Who we are

EarthLines is unique in that it springs from a way of life that is rooted in the natural world and in the wild: it is created and published by tiny independent publisher Two Ravens Press, from a working croft on the remote far western coast of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides (www.tworavenspress.com). All design, typesetting and production work – in fact, everything about EarthLines, including packing up the magazines and taking them on the early morning run to meet the post bus – is carried out here on the croft by the two of us.

We live in the wild and beautiful region of Uig, just where the road runs out by the border with Harris. We keep two small flocks of registered rare-breed sheep (Hebrideans and Jacobs), a couple of breeding sows, Roman geese, Cayuga ducks, a miscellany of hens, and a Kerry milk cow. And with our raised beds and Keder polytunnel, we are becoming self-sufficient in vegetable production. We love good books and good literature; we love good film and art, but we're not much into popular culture – we don't have a TV, and don't know one end of a celebrity from another. But we do know what it is to regularly walk out of the house with a bivvy bag to a rock bed by the ocean, or to walk beyond the road's end into the mountains and lochs beyond. We know eagle and otter as well as sheep, pig and cow. And because we are writers as well as publishers, we know good writing when we see it. That and a deep love and respect for the natural world is what we hope to bring you in EarthLines magazine.

Sharon Blackie

Sharon Blackie spent several years as an academic neuroscientist specialising in the field of anxiety and panic and working at the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris and the Institute of Neurology in London. Armed with qualifications in psychology and creative writing, she later moved to a croft in the north-west Highlands of Scotland and practiced as a psychologist specialising in narrative psychology, myth- and storytelling. In 2006 Sharon and her husband David Knowles founded literary publisher Two Ravens Press (http://www.tworavenspress.com) and in 2012 she founded and now edits EarthLines magazine. Sharon’s first novel The Long Delirious Burning Blue was described by The Independent on Sunday as ‘Hugely potent. A tribute to the art of storytelling that is itself an affecting and inspiring story’. She is still working on her second novel, The Bee Dancer (written with the support of a bursary from the Scottish Arts Council), a contemporary ecological retelling of the myth of Psyche and Eros. She now lives on and works a croft sandwiched between mountains and sea on the far south-western coast of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

As well as maintaining EarthLines' online supplement, The EarthLines Review, Sharon writes about myth, story and the natural world at Re-enchanting the Earth.

David Knowles

David is a former RAF Tornado pilot and a poet. His first collection Meeting the Jet Man was shortlisted for the 2009 Scottish Arts Council First Book of the Year award, and was Highly Commended in the 2010 Forward Prize.

David's website: http://davidknowles.wordpress.com