnish. Cook for another five minutes with the lid on until the potatoes are soft, the sweetcorn just tender and the cashews a little softened.

Garnish with the fresh coriander and the reserved toasted cashews, roughly chopped. Serve as is or with crusty bread, on rice or on quinoa.

Biting Biting: Snacking Gujarati-Style by Urvashi Roe is published by Kitchen Press, priced £20.

Across 2022, Publishing Scotland will be curating a series of online content to tie in with Visit Scotland’s Year of Stories. Each month we will share the features, profiles and interviews that you can find over on their website.

You can visit Publishing Scotland’s Year of Stories homepage here.

In June, Publishing Scotland’s #YS2022 theme is SANCTUARY.

Each month Publishing Scotland will be offering Publisher Spotlights, so you can get to know some of Scotland’s publishers. Catch up with the latest profiles.

Publishing Scotland spotlight Black and White Publishing

Each month Publishing Scotland will have features too, including book recommendation lists and author interviews.

Click here to read an interview with Trishna Singh about her book A Silent Voice Speaks: The Wee Indian Woman on the Bus.

To read an interview with Lauren T. Davila about editing the anthology When Other People Saw Us They Saw the Dead, click here.

For a LBGTQ+ reading list for Pride month, click here.

If you want to take part in the Year of Stories, follow the hashtags #YS2022 and #TalesofScotland, or visit the VisitScotland website.

Polaris is the latest gaelic poetry collection from Marcas Mac an Tuairneir, an ambitious collection that explores the history and languages of the UK along with the lives of marginalised communities. Here, we publish a few of the poems from the collection and their translations.

Extracts taken from Polaris
By Marcas Mac an Tuairneir
Published by Leamington Books

Am Facal

But just because I am a woman, why must I not write
of the goodness of God?
– Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

B’ aithne dhi rùchd nan carbadan
a thàinig gus na cuirp a thogail,
am breum ag èirigh bhuapa is iad
caithte an uaighean gun chomharra.

B’ ann aig àm a cruaidh-chàis
a chuala i am facal, lìon e i
bho bhun gu bàrr,
le gràdh iol-iadhach màthar.

Bha an còmhradh sin
mar thogail uisge bhon tobar
agus, basan sgaoilte,
crom ri leacan a’ chaibeil,
b’ i am fianais a h-adhlacaidh fhèin.

Ga cumail bhon t-saoghal,
na tèarmann le trì uinneagan,
sgrìobh i fad deich air fhicead bliadhna,
a’ cumail, ma briathran taobhanach,
doib a cànain, uile gu lèir.

B’ euchd a mhair nan aoisean,
aig làmh leth-oireach a bhuin
do thè a chanadh, na h-irioslachd
rithe fhèin, creutair neo-litireach.

Sgrìobhadh an dàn seo às dèidh prògram aithriseach aig an Oll. Janina Ramírez fhaicinn mu dhèidhinn na mnà-ònaraine Julian de Norwich. Rè a beò, sgrìobhadh Julian cunntasan a cuid aislingean anns an leabhar aice Revelations of Divine Love, an leabhar as sine againn, sgrìobhte ann am Beurla aig boireannach.

The Word

But just because I am a woman, why must I not write
of the goodness of God?
– Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

She knew the rumble of the carts
that came to lift the dead,
the stench rising from them,
as they were cast into unmarked graves.

It was in her own extremis
she heard the word, it filled her,
wholly, with the all-encompassing
love of a mother.

That conversation
was like taking water from the well
and, palms outstretched,
crouched into the chapel’s flagstones,
she was witness to her own interment.

Sequestered from the world
in her three-windowed sanctuary,
she wrote for thirty years,
augmenting the wattle of her word
with the daub of her entire language.

It was a work to outlive the ages,
from a hand in isolation, which
belonged to one, who in her humility
named herself unlettered creature.

This poem was inspired by a documentary with Dr. Janina Ramírez. Throughout her life, Julian would continue to have religious visions, writing detailed accounts of each of them in her book Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest book ever written in English by a woman.

Briathrachas
Mar chuimhneachan air Eideard Dwelly

Sa Bheurla
’s mo shùil air tighinn tarsainn
air briathar gun fhiosta dhomh,
bidh mi a’ cruinneachadh tiùrr is murag, sligean is gainmheach nam
faclan mun cuairt air,
gus drochaid a thogail thar
a’ chnap-starra ron chèill.

San fhaclair,
buailidh mi air a’ bhàrr,
gus mo bhrùthadh foimhpe,
a-steach do luasgadh nan duilleagan.
’S tric a thèid mo shlaodadh,
mar bhùidh gun acair,
gus an ruig mi an grunnd.
Mo chorragan sgaoilt’,
air mo shnàgaran, lìonaidh mi
mo phòca le neamhnaidean,
criomagan longan briste,
bleideag òir air a rùsgadh o
aghaidh ìomhaigh umha, air chall.

Sa Ghàidhlig
agus corrag a’ tarraing loidhne
gu fàth-fiata fon teagsa,
tha feadhainn dhiubh mar
smàil dhubha, còrr datha
air tighinn le gob na cleite.
Thèid an diùltadh,
na faclan nach do dh’fhàs
o bhuachair na croite, nach d’ rinn seirm ri gliong
glainne an taighe-chèilidh.

Ged nach aithnichear iad,
’s iad tha dhòmhsa gun phrìs. Na clachan-bhuadhach, obair-ghrèise an t-sìoda,
an cruan a nì an cliath
cho grinn.

Lexicon
In memory of Edward Dwelly

In English
as my eye alights
on a term unknown to me,
I gather flotsam and jetsam, grains of sand and the shells of words that encircle it,
to build a bridge beyond
the barrier to meaning.

In the dictionary,
I dive beyond the surface, propel myself below,
within the roll of the pages. Often I am adrift,
like a buoy without an anchor, until I reach the seabed.
My fingers spread,
scrambling, I fill my
pocket with pearls,
shipwrecks’ fragments,
a fleck of gold peeled from the face of a vanished bronze.

