About Lucy
Biography
Scree is the work of writer, photographer and mountain leader Lucy Burnett. Prior to turning freelance as an art and outdoor activity professional, Lucy worked as a Creative Writing lecturer at the Universities of Cumbria, Leeds Beckett, Strathclyde and Salford, where her research focussed on the relationship between literature and the environment, focussing particularly on questions of climate change and landscape. Before academia, Lucy worked as an environmental campaigner for Ramblers Scotland, where she played a key role in the passage of legislation on access to the countryside, and Friends of the Earth Scotland where she specialised in energy issues and climate change. She has also worked as Centre Director of Arvon Lumb Bank, facilitating the delivery of residential creating writing courses, and in arts marketing for CatStrand Theatre. She has recently been appointed Director of StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival.
Lucy has four books with leading UK publishing houses. Poetry collections Leaf Graffiti (2013) and Tripping Over Clouds (2019) are published by Carcanet Press and one step sideways & 13 down (2021) by Guillemot Press. Her hybrid novel Through the Weather Glass explores how literature can engage with climate change in different ways from the apocalyptic norm, and was published by Knives Forks & Spoons Press in 2016. She has an emerging profile as a fine art and landscape photographer, and is a qualified mountain leader, with vast experience of hiking and fellrunning in the UK mountains and abroad. She ‘compleated’ the Wainwrights aged 16, and the Scottish Munros in 2017, and runs with Keswick Athletic Club. Lucy is originally from SW Scotland, but currently lives in Cockermouth in the North Lakes, where she gets out running, hiking or cycling, and writing and taking photographs, as often as possible.
Read more about the personal narrative behind Lucy creating Scree in the blog piece entitled Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake here.
the fellrunner
to talk about
the pleasure principle
of falling downhill fastly
i agree with running
mainly
the condition of mud
as controlled slippage
feet dancing
to the score of impulse
dripping rainbows
from the surface of my smile
my innocence
implies
a headlong gravity:
mountain
heartbeats failing
drowning saltwater
i sometimes even think
how little death might be
but barely
foot-studs
stopping-up
the past participle to fall
From Tripping Over Clouds, Carcanet Press 2019
Image (c) James Appleton
Publications
Click on any of the below cover images to find out more about Lucy’s work, or to purchase copies of the books.
