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Talk: Karine Polwart and Amanda Thomson
No full textIn September 2025 writer-musician Karine Polwart walked the John Muir Way from west to east, gathering stories and observations for a new book. She was exploring the recent industrial and deeper geological past of the Forth Valley, stretching towards the East Lothian and Borders coastline, entwining ecology, folklore, memoir and songs that evoke this landscape, and her personal experience of living within it.
On the Kilsyth to Falkirk leg of the Way, Polwart walked with writer and visual artist Amanda Thomson. Thomson grew up in Kilsyth and Polwart grew up five miles east along the Forth and Clyde Canal, above the Stirlingshire village of Banknock. Both writers share a fascination for questions around human impacts on landscapes, social history, birdlore, botany, place-making and Scots language. And their connections to this particular route are deeply personal as well as artistic.
At the end of a day’s walking and blethers they held a public event, hosted by the Fruitmarket Gallery, at Forth Valley College, Falkirk, to share and discuss their work, how land and place informs it, and how their cross artform practices enrich it.
The event was programmed by Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery who are currently hosting Polwart as Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow in their ‘Attached to Land’ programme.
Amanda Thomson’s memoir Belonging was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing (2023). Her Scots Dictionary of Nature is published by Saraband
Kathleen Jamie, Chitra Ramaswamy & Amanda Thomson: Antlers of Water - Live Event
No full text‘When we read and write, when we love our fellow creatures, when we walk on the beach, when we just listen and notice, we are not little cogs in the machine, but part of the remedy.’ These luminous words by Kathleen Jamie form part of the introduction to Antlers of Water, an outstanding collection of contemporary Scottish writing about nature and landscape.
The generosity of Jamie’s approach as editor of the collection goes beyond the stellar selection of contributors such as Amy Liptrot, Karine Polwart and Malachy Tallack: she also invokes the agency of readers to make a difference. ‘If, by reading, you are encouraged or confirmed in your love of the natural world, if you’re inspired simply to… look outside, then our job is done.’
In a discussion led by the BBC's Clare English, Jamie is joined by award-winning journalist Chitra Ramaswamy as well as visual artist and writer Amanda Thomson – both contributors to the anthology – to discuss Scotland, landscape and the more-than-human world around us.
This is a live event, with an author Q&A.
Part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival Making Climate Change Personal festival theme
Nadine Aisha Jassat, Sabrina Mahfouz & Amanda Thomson: Outriders Africa - Cape Town, From Art to Ancestry
No full textAs part of the Book Festival's Outriders programme exploring the shifting landscapes of contemporary Africa, three UK-based writers with razor-sharp perspectives traversed the breathtaking landscapes of South Africa’s Cape Town.
Drawn to the unique flora and fauna that permeates southern Africa and curious about how it might reflect the land on which it grows, Scottish visual artist and writer Dr Amanda Thomson and poet Nadine Aisha Jassat, deemed one of 30 Inspiring Young Women Under 30 in Scotland by YWCA Scotland, found themselves wandering the steep slopes of Table Mountain and Cape Point National Park, and discovering the innovative horticultural practices of Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
Thomson was later joined by writer Sabrina Mahfouz, herself interested in contrasting her experience growing up in urban environments with life on the Cape Peninsula. While their journey was sadly cut short due to COVID-19, that won’t stop these incisive voices from sharing their experiences.
With a special introduction by South African writer Maneo Mohale, who performs her piece Contra. In partnership with pan-African writers collective Jalada Africa, the place to discover specially curated new writers and voices.
This is a pre-recorded audio-only event.
Part of our Africa: A Balance of Stories festival theme
Open the Door 2021: Glasgow Women's Library : In Conversation with Amanda Thomson and Amy Gear
No full textOpen the Door 2021: Glasgow Women's Library : In Conversation with Amanda Thomson and Amy Gear.
At this Creative Conversations event, artist and writer Amanda Thomson will be talking to Shetland artist Amy Gear about the interconnection of the visual and the written in her practice
Figures of Speech: Place - Amanda Thomson and Roseanne Watt
No full textEvent as part of Scotland's Year of Stories 2022, Edinburgh City of Literature & the Scottish Storytelling Centre present figures of speech. " ... Our hosts Amanda Thomson and Roseanne Watt take us on a tour through nature, landscape, community and the language of place, whilst also discussing their own experiences of writing and working in Scotland."
Figures of Speech: place. One of a series of events covering six universal themes (music, friendship, future, love, place, big ideas), each event explores literary blockbusters, hidden gems and modern classics.
Our expert guides will take us on a journey through Scotland’s iconic books and stories, navigating the dazzling array of new voices, and presenting newly commissioned work by artists responding to each theme.
'Let us take you on a journey across the curious contrasts and contradictions that define Scottish literature.
In our first season (May - July), we'll be covering Music, Friendship and Future. On May 20th writer and broadcaster Nicola Meighan and author Arusa Qureshi will be exploring Music, and presenting a newly commissioned dance piece from poet and performer Katie Ailes. Poet Michael Pedersen and author Val McDermid will be diving into Friendship on June 24th, with music from Kim Carnie. And on July 22nd, poet Russell Jones and writer T.L.Huchu will be looking to the Future, with new poetry from Jeda Pearl.
