Seaglass

'These essays investigate the permeable boundaries between humans and their environment: skin, shore, water-surface. Seaglass is an invitation to live more fully, think deeply. A true gem.’

Helen Mort

‘Kathryn Tann has a poet's eye for fine detail. These essays are full of intricate, illuminating images, as bright and surprising as the lozenges of sea glass Tann searches out on the shore.’

Naomi Booth

‘This is a lovely lapidary arrangment of prose fragments and personal stories. Seaglass tells us about skin and swimming; it delights in dancing and performance and quietly hymns nature, from pavement weeds to Canadian wilderness.

And much like sea-worn beads of glass garnered on the shore, the prose here is reflective, refracting and full of gentle colour, as it leads us to blue pools and ponders the meditative moments in life.

A book as gentle as the lapping shirr of waves, as buoyant as the wrap of sun-warmed seawater around a swimmer’s onwards shape.’

Jon Gower

‘True to its name, Seaglass is awash with bright, hard shards of truth and beauty, to be sifted by the reader and held up to the light. What dazzling colours and shapes they make, and how joyful to spend time lost in their intricate patterns. A truly accomplished and thoughtful collection.’

Mike Parker

‘Lyrical, full of insight and turns of phrase that made me envious to have not written them.’

I've finished Seaglass and it's wonderful. Lyrical, poised, absorbing. It's an immaculate essay collection, deftly rolling out your personal narrative through ideas of place and finding.

Adam Farrer

‘In Seaglass, Kathryn Tann weaves memory, joy in the natural world, and a humble appreciation for those simple acts of communion with bodies of water ‒ being both in and beside them ‒ to create a collection of essays and meditations that are beautifully written and incredibly wise.’

Carly Holmes

‘Kathryn Tann sifts through our vast complex and changing world to find the precious moments of stillness and solace that anchor us. Quietly observant, candid and tender, Tann writes movingly about her deep connection to nature, the challenges of growing up and repositioning oneself in the world, and the primal instinct to build a home wherever the tide takes us.’

Karen Powell

‘Kathryn's book is a luminous exploration of the landscapes of South Wales and the Northeast, and of the person she became while moving through them. She has a talent for taking ordinary moments and making them extraordinary. Seaglass takes places and emotions I thought I knew and casts them into a new light.’

Sophie Yeo

‘Kathryn Tann is an exciting new voice, and SEAGLASS is a beautiful collection that shines jewel-like with moments of clear-eyed perception and piercing insight. This book will make you look at the world with fresh eyes.’

Jessica Moor

‘Like the sea glass of her title, Kathryn Tann’s essays are a scattering of small bright things – bearing witness to her careful noticings, a grounded probing of the tideswept nature of time, and her faith in curiosity and wonder as guiding lights to navigate our planet’s tumultuous changes.’

Linda France

'Gentle and full-hearted, Tann’s writing captures perfectly what it means to be human. A book full of treasure!'

Freya Bromley