An Online Reading with Moira Forsyth

To kick start our Letting Go programme, we're delighted to invite you to an online reading by Highlands-based author Moira Forsyth on Wednesday 15th October, from 7.00-8.00pm.

Moira Forsyth grew up in Aberdeen, lived in England for nearly twenty years, and now lives in the Highlands. She has published five novels, as well as short stories and poetry. As Publisher at Sandstone Press Limited for over 20 years, she selected, commissioned and edited both fiction and non-fiction. She has delivered writing workshops and masterclasses, and provided individual feedback to authors for a range of organisations, including WEA Scotland, writers’ groups, community education and the Scottish BPOC writers network. These have ranged from beginners’ classes to sessions for experienced writers, on subjects such as beginning to write, writing novels and preparing for publication.

Tickets are priced on a pay-what-you-can basis, from £0 to £10. All income raised goes toward the development of the project.

Moira is the first of our Online Writers-in-Residence. As well as giving this reading, Moira will write for the Autumn Voices website, and offer a series of three online writing workshops. For more details of these, see the Letting Go page on our website.

LETTING GO is a programme of creative writing activities for older people, developed and delivered by Autumn Voices, and supported by the Creative Scotland Open Fund for Organisations.

The theme of Letting Go is taken from the book Autumn Voices by Robin Lloyd-Jones.

Much of our younger lives is about acquiring – acquiring partners, children, a good job, a house, material things. There comes a period in our lives when the scales tip and much of life becomes about letting go – downsizing, coming to terms with loss, letting go of what you can't change and of unrealistic hopes and plans; and letting go of grudges and hatreds because it's now or never. In letting go we help those old doors to close and the new ones to open.

As Robin outlines, while ageing involves loss, it also brings opportunities to let go of what we don't need, whether that's material belongings or emotional baggage, and to discover what in life is truly essential.

Activities will be facilitated by four Online Writers-in-Residence (OWRs). Working consecutively, each OWR will present four online sessions – a reading or presentation for an audience of up to 100, and three writing workshops, for a cohort of up to twelve. We will publish an anthology featuring a new piece of writing commissioned from each OWR, and texts submitted by workshop participants. The anthology will be published online and in print, as a free newspaper. The project concludes in June 2026 with a public, hybrid Round Table event in Stirling, with the four OWRs and other speakers reflecting on the project, and considering more broadly the issue of older people's creativity.

Image credit: 'The Jump' by Louise Humphrey