Author delves into mystery of missing bears
Last updated at 09:51, Friday, 18 September 2009
AN AUTHOR from Wylam has won a prestigious literary award for her first foray into the world of fictional writing.
Mandy Haggith now lives in the Scottish Highlands but grew up in Wylam, where her parents still live.
She recently received the Robin Jenkins Award, designed to promote new Scottish writing that draws and builds on Scotland’s cultural heritage using its unique environmental assets, in particular trees and forestry.
Mandy’s book The Last Bear is set 1,000 years ago in an age when Britain had many more forests and takes an imagined view of what life for those living in the forests might have been like.
As the title suggests, bears play an important role in the work and Mandy looks at why they became extinct in the British Isles.
She said: “I have always been mad about bears but I’m also very interested in civilisations, and the book looks at how the pre-Christian culture of the Picts in Scotland disappeared at around the same time as the bear became extinct.”
Mandy’s book is based on hours of research into the history of the Scottish forests. Her background working as a researcher for international forestry organisations came in very handy when writing it.
She has travelled the world through both her work in research and her personal interest in the protection of the world’s forests.
“I’ve been to India, Indonesia, Africa, Nepal, up the Amazon and a few more places besides, and I have seen some amazing sights,” she said.
Prior to the novel Mandy had written poetry about her passion for forests and nature and has already had two books of her work published, alongside a factual account of the paper industry entitled Paper Trails.
Mandy said: “The Last Bear was my first attempt at fiction and it took years to write it. I started in 2001 but I write in fits and starts and the book was written, put away and re-written several times before it went to a publisher.”
Mandy’s poetry publishers took on the book and it was them who put her up for the Robin Jenkins Award.
The Scottish Minister for Culture, Michael Russell, presented the award at a ceremony during the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Now Mandy will use her prize money of £5,000 to help with her next project – a book about climate change in the North-West Highlands of Scotland.
First published at 09:49, Friday, 18 September 2009
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk
