#WritingCommunity! Submissions invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, #Gaelic, & #Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct! Submit free via Submittable 👇 nws.submittable.com/submit

I'm honestly terrible at social media. The self-promotion thing seems like an absolute grind these days. Instead I've been writing and spending time with the kid, slowly working on photography projects. The usual. Disgustingly wholesome stuff. You?

Masha Маша From ‘The Land is Yellow, the Sky is Blue’.

A childhood dream come true! My drystone worked featured in the July/August issue of world-renowned Smithsonian Magazine. I was so proud to show my daughters this article. Click through for link to the online post. kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/my-dryston... #Scotland #Writing #Culture #History

"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all." - G. K. Chesterton

New work: A picture of my friend and fellow photographer Alex Boyd @alexanderboyd.bsky.social taken in London May 2025 “The symbol is my clan gesture 'confido' i trust - and the tattoo is from the Hugh MacDiarmid book ' Scottish Eccentrics' “

Hello all! Myself and two friends are cycling 250 miles along the Caledonian Way this Saturday. We are hoping to fund efforts to replace some of the 15,000 trees lost after a devastating wildfire on Arran in April. If you are able to donate or to share this post it would be hugely appreciated ❤️

Today at 1pm @alexanderboyd.bsky.social ✨

I am so excited that @alexanderboyd.bsky.social is coming to @bbkhistorical.bsky.social on the 12th May! He will give the talk 'A Hidden History of Violence', Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square - 1pm to 2:30pm.

I'm currently working through 20 years of photographic work, scanning images that feel like they are from several lifetimes ago. From Scottish mountain tops to burning forests in Australia, I'll slowly start sharing this archive over the coming year. Oh and some new work!

Today is another reminder of why Universities just aren't suited for people with ADHD. The unrelenting bureaucracy is absolutely crippling when you just want to put pen to paper. It would also help if online forms weren't designed by the most misanthropic members of society.

Academics take note.

@mikewozniak.bsky.social hello Mike - are you still planning to release a recording of Zusa?

Today someone was telling me about the domestic squalor Maggie Smith lived in, all smashed windows and broken doors, and wondering how his various wives put with it, and only afterwards did I realise they had been talking about Mark E Smith.

I often ironically think of this Wilde quote which possibly anticipates the genre of Nature writing, and the somewhat endless quotations some authors are prone to using: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

Also: North Sea Poets' first Substack - what is poetry *for?

Inspired by @marcwilson.co.uk Today: Sign off paperbacks of Isle of Rust / Hirta books. Prepare prints for group show in Scotland Meet collaborators for new exhibition in Australia. Prepare notes for interviewing Ukrainian photographers Fight university bureaucracy #whatdophotographersdoallday

Current state of mind. [Still from Down By Law , dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1986]

My book 'Drystone – A Life Rebuilt' is out for pre-order! If you would like to know how to pre-order, why pre-orders are so important to authors, and why no cover (yet), read on at the link below. kristie-de-garis.ghost.io/pre-orders-f... #Writing #Books #Scotland

I've been keeping a diary here in Western Australia, and it's increasingly a catalogue of very strange happenings. Saturday's entry included spending several hours guiding the police through the bush in the dark to the edge of a quarry. Thankfully a happy ending. Life is stranger than fiction.

Clydebuilt - Great to have had the new zines featured recently in #Glasgow media. This coming Saturday they get featured in arts section of national bradsheet. Had great interview this morning about them. Exciting to get the work out there. www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/2488632... #shipbuilding

🖤

I don't always agree with art awards, but Charlotte Prodger winning the Turner Prize for her work BRIDGIT was so well deserved. I've been thinking about it again recently.

I've been quiet on here for the last month, but I have been out and about working - experimenting with new film, field development and starting a longer term project. I'm hopeful that 2025 will be a creative year.

Watching this rn and it's pure joy

More courage and power here than in the entire Democratic Party.

Hello and Happy New Year from the Edwin Morgan Trust!