In Gaelic
as the finger draws a line invisibly below the text,
some appear like stains,
black, a surplus of ink
from the nib of the quill.
They are rejected,
the words that did not grow
out of the mud of the croft,
that did not chime, clinking
with a cèilidh house glass.

Though they are known no longer, to me, they are precious.
The amethyst amulets,
the silken embroidery,
the enamel that makes the latticework so fine.

Gille Grinn

Don chlann gèidh a dh’èirich suas fo sgàil
Earrann a 28 agus daoine mar Sheumas Mòr Whannel
a strì air ar son.

Bha rudeigin san dòigh a shuaith e
ghruaig far a bhathais is a
làmhan air a chruachan aig
cùl sluagh cloinne-nighean.

Ge ‘s bith brag a’ bhàl a sheachnas e,
no an còmhrag ’s a bhios e ’n sàs,
‘s ann ann an ceàrn ciùin eanchainn,
bhios seanais amharais a ghnàth.

Bidh an gille sin na dhannsair,
na dhealbhadair, na bhàrd,
ach bheir e ùine fhathast,
mus lìonar na tha na bhroinn de bheàrn.

Mar mhòran òigridh anns gach ceàrnaidh nan nàiseanan seo, chaidh mi tron sgoil fo sgàil Earainn a 28. Rugadh mi air 28mh na Samhna, 1984. B’ e àireamh a 28 air a taigh againn, is tha fhathast.

Fioliome Fantabulosa

For the gay kids raised under the spectre of
Section 28 and folk like Jim Whannel
who fought for us.

I vardad something in the way
she ȝooȝed her ends from her eek
cackling, lill-on-hip, ajax
a gaggle of billingsgates

Maybe the schonk of the ball
she swerves, or in barneys, battyfangs,
but in the munge of her mind,
savvies a doubt that nantie scarpers.

Mais oui, dolly may a walloper be,
a jogger, a screever in her time,
but it’ll take a longola time, no flies,
to josh up the nishta deep inside.

Like many young people belonging to these nations, I went to school under the shadow of Section 28. I was born on 28th November 1984. It was a number 28 on the house I grew up in and, indeed, it still is.

Geallaidhean

Brexit, nul points!

Cuine chaidh a chluinntinn,
an duine a ghlaodh ris a’ ghaoith

Is na geallaidhean air an aiteamh,
gus gealagan fhailleanachadh?

’S dòchas beag a tha sin,
nach mair ach fad ainmsir

Gus nach eil againn air fhàgail,
ach dìleas na dìle.

Cò riamh a lorg politigear,
nach do dh’inns breug?

No uas-fhlath a bha deònach,
a leantainn, làmh-fhalamh

Ge b’ e prionnsa òg alainn,
no amadan sailleach òglaidh

Na shuidhe mu dhealbh-cùil
Oir Dhè Rìoghail.

A bheil ùidh aca
an cruinnich sinn

An Downing Street,
no Taigh an Ròid,

Pàrlamaid na Brùiseil
no anns an lios-càil?

Nach iadsan an fheadhainn,
a shiubhlas first class,

A chlaonas na cosgais,
ge ’s bith am blas?

Dè an diofair dhaibhsan,
a bheil thu beairteach no bochd?

’S e bochdainn tha faisg,
tha nas buinneach thar chàich

Gu dearbh.

Nach sin an teachdaireachd
is tu brùchdadh don bhòt?

Ri car a’ mhuiltein
is an gealladh a’ tighinn dhut.

Coltach ris na taghaidhean Ameireaganach na bu thràithe, dhùisg mi air madainn 24 Ògmhios, 2016 le mì-chreidsinn gu tur. Bidh sinn ancòmhnaidh Eòrpach.

Voos
Owerset bi Stuart A. Paterson

Brexit, nul points!

When’er wis a chiel tentit
whae skreigh’t et the wun

An the voo thowed oot
tae seed the snawdrap?

It’s a wee howp yon
whilk lests jist yin season

Till a we hae left’s
the bowder’s fell lealty.

Wis there e’er a politeecian
didnae lee

Nor a laird wi a likin
fur peyin through the neb?

Gin a bonnie young Prince
nor a crabbit auld taed

Baukit afore
Royal Deeside’s braw launs.

Wad ony keep mind
gin we gaithered thegither

In Downing Street
nor the Palace o Holyrood,

In wur ain kailyaird
nor in Brussels’ Big Hoose?

Ur thon no the yins
whae stravaig First Cless,

Whae pauchle their expens,
nae matter their accent?

Whit care they gif
yer mintit nor puir?

The hame-toon puirtith
owergans them a.

Richt eneuch.

Are thur no yer lairins
as ye breenge oot tae vote?

Gan heelster-gowdie
for glib-gabbit voos.

As with the earlier American election, I awoke on the morning of 24th June, 2016 in utter disbelief. We will always be European.

Polaris by Marcas Mac an Tuairneir is published by Leamington Books, priced £12.99.

David Robinson speaks to Cynthia Rogerson about her latest book, her memoir Wah! Things I Never Told My Mother.

Wah! Things I Never Told My Mother
By Cynthia Rogerson
Published by Sandstone Press

‘The end, it is near. You must come.’

The voice on the phone from California was that of Ateca, the Fijian carer of Cynthia Rogerson’s mother. The end, though, wasn’t near at all. Sometimes it was years away, sometimes just months. But each time she was summoned, Rogerson flew halfway across the world from her Highland home to her childhood one at San Rafael, half an hour’s drive north of San Francisco. It was here where her mother finally died, aged 87, in 2018. She had vascular dementia, albeit one of the more merciful versions of the disease that left her free of anger and still able to show affection. For the five years Ateca cared for her, though, conversation was starkly limited. Asked a question – whether she wanted dessert, whether she was happy – her mother’s usual response was to spread out her hands, palms upwards, and say just the one word: ‘Wah!’ She said it with a smile, as if saying: ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about and I don’t mind!’

