← Feed

Posts

• View post

  My first book, The Dream Pyjamas, was a huge hit at 44 Grieve Avenue, though sadly overlooked by every major award. My second, 36 years later, has had slightly better luck...Drystone - A Life Rebuilt has been shortlisted for the Saltire Society Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2026. The biggest literary prize in Scotland. I think about where I've come from, and I genuinely cannot believe I'm here. #WritingCommunity #Writing #Book #Books #Scotland #News #UK

• View post

  Wrote a brutally honest, slightly irreverent, definitely funny thing for The Times on what 'summer body' means to me. *Bikini? No, I'm in my full body mosquito suit.* Read more over at The Times https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/article/bikini-no-im-in-my-full-body-mosquito-suit-2cfdbwvz5 #Scotland #Health #News #UK #Women #Writing #Outdoors

• View post

  A drystone wall isn't one habitat, it's several, stacked vertically. Each zone has its own microclimate and its own community of species. Taking down a wall is an education in this. Also, occasionally, a surprise toad situation. This week's Drystone Diary is about the fauna of the wall, from stonechats on the cope stones to adders in the foundations. https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/drystone-diary-the-living-wall-fauna #Scotland #DrystoneDiary #UK #Countryside #Nature #Ston...

• View post

  A cusp. The exact point of transition between two states. Not one thing, not the other, the moment of change itself. No way to inhabit it. A threshold. Happy Solstice. #Solstice #Scotland #Photography

• View post

  🎵 Biffy Clyro - Mountains🎵 (Image taken as we drove through Glencoe today) #Mountains #Scotland #Photography #BlackAndWhite

• View post

  Time to broaden your drystone horizons! New Drystone Diary: Whose History Is Worth Knowing? From Great Zimbabwe to Sacsayhuamán to the famine walls of the Scottish Highlands. Who gets recognised and who gets erased was, and still is, a story told by the same people about the same people. https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/drystone-diary-history-worth-knowing #DrystoneDiary #History #Nature #World #Scotland #Writing #Craft

• View post

  For decades, descendants of the people who built Great Zimbabwe were told by colonial archaeologists that they couldn't possibly have built it. This despite all the evidence & Zimbabwe meaning 'houses of stone' in the Shona language. The ancient aliens industry applies the same logic to Sacsayhuamán in Peru. Yet nobody questions who built the impressive structures in Rome or Greece. Sunday's Drystone Diary: Whose History Is Worth Keeping? #DrystoneDiary #Nature #Writing...

• View post

  Before I became a drystone waller I knew nothing about how walls were built, or by whom. That's the thing about drystone, it's everywhere, it's ancient, it's extraordinary, and most of us walk straight past it. The very first Drystone Diary is live. What drystone actually is, how it works, and why it matters. https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/drystone-diary-what-is-drystone #DrystoneDiary #Craft #Scotland #UK #Ecology #Sustainable #Nature #Environment #Writing #History #Cu...

• View post

  Piece in the Scotsman about drystone before my appearance at Boswell Book Festival on 9th May. ‘At the most fundamental level, drystone has made me feel that change is possible. We so rarely get to shape the environments we live in. We so rarely get to be part of an embodied, physical legacy. Drystone has changed my relationship to the past, present and future. To how I experience time and consequence, but also action.’ https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/why-building-drystone-wal...

• View post

  THREAD 1/ Most of you here know me as a writer, but first (and maybe foremost) I am a photographer. And on that note, I have an announcement. There is a philosophical tradition that insists we are not vessels moving through the world separate from it, but instead in continuous exchange with it. The places we move through, the weather we stand in, the land we work on and shape, the social forces we encounter. They get in, they change us. We are made of them #Photography #Art #Scotland #Artist

• View post

  When you're chronically ill, having a bedroom/home you like is so important. It's also a privilege, and I am so grateful to love where I live. Life keeps coming at me hard and fast this yeah but there’s some good news that I will share soon. Just want to double, triple, quadruple, no takebacksies check it’s definitely going to happen ;)

• View post

  THREAD 1/ First time reader of Wuthering Heights here. Yes, Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” finally forced my hand. Admittedly, I'm coming to this late. I’d heard the rumours that Heathcliff was brown, and based on the tone of those discussions, I assumed this was one of those literary debates. Something implied, maybe intuited. Subtext argued over in seminars by white men. I am laughing so hard right now. #WutheringHeights #Books #Reading #Writing #WritingCommunity #Scot...

• View post

  My book 'Drystone - A Life Rebuilt' will be out in the US and Canada now. That's very exciting, but the downside is that the energy it takes to promote a book overseas is sadly not available to me right now, maybe ever. So, if you've been waiting to buy it, you can. If you've been waiting to order it into your library, you can. If you've been waiting to tell your friends who are reviewers at the NYT, you can ;) #Books #Writing #WritingCommunity #Reading #ReadingCommun...

• View post

  Alnwick. Come see me at Alnwick Story Fest on Sunday, 10.30am, Alnwick Playhouse Studio. Don’t worry, in person my extremely poor mental health is virtually undetectable. https://alnwickplayhouse.co.uk/event/stone-by-stone-rebuilding-a-life-with-kristie-de-garis/ #England #UK #MentalHealth #Scotland #Alnwick #Historic #Books #Writing #WritingCommunity

• View post

  When your ten year old daughter is working on a story for a competition and this title lands in your inbox 😍 😂 #Writing #WritingCommunity #Kids #Scotland #UK #Books

• View post

  THREAD 1/ I fell in love with this painting of a woman today at an antique centre/junk shop. I can't quite explain why, as is often the case when art speaks to you. Our house is cluttered, piles of books, cupboards full of paintings (I really don't need more art) and the frame was awful, really inappropriate for the painting, so I left. But I couldn't stop thinking about her. 'Cassandra'. #Art #Scotland #UK #Painting #Portrait #Artists #Story #Antique...

• View post

  For anyone doing the 52 Book Club Challenge this year, my daughter just pointed out to me that my book 'Drystone - A Life Rebuilt' works for prompts 10, 18, 19 (stick with it, they do appear and what an entrance!) and prompt 32. She added me to the specific prompt lists on Goodreads and you can vote for the book there if you are so inclined. #52BookClub #Books #Book #Reading #ReadingChallenge #Writing #WritingCommunity #ReadingCommunity #Scotland #UK #Goodreads

• View post

  THREAD 1/ I’m lying here in the dark, waiting for the sun to rise and thinking about the Fortingall yew. Experts place its age at around 5,000 years old. A path leads towards it, and along the way, stones mark the events in human history that it has seen. It’s seen a lot. Too much, maybe. It looks tired. And yet stones are not remembered this way, though they have seen more. #Writing #WritingCommunity #Reading #Scotland #UK #Climate #Sustainability #Books

• View post

  THREAD 1/ On the BAFTAs I understand that years of media conditioning have trained us to reach for polarised, black and white opinions, but what happened at the BAFTAs is not well served by outrage or by denial. I remind you that two things can be true at once. #BAFTAs #Tourettes #Writing #UK #News #Scotland

• View post

  Peak career highlight appearing in Nairn Bookshop’s window painting! #Scotland #Bookshop #Writing #Books #Author #UK

• View post

  THREAD 1/ I’ve gotten quite a few messages from disabled people who benefit from AI in the same way I do but feel unable to admit to it because they are scared of backlash. I will start by saying I understand concerns about AI, they are real. AI is energy intensive, data centres use water, a resource that is already scarce in many places, and the companies behind these products are unethical in so many ways. #AI #Ethics #Scotland #Disability #UK #LLM

• View post

  I’ll be at #AlnwickStoryFest next weekend 8th March, 10.30am in the Alnwick Playhouse Studio. Very excited to be back in Northumbria. My only event in #England this year. Tickets at link below. Buy a book and have it signed, bring your book and have it signed, don't buy a book, don't bring a book, don't have it signed, come and say 'Hi', and and if you don't want to buy a ticket just wait outside & shout 'Hello'. https...

• View post

  Everything's shit but my jumper is excellent. #Scotland #UK #Knitwear

• View post

  The Wuthering Heights people remember is not the book Emily Brontë wrote. I read it just in time for the release of Emerald Fennell’s adaptation. She has said Wuthering Heights left its greatest impression on her at 14. Here’s my interpretation at 41, feeling world weary & no longer susceptible to the charms of beautiful men who behave badly. It turns out it isn’t really about love at all, but about inheritance, race & power. https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/wuthering-heights #B...

• View post

  As I have been fully focused on the book, I’ve let photography fade a little into the background, but it was my first great love and I can’t wait to get back to it. Here’s is a 35mm film image that captures some of the magic in the Tomnah’a polytunnels. #Photography #FilmPhotography #35mm #Scotland #FilmIsNotDead #BelieveInFilm #Flowers