Where: Online/YouTube When: Thursday 23rd November 2023 at 1.30 pm. Video available to watch any time after that. Just click here:    There will be cake. Well, virtual Victoria sponge anyway. Hope you can join me!       ..read more

John Cairney as Robert Burns   John Cairney was a charismatic Scottish actor, forever identified with his passionate and powerful portrayal of Robert Burns in his one man show, There Was a Man.  I met him once, back in 1997, when we were both waiting for our respective editors at Mainstream Publishing in Edinburgh. He was warm, friendly and charming. I told him our family had also loved the 1960s TV series in which he starred as a rector/heidie of a Scottish high school, This Man Craig. He told me he’d recently flown back to Scotland from New Zealand, where he lived for a number of ..read more

(This article was first published in the Summer 2022 edition of The Author, the journal of the Society of Authors.)   Snoopy Cursing the Red Baron   ‘Maggie Craig! Your language!’ Although I didn’t entirely buy my cousin’s wide-eyed look of shock, I told her it wasn’t my language, it was the characters’ language. If you’re an early 19th century graverobber in old Edinburgh, I don’t think you’re going to say, ‘Oh, drat,’ when you’re disturbed in your midnight work in Greyfriars Kirkyard by a breathless warning from your lookout boy that the constables are on their way. Likewise, if yo ..read more

No upcoming events to report at the moment ..read more

The Festival! The Fringe! Street theatre! The Edinburgh Military tattoo and the massed pipes and drums! Glorious sunshine one day, a Biblical downpour the next! It was much the same 200 years ago when King George IV paid an official visit to Edinburgh. WJ Huggins, George IV’s Arrival at Leith. Courtesy of Heriot Watt University In August 1822 the entertainment, the bagpipes and the street theatre came from the processions, parades, banquets and balls threaded through his two-week stay in the Scottish capital. Masterminded by Sir Walter Scott, the visit also saw – sort of – a gathering of the c ..read more

Eilean Donan Castle Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Glenshiel in 1719. Well, it is if we forget the change in the calendar but we’ll not go into that now. Thought I would give my article on what might be called the forgotten Jacobite Rising another wee whirl. It was published in Historia magazine on the 300th anniversary of the battle in 2019. Also known as the Little Rising, it featured Spanish soldiers sailing to Scotland to fight in support of the Jacobites, the Protestant Wind and the blowing up of Eilean Donan Castle. It was rebuilt much, much later, fortunately in time for Conn ..read more

  On Thursday 16th June at 7pm, I’ll be in conversation with Dr Arran Johnston at the Battle of Prestonpans Jacobite Museum. This has its home in Prestonpans Town Hall.  Arran and I will be talking about my Jacobite books and lots more.   Booking is essential. You can buy tickets here.          ..read more

I’ve had some good publicity around the publication of the new editions of Damn Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45 and Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45. The Sunday Post did an excellent full-page spread, written by Tracey Bryce and using one of my favourite paintings of Jacobite Times to illustrate it. Susan Swarbrick of The Herald asked me to do My Favourite Place in the paper’s Saturday magazine. No prizes for guessing where my favourite place is. In February I sat down to chat via Zoom with Federica Stefani of Highland News Media. The resulting conversation was great fun. Fredd ..read more

Last year I realized that this year, 2022, would be the 25th anniversary of the first publication of Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45. I approached the publisher, Penguin Random House, and suggested a special edition to mark this milestone. I’m delighted to say that the new edition will be available from all online and High Street bookstores from Thursday 10th March.     The bold and dramatic cover was designed by Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics. As was the cover of the companion volume, Bare-Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45. The new editions of both books will be publishe ..read more

This moving poem is by my friend Nimmou Nilakantan. We got to know each other at the school gates back in the mid 1980s when we were both young mums. Our sons met in the classroom as wee boys and were soon best buddies. Nimmou, her husband Nila and their two lads were in Glasgow for a few years because Nila had been posted there by Coats Viyella. Nimmou says of the current situation in India, “We live in Bangalore (the Silicon capital of India) and things are as dire as portrayed if not worse.” She describes India as going through hell. Here is her poem:   THE PANDEMIC We called it Pandem ..read more