Rogerson chose this as the title for her first non-fiction book, she explains, ‘because it’s about accepting, with good grace, a certain degree of incomprehension. In my mother’s case, because of Alzheimer’s, and in my own because I never understood my mother.’ So while Ateca and her mother settled down to watch daytime TV, Rogerson went into her dead father’s study and tried to find words for her memories.

In the first story she wrote, her mother hardly figured. It was a memory of being 18, and coming back home, face still flushed after sex with the boy next door. Her father threw a glass of wine over her and ordered her to get out of the house. Her mother was probably there at the time, but not the way Rogerson remembers it. She was always daddy’s girl. Her mother was self-effacing, subservient, undemanding: the young Rogerson looked down on her as ‘just a housewife’, someone who loved her children unconditionally but hadn’t a career of her own.

Rogerson no longer condescends to her mother, so her memoir is in part a work of atonement. Yet it also manages to be as self-deprecating and funny as anything by David Sedaris. As Rogerson excavates her 18-year-old self, the wild and dangerous absurdities of her life rear up again: the 30-year-old man who picked her up while hitch-hiking and who lived in a foam factory; the late-night hitch to visit him when she is mistaken for a prostitute (‘Hey, you working?’). All these are, in the words of her memoir’s sub-heading ‘Things I Never Told My Mother’. And yes, there’s a massive irony here. ‘I never expressed these things to my mother,’ she points out, ‘yet here I am telling them to the whole world.’

She sent that first chapter off to her younger sister, a journalist in San Francisco, and when she got a positive response, carried on writing. Out it all poured, interspersed with scenes of visits to her gradually declining mother. The marriage in Reno when she was 22 to a handsome Irishman who claimed to be in the IRA and on the run. That first time she hitched round Europe, aged 17, when she was raped in a van in France. Life in a commune in Scotland looking after a pig called Priscilla. Riding the rails to Mexico with her brother. The drummer in a new wave band in Leeds who became a husband. More hobo holidays to Mexico. A husband who lived in the extension of their house after their divorce. An old friend who moved into her house because he needed a room but who then became a husband. Running with her brother, stoned and naked, across California’s Highway 1. Hiding some of her father’s ashes in the flat of the woman she was convinced was once the love of his life. Somehow, hardly mentioned, there were four children, and a job teaching creative writing.

This is, as Bernard MacLaverty points out, ‘a selfie of a tearaway with a real writer in control of the chaos’. He at least knows just how good a novelist Rogerson is: far too many people don’t. This can often happen: publishing is a lottery, and although Rogerson has had five novels published and although her short stories have been broadcast, anthologised and shortlisted for prizes, her work remains less well known than it ought to be. Yet she is, as Alan Bissett has suggested, ‘Scotland’s very own Anne Tyler’.

That comparison is, I think, even more perceptive than he realises, and is more than just a similarity of style and tone. Not only is Tyler one of Rogerson’s favourite novelists but she shares Tyler’s fascination with fictional explorations of long-lasting marriage. This was the subject of her last novel, Wait for Me, Jack (2017, written as Addison Jones), which traced the slightly wandering course of true love between parents Jack and Milly over six decades. I ask how different they are from her own parents, George and Barbara. ‘They’re not!’ she laughs. ‘I only have one subject – them!’

She tells me that she’s currently working on another novel and I ask if her parents figure in it, too.

‘Yes. I can’t let them go. I’m obsessed with them.’

‘Why?’

‘They were both charismatic people, good-looking and charming and I’m susceptible to that. And they had a marriage that was full of love, though they didn’t always treat each other well, and I was fascinated by that too.’

But I wonder whether there is an even further link. Tyler’s novels often feature at least one character who is out of step with the rest of the family. Lindy in The Amateur Marriage, Jenny in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Denise in Clock Dance, Denny in A Spool of Blue Thread, boy-crazy Lily in the new one, French Braid: all are offspring or in-laws who go at least mildly off the rails, or whose parents would have worried about them, the way Rogerson’s would surely have done, if only they had known about her. And the tone with which Tyler writes about those familial black sheep – wise, accepting, stoical – is so very similar to that with which Rogerson writes about her own brushes with danger and damage in Wah!.

‘In many ways,’ says Rogerson, ‘there wasn’t any real difference between writing this and fiction – it’s the same artful shaping and framing of events in order to make an emotional impact. The only difference is that I didn’t have to make up the events.’

A worse writer would have written a more self-regarding memoir, but for someone as self-deprecating as Rogerson, that was never on the cards. ‘My aim wasn’t to impress. To be honest, I haven’t done much that is impressive – maybe nothing. But I did have to be ruthless with myself sometimes and tell the unflattering stuff.’

Did the scrapes she got into shock her, looking back? ‘Not really, because of course, to me, they are old hat. They make me smile – though I do cringe slightly when I think of my children or grandchildren reading about them. Then again, why be embarrassed that I wasn’t always the sensible age I am now? That I had a foolish youth?’

There should be a word, you can’t help thinking, that covers both love and regret. A word you could use to tell a mother whose mind is lost to Alzheimer’s and whose body is losing to multiple sclerosis, that you now realise how much more there was to her than you realised as a child and young adult. A word that marks the difference between forgetting and memory, death and life, and yet doesn’t have a trace of sentimentality about it. I think there is such a word. And by now you should be able to guess it.

Wah! Things I Never Told My Mother by Cynthia Rogerson is published by Sandstone Press, priced £9.99.

New Skin for the Old Ceremony is Arun Sood’s debut novel that follows four estranged friends reunited for a motorcycle trip up the Isle of Skye in the hope of coming to terms with how their lives have splintered since a transformative ride in Northern India years earlier. In remembering their pasts and looking to the future the friends explore family, friendship, race and belonging. In this extract, we introduce Rajeev Sabharwal, an anxious, expectant father.

