It’s poetry competition time here at Autumn Voices, just in case you didn’t notice us shouting loudly about it all over social media. Throughout October we are running our annual autumn poetry competition, which will be judged by the wonderful Des Dillon, and also celebrating National Poetry Day on Thursday 6th October. This means our … Continue reading Then and Now
It’s Oddfellows Friendship Month and at Autumn Voices we wanted to celebrate the role of friendship as a nourishing and sustaining presence in our lives for those of us lucky to have good friends – whether new, or life-long. This week, 65-year-old Sheila Wakefield, Autumn Voices Steering Group member and publisher at Red Squirrel Press, … Continue reading Friendship
Throughout August we asked you to send in your flash entries about cats, Edinburgh, or allotments. The twist being this had to be photo instead of a piece of poetry or prose. We loved looking through all your photos! There could only be one winner though and we’re pleased to announce Sara Baker, aged 72, was … Continue reading Cats/Edinburgh/Allotments – Winning Entry
We’re now almost halfway through September and we find ourselves in Pension Awareness Week, running from the 12th to the 16th of the month. With the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the public response to the events of the last week dominating the deadlines, it’d be no surprise if this particular theme had completely … Continue reading Money Matters 💰
Our journey through the calendar year brings us anniversaries, events, important milestones and themed monthly celebrations in honour of worthy and vital issues. We find ourselves now in Autumn – a season traditionally associated with advancing years and one which inspired our name, Autumn Voices. It’s also September, a month often connected with growing older. … Continue reading Food For Thought
Cat writer Mollie Hunt is the award-winning author of two cosy series, the Crazy Cat Lady Mysteries, featuring a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer who finds more trouble than a cat in catnip, and the Tenth Life Paranormal Mysteries involving a ghost cat. Her Cat Seasons Sci-Fantasy Tetralogy presents extraordinary cats saving the world. She also … Continue reading A Cat Writer’s Journey
When I told my publicist that it was my 70th birthday on 12th August during my run at the Edinburgh Fringe she said two things. Firstly, that it was known in Scotland as the glorious 12th and secondly how on earth had I managed to reach this age with the life that I have led? Well, it appears, in … Continue reading An Edinburgh elder: Mary Goggin, Runaway Princess at 70
Throughout July we asked you to send in your flash entries about water. It turned out to be a very popular topic with lots of entrants to wade through! There could only be one winner though and we’re pleased to announce Eleanor Fordyce, aged 74 from Angus, swept us away with her poem, “Seafarer”. She … Continue reading The Water – Winning Entry
Have you seen Ethel & Ernest, the animation of Raymond Briggs’s book of the same name? Briggs’s semi-autobiographical graphic novel Ethel & Ernest was first published in 1998 and the film based on it is an emotional journey about him and his parents, and the relationships between them until 1971 when his parents both died. … Continue reading What are you plotting?
You may have noticed that we like cats around here. Our resident cat, Orlando, regularly makes an appearance on the blog and last week he was helping a fellow feline get in the back door! Orlando was given the makeover treatmeant in a competition to draw him. That competition was won by Louis Dunn and … Continue reading International Cats Day
*no Nessies were harmed during the making of this film. As our sea and water activities-filled July comes to an end, we have one more thing to share with you before we float into August (see what we did there?) We’ve recently learned of a beautiful film made about a group of swimmers who meet … Continue reading Swimming with the Loch Ness Monster
In April 2022, Birlinn (named after a kind of boat commonly used in the West of Scotland) published a repackaged edition of Robin Lloyd-Jones’ 1989 book, Argonauts of the Western Isles, newly titled as Argonauts of the Scottish Isles. That this book has been around on people’s bookshelves and in their imaginations for more than … Continue reading Exploring Scotland’s West Coast
There is something very soothing about the rhythmic sound of paddles dipping in and out of a calm sea, the soft lift of a swell as the tide comes in. Kayaking would have been high on my bucket list if I’d ever thought of making one – but I was in my fifties before I … Continue reading Cold Water Therapy
Throughout June we asked you to submit flash entries on a variety of topics, volunteering, garden wildlife, or writing. We’re thrilled to announce the well deserved winner, Tom Langlands! He wins a copy of The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, courtesy of Corsair Publishing. He submitted two entries and we feel like they both deserve to be seen. He … Continue reading Volunteer/Garden/Writing – Winning Entry
I guess I am a child of Jacques Cousteau, growing up watching his Undersea World on television, bewitched by the idea of being able to swim free and unencumbered beneath the sea. Gone was the nonsense of heavy lead boots and airpipes trailing down from the surface, where grim faced men turned wheels, pumping air … Continue reading Deep Diving and Inner Space
