scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: January 2013
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html
Thursday, 24 January 2013. Times Stephen Spender Translation Prize for Brian Holton. Many congratulations to Scottish PEN member Brian Holton whose translation of Du Fu's poem has been commended in the 2012 Times Stephen Spender Prize. For poetry in translation. As far as we know it is the first time a major UK translation prize has given an award for work in Scots. Below is the prizewinning translation and Brian's commentary. You can find out more about his poetry and translations on his website. An ash...
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: Home and identity | my journey...so far
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2013/12/home-and-identity-my-journeyso-far.html
Monday, 9 December 2013. Home and identity my journey.so far. Home and identity my journey.so far. Nalini Paul, poet and writer - India-born and later brought up in Canada before moving to Scotland twenty years ago - describes her personal journey in which themes of home and identity feature in her writing: poetry, a novel, and work for the stage and film commissions. My writing journey began the moment I first heard people speak. It was already forming in my mind, long before I could read or write.
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: March 2012
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html
Monday, 5 March 2012. Recollections of early days at Scottish Pen and of a Writing Life. I felt very honoured to be invited to become the next Honorary President of Scottish Pen and was delighted to accept. I published my first adult novel, Liam's Daughter. Set in Ireland and France,in 1963. When my second one, The Prevailing Wind,. I had never heard of it. I joined and my life opened up. At the beginning of the 80s I was chairing the book festival committee as well as serving as a council member of SAC ...
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: March 2013
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2013_03_01_archive.html
Thursday, 14 March 2013. Simona Grazia Dima - PEN Romania. Is Secretary of Romanian PEN, a poet, essayist, literary critic and translator. In her introduction to her latest volume of poetry she presents the background to her writing – the political and cultural milieu, her ideas, ideals and in particular the extraordinary experience which led her to become the writer that she is today. You can read poems by Simona in English here. And an essay in English here. The Army of Small Beings. I have emphasized ...
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: September 2013
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2013_09_01_archive.html
Wednesday, 25 September 2013. Seamus Heaney at StAnza. A personal reminiscence by Brian Johnstone, former Director of Scotland's International Poetry Festival. Seamus Heaney at StAnza. In his funeral tribute to Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon talked about how everyone in the poetry community has been devastated by our sudden loss – how true – and this feeling extends well beyond the world of poetry. Muldoon went on to describe Seamus’s. Festival in 2007. But I would be in his company again before then. Autho...
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: May 2012
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2012_05_01_archive.html
Friday, 11 May 2012. The Joys of Translation. Carl von Linné – or Linnaeus as the world outside Sweden remembers him – was what we would now call a “control-freak”. And like all control-freaks, he was often frustrated by the unwillingness of people, animals and the natural world in general to do as they were told. Even as a boy, he would order his younger siblings around:. 8220; Follow me! Do as I do! 8230; Copy me! But his brothers and sisters would go about their business unheeding. The gardener asks i...
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: February 2012
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html
Wednesday, 8 February 2012. Special Delivery - Le Facteur Cheval. Postman] Cheval” as he’s best known - continued to collect more stones as he went about his business, and resolved to make a reality of a long-nurtured fantasy. In that open space by his home at Hauterives, south of Lyon, he would construct his Palais Idéal – his ideal palace – working on it for as long as it would take. What about follies, such as Jack the Treacle-Eater in Somerset, or. Cheval’s was no dilettante production;. Read French ...
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: October 2013
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.html
Saturday, 19 October 2013. PEN International Women Writers Committee Reykjavik 2013. Minutes of meeting of PEN International. Reykjavik, September 9, 2013. The meeting, part of PEN's International Congress,. Was chaired by Ekbal Baraka, Chair, assisted by former chairs Judy Buckrich and Lucina Kathmann; the Minutes were prepared by Lucina Kathmann. The pamphlet about the history of the Women Writers Committee was passed out. The new website. Sarah Clarke from the London office then joined us to talk abou...
scottish-pen.blogspot.com
Writers' Freedom: September 2012
http://scottish-pen.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html
Thursday, 13 September 2012. The fiftieth anniversary of the famous Writers' Conference during the 1962 Edinburgh International Festival was celebrated with various events at this year's Book Festival. I chose, however, to go only to a number of events which particularly interested me. Online podcasts of the 50th anniversary events are in any case readily available. Two literary heavyweights,. Read and discussed their work to sell-out audiences in the capacious tent of the RBS Theatre. Duffy read from.