I am so thrilled to announce the first live event for the supporters of Saints and Stones. Eileen Budd is a Scottish storyteller, author and artist who entrances folks in real life and on the internet with her deep storytelling knowledge, her magical voice, and brilliant video editing skills! An incredibly talented story teller, Eileen is also the inspiration and namesake for my character of Eilleen in the story who Tilly meets at the side of the road. The hair, the voice, the magic setting beside the fire… all of it is Eileen Budd. She helped me bring my story alive and I finally confessed it to her! Much to my delight she loved it and agreed to join us for a chat.
Eileen was raised in Perthshire in a family who believed in the preservation of oral storytelling tradition and learned thousands of stories growing up, most of which she generously shares with all of us. (Find her on Instagram @eileenbudd)
I first encountered Eileen on Instagram as she was sharing the process of creating the illustrations for her adaptation of Ossian Warrior Poet (published in 2021 by Wide Open Sea).
In the book “The bard Ossian recounts the life of Fingal, a warrior chief among chiefs in 3rd century Scotland. These are the sagas of Scotland’s ancient past: tales of battles, of unrequited love, betrayal, tragic loss and glorious victory.” A reverse of the way things have usually gone, Eileen Budd’s new edition rekindles, adding hand drawn illustrations and maps, the work of James Macpherson who first published his Poems of Ossian in the late 1700s.
We’ll sit down next week on Thursday, January 12th, 2023 at 8pm GMT / 3pm Eastern/ 1pm Mountain
If you are a paid subscriber you can join live and talk to Eileen after our discussion and enjoying a couple of stories she will share just for us. The replay will be shared later for free subscribers.
I hope you’ll join us! I’ll send a reminder on the day.