Something very special for Christmas – Alexander McCall Smith poems at the Westminster Carols by Candlelight MS concert, 2025 – with Simon Callow among the illustrious readers At the link below, you will find readings of four of Sandy’s poems (new) at the Westminster Carols by Candlelight MS concert which took place last week, including […]

Edinburgh is an Exceptional City. Alexander celebrates the work of the Cockburn Association who, for the last 150 years, have raised their voices in protest and care whenever and wherever ill-thought-through building plans threatened the future of the city. He has written an introduction to a newly published book: Campaigning for Edinburgh: The Cockburn Association […]

A much anticipated interview with Alexander McCall Smith was aired on BBC’s The One Show this evening. You can watch it here  (towards the end of the programme, starting at 23mins in). It is short but a real treat! Alexander met with the quite wonderful and hugely respected broadcaster Angela Rippon in the autumn of […]

Songs of Edinburgh is a Song Cycle through Edinburgh in the company of Alexander McCall Smith A city of hills and buildings, Upon hills; a city of secret ways Poems by best-selling writer Alexander McCall Smith have been set to music and released as a Song Cycle: ‘Songs of Edinburgh’. Edinburgh-based composer Tom Cunningham has […]

The first Seven Hills composition now recorded Theory of the Earth, by the young Scottish composer Jay Capperauld, is the first of seven ‘hill’ inspired pieces commissioned by St Mary’s Music School’s Seven Hills Project. The work is inspired by Edinburgh’s volcano Arthur’s Seat and Alexander McCall Smith’s poem, ‘Arthur’s Seat and Geology‘ and is […]

This weekend’s a busy one as we mark the Spring Equinox and International Day of Happiness on Saturday (20 March), and World Poetry Day on Sunday (21 March). It has been a tough year since these dates last came round, a year in which humanity has been united by the challenges of a global pandemic and the urgent […]

Alexander awoke recently with this poem almost fully formed in his mind, as if it came to him in his sleep. He shares it with you today as people across the world celebrate love.

In a normal year Alexander would have visited many of his favourite bookshops around the world as part of his extremely busy events programme. Sadly, these events are all currently on hold and Alexander is greatly missing his conversations with booksellers, including those at one of his favourite bookshops, Daunt’s in London- not to mention […]

Today is International Nurses Day and this post is nothing more and nothing less than a sincere and heartfelt ‘thank you‘  to nurses everywhere who have been on the frontline for the fight against Coronavirus. We are asked to shine a light from our windows tonight, 12 May 2020, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence […]