Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
When Tamsin Calidas first arrives on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides, it feels like coming home. Disenchanted by London, she and her husband left the city and high-flying careers to move the 500 miles north, despite having no experience of crofting or of island life. It was idyllic, for a while. But as the months wear on – the children she'd longed for fail to materialise, and her marriage breaks down – Tamsin finds herself in ever-increasing isolation, injured, ill, without money or friend. Join Tamsin to hear more about I Am An Island, her story about the incredible ability of the natural world to provide when everything else has fallen away – a stunning book about solitude, friendship, resilience and self-discovery.
“A wondrous, sensuous memoir of salt-stung survival... clear-eyed and poetic prose” – Sunday Times
About the author: Tamsin Calidas is a writer and photographer living in the Scottish Hebrides. She worked in various roles in advertising, publishing and the BBC before giving it all up in 2004 to move to a tiny, remote island in Scotland to run a derelict croft with sheep and horses.
Supported by NatureScot as part of Year of Coasts and Waters
You can purchase titles relating to this event from the Festival Bookshop online - bookshop.wigtownbookfestival.com
When Tamsin Calidas first arrives on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides, it feels like coming home. Disenchanted by London, she and her husband left the city and high-flying careers to move the 500 miles north, despite having no experience of crofting or of island life. It was idyllic, for a while. But as the months wear on – the children she'd longed for fail to materialise, and her marriage breaks down – Tamsin finds herself in ever-increasing isolation, injured, ill, without money or friend. Join Tamsin to hear more about I Am An Island, her story about the incredible ability of the natural world to provide when everything else has fallen away – a stunning book about solitude, friendship, resilience and self-discovery.
“A wondrous, sensuous memoir of salt-stung survival... clear-eyed and poetic prose” – Sunday Times
About the author: Tamsin Calidas is a writer and photographer living in the Scottish Hebrides. She worked in various roles in advertising, publishing and the BBC before giving it all up in 2004 to move to a tiny, remote island in Scotland to run a derelict croft with sheep and horses.
Supported by NatureScot as part of Year of Coasts and Waters
You can purchase titles relating to this event from the Festival Bookshop online - bookshop.wigtownbookfestival.com
