The Scotland underneath my stories

On a nine-square-mile island in the Inner Hebrides, a crew of mostly elderly locals just dug up a monastery that had been lost for 1,400 years. Lios Mòr, founded in the 6th century by St. Mo Luóc, who carried Christianity to the Picts. A cemetery, metalworking, carved crosses nobody in Scotland has seen the like of. Gone for fourteen centuries, and found by somebody's granddad with a trowel.

This is the Scotland underneath my stories. The old world didn't vanish, it's just under the grass, waiting.

On Samhain, Oct 31, two of those stories go live: The Return of the Arch-Druid and Enchanted Echoes: The Complete Alaric MacGregor Saga. The veil is thinnest that night. Seemed the right time.

Read about the dig here: Smithsonian Magazine, "A Community-Led Archaeology Dig on a Tiny Scottish Isle Has Unearthed a Medieval Monastery of 'International Importance,'" by Sonja Anderson, October 9, 2026 — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-community-led-archaeology-dig-on-a-tiny-scottish-isle-has-unearthed-a-medieval-monastery-of-international-importance-180989654/