Friday 24 September 2010
7.30pm – 9.30pm

Review by
Gay Halley

Cal Wallace and guest readers — Haworth Hodgkinson, Keith Murray, Morag Skene, Gráinne Smith and Catriona Yule — will be reading from his new short story collection The Man with the Silver Eye (Blue Salt Publishing).

In these sinister and sensitive tales of human fallibility, Cal Wallace will delight you with his easy wit and astonish you with his festering imagination. You will squirm at the devious ways he finds to thwart his characters' attempts to play the hand he deals them, then gasp as the characters fight back with equally devious schemes of revenge. [Haworth Hodgkinson]

Cal Wallace manifested on Earth to become a famous novelist. However due to cosmic interference he was downgraded to little-known short-storyist. He first burst onto the scene a decade ago. No-one noticed. He'll burst again one day. Perhaps, with the wind in his favour....

See www.calwallace.co.uk for more.

Haworth Hodgkinson is a poet and playwright, composer and improvising musician. His work often involves collaboration with other writers, musicians and dancers. He performs as poet and musician with the multimedia Blue Salt Collective, and is the founder and artistic director of North-East Scotland's New Words festival.

His poetry is widely published in magazines and anthologies, and his first collection, A Weakness for Mermaids, was published in 2007 by Koo Press.

See www.haworthhodgkinson.co.uk for more.

Keith Murray is a poet and publisher who lives near Aberdeen Beach where he finds inspiration for his poems in which birds feature quite a bit. He believes that anything good is possible and that the power of words can conquer all the ills of the world.

Morag Skene has done most artistic things once! She's had a story broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland, sung with a jazz band, written and directed one play, one panto and even played a dame — once. She's written a poem, survived a whole tap routine and a 13-minute monologue — but not at the same time!

Cal says Gráinne Smith is a story-teller; Gráinne says she writes because she can't stop — fiction and non-fiction, plays and poetry, all based on much experience and research, with some imagination in the mix. (But she's nae telling which is which....)

Catriona Yule is a poet, short story writer and playwright. Her first poetry collection, Shedding Skin, was published in 2007 and her poems have appeared in Poetry Scotland (website), Northwords Now and Pushing Out the Boat. She has recently had poetry accepted for Poems in the Wind and for Decanto magazine.

See www.catrionayule.co.uk for more.

Promoted by

Blue Salt Publishing

Supported by

Arbuthnott Community Association
Grassic Gibbon Centre
North East Writers