In summer 2021, Hamish Napier and I dreamed up Storylands Sessions. It has grown into the most extraordinary community celebration of tunes, tales, poetry, song, visual art and even the occasional eruption of dance. I have loved it!

LOVED…

* my colleagues – who have grown to a team of five now including Jacky Pankhurst, Aila Schafer and Barry Reid

* the faithful team of volunteers, whose number is legion and gifts so valuable

* the performers – from seasoned professionals to children playing in public for the first time (o my heart!)

* the creativity and sharing – stories that have captivated me, music that has swept me away, poems that have made me cry, art that has left me speechless, dancing that has left me breathless!

* the precious people who gathered in the writing workshops. As one participant wrote at our last one, on the theme of Fire: together “We have made a hearth”

* the warm, generous and supportive space that the whole Sessions community has created. I often said to people, ‘I can’t tell you how much I love this project.’

Here’s an Instagram reel I created to celebrate all these wonderful people, and some specific thanks in my post on  Facebook. And just a few photos below, most of the good ones taken by Robert Paisley

So, it is with considerable heartache, therefore, that I have taken the very difficult decision to step back from the team. Our Dec 2025 show was my last ‘on staff’. (Scroll on down to see the farewell song I wrote and performed at that show, All For You.)

Storylands Sessions will continue in the capable hands of everyone else, and I’ll still be there, but just as another enthusiastic member of the community.

I need time for family and to write. (Significant things coming up on both fronts, so follow my monthly newsletter to be on the inside lane.)

For now, I celebrate what a rare and precious thing Storylands Sessions is. In a time when megalomaniacs and their machines seem hell-bent on destroying the Earth and all its creatures, this gathering of souls is an act of brave resistance. When we come together sharing the work of our human hands, our voices and our hearts, we prove that goodness is stronger than evil. How amazing are the combined powers of community, creativity and cake!

They bring out the best in us; they show us that the world – even in its suffering – remains bright and beautiful, and that we – even in our struggles – can love one another and know joy.

All for You

And here’s my song, All for You, accompanied here by Hamish Napier, December 2025. The lyrics are below the video.

All for You

– Merryn Glover, Dec 2025

Every time you come into this place
I can see the joy light up your face
And I know there’s a story there for us
There’s a smile for you at the open door
And a space for you to take the floor
Where you will shine like the stars

Chorus:

It’s all for you, all for you
It’s all for you, all for you
Every word we say, Everything we do
Every tune we play, Every story true
It’s all for you

An old man reads a poem for the very first time
Gives voice to his heart in a sweet old rhyme
And the words keep speaking even when he’s gone
For out in the cold and the dark of night
We carry with us the unfailing light
Of hope for the day that is to come

Chorus

There’s a song I heard you sing one day
That caught us up and swept us away
Your voice that made us cry out Amen!
I remember the time you took a chance
And let down your hair to get up and dance
So we can be children once again

Chorus

A young girl plays a tune with shaking hands
The whole room opens and understands
How brave it is sometimes to truly give
But only in love for the world out there
Will we find our hearts have room to spare
And this is how we’re meant to live

Chorus

Do you know it’s okay to come when it’s tough
When the wind is cold and the way is rough
‘Cause we will listen to your tears
For when it’s hard to lift your eyes
We have wings to help you rise
And fly you higher than your fears

Chorus

The jumper looked like it had belonged to a child. Rich forest green with a v-neck and distinct ribbing, it was clean and neat as a new school uniform. But the round metal badge on its shoulder told another story. Sporting a crown and a sheaf of wheat, its circular text read ‘Women’s Land Army’. It dated from World War Two.

This particular jumper – or pullover, as it was called at the time – had been worn by a member of the WLA who was posted to a dairy farm at Howgate near Edinburgh. Her name was Jean Russell and her daughter had donated the jumper to the Highland Folk Museum a while ago, after her mother had died.

