What happens in Cumbernauld…

March 25, 2026March 25, 2026Leave a comment

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!

Gladstone & St Winefrede

November 14, 2025Leave a comment

Gladstone’s Library in Wales has always been on my writerly radar. Who wouldn’t want to sleep in a place of books, right?! Just for clarity, rooms are provided, but the actual reading rooms are open to residents all day and after hours, giving you full access not only to a range of historic tomes, but unlimited inspiration between the stacks. Each nook and cranny houses a wee desk for your writing endeavours, and a cannily placed notice will ‘bag’ your chosen spot overnight. Consistency is key to writing- I immediately settle into my work when I know where I’ll be sitting. Must be muscle memory!

The current building, raised in 1902 by public subscription and designed by John Douglas, is the home of Sir William Gladstone’s unique archival collection. In the 1880s, after retiring from politics, Gladstone began transferring his collection to a purpose-built corrugated -iron library in Hawarden village. Scholars would stay in a hostel attached to the library.

The reading rooms are delightfully silent and creaky all at the same time, and the building itself is beautifully designed. I particularly loved the lounge with its roaring stoves and leather couches you can just sink into after a day hunched over the laptop. I was very lucky to be in the company of my buddies Dawn Geddes, Elizabeth Frattaroli and Gillian Duff, wonderful writers all, and the best companions I could have wished for. We ate amazing food (shout-out to Food for Thought and the cafes and pubs of Hawarden) wandered the streets, wrote words and gossiped a lot (quietly, of course…it’s a library. Sssh!) and generally soaked up the atmosphere. After delivering The Legend of Lady Godiva to my publisher the week before, I let myself sink back into my folk horror novel The Back of Beyond. It was like spending time with an old (but rather mysterious) friend.

On the way home, we visited St Winefride’s Well (Welsh: Ffynnon Wenffrewi) a holy well and national shrine located in the town of Holywell in Flintshire, Wales. The patron saint of the well, St Winefride, was a 7th-century Catholic martyr who according to legend was decapitated by a lustful prince and then miraculously restored to life. The well is said to have sprung up at the spot where her head hit the ground. This story is first recorded in the 12th century, and since then St Winefride’s Well has been a popular pilgrimage destination, known for its healing waters. Given my novel is about a sacred well with exactly the opposite effect, it was an interesting visit for me!

If you ever get a chance to visit Gladstone’s Library, go! Society of Authors members receive a discount, which really helps a lot and it was a privilege to be allowed access to such an amazing collection.

Introducing- The House on Devil’s Lane!

August 12, 20241 Comment

At LAST I have some exciting book news!

My fifth psychological thriller The House on Devil’s Lane (S. L. Ireland) will be released on September 24^th as a Kindle ebook and as a paperback. I do believe the ebook is now available to preorder on Amazon and will appear silently and mysteriously on your kindle on publication day if you buy HERE.

Okay, that’s the hard sell out of the way! I just wanted to write a little bit about the process and ideas behind the book. It has been said (and not by me, it was The Sunday Post, actually!) that I write about difficult things with sensitivity and realism, and while novels are essentially a means of entertainment, and an enjoyable diversion, I do like to include some timely and troubling topics. With The Unmaking of Ellie Rook, for example (novel no.3) the underlying theme was one of coercive control and the emotional damage it does.

So, true to form, The House on Devil’s Lane has some very compelling characters with pressing problems and harrowing secrets. How they act when the chips are down…well, that’s where the fiction comes in! Hopefully, you will be with main character Kat every step of the way as she negotiates her new life in a new home while juggling the demands of new motherhood. It’s hard feeling alone and isolated in a new place, but is Kat ever really alone? I’ll let you decide, dear Reader…

Where did the idea come from? I will tell all in a series of blog posts, but first, the setting. As much as a love Scotland, I wanted to step over the border for a wee change, and the idea for this book came to me while I was visiting my brother in County Durham. He lives in a village which consists essentially of a single road with, as fate would have it, an empty house at the end, and behind it, the most amazingly eerie wood….