Extract taken from New Skin for the Old Ceremony
By Arun Sood
Published by 404 Ink

Rajeev Sabharwal (Raj)

A silent sterility fell over the dusking second bedroom of Raj and Ibti’s third-floor Deptford apartment. Grey streaks of late London light added colour to porcelain walls, provoking an undefined melancholy over the failings of the powder spray paint can Raj was wielding. He was trying to decorate what had recently been dubbed “the baby room”, and previously called “the art studio”. But for every snowy ejaculation of glow-in-the-dark paint, the stencil frame of stars lifted to reveal his creations flake and flounder and disintegrate into the nothingness of the too-white walls. It seemed like a futile exercise, and Raj was glad to see Ibti’s vibrant green eyes glance around the bedroom door.

—Don’t bother too much with that, love. Just relax tonight. Before you go.

—Ach, I just wanted to get a bit done, y’know. Feel guilty as it is, leaving.

—Raj, I’m not popping anytime soon. Just go. And be careful.

—Not sure what we’re even doing, to be honest.

—Well, you can stay and watch birth partner vids with me instead then.

—God, they’re shite, eh.

—Hey, if I can get a back massage out if it . . .

Raj smiled at Ibti as she slinked back around the narrow corridor in her loose black pantsuit and headed towards the exercise ball in the small square living area overlooking cranes and KFC and, in the distance, a murky bend of the River Thames. For all his love and well-meaning articulations of guilt about swanning off to Skye, Raj was feeling more fragile about his ongoing numbness towards impending fatherhood than he was about leaving Ibti. It was the unexpected anaesthesia of it all. It was unsettling. No dread nor excitement, no fear nor quiet confidence. Nothing. Just a dull acknowledgement of what many call a miracle. The thought of Ibti glowing, happy, and plump in belly kept him going; but it had little to do with fatherhood or facing the unprecedented flurry of first times that are supposed to be exciting or scary or special or . . . something. He didn’t really feel much at all.

Raj fell back on the floor, supporting himself with one arm and using the other to gently spray a star-stencil banner onto the left shoulder of his black slim-fit shirt. It disintegrated to a stain of faded particles that would probably never wash away. He wouldn’t be wearing it to any more PR meetings at Whitehall. Tracing the outline of five forgotten points, he remembered the red stars he used to sew into vintage army jackets back at uni; the lively pride with which he espoused communism, anti-fascism and realpolitik! in the face of disinterested peers and pub-goers.

Raj brushed over the snowy particles with a nervous index finger, unsure if his guttural recoil was shaped by retrospective naïvety or a shrinking inability to reconcile his past self with who he was now. Shared homeowner in a gentrifying suburb of South London; financially secure; tenured to Her Majesty’s government; married to a brilliant middle-class Brazilian immigration lawyer engaged in social justice struggles from the NGO ivory tower of a Regent’s Park mansion. And now . . . soon-to-be father. Only the latter news had sparked unrepentant flashbacks. A pining for the irretrievable past. A hazy mist causing a cold in his soul. A malady of longing to feel life like you once did whilst simultaneously spluttering at the person who felt it.

Raj ruminated as the particles faded and freckled and streaked. A verse he once read by the Spanish mystic and poet St. John of the Cross came to mind. It described – as Raj thought, at least – some kind of temporary spiritual crisis. An emotional vacuum that was necessary for one to live through before the birth of a new belief, bond, or perhaps being:

In an obscure night
Fevered with love’s anxiety
(O hapless, happy plight!)
I went, none seeing me
Forth from my house, where all things quiet be

The sound of crushed ice avalanched into the room and Raj wiped his shirt clean. Ibti, his sublimation, called into the wilderness from the small square living area.

—Raj, come through. Made you a marg. Even did a non-alcoholic one for me!

—Thanks, ma love. You’re right. Let’s make a night of it. I’m gonna miss yi.

New Skin for the Old Ceremony by Arun Sood is published by 404 Ink, priced £9.99.

Arun Sood is a Scottish-Indian writer, musician and academic working across multiple forms. He was born in Aberdeen to a West-Highland Mother and Punjabi father, and has since lived in Glasgow, Amsterdam, DC, and now Plymouth, South Devon. Arun’s critical and creative practice ranges from academic publications, editorials, poetry and fiction to ambient musical tapestries. Broadly, his varied outputs engage with diasporic identities, mixed-race heritage, ancestry, language and memory. @arunskisood

Wacera Kamonji is a film Curator and Creative Cultural Practitioner who has a passion for film and social policy. Here she writes about how creativity can provide sanctuary.

In Tiwa Savage’s song Koroba, the first line to the song is ‘I no come this life to suffer’.

And it is true, we didn’t.

We hope that when we are born, we will be afforded at least the bare minimum to be able to live. But recently with the rise in cost of living many are finding themselves surviving.

With countries across the world emerging from the pandemic and many more countries fighting for survival, an increase in cost of living has put our most vulnerable in a more precarious situation.

In the United Kingdom, the 7^th richest country in the world, where our most vulnerable were already fighting tooth and nail to be able to afford the bare minimum for themselves and their loved ones, the cost of living increase, doubled with the reduction or freeze in pay and aid, has left many grappling with what to do to keep themselves going.

After the second world war, the UK created a safety net, social security, providing healthcare and other public services for free. This meant that decent quality of life was guaranteed for all.

Now this social security is called welfare, and its often mentioned with such distain especially in relation to those who rely on these services who are looked down upon as beggars of the state, freeloading off other people’s money when all they need is a helping hand.

There have been and currently are many efforts by individuals and organisations who cater to the most vulnerable, but the problem is growing.

When I first moved to the UK, I thought it was great that there was a system available for people who were struggling to get by, that there was government help where people could get financial aid to be able to pay for their food, rent and bills, and at least afford a decent standard of living that would enable them to live, not just survive; that was their sanctuary.

But that sanctuary has been slowly pulled from under them, and people are protesting as to how many of the services they rely on are being decreased and that it is becoming harder and harder for them to cope. The 2019 Channel 4 documentary Growing up Poor: Breadline Kids gave an insight as to how some of the 4.1 million of children and families survive in poverty, with many detailing skipping meals, living in poor housing condition and their living conditions having an effect on their mental and physical health.

Throughout history, we see that the best way for all of us to live and thrive is by adopting the idea of community living. Where we help those who are struggling, providing the best care we can for our most vulnerable so that no one falls through the cracks. But with inflation rising quicker than dough, and budget cuts and freezes being introduced, we are abandoning others in the name of saving ourselves.

