The new publishers of the much-loved Scottish Islands Explorer are rebooting the magazine as an annual book.
Islands Book Trust are relaunching the title later this year as a “substantial annual book” exploring Scotland’s island communities through long-form writing, cultural journalism, heritage documentation and creative work.
Announcing the latest incarnation of the Scottish Islands Explorer, the Islands Book Trust revealed: “The renewed editorial direction is rooted firmly in Scotland’s islands. The Outer Hebrides, Inner Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland sit at the heart of the publication. Where the book looks outward to Ireland, the Faroes or Iceland, it does so to explore shared language, lineage and cultural exchange.”
The first volume will contain fresh content on the themes of inheritance and continuity, and islands in transmission.
As a first step, the Islands Book Trust are now inviting pitches for Volume 1. They are looking for “thoughtful, place-rooted writing” that reflects the lived cultures of Scotland’s islands, including work exploring language and place, land labour and working traditions, cultural memory and heritage, music, literature and contemporary cultural life, island diaspora and cultural transmission.
Adds the book trust: “Scottish Islands Explorer Volume I will be produced as a substantial 200-page B4 annual designed to be read cover-to-cover and retained as a reference and collector’s volume documenting contemporary island culture.”
The deadline for story ideas is Wednesday, April 15, with commissioned full article submission by Friday, May 15.
Submissions should be sent to
Originally founded on Fair Isle in the year 2000, the SIE magazine was published six times a year by Intermedia Services (Stornoway) Ltd, publishers of welovestornoway.com until November last year when falling subscription income made the publication unviable.
Image content - Allison Regan
