Jen Hadfield
Appearing: Thursday, 17 December
Jen Hadfield's fourth poetry collection The Stone Age explores neurodiversity and is forthcoming with Picador in March 2021. She is also working on Storm Pegs, a collection of essays about Shetland, where she lives. Passionately involved with the wild world, she uses poetry, lyrical essay and occasionally sculpture in cast porcelain, to try and share her intense experience of the here-and-now. Her work has garnered numerous awards, including the 2008 T.S.Eliot Prize for her second collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe). Before COVID, Jen performed her work internationally, attending festivals and residencies in – among other countries - Iraq, New Zealand and Canada. She is a Creative Writing Teaching Fellow at Glasgow University and is building a house in Shetland, very slowly.
Appearing: Thursday, 17 December
Jen Hadfield's fourth poetry collection The Stone Age explores neurodiversity and is forthcoming with Picador in March 2021. She is also working on Storm Pegs, a collection of essays about Shetland, where she lives. Passionately involved with the wild world, she uses poetry, lyrical essay and occasionally sculpture in cast porcelain, to try and share her intense experience of the here-and-now. Her work has garnered numerous awards, including the 2008 T.S.Eliot Prize for her second collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe). Before COVID, Jen performed her work internationally, attending festivals and residencies in – among other countries - Iraq, New Zealand and Canada. She is a Creative Writing Teaching Fellow at Glasgow University and is building a house in Shetland, very slowly.
Spotlight on Independent Bookshops...
Stromness Books & Prints
3 Graham Pl, Stromness KW16 3BY
Website: https://stromnessbooksandprints.wordpress.com/
Stromness Books & Prints (est. 1970) is a small independent bookshop in the Orkney Islands selling a carefully curated selection of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and classics. It is Scotland's only drive-in bookshop: the door opens directly onto Stromness's cobbled main street, from where cars might stop and their drivers place their orders. Just like a cat, you never really own a bookshop—but so far the Stromness bookshop has been handed down from Charles Senior to John Broom, to Tam MacPhail, and from Tam to its current handler Sheena Winter.
If you wish to support the shop, they can take book orders call us on 01856 850565 or contact the shop here.
Bookshop owner Sheena Winter says, 'I couldn't be more delighted to have been selected by Jen Hadfield as her favourite bookshop, and will do my very best to live up to the accolade. 2020 has been a tough time for booksellers everywhere, and I have been working hard to keep the bookshop well-stocked and solvent for our customers—so for my little shop to be recognised as among the best in the country is a real boost. Thank you Jen!
'If you find yourself in Orkney, please make sure to take the time to drop in, browse the bookshelves and give the bookshop dog, Joanna, a pat. We can also accept orders over the phone. We are lucky to be part of a tight-knit island community, and are very thankful for the support we have found locally over the past few months—so if you can't make it to us in person, then pay it forward to your own local bookshop in our stead.'
Jen Hadfield says, 'Tam’s in Stromness is one of those classic Tardis bookshops. It’s a bit bigger than a closet, but not much, you can hardly swing a cat in there, but I’ve never gone in without finding myself at the counter with an eclectic pile of new and secondhand titles. Somehow they know before I do what I need and want to read.'
3 Graham Pl, Stromness KW16 3BY
Website: https://stromnessbooksandprints.wordpress.com/
Stromness Books & Prints (est. 1970) is a small independent bookshop in the Orkney Islands selling a carefully curated selection of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and classics. It is Scotland's only drive-in bookshop: the door opens directly onto Stromness's cobbled main street, from where cars might stop and their drivers place their orders. Just like a cat, you never really own a bookshop—but so far the Stromness bookshop has been handed down from Charles Senior to John Broom, to Tam MacPhail, and from Tam to its current handler Sheena Winter.
If you wish to support the shop, they can take book orders call us on 01856 850565 or contact the shop here.
Bookshop owner Sheena Winter says, 'I couldn't be more delighted to have been selected by Jen Hadfield as her favourite bookshop, and will do my very best to live up to the accolade. 2020 has been a tough time for booksellers everywhere, and I have been working hard to keep the bookshop well-stocked and solvent for our customers—so for my little shop to be recognised as among the best in the country is a real boost. Thank you Jen!
'If you find yourself in Orkney, please make sure to take the time to drop in, browse the bookshelves and give the bookshop dog, Joanna, a pat. We can also accept orders over the phone. We are lucky to be part of a tight-knit island community, and are very thankful for the support we have found locally over the past few months—so if you can't make it to us in person, then pay it forward to your own local bookshop in our stead.'