Recently MP Rachel Mclean came under fire for saying that for people to cope with the rising cost of living they should ‘work more hours or get better paying jobs’ adding that this method may not work for those with multiple jobs. Many found the statement tone deaf and insensitive as millions are working, taking extra shifts, and still struggling to make ends meet.

Many around the world, via Twitter or radio shows, have addressed their grievances to the government on how much the rise in cost of living has affected them. This has often been met with what some would call performative sympathy while not giving a solution to address the problems of the people.

The individualistic approach that some of the richest in the world have when it comes to tackling community issues is problematic to say the least. The idea that if you just work harder and pull your socks up will pay off doesn’t work for everyone. We all need help and support to be able to get over the hardest hurdles that daily life lays for us.

Celebrities as well have come under fire for similar sentiments, talking down to the masses about their lack of work ethic while sitting in their ivory towers, out of touch with many who don’t get to enjoy the same luxuries and necessities as them.

A community approach encourages equity and social connectedness. It means that people will have better control over their health and their lives and will aid the inequalities we have in this country.

So how do we implement a community approach to improve standard of living and quality of life? First by listening to each other. We all have our own subcommunities within wider society where we discuss issues that affect us, but we focus so much on an individual approach without thinking how one issue can aid in solving another. From home to charity and religious organisations and even in government, the individualistic approach is often pushed to benefit the few instead of thinking how it can benefit all.

Instead, we are fed the lives of the rich through reality tv shows as a way to escape – I’m guilty of watching such shows; Selling Sunset, anyone? – but though we may see those who managed to work extremely hard be able to afford the best of the best, it’s good to remind ourselves that we are only one pay check away from bankruptcy, it’s easier to lose it than to gain it and the mental strain it takes to work hard to reach a comfortable level of living can be both physically and mentally straining.

We rely on our government representatives to support us, be the voice of our needs and to bring balance and harmony to the country. But how can that harmony be achieved when they laugh at our pain, dance on our grievances, and steal from our pockets?

Every day, we see for ourselves our sanctuary crumble. That the idea of living life without hurdles is pushed out the window and that to survive and be successful and have a decent standard of living, we must first toil.

But why must it be so? Some say suffering makes you strong, a productive member of society. We celebrate those who manage to claw their way to the top, marvel at their struggle stories, hype 24/7 hustle, but it’s having a helping hand that strengthens you. To have people around you that support you, who you can lean on during hard times is vital. They say it takes a village to raise a child. It could be argued that it takes a community to build a stable society.

Sanctuary means a sacred place, a place for prayer, and has come to mean somewhere you feel safety and refuge. Sanctuary is in the silence where you are able to listen to yourself and your surroundings. Our world is sacred and should feel so and be treated as such, and we as a people deserve to feel safe, to know that no matter what happens we can find refuge in the spaces we create, in our own homes, in our communities, and the wider world around us.

Sanctuary can also be a place to discover and enjoy a sense of purpose. For many this may be found in the arts; being creative or appreciating creativity can be a way to find that enjoyment and a community of common purpose. Over the past two years, being confined to our own houses had made it hard to find or create these communities. But thank goodness for the internet and video call: many events were moved online, and this allowed many to be connected beyond their postcode. For me, personally, groups such as the Scottish BPOC Writers Network allowed me to explore my creativity in writing and challenge me to step out of my comfort zone, delve deep into my imagination and investigate topics that I am interested in exploring. Writing allows you to discover your thoughts and work through emotions, create worlds, and communicate to those around you. It allows you to reach different people, voice your opinions and even find the inner peace you have been searching for.

Having creative spaces allows you to channel and stress into something beautiful whether you want to share it with others or keep it to yourself.

As someone who has always found refuge in a creative experience, be it a movie, writing or dancing, I strongly advice everyone to pick up an artistic activity. You don’t have to be perfect at it, showcase it or monetize it. You might be surprised what you find out about yourself.

At a time where it feels we are all at competition, constantly striving to one up each other, and most likely having the worst work-life balance we have ever had, finding a community where you feel supported, safe, and heard is a way we could all find our purpose for living.

So why can’t we be each other’s refuge, and our world a place of refuge?

Wacera Kamonji is an Edinburgh based creative who works in various roles within festivals and grassroots organisations. She hopes to grow her work in film curation, exhibition and performance-based work collaborating with organisations to create space and opportunity for BIPOC and economically disadvantaged people to apply for roles, receive education and encourage diversity within the creative industries.

Lorraine Wilson is an up-and-coming writer of gothic, dystopian fantasy novels. Her second novel The Way The Light Bends will be released later this year by Luna Press Publishing. Here she writes of her work mentoring aspiring writers.

Perhaps the greatest thing about being a writer is the communities you discover – a group of fellow debuts, your trusted Critique Partners, genre peers … or writers who are similarly marginalised. It is an uncomfortable truth that while the community is wonderful, institutional change leaves a lot to be desired. We all know the stats and have heard enough anecdotes to suspect the stats are only the tip of the iceberg. Marginalised writers are confronted time and again with proof that the publishing industry should value us more. Instead, it often favours habit and comfort over uncomfortable change, and even those ‘like us’ who have succeeded can still be on the outside the moment the wagons circle. This can be deeply hurtful, and makes it hard to keep trying to write, especially if you feel alone. I believe the world of books needs us. Readers need the unheard, the unfamiliar and too-often-erased. What does not change stagnates, and the stories of the marginalised are the oxygen this system sorely needs. And so, I was propelled into action.

What could I, a new author with a very small platform, do to be part of positive change in publishing? I can write stories, creating characters and exploring themes that matter to me. And I can support other writers who are a rung or two below me on the ladder. Last autumn, after wrestling briefly with imposter syndrome, I took a deep, rather angry breath, and launched Rewriting The Margins.

