Gerda Stevenson – författare

CAT WUMMAN, is Stevenson’s second short story collection – nine different stories presenting contemporary Scottish life inspired by folk tales from around the world, Scots ballads and the poetry of Coleridge and Hugh MacDiarmid. These dark tales (which include four weddings but no funeral!) will irresistibly draw the reader in.

In this new edition of her first full-length collection, Gerda Stevenson invites readers into a world rich with music – skipping rhymes, heartfelt laments and lively dance tunes. Her poetry dances across themes of butterflies, snowberries and the bittersweet echoes of childhood, alongside reflections on Bosnia, Iraq and Scotland’s own landscapes. If This Were Real weaves together narratives that resonate deeply with our shared humanity.

Aonghas MacNeacail (1942-2022) was a major Scottish writer from Skye. He composed poetry, songs, journalism, scripts, librettos and translations. Among Gaelic-speakers he was known as Aonghas Dubh - Black Angus. Among his many accolades, he won the 1997 Stakis prize for Scottish Writer of the Year, and also received the Saltire Society's Premiere Award for contribution to the arts in 2005. His New & Selected Poems, 'Laughing at the Clock / Deanamh Gaire Ris A' Chloc', was published by Polygon in 2012.Aonghas grew up in a croft in Uig, on Skye. His first encounter with the English language was at school: while Aonghas spoke Gaelic at home, English was his language of education, and the first language that he wrote poetry in. While studying at Glasgow he became part of Philip Hobsbaum's famous Glasgow Group of creative writers, alongside Tom Leonard, Liz Lochhead, James Kelman and Alasdair Gray. He became involved with the Poetry Society while working as a housing officer in London: he later became the writer in residence at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye, and this reinvigorated his desire to write in Gaelic also. Latterly Aonghas became famous as a Gaelic-language writer, though in fact he composed work in all three native languages of Scotland. He was a founding member of the Scottish Poetry Library.'beyond' is a posthumous collection of his English-language poems, edited by his widow, Gerda Stevenson with Colin Bramwell.

The twelve stories in Letting Go take us on a journey through landscape, language and turbulent times, from the mid-19th century to the present day, and into the future. Stevenson’s array of characters from many walks of life and nationalities – including a traveller, a wood carver, chicken farm workers, a nurse, an architect and a magician – meet and part, some becoming reacquainted.Themes exploring identity, creativity and the environment, echo and connect throughout the different narratives, sometimes carried in snatches of song. The author leads us outward from her native Scottish Borders to Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Gàidhealtachd, south to England, across the Atlantic to Apartheid South Africa and, finally, to the melting Arctic.