maybe not such a bad time after all...

I'm currently putting together Southlight 11 which has survived the collapse of dgArts, its funding organisation along with its excellent Literature Devlopment Officer,Carolyn Yates, who has helped us find a new funder, a Glasgow based arts charity with a particular interest in Dumfries and Galloway. We've had to search for a new printer too - fortunately we've been directed towards an excellent one based in Newton Stewart.  Although this is a very bad time for the arts financially there are good things happening - for example - the sheer number (136) of writers who sent work for the recent Windows for Burns project in Dumfries town centre and the celebrations surrounding it, Creative Places awards for Wigtown and Creetown. There are lots of festivals and arts venues planning their 2012 programmes and more and more writing groups forming. In Powfoot the writing group has formalised its operations and is working hard on a second publication, on life writing this time.
Crichton Writers have taken SPACE for their 2012 theme and this is producing all manner of creations. Fankle ( Dumfries Writers bi -monthly origami publication) flourishes too. Coming up, I have work in Split Screen, poems in response to adverts, a short story in Pushing Out the Boat, a poem in  A Thousand Cranes - Scottish Writers for Japan and a poem on Silence in Abridged (Eire).

Powfoot : silvery shore in low winter light