Doors open 12 noon
Starts 12.30pm
Finishes (approx.) 1.30pm
St Margaret’s plays host to Scotland’s Makar, our national poet, for a daytime ‘in conversation’ event just days after Burns Night.
Kathleen Jamie, poet and essayist, was born in 1962. Her work concerns nature, travel and culture, Her non-fiction includes the Findings trilogy (Findings, Sightlines and Surfacing) all regarded as important contributions to the ‘new nature writing’.
Kathleen’s prize-winning poetry collections have been gathered into a recent Selected Poems (Picador 2019).
She was raised in Currie, Midlothian and has what Robert Louis Stevenson called ‘a strong Scots accent of the mind’.
Her poems have appeared on the Underground systems of London, New York and Shanghai and, closer to home, one of her poems was chosen by the public to be carved on a huge wooden beam on the national monument at Bannockburn.
Kathleen was for many years a tutor of creative writing at the universities of St Andrew’s and Stirling, and now freelances, having made a recent foray into editing with Antlers of Water, Scottish Writing on Nature and the Environment.
Fiona Kennedy OBE DL is one of Scotland’s best known singer-songwriters and broadcasters. She has produced a variety of shows for stage and television over the years and is a tireless volunteer and ambassador for a number of charities, not least as a Trustee of St Margaret’s Braemar.
Her musical accomplishments are incredibly varied and include singing for Her late Majesty The Queen on several occasions, performing at Edinburgh Castle during the G8 Summit, shows at Celtic Connections and the BBC’s Transatlantic Sessions and touring with Runrig.
She has hosted television programmes for PBS in America, narrated Peter and the Wolf and The Snowman alongside the RSNO and acted in a number of roles including Alfie in the West End and in the 1973 cult classic film The Wicker Man.
Each year Fiona brings some of the world’s biggest names in Country and Americana to the St Margaret’s stage in a pan-celtic celebration of music called Transatlantic Connections, with performances from Beth Nielsen Chapman, Mary Gauthier and Verlon Thompson in recent years. In January 2022, she interviewed poet, writer and former Makar Jackie Kay on her life and work in literature.
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This hour-long lunchtime event will delve into Kathleen Jamie’s influences and her journey from being brought up in a non-literary, ordinary Scottish family to becoming Scotland’s Makar, penning new works for national occasions —the opening of The Scottish Parliament and most recently following the death of Her Majesty the Queen.
Following the event, a selection of Kathleen’s books and collections will be available to purchase and the author will be available to sign these.
Teas, coffees, snacks and soft-drinks will be available.
This event is delivered in partnership with The Fife Arms.