Helen Pickles, HFM curator, presenting the Women’s Land Army Jumper

Last night, 14 of us gathered around the jumper in a workshop for Badenoch’s Storylands Sessions project. It’s part of an exciting new partnership with the Museum, who are bringing out items from their collection as stimuli for our creative writing workshops. Museum curators, Helen Pickles and Liz English, are choosing items that reveal the more hidden or forgotten stories of Highland life. Although Jean Russell was in Midlothian, her experiences echo those of many women in the Highlands during the war, and especially here in Badenoch and Strathspey, where one branch of the WLA – the Women’s Timber Corps – were particularly active.

Women’s Land Army certificate for Jean Russell

The workshop began with Helen giving background to the jumper. At the time it was donated, Jean’s daughter couldn’t locate the associated paperwork, but when Helen contacted her again – the day of the workshop – she sent it all through. We got goosebumps when we discovered that it was on this day, exactly 80 years ago – the 7th of May 1944 – that Jean Russell had travelled to the dairy farm and worn her pullover for the first time.

The letter posting Jean Russell to the farm and stating the date of travel

After hearing a bit about her and the WLA and WTC, I got the group writing. We began with short exercises creating a character who might have signed up, then imagining the context she worked in – farm or forest – then crafting a scene with her in that place. The writing could take any form from simple description to a passage of fiction, a drama script or a poem.

After a reviving break of hot drinks and biscuits (probably posher than the land girls or lumberjills would have enjoyed!) we explored further. What other ideas had been evoked? Our own memories, experiences and emotions? What powerful images leapt to mind? Were there other myths, legends or works of art that connected with this, whether in books, paintings, music or screen?

We wrote again, pushing into these broader horizons, then met in pairs to read our work aloud. A fundamental rule in my workshops is that feedback must focus on the positive: what works well? What transports the reader into that experience?

I was blown away by the poem read to me by one of the group, who I hope will share it at one of our Storylands Sessions community shows. Apart from these monthly open mics, we are dreaming dreams with the Highland Folk Museum about other ways of sharing the rich work emerging from these workshops. Watch this space for some kind of exhibition with readings. Cheese and wine was mentioned…

If you’d like to get involved, the workshops are at Am Fasgadh from 6:30-8:30pm on the first Tuesday of every month (except July) and you can book here. No experience necessary and each workshop is standalone.

Am Fasgadh building at the Highland Folk Museum

Click on these links to learn more about the Womens Land Army and the Womens Timber Corps in Scotland.

A regular Storylands Sessions supporter, Sarah Hobbs, has done research on the lumberjills locally and will soon be adding another Strathspey Storywalk looking at the women’s stories and the sites of their camps.

My Sessions colleague, musician Hamish Napier, has produced an award-winning album The Woods, which includes a tune, The March of the Lumberjills, about the Strathspey Womens Timber Corps.

And in my Cairngorms-set novel, Of Stone and Sky, the character Agnes, who is a Highland Traveller, spends WW2 as a lumberjill in the forests of Glenmore.

The Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore is the first outdoor museum in mainland Britain and is open every day from April to October.

I am delighted that The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd was one of two runners up and commended in The Great Outdoors Magazine annual Reader Awards 2024.

Every year, the magazine publishes nominations in a great range of categories from pubs and cafes to outdoor personalities, campaigners, apps and books. The Hidden Fires was one of 10 books nominated  and the winners are determined by public vote, so I am thrilled that it earned so much support. Thank you to everyone who voted!

Acting editor of the magazine, Francesca Donovan, reviewed the book last year and said to me, “I personally LOVED your book so am delighted so many of our readers did, too.” You can read about all the award winers on the TGO website here and her review here.

I had such a ball at the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature ceremony at Kendal Mountain Festival on the 17th of November. I was there because The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd had been shortlisted!

Now in its 40th year, the award commemorates the mountaineers and authors, Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker, who died in a climbing accident on Everest in 1982. It is given each year to a book – fiction, non-fiction, drama or poetry – that best captures new writing about the mountain environment.

Chair of the judges, Matt Fry’s speech this year included this summing up:

“The five books we selected for this year’s prize are not only remarkable for their literary merit, but also for their contribution to the culture and history of mountaineering and its related disciplines. Each book, in some way, was also selected with an eye on the future, and with a nod to the journey that this award has taken so many on since its conception. From the outset of our judging journey, we always wanted to keep in mind the ethos that ran through Peter and Joe’s own writing, that of always looking ahead, pushing boundaries and taking risks, and we hoped they would be pleased to see five equally worthy and boundary-pushing titles selected in this, the 40th anniversary of the award.”

I loved meeting all the shortlisted authors and veteran mountaineer and author, Stephen Venables, who interviewed us all.

Huge congratulations to Katie Brown for winning with ‘Unraveled’, the account of her journey from climbing world champion to despair and back.

Pradeep Bashyal and Ankit Adhikari’s ‘Sherpa’ is a really important book from Nepalis about the people who have made the Himalayan expeditions possible. They indulged my rusty Nepali and Ankit charmed us with a song!

Faye Rhiannon Latham has created a beautiful, haunting work of art in her erasure poetry version of the classic work, ‘British Mountaineers’.

And Leo Houlding’s ‘Closer to the Edge‘ holds all the adrenaline and out-of-body experiences of a climber pushing the boundaries.

It was a huge honour to meet Sir Chris Bonington and Lady Loreto and Joe Tasker’s family, especially Mary McCourt whom I’d met 5 years ago at the Highland Bookshop. She told me she still re-reads A House Called Askival.

Big thanks to the whole hardworking team at the Boardman Tasker Award, Kendal Mountain Festival and Polygon Books for giving me such a lovely experience. This short-listing will always be a career high for me.

My publisher Polygon Books and I are very excited to announce that The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd has been short-listed for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature.

The award ceremony is on Friday 17th November during the Kendal Mountain Festival. Tickets are available here.

Last week was a whirlwind mini book tour for The Hidden Fires around central Scotland and I’m only just catching my breath and catching up on the photos and messages. Here are some highlights for you:

It kicked off on Tuesday afternoon at Dundee Central Library where Tanya and Kate had gone above and beyond in organising and marketing the event. Libraries are vital community hubs, so I was delighted to share my Cairngorms journey with the 30+ folk who gathered. One of the audience was Mary, the daughter of Sydney Scroggie, whose book ‘Cairngorms Scene and Unseen’ was a valuable source to me. After the talk, it was a privilege to be interviewed by Graeme Tarbert of Dundee Audio News, a terrific charity providing recorded news stories for the visually impaired. Learn more at North East Sensory Services.

Sunrise in the Cairngorms, Dundee Central Library

That evening, I blissfully burrowed in to the Aladdin’s Cave that is Topping’s bookshop in St Andrew’s. Grace led me to a table in a book-lined nook, complete with glass of wine and shortbread biscuits, where she passed me book after book for signing. It is Toppings custom to wrap all new hardbacks in a cellophane sheath for protection and, if signed, to include an elegant paper band reading ‘Signed First Edition’. It was the biggest book-signing stack of my life so far – 50 books!

Signed, sealed & delivered!

The audience this time included a goodly assortment of academic folks with questions like, ‘What do you think of New Nature Writing as a genre and do you position yourself in it?’ Since I had to ask the lady what New Nature Writing was, clearly I haven’t done much thinking or positioning on the subject!

On Wednesday, it was off to Toppings Edinburgh, an even bigger beautiful, breath-taking labyrinth of books! I would have cheerfully got lost and never been found again except as a pile of bones curled around dusty tomes. With better plans, however, the attentive staff swept me up to the curved art room with a small signing table under tall windows. Over ginger tea and a swift flow of book – signature – book – signature, Aristotelis and I discussed Greek myths and moving to Scotland from elsewhere. 70 books this time and the fleeting awareness that my signature may soon be as bad as my GP husband’s.