Rewriting The Margins is my mentorship scheme for under-represented writers. I offer critique and advice, for free, to two randomly selected applicants every month (almost; it depends on my health). The free and the random are key. Financial constraints and other marginalisations are often intertwined, and too many opportunities for under-represented writers function on a competitive basis, which inherently disadvantages those who are already the most disadvantaged. What I critique varies depending on what the mentee needs, and I have had mentees at every stage from novice to prize-winning. The aim is simply to give each writer two things: 1. A way forward with their writing, and 2. The confidence in themselves to take that step forward. These two are equally important because as I said above, navigating a publishing industry that is difficult at best and downright hostile at worst can chip away at your self-belief. Everyone experiences that, of course, but multiply it many times over for those whose voices are made to feel intrinsically unwelcome.

One of the most wonderful and most heartbreaking things about running Rewriting The Margins has been the number of mentees who have told me my feedback made them cry, for all the right reasons. I am profoundly glad and honoured that my critique has given them insight, direction and validation; but I am also so sad, and so angry that their confidence has been torn down to the extent that just one person believing in them can mean so much.

I know what that feels like, but I’m lucky enough to have writerly friends who pick me up and remind me that yes, I do belong in this space and yes, there is a readership for my stories. Not-entirely-tangentially, I have recently fallen in love with the term ‘third culture person’ for those of us who are mixed-race or children of immigrants or both. We are often, I think, shaped by rootlessness; by the question of where we belong, and who gets to decide that. Perhaps it is not surprising then that these questions influence my writing, with themes of identity, the inheritance of trauma, and belonging threaded through my novels. Where my debut This Is Our Undoing explored personal agency and the legacy of loss, my upcoming second novel, The Way The Light Bends, looks at the consequences of being rootless within your own family. Very different books but they both hopefully represent a safe space for readers too used to seeing themselves erased or stereotyped in fiction.

We should not need safe spaces as readers or writers. But the brutal truth is that we do. Readers need positive representation; writers need sanctuary where our peers can support us, understand us, and empower us to come out fighting. Prime examples are the amazing work of the SoA’s new Authors with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses group, and, of course, the wonderful Scottish BPOC Writers’ Network, and I’m lucky to be involved in both of these groups. I see my mentorships as another way of providing a safe space and a helping hand. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s my small contribution to the rising tide of change. And I do think change is happening. The industry might resist but those who want change are manifold and determined. And, crucially, there is a demand for our stories. Look at the success of The Hate U Give. Or Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, N. K. Jemisin’s record-breaking Broken Earth trilogy, or the success of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse TV adaptation.

Now, most of us are unlikely to scale those particular heights. But that does not make our stories, and the diversity that we create in those stories, any less important. There is space for the marginalised in this industry; not least because we are carving it out ourselves. Every writer who perseveres, and every book that includes positive, thoughtful representation, is one more necessary step forward. Whether you are marginalised or not, whether you are writing about that marginalisation or not, every story that presents diversity as the norm and not ‘other’ is a step towards diversity being perceived as normal, and not ‘other’. Which can only make publishing a richer, stronger world.

Having spent many years working as a conservation scientist in remote corners of the world, Lorraine Wilson now lives by the sea in Scotland writing stories influenced by folklore and the wilderness. Her short fiction has appeared in (amongst others) Strange Horizons, Forge Lit, The Mechanics’ Institute Review and Boudicca Press. Her debut novel, the dystopian thriller This Is Our Undoing, was released in 2021 and has been shortlisted for several prizes. A second novel, The Way The Light Bends is a dark folkloric tale coming out in August 2022. She runs the Rewriting The Margins mentorship scheme for marginalised writers, tweets @raine_clouds and her books and website can be found at https://linktr.ee/raine_clouds.

BooksfromScotland is particularly excited to read Alycia Pirmohamed’s forthcoming poetry collection Another Way to Split Water, which will be released in September. Alycia tells us more about what to expect on publication.

Another Way to Split Water
By Alycia Pirmohamed
Published by Polygon

Another Way to Split Water deals with themes of migration, inheritance, ancestral experience, and belonging, among many others. Could you talk a bit about that and what readers can expect from the poems in this collection?

I wrote the poems in Another Way to Split Water over several years, and so I think of the collection as capturing the different ways I’ve encountered and written about these themes as I’ve changed and grown. In my earlier work, family and familial stories and traditions are of particular importance. I also felt drawn to use my writing as a way to challenge misrecognition and Islamophobia, and to feel more connected with my faith. Figurative language gave me an opportunity to reflect on and interrogate slippery concepts like ‘homeland’, to cross borders, to write to the ghosts of people and places. For me, writing poetry is always a form of questioning, a search to better understand myself and to think more deeply about how my experiences fit into a larger context. Navigating how I belong in different spaces, what I’ve inherited, and what histories were passed down to me or written on my skin, has helped me uncover various truths about myself and the world I live in. I think of my work as constantly shifting and moving, finding shape in themes of womanhood and sexuality, as well as in meditations on the natural world. One of the most thrilling aspects of putting this collection together was placing some of this earlier work next to newer poems, and seeing what resonances and echoes were created between them.

What does the title come from, and what role would you say water – literally and figuratively – plays in this collection?

I find titles extremely difficult, and the manuscript had a lot of previous names. But it’s funny how now the collection has become sort of its own entity – I can’t imagine it being called anything else; it’s grown into its title. Another Way to Split Water came from one of the poems in the book, a poem that nods toward the collection’s different motifs: migration, inheritance, ecology, storytelling, reflections and selves, and multiplicity. Water, in all its forms, becomes one of the collection’s major metaphors, representing liminality, spirituality, crossings, and time as recursive. I feel water is so rich with imagistic and metaphorical potential, being a reflective surface as well as a site of nourishment, suspension, and erosion. I’ve been circling this idea of water as both a mode of connection as well as separation in my work.

The poems in this book often draw on nature and the natural world as lenses through which to express their themes. How would you say coming from two distinctly different national landscapes – Canada and Scotland – has influenced your depictions of and attitudes toward the natural world?

