A WILDER VEIN
Linda Cracknell (editor)
To see Linda Cracknell's author page, please click here.
Foreword by Robert Macfarlane
An anthology of new literary non-fiction that focuses on the relationship between people and the wild places of Britain and Ireland. This is writing which animates a connection between humanity and the natural world, articulating discoveries and new ways of seeing – writing which is, above all, a meditation on who we are as people in a still-wild world.
Contributors are: Raja Shehadeh, Andrew Greig, Sara Maitland, Margaret Elphinstone, Kenneth Taylor, Jane Alexander, Michelle Cotter, Marco Daane, Alison Grant, Mandy Haggith, Lesley Harrison, Neil Hegarty, Gerry Loose, Katherine Macrae, Susan Richardson, Lisa Samson, Judith Thurley and Ken Wilkie.
‘A Wilder Vein is a significant contribution to the contemporary literature of place. The work gathered here is testy about piety, but not reticent about beauty. Repeatedly, these writers return to the idea that cognition is site-specific, or motion-sensitive: that we think differently in different landscapes. And therefore, more radically, that certain thoughts might be possible only in certain places, such that when we lose those places, we are losing kinds of imagination as well.’
Robert Macfarlane
(author of The Wild Places, Mountains of the Mind)
Praise for A Wilder Vein
'A Wilder Vein (edited by Linda Cracknell; Two Ravens Press. £10.99) is an anthology linking writers with the natural world. Its theme is the wilder places of Britain, and its object an exploration of "new ways of seeing". One way, articulated by Gerry Loose, is to follow what the writer sees almost in real time, taking in tiny details: the way young holly sprays from an oak or how scabs of lichen decorate the rocks. A landscape, suggests Robert Macfarlane in his foreword, is defined not only by what it is but by the way we see it: "certain thoughts might be possible only in certain places". If we lose those places, we are losing kinds of imagination too.'
The Independent: a recommended book for Christmas 2009.
'Here is a book in which 18 writers – poets, novelists, anthropologists and natural historians – visit the uninhabited regions of our crowded little archipelago and meditate on what these places mean; and while individually the results are often sparklingly written and utterly transporting, taken together they also reinforce a point Macfarlane makes in his introduction: that "certain thoughts might be possible only in certain places, such that when we lose those places, we are losing kinds of imagination as well".'
The Scotsman
'While the subjects covered are diverse - ranging from whale song, to geology, to musings on rabbits - what unites them are the authors' shared appreciation of contemplation, isolation and calm. And while, as many of the authors themselves admit, it is not always easy to convey every intricacy of the natural world, what they do always transmit is a sense of wonder which should inspire readers to abandon their sofas and enjoy being bewildered in the true sense of the word.' Scottish Field
'Linda Cracknell has done a marvellous job in bringing such an eclectic range of writers together to create such an absorbing book.'
Cameron McNeish, TGO magazine
An extract from the piece in A Wilder Vein by Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh appeared in The Guardian – here.
About the Editor
Linda Cracknell has published two collections of short stories, Life Drawing (2000) and The Searching Glance (2008). She writes drama for BBC Radio Four and received a Creative Scotland Award in 2007 for a collection of non-fiction essays in response to journeys on foot. She teaches creative writing in workshops across Scotland and internationally. In 2002 to 2005 she was writer-in-residence at Brownsbank Cottage near Biggar, the final home of Hugh MacDiarmid. She lives in Highland Perthshire.
Contents
Foreword by Robert Macfarlane
Introduction by Linda Cracknell
Ardnamurchan Almanac by Gerry Loose
The Slob Lands by Neil Hegarty
Black Rabbits by Marco Daane
Crossing the Divide by Kenneth Taylor
Explorations in a Legendary Landscape by Michelle Cotter
Wild Life on Braighlinne by Mandy Haggith
The Light and the Line by Jane Alexander
Sewing a Seam on the Spirit Line by Lisa Samson
The Hill by Alison Grant
Echoing Lands by Raja Shehadeh
The Road North by Judith Thurley
Whale Song by Lesley Harrison
Strata by Sara Maitland
Beached Wales by Susan Richardson
Humber by Katharine Macrae
Routes by Ken Wilkie
Walking the Edges by Margaret Elphinstone
A Dub in Assynt by Andrew Greig
We are grateful to the Scottish Arts Council for a grant towards the publication of A Wilder Vein.