Jen Hadfield says, 'Tam’s in Stromness is one of those classic Tardis bookshops. It’s a bit bigger than a closet, but not much, you can hardly swing a cat in there, but I’ve never gone in without finding myself at the counter with an eclectic pile of new and secondhand titles. Somehow they know before I do what I need and want to read.'
Spotlight on Theatres...
Mareel
Arts Development Agency, North Ness House
Lerwick, Shetland ZE1 0WQ
Website: https://www.shetlandarts.org/venues/mareel
Mareel is a multi-purpose entertainment venue located on the waterfront of Lerwick, the capital of Shetland. Opening in 2012, the facility includes a music venue, cinema, conference rooms and educational facilities. The main performance auditorium has a standing capacity of about 650 and a seated capacity of around 250, with a balcony seating a further 85 people. There are 2 screening areas. The main cinema has a seated capacity of around 160 with a smaller second cinema seating around 40.
Jen Hadfield says, 'Mareel is Shetland’s cinema/music/drama venue and has hosted some of the best gigs and events I’ve attended over the past few years. It’s a strange experience to go in there at the moment – as it is everywhere – but they’re still showing films and are one of the few cinemas in the country that are able to do so at the moment.'
Arts Development Agency, North Ness House
Lerwick, Shetland ZE1 0WQ
Website: https://www.shetlandarts.org/venues/mareel
Mareel is a multi-purpose entertainment venue located on the waterfront of Lerwick, the capital of Shetland. Opening in 2012, the facility includes a music venue, cinema, conference rooms and educational facilities. The main performance auditorium has a standing capacity of about 650 and a seated capacity of around 250, with a balcony seating a further 85 people. There are 2 screening areas. The main cinema has a seated capacity of around 160 with a smaller second cinema seating around 40.
Jen Hadfield says, 'Mareel is Shetland’s cinema/music/drama venue and has hosted some of the best gigs and events I’ve attended over the past few years. It’s a strange experience to go in there at the moment – as it is everywhere – but they’re still showing films and are one of the few cinemas in the country that are able to do so at the moment.'
Spotlight on Libraries...
The Shetland Library
Lower Hillhead, Lerwick, Shetland ZE1 0EL
Website: https://www.shetland.gov.uk/libraries
Shetland Library is a Scottish public library service, with its main branch based in Lerwick and membership open to both residents of and visitors to the islands. The library has a range of digital, online and physical material and collections that support the literary traditions of the northern isles. Aside from the main branch, the service also provides seven school libraries, two of which (in Baltasound and Mid Yell) are community libraries open to the public, and a mobile library. The Shetland Library service is provided by the Shetland Islands Council (SIC).
Jen Hadfield says, 'The Shetland Library is magnificent. Not just because of their - again, eclectic - selection and their endless and hidden reserve section, where I first stumbled upon William Morris’s Icelandic Diaries – but because I’ve worked with them on so many projects over the years – as their Reader in Residence, on their project ‘Bards in the Bog’ which posts poems by local writers in loos, and currently to run a creative reading and writing group with them in partnership with Open Book. They are my favourite place to launch a new book, wonderful collaborators and worth following on twitter, if only for their banter with the Orkney Library.'
Lower Hillhead, Lerwick, Shetland ZE1 0EL
Website: https://www.shetland.gov.uk/libraries
Shetland Library is a Scottish public library service, with its main branch based in Lerwick and membership open to both residents of and visitors to the islands. The library has a range of digital, online and physical material and collections that support the literary traditions of the northern isles. Aside from the main branch, the service also provides seven school libraries, two of which (in Baltasound and Mid Yell) are community libraries open to the public, and a mobile library. The Shetland Library service is provided by the Shetland Islands Council (SIC).
Jen Hadfield says, 'The Shetland Library is magnificent. Not just because of their - again, eclectic - selection and their endless and hidden reserve section, where I first stumbled upon William Morris’s Icelandic Diaries – but because I’ve worked with them on so many projects over the years – as their Reader in Residence, on their project ‘Bards in the Bog’ which posts poems by local writers in loos, and currently to run a creative reading and writing group with them in partnership with Open Book. They are my favourite place to launch a new book, wonderful collaborators and worth following on twitter, if only for their banter with the Orkney Library.'