When creative writing needs to spring from the land and the sea, notes and desk research are not enough. It took a research trip to the Isle of Iona in September 2022 to complete Blue, a cry across the waves. I’m very grateful to the College of Arts for supporting this trip with an RSA Award.… Continue reading Field notes from Iona
A hybrid long verse narrative by Liz Macwhirter spoken amidst an immersive, abstract filmic vision of shifting waters. Pilot 15-minute show performed at Hidden Door Festival 12 June 2022 and Voice PG Conference, Glasgow 10 June 2022. An ancient Scottish Gaelic prophecy foretells a flood at the end of time. It proclaimed waters will sweep… Continue reading Blue; a lament for the sea
Mid-way through my PhD is proving to be an exciting, generative time. Not least for the opportunities to give papers at international conferences such as Finncon in Finland. My visit to Aalto University in Helsinki was supported by a College of Arts Research Support Award and Publishing Scotland’s Author International Travel Fund. ‘Hope and Resilience’… Continue reading A poesis with dreamy medieval poetics at ‘Finncon’, Helsinki, 2022
The second year of my PhD started with two funded trips enabling inspiring research on location, following desk research at home during the pandemic. For context, my PhD is a creative and critical response to ontological suffering in a pre-modern context that resonates with contemporary interest; that is to say, among other themes it draws… Continue reading Research funded by the University of Glasgow
Experimental piece for my creative practice PhD at the University of Glasgow. LADY MACBETH As a woman, you’d think she’d be used to blood. A queen now, but she has butchered animals in her time – given thanks as she cut meat to strengthen her own flesh. Her monthly discharges, rinsing bloodied cloths, her fluids… Continue reading Lady Macbeth by Liz Macwhirter
My month-long writer's residency living in a shepherd's hut at the tip of the Isle of Iona, working on my next historical novel.
The following article appeared in the online magazine for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators in September 2019. It's aimed at fellow / aspiring authors and illustrators. And thanks to their Afternoon Tea theme, it features rather a lot of cake...
My former school, Bramhall High in Cheshire, invited me to speak to 40 Y7-Y10 pupils in the local historic Hall which inspired the setting for Black Snow Falling. The all-day event was covered in the Stockport Express. You can read feedback from the staff and students on my speaking page.
Ann Giles, The Bookwitch, interviews L.J. MacWhirter about Bramhall High; early modernism and the Tudors; and daydreaming in History lessons.
Author L.J. MacWhirter explains the historical feminism and prejudice in her debut novel, Black Snow Falling.
L.J. MacWhirter author 