The second season of Figures of Speech (September - November) will take in Love, Place and Big Ideas. On September 23rd Gaelic poet Peter Mackay will talk love with romance writer Jenny Colgan. Visual artist and writer Amanda Thomson will drop a pin in the literary map with a discussion on Place with poet and film maker Roseanne Watt on October 21st (postponed to February '23). The season concludes on St. Andrew’s Day (November 30th) with some Big Ideas from Professor David Farrier with activist and author Jessica Gaitán Johannesson.
We want to welcome as wide an audience as possible and extend this conversation across Edinburgh, Scotland and the world. All the events will be recorded and made available online a week later, and both the live and recorded events will be supported by BSL interpretation.
An evening with Jim Crumley and Amanda Thomson
No full textJim Crumley's contribution to the literature of the land has attracted accolades throughtout Britain and North America. He is a columnist in the Scots Magazine and The Courier and has written many books on nature and wildlife.
Amanda Thomson is a visual artist and writer who teaches at the Glasgow School of Art. Her artwork is often about notions of home, movement and migration, landscapes and how places come to be made. Her first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature, is a celebration of the Scots lexicon and the rich effect the environment has had upon it over the centuries.
Amanda and Jim will be discussing their work and the land that has inspired them in many different ways. This is a great opportunity to meet two of Scotland's most interesting writers
Death Writes: Microbursts & The Clearing: a discussion on text, subject and craft with Elizabeth Reeder and Amanda Thomson - collaborators on microbursts and with Samantha Clark author of The Clearing
No full textDeath Writes is part of the University of Glasgow's interdisciplinary Arts-Lab, Reading and Writing Death and Dying.
Elizabeth Reeder, Amanda Thomson (collaborators on Microbursts) and Samantha Clark (author of The Clearing) will read and talk about their books and the writing, design and editorial processes they underwent. Both books deal with the intense time of being within parental illness, and consider experiences of illness, mental health, parental death, and various types of grief in ways that weave through and utilise artistic and multi-modal processes
Aar
No full textFor over a year and a half, Amanda Thomson has been filming an alder by the burn outside her window, sometimes two or three times a day, occasionally once a week, sometimes just once or twice a month. The resulting work in Practicing Landscape: Land, Histories and Transformation reveals the slow and shifting changes of season, light, and time passing. Aar (a Scots word for alder) also includes notes from a shared diary of recording sightings – often the first flowers or migrant birds of the year: cuckoos, house-martins, geese; spring primroses, summer germander speedwell, late summer creeping ladies tresses. These aren’t necessarily systematically recorded but speak to what is simply noticed when there, and what is seen and heard in the course of the everyday. The diary also records the fleetingness and luck of seeing of residents such as eagles, crossbills, and hares, or a flock of redpolls scared up by a sparrowhawk. Aar is part of what will become a phenological exploration and reflection of a place and ongoing change, questions of attentiveness and care, and human and more-than-human timescales. It feeds into Thomson’s ongoing research and investigations which incorporate a visual arts practice and creative non-fiction and explore questions of slow looking and attentiveness, Scottish landscapes, language (as in her book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature), walking and reflections on the interrelationships of place with self, migrations, native/non-native/‘invasive’ species, and conceptions of home
A Scots Dictionary of Nature - Amanda Thomson in conversation with Robbie Guillory
No full textScotland is a nation of dramatic weather and breathtaking landscapes – of nature resplendent. And, over the centuries, the people who have lived, explored and thrived in this country have developed a rich language to describe their surroundings: a uniquely Scottish lexicon shaped by the very environment itself. Join Amanda Thomson to celebrate the launch of A Scots Dictionary of Nature, a collection of the deeply expressive vocabulary customarily used to describe land, wood, weather, birds, water and walking in Scotland.
“A stunning wee book detailing some of the wonderfully inventive Scots words that document the world around us.” The Lis
Kathleen Jamie, Chitra Ramaswamy & Amanda Thomson: Antlers of Water
No full textAdded to EIBF's ongoing available content. Podcast of Edinburgh International Book Festival (2020) live event:
‘When we read and write, when we love our fellow creatures, when we walk on the beach, when we just listen and notice, we are not little cogs in the machine, but part of the remedy.’ These luminous words by Kathleen Jamie form part of the introduction to Antlers of Water, an outstanding collection of contemporary Scottish writing about nature and landscape.
The generosity of Jamie’s approach as editor of the collection goes beyond the stellar selection of contributors such as Amy Liptrot, Karine Polwart and Malachy Tallack: she also invokes the agency of readers to make a difference. ‘If, by reading, you are encouraged or confirmed in your love of the natural world, if you’re inspired simply to… look outside, then our job is done.’
In a discussion led by the BBC's Clare English, Jamie is joined by award-winning journalist Chitra Ramaswamy as well as visual artist and writer Amanda Thomson – both contributors to the anthology – to discuss Scotland, landscape and the more-than-human world around us
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