An Evening with Poet Sharon Black and Travel Writer Rory MacLean
Greetings,
I am writing to the Chaplaincy mailing list to let you know about two events with writers which I’ve organised this semester.
Sharon Black, a poet and friend of mine, will be reading from her brand new collection Things That Fruit in Darkness, in St Leonard’s Chapel, The Pends, on Friday 25 September at 7.30 pm. The event is free. Another poet, Al McClimens, will make a guest appearance
Originally from Glasgow, Scotland, Sharon lives in a remote valley of the Cévennes in France, has published four books and two pamphlets of her poems, has won many prizes and is the editor of Pindrop Press. After studying French language, philosophy and literature at Aberdeen University, she spent a year in Japan teaching English, then worked for 10 years as a journalist in Glasgow. She started writing poetry in her teens and forgot all about it as a young adult caught up in the heady world of print media. She took up reading and writing poetry again once her youngest daughter started school full-time. Sharon has read before in St Andrews and some people may have attended previous events.
Here is a poem from the new collection:
Ever After
I’m convinced he would like a quiet wife.
One who would sit on her chair and eat granola, sip carrot juice
wearing a ring on just her wedding finger.
How peaceful to be concerned by nothing more than
juice, dried fruits and nuts, and natural yoghurt!
The mind like a quiet seed in the dark.
How irritating, the small explosion of a green shoot breaking into life.
No. He’d have nothing like that. Just a quiet wife on her chair
eating granola, sipping juice, her lips turning orange.
For more about Sharon, see https://www.sharonblack.co.uk/
As for the second event, I am reading a new book by the travel writer Rory MacLean called Geography of Heaven: Travels to the Hereafter. I know Rory a little bit and gave him some help with one of the sections of the book. Following his wife’s death, he decided to explore the world’s faiths in the hope he would encounter his wife. The book is part-travelogue, part-religious experience, part-meditation on bereavement. I am enjoying the book, and have invited Rory to speak about it in an event in St Salvator’s Chapel at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 4 November in which I will interview him. Again it is free to attend.
To discover more about Rory and this book, see
Instagram: rory.maclean.writes
FB: rory.wander.maclean
I hope to see you at one or both of these events.
Yours,
Donald