Sara Ahmed writes that for immigrant bodies, ‘the physical sense of moving through space is enough to trigger a memory of another place.’ I reference this quote a lot – it has deeply impacted the way I think about place, and the way I conceptualise my own interactions with place and the environment. I ask myself questions like, what does it mean for my particular body to take up space? What does it mean for me to walk the seams of different places; different environments? What have I asked the land to give up so that I can witness and feel and document these ways of moving and remembering? In terms of crossing borders, in writing about the natural world while simultaneously rooted/unrooted, I write toward figurative homelands, where spaces coexist, where the birch trees of Alberta and Edinburgh grow together. This extends beyond just these two places as well, and is multidirectional; in these poems, the sounds of water birds entwine with and repeat like prayer, or the rain falling in the prairies sounds like my first language.

In addition to your poetry writing, you’re involved with Ledbury Poetry Critics and have also taken part in interdisciplinary academic projects relating to poetry. How have your experiences in these areas shaped your approach to writing poetry?

I love this question because I’m increasingly excited by work that blurs the boundaries between genre, and between critical and creative writing. I used to feel conflicted, like I had to choose to be a creative writer or an academic, or like I was always a step behind other researchers because my degrees are in creative writing. But what I’ve learned about myself is that my critical research – whether that’s writing articles or facilitating workshops and other practical work – contextualises and feeds into my creative work. And, I’ve found myself engaging more with academic writing that is perhaps more self-reflective, or that edges toward a lyrical or creative writing style. I suppose my poetry is leaking into my essays and vice versa.

What advice would you give to new/emerging poets?

I think it’s important to connect and build relationships with other writers, to share work with each other and feel like part of a poetry practice outside of just your own. This is really difficult to do at first, and I know from experience that it’s easy to become isolated. Some of my tips include looking toward local bookshops. Edinburgh has the amazing Lighthouse Books, and they not only host poetry events and book launches, but specifically cultivate community through groups like the Nature in Colour reading group. Portobello Bookshop is another great space that hosts several events and cultivates a wonderfully warm atmosphere. Otherwise, Glasgow Women’s Library is an inclusive and safe space that has a number of community oriented programs, and Open Book similarly brings readers and poetry lovers together. I can’t forget Scottish BPOC Writers Network either, for all the beautiful spaces the whole team (past and present) have created.

Another Way to Split Water by Alycia Pirmohamed is published by Polygon, priced £10.00.

Alycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born poet based in Scotland. She is the author of the pamphlets Hinge, Faces that Fled the Wind, and the collaborative essay, Second Memory, which was co-authored with Pratyusha. She is co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics, and she currently teaches on the MSt. Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge. Alycia received an MFA from the University of Oregon and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. In 2020, She received the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.

We continue our ‘Introducing . . .’ series, where BooksfromScotland highlight the work of up-and-coming writers, with poetry from Shasta Ali.

Threads across borders

‘One day this’ll be yours’
the words hang in the air waiting to be held
You cast a fleeting glance over
half noticing the way your mother
surrounded by a pile of neatly pressed clothes
sits, a queen on her throne
yet the throne seems fractured

You’re distracted as a series of alerts
glide across your screen
book a lunch
plan a date
pay an invoice
schedule an appointment

You catch a glimpse of her meticulously
folding, unfolding, refolding
a creamy offset white dupatta
It shimmers with silver vertical lines
imprinted with flowers running down the fabric

And you think how the duppatta
with its on trend silver fringed border
will match your white outfit
for the many invitations pending

You watch as she gently lifts a green kameez
sparkling with golden sequins
And you know its a colour where endless debates will ensue
throughout changing seasons and lights
where no one will settle on the colour
but the colour will remain true
for four decades and more

Her hands flatten the creases over and over
as her fingers loop around the swirls of gold
tracing a path long forgotten
A reminder, her once nimble fingers
stitched each golden sequin one by one

Whilst her cataracts cloud her eyesight with doubt
She marvels at her once intricate handiwork
A single tear rolls out the corner of her eye
and lands like a coin dropped in a golden wishing well

Time sprints around you, refusing to slow
yet the memory of the golden thread tugs
threatening to unravel
and among the chaos
You crave a stillness
that never comes

You’ll remember that time
Your mother spoke of silks and fabrics
of a white dupatta gifted by her mother
for the wedding yet to be

Of a 15 year old daughter
who by the solitarily glow of an antique oil lamp
eagerly sat through the stillness of the night
painstakingly threading a silver fringed border

A new chapter loomed ahead of her
as excitement and fear churned inside her
She embroidered, knitted and sewed her anxieties calm
carefully sealing her dreams into beautiful crafted pieces

And so the dupatta travelled
along its very own Silk Road
from Pakistan to Britain
Wrapped up in a collection of hand stitched clothes
of sindhi, moti and sitara kadahi
eager to be worn on the most special of occasions

Milestones came and went
Houses turned into homes
The family grew and grew
Yet the special moment was yet to arrive

The dupatta would wait patiently
away from the heat, the sun and light
in a battered old suitcase
surrounded by the chitter chatter of children
raised voices and laughter

Days turned into weeks
weeks into months
years into decades
and those voices faded and returned
and disappeared once again
but the special occasion was yet to arrive

Here You sit, decades later
folding, unfolding, refolding
the unworn dupatta that crossed lands and seas
the silver patterned flowers catching the morning light
dancing a thousand unspoken stories

You’ll think of threads across borders
holding family ties and memories together
and while you’re searching for a sense of belonging
through archives, people and places
amid hidden histories and untold stories

You’ll find it, somewhat, in a tale about a dupatta
delicately handled by four generations of females
a skill you’ll hear, taught from a grandmother, to a mother,
from an aunt to her daughter
legacies tangled and woven through time

And like threads across borders
stories unite and weave communities together
just as a single silk thread drifting in the wind
carries strength in its own tale

And suddenly it makes perfect sense
this sanctuary you seek
in finding your place in the world
is not actually a place, a person or thing
but a connection within
It’s a love for yourself and all that you are

Shasta Ali works in the Third Sector and is a writer, anti-racism and women’s rights campaigner. Her writing explores race, identity and heritage, with work published and featured in Scottish BPOC Writers Network, The National, STV Scotland and Fringe of Colour Films, among others. Shasta lives in beautiful Edinburgh and can often be found with a cup of tea, pondering over how we’re all part of a global story, with more uniting us than dividing us. @ShastaHAli

Leela Soma is a writer based in Glasgow. Here she gives us the story behind the formation of the Kavya Prize.

