Thursday 1st October

Lindsey Shields Waters / Nuala Watt / Stewart Sanderson / Gerry Mangan

Please join us for the Glasgow book launch of Knottis by Lindsey Shields Waters, published by Blue Diode.

Lindsey Shields Waters reflects on connections – on love and its memory, humanity and nature, the past and the present – in a sparkling debut collection of poems fluently written in both English and Older Scots. Subtle, complex and rigorously affecting, these poems recreate language for our darkest and lightest hours. She was born on the Isle of Cumbrae and lives in Glasgow with her family. She has
studied and worked in Glasgow, Bavaria, Washington DC and Leiden and was a Clydebuilt 10 poet mentee in 2016/17 (mentor: Gerry Loose). Her poems have been published in various poetry magazines and anthologies. Knottis is her first full collection.

“So, this is what it sounds like to make poetry anew and tune into the prehistoric force of language at the same time. With astonishing vividness, the ‘volatile blend’ of poetry that surges through this collection stuns with living minutiae (an unwatered oxalis, pancaikes) as much as surprises with the elemental: ‘it’s a synge fra abufe’. Knottis is a pressing reminder that ‘all livin' language is sacred’ and that all language is living, just waiting on a poet like Lindsey Shields Waters.” — Colin Herd

Nuala Watt is a disability activist and Quaker. She has taught English Literature at the University of Glasgow. Her poems have appeared on BBC Radio and in magazines including Bad Lilies, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and Wordgathering. She views poetry as a form of activism and a method of thinking. Her first full collection, The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish, was published by Blue Diode Press in 2024.

Stewart Sanderson is a poet from Glasgow, who has published and performed widely in the UK and internationally. He is the author of the pamphlets Fios (2015) and An Offering (2018), as well as the book-length collections The Sleep Road (2021) and Weathershaker (2025) – all published by Tapsalteerie Press. Three times shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, his work has also been recognised by accolades including an Eric Gregory Award and Robert Louis Stevenson and Jessie
Kesson Fellowships.

Gerald Mangan is a Scottish poet, journalist, playwright and illustrator, born in Glasgow in 1951. His collections include Waiting for the Storm (Bloodaxe), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, and his stage plays include Crying Wolf (Communicado Theatre). He is a former writer-in-residence at Dundee College of Art and at Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh, where he also worked as an actor, designer and musician. He recently returned to live in Scotland after many years in Paris, where he reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement and other journals, contributed political cartoons to Le Monde, and served as a cultural correspondent for the French Service of Radio Canada.

Thursday 15th October

Candi Saenz Valiente / Kirsty Dunlop / Elle Nash

Please join us for the Glasgow launch of A Portrait Of A Woman And A Still Life Of Her Burger by Candi Saenz Valiente, published by Cutt Press.

A portrait of a woman and a still life of her burger is a critique on the current social landscape and its effect on love from the point of view of a Gen X cynic. It is set in 2022 Berlin and is a contemporary portrait of Peter Pan adults biting the dust, a sort of belated coming-of-age. It touches upon friendship, grief, desire and the bureaucratisation of intimacy. 

Francis Laurie Schaffer—an artist in her mid-40s—has recently separated from her husband after a two-decade long marriage and has fallen in love with a polyamorous young man who doesn’t fully reciprocate her feelings. In an attempt to express her dissatisfaction, she begins writing about the relationships between the people she imagines belong to her polycule. But things begin to shift into a game of mirrors when Francis meets some of the people she’s written about. A series of events will then culminate with Francis and her friends crashing the 40th birthday party of her husband’s new girlfriend. A disastrous outcome serves as a rite of passage, delivering the protagonists onto the other side of that experience with a transformed sense of self.

 “Yes, but I like pricks!’ I said. ‘Cause being a prick always comes in a combo. And the other thing in the combo is usually really good. Like, he’s a prick but he’s so good at tennis. He’s a genius  on the guitar. He’s incredibly funny. He’s very good at cards. He’s also a prick. I’m interested in that other thing. Oh, he’s a prick? What’s he good at? Nothing? Then he’s a moron. A common man. You’re not gonna fool me.”

Candi will be reading alongside Kirsty Dunlop & Elle Nash.