John Bolland

John Bolland writes novels, short fiction and poetry in Scots and English. Raised near Glasgow, he has been based in rural Aberdeenshire in the north-east of Scotland since 1989. For most of his adult life, he has supported his family and his writing working in the offshore oil industry.

My short story, A Good Place to Get was runner up the Royal Society for Literature's V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize in 2007 and was subsequently published in The London Magazine, June 2007. Scottische took third prize in the Fish International Short Story Competition in 2008 and apeared inthe Fish Anthology forthet year - Harlem River Blues.

An excerpt from More Tales from the Vampire Coast was published in From Glasgow to Saturn 10, April 2008 under the title of A Chocolate Cowboy whilst Line of Sight - Excerpt from a novel in Scots was published in Lallans Number 71, February 2008

My short fiction has also appeared in Pushing Out the Boat - The New Ploughed Field (2007), Going On (2009) and Paraphernalia(2010). My short stories Like Labrador and The Truth About Harry have been published in Lemon Tree Writers Anthologies in 2006 and 2009 and in Snacks After Swimming, Freight Design (2005) and other work has appeared online with Pulp.Net - Brown Sugar - and The Glasgow Seeker - The Celebrated and the Celebrant.

My poetry has appeared in Poetry Scotland, Pushing Out the Boat, The Red Wheelbarrow and The Glasgow Seeker.

I am currently editing two completed novels - The Dark Numbers and Bass whilst progressing two parallel novel length projects - Line of Sight (in Scots) and More Tales from the Vampire Coast (in English) - and a body of short fiction.

My (rather episodic) blog is The Circumflex at johnbolland.net.

Glencanisp Weeks have always provided a uniquely fertile and productive space for me enabling me to acheive real progress on my writing projects as well as providing an astonishing plethora of gifts - poetry stumbled across on the mountains (I walk) and lochs (I kayak) of Assynt's spectacular landscape. Here is a sample.

Loch na h-Airigh Fraoich

Seen from above, the waves
roused by the wind’s obsession on the lake,
seem regular. Erratic boulders,
obdurate as inhibitions, block
strakes of shadow
through the water’s lust.
The wind’s desire,
the pressure to be spilled
aloud - percussive, plosive -
seems incontinent. Each shiver
seeks articulation at the mouth – to be
resolved to phomemes, morphemes, syllables.
Nothing comes – hesitation, sighs. Yet at the lip a smile
hangs on each ripple dumb as a love-struck loon, delicious
as a kiss.

More work produced during my previous Glencanisp Weeks can be found by following the link to our gallery.