This site is about George Mackay Brown, not about me, but some  readers have shown a passing curiosity about who would take on the task of making George available in the virtual world [and what would he have thought of that?]. This is for you, not to court publicity but because many of you are kind enough to ask.

Who are you?
I'm a writer and editor living in the middle of the Sussex countryside with my husband, a cat, and a few dozen borrowed sheep. Our son lives nearby.  I’m recently retired as poetry editor of two successful e-zines, one of which I created and developed.

I came to writing as a second career [although there was some overlap] after retiring as a therapist/counsellor working both privately and within the NHS for 20 years.  Now I write poems, short stories, and articles, published in anthologies, pamphlets, small press journals and e- zines, and over several years I wrote and performed short stories and poems for BBC regional radio.

My introduction to GMB’s life and work, written in 2003, is on the website. Writing it was a weird experience, like living with the man. My son points out that I have an eccentric line in friends, and some of them are even still alive.  By the end of writing this, I felt George was most definitely still around. I have a profound appreciation for the work Maggie Fergusson must have put in, writing the official biography over the course of a decade.

So how did you get involved with GMB?
For me and many before me on holiday in Orkney, George Mackay Brown was a vague name. In 1996, just after George had died, I made my first visit and got to know more about his writing. Through his newspaper columns [published in book form in Letters from Hamnavoe and Under Brinkie’s Brae] I learned about his life. I wanted to know more but there were only a handful of mentions on the internet.

What made you start up a website?
 I had the skills, I had a bit of time.  As it turned out, the website focussed my learning and provided a filing system for what I discovered. What I hadn’t planned for was how good a find-outer I was, and how prolific George had been. Like Topsy, the website grew and grew. It has brought me countless hours of pleasure, not least the excuse for an annual [at least] visit to Orkney and contact with interesting people in many different parts of the world. I hope something of that comes through as you browse.

Is this a commercial site?
My services are provided free for the website, this is not a commercial operation, and I rely on many good friends and GMB's family and colleagues who supply help, information and use of photographs free of charge. 

Why would anyone take this on for free?
I do it because I feel he is a writer with relevance for the 21st Century;  his enduring gentleness and resonance with the rhythms of life on earth, his sure touch with the mythical and mystical, and perhaps above all his simply beautiful way with words and phrases – all these offer much to the discerning searcher today, whether literary or spiritual.

I hope you get a flavour of his magic from these pages.

Sue Tordoff
West Sussex
UK
August 2006
suevic@freenetname.co.uk