Author Archives

Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

• ‘Is evil something you are, or something you do?’

  By Bill Pearse on November 5, 2015 • ( 25 )

  We’ve hung a roadside atlas of Scotland over the door in our flat, draped there like something we shot and dragged in for drying — it looks so big on paper, but you can see much of it we’ve covered… Read More ›

• Cloud herding in the Highlands

  By Bill Pearse on November 4, 2015 • ( 15 )

  

  There are two good reasons, probably more, to get a new job right away if you’ve lost your current one. First, you don’t want any gaps in your resumé. Like a house with a For Sale sign, the longer it… Read More ›

• The inner rings of meta-ness, Inverness

  By Bill Pearse on November 2, 2015 • ( 13 )

  

  Monday. Put on a new shirt, examined the tick bite for a ring, realised we have too much stuff. Is there any point to unpacking it, to let it breathe? Seems all this packing is an emotional thing. Carrying more… Read More ›

• ‘Tight framing of shots,’ 1974

  By Bill Pearse on November 2, 2015 • ( 19 )

  

  It’s like I’m caught on flypaper, trying to leave the Scottish bar: they’re on to me, an American tourist here for a week, all of them asking questions. It starts with the old guy and his dog who’s sniffing my… Read More ›

• The Table of Contents

  By Bill Pearse on October 31, 2015 • ( 11 )

  

  Our last morning in Arbroath, the wind and rain have stopped and everything has gone still. I walk the estate in the opposite direction from last time, spot two beasts in the distance, perhaps the same that startled Dawn the… Read More ›

• Still life with broken tile

  By Bill Pearse on October 29, 2015 • ( 20 )

  

  When we arrive at our flat outside of Arbroath the owners ask us what are we doing here, politely, which is a fair question, and I mumble something about coming from Newcastle by way of Amsterdam and touring 90 days… Read More ›

• Strange dreams on a boat crossing the North Sea

  By Bill Pearse on October 28, 2015 • ( 37 )

  

  In the cocktail lounge at dusk as the boat’s engines are starting, there’s an empty stage planned for live entertainment later, and Walking on the Moon playing, and it seems every song is made just for us and our journey… Read More ›

• Red Virginia Creeper

  By Bill Pearse on October 25, 2015 • ( 12 )

  

  Sitting in Laurent’s kitchen over an old farmhouse table he’s trying to describe what Capon means, the castrated cock he cooked the last time we were here in Metz around Christmas, and when he says castrated cock he suddenly looks… Read More ›

• Let’s pretend we’re blind

  By Bill Pearse on October 24, 2015 • ( 25 )

  

  I get lost in the canal side streets as I knew I would and lose track of the names, but recognise a jar of olives in a store front window and remember it was on my left before, and stop to turn… Read More ›

• Listening to the band Suicide in an Amsterdam loft

  By Bill Pearse on October 23, 2015 • ( 22 )

  

  When we leave Germany, the vines growing up my mom’s house have lost most of their leaves and her courtyard has a battered look to it with all the dead and the dying lying on top of each other —… Read More ›