Congratulations to Ryan Van Winkle, whose second collection The Good Dark has been shortlisted for the Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year 2015. Scotland’s most prestigious annual book awards, the Saltire Literary Awards celebrate and support literary and academic excellence across six distinct categories: First Book of the Year, History Book of the Year, […]
Scotland’s most prestigious annual book awards, the Saltire Literary Awards celebrate and support literary and academic excellence across six distinct categories: First Book of the Year, History Book of the Year, Research Book of the Year and Poetry Book of the Year. 2015 sees the expansion of the Literary Book of the Year Award into two categories for Fiction and Non-Fiction books. The winner of each category will receive £2,000 and become the shortlist for the Saltire Society Book of the Year Award, with a prize of £6,000.
Ryan Van Winkle was born in New Haven, Connecticut and lives in Edinburgh. His debut collection, Tomorrow, We Will Live Here, was published by Salt in 2010. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review and Scotland on Sunday. He has performed the poetry/theatre show Red, Like Our Room Used to Feel at Battersea Arts Centre, London Literature Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2012.
The Good Dark, his long-awaited second book, was published by Penned in the Margins in 2015. It has been praised by The Scotsman as ‘channelling Bob Dylan at his trippy, visionary best … hits home like a punch to the sternum’ and by The Skinny as ‘[moving] between stabbing pain, deep melancholy and cautious optimism, always with the same gentle touch’. Ryan read from The Good Dark at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival alongside Costa Prize winning poet Jonathan Edwards.