Another appreciative audience, including a young woman who told me later of her mother who had passed away the year before. She had loved Nan Shepherd so much, the family had read The Living Mountain aloud to her in her final days. It is these encounters that make all the difference: this affirmation of how literature speaks into people’s lives and leaves them changed.

On Thursday, it was a joy to round off the trip with a visit to Adventure Into Books in Blairgowrie. This exquisite little bookshop was opened by Kate and Ralph just before the pandemic and has not just survived, but thrived. They hosted the maximum of 16 folks in their small, but perfectly formed space, where Kate asked great questions, including, ‘Did you meet these trolls frequently in your explorations?’ To find out who these trolls were, I guess you’ll just have to read The Hidden Fires. (Clue: they’re not the internet variety.)

Among its many treasures, Adventure Into Books hosts Bookshop Mouse and two bears called Honeysuckle and Cornelius. It is also the host bookshop for the wonderful Bookmark Book Festival held in Blairgowrie in October. My Cairngorms-set novel, Of Stone and Sky, won their Book of the Year in 2021, which meant I was a guest there in 2022. I’ll be back this year chairing the opening event with Jim Crumley and Patrick Galbraith, so do join us for what is set to be a fascinating conversation. (I might even ask them about trolls and where they sit with New Nature Writing…)

I got home on Friday, bearing cards, gifts and books from these four havens in four different regions of Scotland, brimming with thankfulness for the kindness of my hosts, the connections with readers and the power of books to bring meaning to our lives.

If you’d like to join me at a future Hidden Fires event, do have a look at my Events page here.

I first met Joanna Penn ten years ago at a course in Inverness set up by Peter Urpeth of what was HiArts and then became Emergents and is now XpoNorth. I have learnt so much from her ever since and loved our conversation on her podcast about the backstory of The Hidden Fires and so much more! You can listen to it here. Our interview begins at 18:20.

When the author Nan Shepherd was walking the Cairngorms in the 1940s, she once dedicated an entire day to studying the ice patterns in the burns, writing about them in her now-iconic book The Living Mountain. A quote from it is on the Royal Bank of Scotland £5 note: ‘But the struggle between frost and the force in running water is not quickly over. The battle fluctuates, and at the point of fluctuation between the motion in water and the immobility of frost, strange and beautiful forms are evolved.’

I am writing my own Cairngorms book in response to her work, so following her example, I take a slow winter day in the hills watching ice and water. My trail leads up Allt Mor, ‘the big stream’, that runs from the ski slopes on Cairngorm mountain down into the Glenmore forest. A stretch of water under a bridge looks fluid, until a certain angle reveals an intricate cross-hatching, like the frost patterns on a window. The whole decorated surface is thin as film and blends without border into the flow.

Leaves captured in frozen puddles become works of art.

Higher up, more ice appears. It forms a shiny skin over rocks rising from the stream, tight as varnish. Climbers call it verglas or glaze ice and curse it, offering the counter-intuitive advice to ford streams on stones just below the running water, as they will not be icy. Often, verglas sits like a cap on a rock, with its bottom edge fringed with baubles where the running water has splashed and frozen. When the glaze has thawed a little, water slides under it in runnels like shape-shifting tadpoles.

Long crystals hang in pendulous curtains from the mossy boulders, grasses and heathers that overhang the burn. They bubble out in fanciful shapes, thickly clouded or crystal clear, straight and smooth or knobbled.

Higher still, there is snow. Heaped in bridges and banks, it sometimes morphs to ice on its way to the water, forming glassy towers and spires worthy of the wildest science fiction.

On a rock loosely furred with ice, the water flow is caught and released in a rhythmic pulse that makes it look like a living creature, a beating heart of stone on the living mountain.

As Shepherd said, ‘There is no end to the lovely things that frost and the running of water can create between them.’

A version of this article first appeared in the Guardian Country Diary.