I’m delighted to have a new poem, ‘Fusion’, published in Silk and Smoke issue 2: https://silkandsmoke.com/portfolio/fusion-by-larissa-reid/

Silk and Smoke is a beautiful publication, and I had them in mind when I was working on the final draft of ‘Fusion’. It’s brilliant to be a small part of a fairly new, local (Edinburgh-based) online magazine. One of my favourite elements of the publication is that they include both notes from the authors and a chosen piece of music to accompany each work. For my poem, I selected the ethereal ‘Ophelia’ by Karine Polwart (linked in the above). Karine’s gorgeous voice and stunning talent for song-writing has frequently lifted my spirits during 2020. It’s lovely to share another female Scottish voice, too!

Last weekend the temperatures here in Fife dropped from 18C to 2C overnight. It snowed again in the hills, and for several days we have been shivering in blasts of arctic air flows – the last gasp of winter: the lambing snows.

The third of my poems for the #Cateran100 project is now up online: https://soundcloud.com/user-557410710/not-yet-spring-by-larissa-reid

It was written as I sat shivering in ‘my’ writing hut (a bird hide) in the Glen Tilt woods, last May.

The second of my #Cateran100 poems is now available to listen to online: https://soundcloud.com/user-557410710/herringbone-by-larissa-reid

This poem was first published in the autumn 2017 edition of Northwords Now, issue 34. I was honoured to have three poems appear in this particular edition, Herringbone, The Crow Road and Skye-light. All are available to read here: https://www.northwordsnow.co.uk/author/Larissa-Reid

Really honoured to be part of the #Cateran100 project being run by the Cateran Ecomuseum https://www.cateranecomuseum.co.uk/ during these strange times. The team at Cateran are posting daily audio recordings of poems old and new on social media, together with local photographs and history related to Perthshire, Tayside and Angus, Scotland.

The first of four of my poems appeared on their soundcloud page today – https://soundcloud.com/user-557410710/stone-tells-stone-by-larissa-reid

Do have a listen…

I’m delighted I have recently had a poem selected for the shortlist of the Janet Coats Memorial Prize at Paisley Book Festival: https://paisleybookfest.com/prize/

The theme for 2020 is ‘Radical Voices and Rebel Stories’, with a focus on the young people who have been making their voices heard on the climate crisis over the past two years. My poem was written in response to the eeriness and sadness I felt as I watched our local woods alter over the course of a long hot summer. I was disturbed by the previous winter, where the winds blew for weeks from the East rather than the South-West – a small detail, but when the clouds blow ‘the wrong way’ across the sky for days, I find it deeply unsettling.

The result is my poem, ‘In Elegant Green’, which you can read on the Paisley Book Festival website (link above).

You can read some of my latest poems and short fiction pieces on the Twisted::Colon blog – http://twistedcolon.blog

This is where my friends in the writing group and I share material, ideas and promote our public readings and published work.

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