Kenneth C. Steven,
writer, poet

 

 

A new year has begun and though much remains unplanned, there’s plenty on the horizon. I’ve been working over the winter (and what a winter!) on a new novel for 8-12s. It should be finished by the time I go down to do events for prep schools in Oxford this February. I’m working on a new picture book for Little Tiger Press, and on an otter story for Floris here in Scotland. Lion are bringing out a collection of my re-tellings of environmental tales from around the world.

Perhaps the greatest joy of all is reserved for a volume of short fiction – The Ice and other stories – which will be published by Argyll in April. I’ve been chiselling away at this for five or six years now, and a number of the stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and most have appeared in literary journals too. All of the stories on the website will be contained in this.

A number of festival appearances have yet to be decided, but I have high hopes for some important ones in England. I have been awarded a second Hawthornden Fellowship which means I’ll have the privilege of writing in seclusion at Hawthornden Castle outside Edinburgh. Apart from this I intend to run creative writing days and retreats here and there around the country, and to undertake many school visits both at home and abroad (I know that in November I’ll be back in Switzerland working with tertiary students and teachers in Bern).

I am hoping to run my Poet-Tree Project in more primary schools in the course of the coming year. Intensive workshop sessions link conservation with creativity, and the project culminates in the planting of a new tree.

As always, I look forward to hearing from old friends and new visitors to the site in equal measure. You can use the contact form to send a message or to add your details to my mailing list.

 

 Kenneth C Steven Photo by Richard Campbell, writer and poet in his Highland Landscape
Photo by Richard Campbell

Notebook

A CHRISTMAS CHILD
It was a clear, frost-sharp night in the middle of November. Rachel had banked the fire; the thick smell of mutton soup filled the house. Perhaps it was that that had cheered Angus; he had had no luck with the fishing, came home dispirited and worried after five days at sea. And because he had had no luck, neither had anyone in the village. This was the worst time in the year; this was the hardest of it. >

CONQUERING
1960. It was the autumn Mrs Giggs broke my mother’s favourite vase. It was the autumn Charlie Rutherford ran away with the woman who owned the Tower Hotel. And it was the autumn my parents sat glued to the television because of some international row over pigs. I couldn’t understand why everyone was getting so worked up about the Russians and some pigs. One evening my mother was even dabbing her eyes as she came out of the living room, and when my father finally switched off the little black and white box, and come out and shut the door soundlessly behind him, it was as though he had closed the door on a funeral. >

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