"When men deem themselves to be gods on earth […] when they are this deluded by ignorance, they develop a satanic perversity that proclaims both in knowledge and power." The Bhagavad Gita is trolling Musk again

Today was supposed to be spent writing. Instead I've spent it staring out the window and daydreaming. This counts. Right?

I think my favorite thing about Australia is that each bird here has its own unique beautiful bird song that sounds like a human or many humans crying out in the most terrifying and distressing way you have ever heard

Well, today's excitement has come to an end with the fires in our valley being put out by aerial firefighters. It's been surreal. I took this earlier as the bombers made their final runs.

Thank you! Thanks also to @kozubooks.bsky.social for printing and designing the book 🖤

The firebombers have arrived. Two aircraft, two fire fighting helicopters and an observation helicopter. Watching them put out the fire now. Truly outstanding work.

It's fire season, which means you get alerts at 4am to say your neighbours trees are burning. We've had 4 such alerts in the last few weeks. Living on a rural property with one road out comes with some stresses. #australia #bushfireseason

I thought I'd try something new this Xmas - eat less, no alcohol, embrace Australian customs such as seafood cooked on a BBQ. Result: several days of food poisoning. Clearly I've upset the old Celtic gods.

Belatedly, for the holidays, this brilliant image — Emmet Gowin / Edith, Christmas Morning, Danville, Virginia, 1971.

Paperboats is a wonderful initiative, and the website is well worth a visit. All past issues are up there to read for free, and include some thoughtful and inspiring poetry and prose. Recommended.

Thinking of poet Lorna Waite who we lost last year. Our Ayrshire towns were connected by the River Garnock, hers at the source, mine at the mouth. I wish we had finished the project we started tracing its course. “Learn yer stories / Speak them tae the land / Listen and hear the / Water teach ye.

20 years ago we were suing teenagers for millions of dollars because they were torrenting a single Metallica album and now billionaires are demanding the free right to every work in history, so that they can re-sell it. The law only ever serves capital.

stunning, from Sunjeev Sahota

It will never fail to amaze me the number of phases a book goes through, improved each time by the eyes and ears of others. But it's finally time to make last corrections! LIFELINES will be published in May by @eandtbooks.bsky.social and is available for pre-order: eandtbooks.com/books/lifeli...

X’s new Dublin headquarters are in a place called Fenian street which is most famous for being where Adolf Hitlers brother lived. And I think that’s just perfect, it feels like everything that Twitter has become

Yesterday I was talking about identifying as working class. However today I realise that in my pursuit of some culottes (having been sans-culottes my whole life) something has obviously changed. A lesson from 18th century France 😆

Geograph is an incredible resource, and one I've used for years to plan walks across Scotland and Ireland. It combines OS maps with images taken by the public. It's particularly good for discovering archaeology. It was also invaluable as I planned research trips for my PhD on MOD land.

Earlier this year, having written a few chapters of a new book, I went to see an author I really respect give a lecture. It was one of those rare times when a speaker has had a profound effect on me. I came home and started over again. I had fallen into the trap of bad nature writing.

Thing I learned today: ivory was used for hundreds of years in the producton of bagpipes. Since the 1989 ban on the use of non-antique ivory, many manufacturers use 10,000 year old mammoth tusks found in Siberia. There is also the Phytelphas (Elephant Plant) whose nuts produce 'vegetable ivory'.

A friend who teaches photography calls it 'about as useful as teaching stenography' which I found worrying. This is an interesting piece. Many of the transferable skills mentioned here can be found in other studies of course, such as art history/ visual studies.

As well as our photobooks, we publish a series of affordable photography zines called 'Field Notes'. Same overarching theme, our relationship with 'place', and we collaborate with photographers from around the world. Every zine is just £8 - anotherplacepress.bigcartel.com/category/zines

This post is partly tongue in cheek- it can be great working with communities when you establish a healthy dialogue. This funding requirement however definitely disadvantages some artists from say, neurodiverse backgrounds.