Ian Stephen – författare

Western Isles Folk Tales is a representative collection of stories from the geographical span of the long chain of islands known as the Outer Hebrides. Some are well-known tales and others have been sought out by the author, but all are retold in the natural voice of a local man. You will find premonitions, accounts of uncanny events and mythical beings, such as the blue men of the stream who test mariners venturing into the tidal currents around the Shiant Islands. Also included are tales from islands now uninhabited, like the archipelago of St Kilda, in contrast to the witty yarns from bustling harbours. The author was the inaugural winner of the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship (1995) and his Acts of Trust collaboration with visual artist Christine Morrison won the multi-arts category in the first British Awards for Storytelling Excellence (2012). Both author and illustrator live in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis.

Adventure, memoir, storytelling and celebration of all things maritime meet in Waypoints, a beautifully written account of sea journeys from Scotland''s west coast. In the book Ian Stephen reveals a lifetime''s love affair with sailing; each voyage honours a seagoing vessel, and each adventure is accompanied by a spell-binding retelling of a traditional tale about the sea. His writing is enchanting and lyrical, gentle but searching, and is accompanied by beautiful illustrations of each vessel, drawn by his wife, artist Christine Morrison.Ian Stephen is a Scottish writer, artist and storyteller from the remote and bewitching Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. He fell in love with boats and sailing as a boy, pairing this love affair with a passion for the beautiful but merciless Scottish coastline, an inspiration and motivating force behind his poems, stories, plays, radio broadcasts and visual arts projects for many years.This book will be a delightful and absorbing read for anyone with a passion for sailing and the seas, Scotland''s landscape and coastlines, stories and the origins of language and literature.

Adventure, memoir, storytelling and celebration of all things maritime meet in Waypoints, a beautifully written account of sea journeys from Scotland''s west coast. In the book Ian Stephen reveals a lifetime''s love affair with sailing; each voyage honours a seagoing vessel, and each adventure is accompanied by a spell-binding retelling of a traditional tale about the sea. His writing is enchanting and lyrical, gentle but searching, and is accompanied by beautiful illustrations of each vessel, drawn by his wife, artist Christine Morrison.Ian Stephen is a Scottish writer, artist and storyteller from the remote and bewitching Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. He fell in love with boats and sailing as a boy, pairing this love affair with a passion for the beautiful but merciless Scottish coastline, an inspiration and motivating force behind his poems, stories, plays, radio broadcasts and visual arts projects for many years.This book will be a delightful and absorbing read for anyone with a passion for sailing and the seas, Scotland''s landscape and coastlines, stories and the origins of language and literature.

Adventure, memoir, storytelling and celebration of all things maritime meet in Waypoints, a beautifully written account of sea journeys from Scotland’s west coast. In the book Ian Stephen reveals a lifetime’s love affair with sailing; each voyage honours a seagoing vessel, and each adventure is accompanied by a spell-binding retelling of a traditional tale about the sea. His writing is enchanting and lyrical, gentle but searching, and is accompanied by beautiful illustrations of each vessel, drawn by his wife, artist Christine Morrison.Ian Stephen is a Scottish writer, artist and storyteller from the remote and bewitching Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. He fell in love with boats and sailing as a boy, pairing this love affair with a passion for the beautiful but merciless Scottish coastline, an inspiration and motivating force behind his poems, stories, plays, radio broadcasts and visual arts projects for many years.This book will be a delightful and absorbing read for anyone with a passion for sailing and the seas, Scotland’s landscape and coastlines, stories and the origins of language and literature.

People are drawn to the harbours and boats of Scotland whether they have a seafaring background or not. Why do boats take on different shapes as you follow the complex shorelines of islands and mainland? And why do the sails they carry appear to be so many shapes and sizes? Then there are rowing craft or power-driven vessels which can also be considered ‘classics’, whether they were built for work or leisure.As he traces the iconic forms of a selection of the boats of Scotland, Ian Stephen outlines the purposes of craft, past and present, to help gain a true understanding of this vital part of our culture. Sea conditions likely to be met and coastal geography are other factors behind the designs of a wide variety of craft.Stories go with boats. The vessels are not seen as bare artefacts without their own soul but more like living things. 'A writer uniquely attuned to the water, and to the relationships each boat shares with the places it shaped, his stories restore past sea roads and river routes to life' - David Gange, author of The Frayed Atlantic Edge

People are drawn to the harbours and boats of Scotland whether they have a seafaring background or not. Why do boats take on different shapes as you follow the complex shorelines of islands and mainland? And why do the sails they carry appear to be so many shapes and sizes? Then there are rowing craft or power-driven vessels which can also be considered ''classics'', whether they were built for work or leisure.As he traces the iconic forms of a selection of the boats of Scotland, Ian Stephen outlines the purposes of craft, past and present, to help gain a true understanding of this vital part of our culture. Sea conditions likely to be met and coastal geography are other factors behind the designs of a wide variety of craft.Stories go with boats. The vessels are not seen as bare artefacts without their own soul but more like living things. ''A writer uniquely attuned to the water, and to the relationships each boat shares with the places it shaped, his stories restore past sea roads and river routes to life'' - David Gange, author of The Frayed Atlantic Edge

‘His main subjects – seas, winds, tides, shorelines and horizons – are expressed in precisely observed details of shape, colour, texture and movement that capture the spirit of a place as well as the topography in poem after poem, until voyaging becomes fact and metaphor in Stephen’s work, a way of life and a way of interpreting life.’ –James AitchiesonIan Stephen has continued to publish and perform poetry internationally while exploring other forms such as drama, fiction, non-fiction and many cross-arts collaborations. Ian was the first artist in residence at StAnza and returned to present his film-poems and, later, ‘maritime’. A new and selected poems included page by page translations into Czech, was funded by The British Council (Adrift, Periplum, 2007). The seagoing elements of his poetry were collected in maritime (Saraband, 2016). He reviews poetry regularly in Northwords Now and has interviewed Jackie Kay and Niall Campbell for Faclan, the Hebridean Book Festival.In recent years, he has balanced oral storytelling with the large scale novel A Book of Death and Fish (Saraband, 2014), described by Kirsty Gunn in The Guardian as a book that “splits the form open like a fresh catch, glistening and raw and singing with the sea”. His non-fiction ranges from Waypoints (Bloomsbury, 2014), shortlisted for the Saltire nonfiction book of the year to Boatlines (Birlinn, 2023).