Nan Shepherd Event: Alycia Pirmohamed’s Shorelines
Cowdray Hall (Aberdeen Art Gallery), Aberdeen, AB10 1JQ
Sunday 6th September 2026
Winner of the national Nan Shepherd Prize for underrepresented voices in nature writing, Alycia Pirmohamed joins us to read and discuss her prize-winning book, Shorelines.
As a young Muslim woman, Pirmohamed grew up with her body as racialised and her faith as seemingly dangerous. Her affinity with the natural world – the mountains, elk and pines of her childhood – conflicted with feelings that she was unwelcome in these landscapes. By contrast, the stories of her parents’ homeland – the monsoon winds, red clay roads and abundant korosho trees – felt painfully distant. Across interrelated pieces that travel from Midwestern Canada to East Africa, the Pacific Northwest to the British Isles, the award-winning poet traces the legacies of migration and memory on her life, examining the idea of homeland and the mythmaking it demands. She creatively resists the expectations of nature writing and memoir, at times choosing to withhold as much as she reveals.
Shorelines moves from lavender skies to lighthouses, from surefooted ideas to liminal spaces. It asks what it means to carry hidden histories across borders and generations – and how losing family can mean losing the place they are from too. Above all, it explores how place and identity intertwine, and how our choices, our actions and the ways we build community shape us into who we become.
This event will begin with the announcement of the winner of the 2026 Nan Shepherd Creative Writing Competition for North-East S5 and S6 pupils, run by the WORD Centre for Creative Writing. It will be chaired by UoA's Dr Elizabeth Anderson, Senior Lecturer in English.
Alycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born writer based in Scotland. Shorelines is her first work of non-fiction, for which she won the Nan Shepherd Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Another Way to Split Water, was shortlisted for Poetry Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. She is the recipient of several other awards, including a Pushcart Prize, the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Alycia is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, and she currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s programme at the University of Cambridge.
WayWORD empowers young people to produce a cross-arts literary festival in Aberdeen. Celebrating new work and ideas, amplifying diverse voices and breaking down barriers to culture in our community, WayWORD is part of the WORD Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen. Find the full programme, including accessibility information, at www.waywordfestival.com
As a young Muslim woman, Pirmohamed grew up with her body as racialised and her faith as seemingly dangerous. Her affinity with the natural world – the mountains, elk and pines of her childhood – conflicted with feelings that she was unwelcome in these landscapes. By contrast, the stories of her parents’ homeland – the monsoon winds, red clay roads and abundant korosho trees – felt painfully distant. Across interrelated pieces that travel from Midwestern Canada to East Africa, the Pacific Northwest to the British Isles, the award-winning poet traces the legacies of migration and memory on her life, examining the idea of homeland and the mythmaking it demands. She creatively resists the expectations of nature writing and memoir, at times choosing to withhold as much as she reveals.
Shorelines moves from lavender skies to lighthouses, from surefooted ideas to liminal spaces. It asks what it means to carry hidden histories across borders and generations – and how losing family can mean losing the place they are from too. Above all, it explores how place and identity intertwine, and how our choices, our actions and the ways we build community shape us into who we become.
This event will begin with the announcement of the winner of the 2026 Nan Shepherd Creative Writing Competition for North-East S5 and S6 pupils, run by the WORD Centre for Creative Writing. It will be chaired by UoA's Dr Elizabeth Anderson, Senior Lecturer in English.
Alycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born writer based in Scotland. Shorelines is her first work of non-fiction, for which she won the Nan Shepherd Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Another Way to Split Water, was shortlisted for Poetry Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. She is the recipient of several other awards, including a Pushcart Prize, the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Alycia is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, and she currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s programme at the University of Cambridge.
WayWORD empowers young people to produce a cross-arts literary festival in Aberdeen. Celebrating new work and ideas, amplifying diverse voices and breaking down barriers to culture in our community, WayWORD is part of the WORD Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen. Find the full programme, including accessibility information, at www.waywordfestival.com
