Shared Stories: A Year in the Cairngorms

Managed by the Cairngorms National Park Authority with funding from CNPA, Creative Scotland and the Woodland Trust, the project has appointed the first ever Writer in Residence for the Cairngorms National Park, Merryn Glover from Kincraig. This project aims to delve deeper into our relationship with nature through creative writing and story-telling activities that give insights into our shared lives in the landscape and alongside wildlife.

Introducing our very first Writer In Residence, Merryn Glover!

Merryn Glover is an award-winning writer of fiction, drama and poetry with stories widely anthologised and her plays broadcast on Radio Scotland and Radio 4.

Her first novel, A House Called Askival, was published by Freight books, her second is with an agent, and her third nearly complete. Also a qualified English and Drama teacher, she has extensive experience of community arts across ages and abilities.

An Australian citizen, she was brought up in South Asia but has called Scotland home for 25 years, living in the National Park for half of them. For the ‘Shared Stories’ project, along with leading creative writing workshops, she will be exploring her own writing around people, nature and a sense of place.

Do you have a story you would like to share?

Some of the writing from the Shared Stories project will be featured on this site, displayed in the Park Visitor Centres and included in an anthology. We invite everyone to submit work that expresses something of your relationship with the natural environment of the Cairngorms National Park. It can be a story, an experience, an observation, or just a moment. It might arise from your work or your recreation or simply an encounter. It can be poetry or prose, a real experience or imagined, and written in English, Gaelic, Scots or Doric.

You can submit your story to the project by emailing [email protected], happy writing!

Please read through the Anthology Submission Guidelines before sending your story.

Open Creative Writing Workshops

Come and explore your responses to nature through these fun and supportive creative writing activities. No experience or equipment required, just enthusiasm!

To book your place on one or all of the workshops please email [email protected] with Writing Workshops in the subject line.