Marie Marshall

… is coming to Pitlochry on 22nd February, in the shape of my short story Da Trow i’ da Waa. It will be rounding off the prizewinning stories of this year’s ‘Fearie Tales’ competition at the Winter Words literary festival – the first of Scotland’s literary season – at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. ‘Trow’ is a word which has survived from Shetland’s Nordic past into its modern tongue (which is maybe less than a language, maybe more than a dialect, not unlike Lowland Scots), and it is roughly equivalent to the Scandinavian ‘troll’. My story is all about what happens to an author with writer’s block, who takes a cottage on the remote island of Yell, in Scotland’s most northerly archipelago.

The story will be read to an audience by Scottish actor Helen Logan. Just checking out the events for the rest of the Festival week, you could say I was on the same bill as Sir Chris Bonington, Mike McCartney, Sally Magnusson, and Neil Oliver! Here you can watch a short video about the festival and the venue.