A WRITING group in Helensburgh is relaunching a series of events inviting local authors to come and talk to residents about their craft.

The ‘An Evening With...’ series, like every other public event in the area, had to be put on ice when the country was plunged into lockdown in March 2020.

The event, a monthly series hosted jointly by Helensburgh LIbrary and the Mackintosh Group of Writers, saw many authors and genres covered before the pandemic struck, including historical fiction, local history, keeping fit (in a pleasant way), coping positively with adversity, adventure, exploration, travel, general fiction set in a variety of places.

The relaxed, friendly and free meetings, accompanied by wine and nibbles and enjoyed by a regular audience, are now set to make a return, with the library and the writers arranging a series of ‘An Evening With...’ events over the summer months.

The first will be an interview with local author Ann MacKinnon, who will talk about her life of poetry with particular reference to ‘Modren and Makars: Yin’, a vibrant and exciting anthology, the first of an intended series of poems written in Scots.

The overall aim of the series is to promote the Scots language by encouraging modern writers to produce work in that language, and each subsequent book will feature poets reflecting the talents of Scottish writers of a wide spectrum of styles and representing differing voices and perspectives.

Reviewer Christie Williamson says “Ann MacKinnon’s poems range from keenly observed minutiae of modern life to the existential history of the European continent and Scotland’s place therein”.

Ann will be talking about this project well, as her exciting, new project, based on ‘The Great Tapestry of Scotland’, at Helensburgh Library on Thursday, June 23.

Entry, as in the past, is free and, as in the past, there will be nibbles. For more information contact Mary Irvine on alexwriters1@gmail.com