Home’s in the Making

What makes a home? Is it the existence of family, the accumulation of memories, a certain patch on the map, a recognised landscape or the joy of being accepted, allowed to be fully yourself, regardless of how new you are to a place? What do we really long for when we look for a place to stay?

For what promises to be a truly insightful conversation on making and finding homes, we welcome writer and visual artist Amanda Thomson, whose new book Be/longing is a meditation on heritage as well as a love letter to the northern landscapes of Scotland. We’re also joined by Sarah Thomas, author of The Raven’s Nest, a genre-defying memoir of ecological grief and love in Iceland. Together, they ask how the identities of places interact with our individual, cultural ones, and how the earth itself can help us find our way home.

Amanda Thomson is a Scottish writer and visual artist, and a lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art. Her first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature, was published in 2018. She has spoken at many book festivals and had her work published in Antlers of Water, Willowherb Review, The Wild Isles, Gifts of Gravity and Light and the Guardian. She lives and works in Strathspey in the Scottish Highlands and Glasgow.

Sarah Thomas is a writer and filmmaker. Her films have been screened internationally, and she is a contributor to the Dark Mountain journal. Her writing has also appeared in the Guardian and the anthology Women on Nature edited by Katharine Norbury.

Our host for this event is the terrific Jemma Neville, author of Constitution Street.