blog – Sandra Ireland

Put over a hundred writers in a hotel for a weekend and what do you get? A wonderful opportunity to greet old friends, meet new ones and generally be around your tribe with the same vibe. Yes, it’s that time of year again- my annual jaunt to the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference at the Westerwood Hotel in Cumbernauld.

Some members of Angus Writers’ Circle (on their best behaviour!)

I actually booked an extra night with my chums, as a way of winding down and separating the world of work and family from the ‘serious’ mission of the weekend- to confirm who we are as writers, because sometimes it all gets a bit lost in the mists of modern living!

I took some spare minutes to edit my current manuscript The Back of Beyond and generally unpack my case and drift from bar to lounge before it was time for registration. Each year we get a lovely tote bag as a memento of our weekend, and of course there is the book shop, because you cannot have too many books! There’s also the traditional room party…I was mortified at the amount of gins-in-a-tin that graced my bin the next day…

There’s no party like an AWC room parteee!

The weekend is packed with competitions, workshops and opportunities to talk about everything writing related. Our speakers and adjudicators were amazing, my favourites being the lovely Marion Todd (author of the Clare Mackay series), talented writer and academic Conner McAleese and the wonderful playwright John Binnie. I would definitely recommend Caroline Logan’s workshop- who knew making worldbuilding maps with rice could be so much fun?!

We members of Angus Writers’ Circle acquitted ourselves well with a total of 14 placed competition entries and two trophies- well done to all. We are quite competitive (and quite argumentative) especially when it comes to the Big Conference Quiz! I was absolutely chuffed to win the Dorothy Dunbar Rosebowl for Poetry (adjudicated by Alison Chisholm) with my poem ‘Not Black and White’, a tribute to the magpies in my garden. Here are a few lines from it:

At night their peculiar cant frightens me.

They speak together in strange tongues,

planning murder by moonlight.

So, it’s all over for another year. Time to start saving for 2027. If you would like to find out more about SAW and the conference, click here. You can join as an individual member and take part in some of the competitions and maybe even attend the conference next year. Writing is a lonely business, so it helps to have friends in the right places!

Time has done some funny things this year, hasn’t it? It’s sped by, and yet hung heavy at times. Perhaps we are all still in pandemic recovery. I heard it described as a collective ‘languishing’- and although I do feel like I’ve done a lot of languishing on my couch, trawling through my photos has encouraged me to relive some favourite moments…

First up, I was so lucky to have been invited to take part in the international Connect and Collaborate residency at beautiful Moniack Mhor. Not only is it the perfect place to rest, recuperate and write, it also gave me the opportunity to make friends with some amazing people from across the globe. Here is Moniack Mhor in sunset splendour and some of my co-conspirators lost in the woods! (Nadine Aisha Jassat, Gemma Rovira Ortega & Carly Brown).Not forgetting the all important glass of red wine poured by my Moniack pals after I finished the first draft of my next novel Waterbound! (Look out for more news on that in 2023)

In the summer, Angus Writers’ Circle had the chance to undertake a group residency in Arbroath Abbey’s New Scriptorium, as described in a previous post. Here is an image of my Tree Folklore Workshop, inspired by the humble Arbroath Pippin!

I was very excited to be invited by Fife Writes to deliver two creative writing workshops for Book Week Scotland. One was online and one was IN-PERSON! Myself and my lucky hat travelled to beautiful St Andrews, which was a real novelty after the lockdown years. Here I am, with said hat, at the old harbour…

There was also that fiery trip to Bloody Scotland! Again, so good to be back in-person. I think we’ve all been caught between longing to socialise and veering towards recluse-dom. I know I have, but once you’ve levered yourself from the couch you realise what you’ve been missing!

Thanks to a generous award from Creative Scotland, I was able to take part in a third residency (and I thought nothing much had happened in 2022!) in Ireland. Grateful thanks also to the lovely Noelle Harrison at Aurora Retreats for holding such a special place for us all in the Limerick countryside, somewhere close to my heart. Noelle, writing as Anya Bergman, has a stunning novel out VERY soon. Keep an eye out for The Witches of Vardo (Manilla Press). I have read an advance copy and I loved it!

The book I was working on at the Springfield Castle retreat is tentatively entitled The River Takes Her Name (suggested by my fellow retreater Petra!)

Legend has it that the ancient goddess Sionnan ate the Salmon of Wisdom, with its nine hazelnuts of truth, in order to gain all the knowledge of the world, only to drown in the river that now bears her name. In 1980s Limerick, nurse Anya Kildare has nine pieces of information which, if revealed, could alter the lives of those around her forever.

If knowledge is power, and power might bring death, how much would you be willing to give away?

Intrigued? I’ll tell you more about that, and indeed Waterbound, my great hope for next year, in a future post, but I’ll leave you with some wonderful images of Ireland and finally, finally, Newcastle Noir, which proved a bright and warm and friendly end to the year (despite the title!)