The new Kavya Prize, which I established this year for Scottish writers of colour working in all genres, started as a small idea that was partly conceived through inspiration, but also by a need to carve out a space for writers of colour to capture their stories on paper for future generations. Scottish literature and arguably Scottish culture have always been seen as somewhat separate from the body of British (although predominantly English) literature and culture, and oftentimes as monolithic.

The latter part is completely untrue, as Scotland is a nation with a rich history that has been shaped by people from all over the world. Over the centuries, the tapestry that makes up Scottish culture has been woven together by voices from different ethnicities, religions, and languages. As a writer of colour myself, I often noticed how my journey to publication involved several challenges, most notably that I was often told that literary works by writers of colour were unlikely to be commercial enough.

Given the wide variety of voices, from Robert Burns to Jackie Kay, which have shaped Scottish literature over the years, I have always found this viewpoint to be puzzling. When I began my journey into writing, I was determined to author a novel that captures the Scottish Indian experience with the caveat that like the Scottish experience, I recognize that there is no singular Scottish Indian experience. However, my hope in writing my first novel, Twice Born, was that future generations of Scottish Indians and other Scottish writers of colour would see an experience that reflected that of their own or that of their parents or grandparents.

As the 21st century continues to unfold, Scotland’s future and place in the world are still being formed. Whether as a part of the UK or as an independent nation, I know how important younger generations of Scots of colour are to shaping our country. Drawing inspiration from the Jhalak Prize for UK writers of colour, I began to get a sense of urgency to ensure that the next generation of Scottish writers of colour face less of an uphill climb than those who came before them.

After the warm reception to my debut crime novel, Murder at the Mela, I revisited my idea about how best to encourage future generations of writers of colour. The way my first crime novel was received showed me that there has been some progress and there is more of an appetite for diverse voices within the Scottish literary scene. On the heels of such a positive change, my initial idea was to have a small prize every two years, which would be presented at a local library. I approached a generous benefactor, who has asked to remain anonymous, about financially supporting such a prize. He was incredibly supportive and said that provided I was able to demonstrate there is a need for this, he would be happy to sponsor.

Shortly after my conversation with him, I approached Zoe Strachan at the University of Glasgow’s Creative Writing Department. She has been absolutely wonderful and has been working tirelessly along with a team of talented people at Glasgow University to get the prize off the ground. Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Centre for Creative Writing, will offer a residency for the winner of the prize and the Association of Scottish Literature will provide some administrative support. Our judging panel was comprised of three tremendous Scottish writers and critics: Leila Aboulela, Tawona Sithole and Professor Bashabi Fraser.

The judges worked hard at this new prize and had encouraging words for all writers of colour. This is the first year of this unique prize so just raising awareness among emerging writers is a huge task. We were delighted to see the entries for the prize, and after much deliberation, the judges chose a shortlist of six superb pieces of literature:

The End: Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters by Katie Goh (404 Ink)

Lament for Sheku Bayoh by Hannah Lavery (Salamander Street)

Toy Plastic Chicken by Uma Nada-Rajah (Salamander Street)

Sorrow, Tears and Blood by David Onamade (Arkbound Publishing)

Sikfan Glaschu by Sean Wai Keung (Verve Poetry Press)

This is Our Undoing by Lorraine Wilson (Luna Press)

The winner of the Kavya Prize – Toy Plastic Chicken by Uma Nada-Rajah – was announced at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library on 21 May as part of Aye Write, the second biggest book festival in Scotland and the biggest in the city of Glasgow. Bob McDevitt, the Director of the Aye Write Festival said, and I quote:

‘I’m especially inspired, this year, by the mix of authors: those long-established and much acclaimed; those who are just coming into our field of vision; those with their own personal stories to tell; and those whose mission it is to tell the stories of others.

Storytelling is what we’re all about here at Aye Write, and we hope that our packed 2022 programme will be the next compelling chapter in our very own story.’

What do I hope this unique prize will achieve? In the past few years, there has been clamour in the publishing world and demand from readers for more inclusive stories. The Kavya Prize will celebrate marginalized writers who have their own stories to tell. This is the Year of Scotland’s Stories 2022, a perfect start for Scottish writers of colour to contribute to mainstream Scottish Literature. The Kavya Prize will empower them to raise their voices, tell their stories and reach a wider audience. This biennial prize will ensure that writing in all genres is recognised. It also offers mentorship for aspiring writers, providing more role models that younger writers can look up to and setting a new standard for the future. I hope that the Kavya Prize will be a legacy that will place Scottish writers of colour on the literary map of Scotland, and a sanctuary for both writers of colour and their many readers in these dark times.

Leela Soma was born in Madras, India, and now lives in Glasgow. Her poems and short stories have been published in several anthologies and publications. She has published three novels, short stories and two collections of poetry; and a chapbook, ‘Chintz’, published by Dreich Press. Her poems have been published in Gutter, The Blue Nib, Anthropocene, Black Bough Poems, The Glasgow Review of Books and many others. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2020 and has been appointed Scriever 2021 for the Federation of Writers, Scotland. She has just been added to the Scottish Poetry Library’s Guide to Scottish Poets. Murder at the Mela, the first DI Patel mystery, was published in 2020.

Etzali Hernández is a nonbinary latinx queer fierce femme poet, coder, dj and no borders organiser. Their pamphlet from murky waters, we rise will be published later this here, and you can catch a preview below.

Extracts from from murky waters we rise
By Etzali Hernández
Published by Forest Publications

ode to rainbow friendship
in memory of Shaun Mitchell,

i remember looking at you for the first time and immediately wanting to
be your friend. your hip and sharp demeanour. the realness of your
being, pouring uncontrollably.