James Macdonald Lockhart interviewed by Peter Mackay

James Macdonald Lockhart is the author of two books about birds, Raptor (2016), which received the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, and Wild Air (2023).  In Wild Air, James Macdonald Lockhart sets out to write about a series of birds as though he has his granny’s role of listening to birds’ songs and calls and relaying what she heard to her aged and by then quite deaf father – the famous naturalist Seton Gordon. From a nightjar’s strange churring song on a heath in the south of England, to a lapwing displaying over the machair in the Outer Hebrides, he writes about eight different birds who he has spent most time with, returned to most often and relays what he hears.

“Wild Air puts me behind a pair of binoculars! The fine, precise prose keeps each bird right there and visible on the page, while the surrounding natural world feels real and tangible. Some of the scenes JML presents are absolutely unforgettable.” Highland Book Prize Judge – Cynan Jones

Dr Peter Mackay is a Highland Book Prize Judge,  and a Senior Lecturer in Literature in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. Originally from the Isle of Lewis, he is an expert in Scottish and Irish literature from 1800 onwards, and especially in Scottish Gaelic literature.  His poetry collections Gu Leòr / Galore (Acair 2015) and Nàdur de / Some Kind of (Acair 2020) were shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year. An AHRC / BBC Next Generation Thinker, he is a frequent broadcaster on Radio 3 and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal.