Hello. I am greum maol stevenson.
Short version (34 words):
Author, community activist, Zen Buddhist monk in Glasgow. I write a newsletter about Scottish and European politics and culture, class issues, Zen Buddhism, art, music, books and whatever else i might be thinking about.
Long Version (487 words):
I am a Scottish (not British) author, poet, essayist, Zen Buddhist monk, activist and chronically contentious citizen. I was born in Glasgow's G20 postcode in 1966, and after years of travelling widely – including 22 years in America during which i lived in Arizona, Tennessee, and Oregon – i returned home when Donald Trump got elected. I am an ecosocialist, supporter of Scottish independence (but not a nationalist), privacy, social housing, universal healthcare, public transport, and right to the city, and i served for a year on the National Committee of Living Rent.
I have written more than a dozen books, and hundreds of articles, stories and poems, published under various pen names, including Barry Graham. I was a founding contributor to, and associate editor of, Rebel Inc magazine. The Times called me "a young master," back when i was young and masterful. Details magazine (RIP) called me "one of the real literary finds," back when i was found to be real literary. My novel The Book of Man was chosen as a best book of 1995 by the American Library Association. My novel The Champion's New Clothes, first published in 1991, came out in French translation in 2021, and won the Prix Marianne. I witnessed two executions in Arizona, invited by the men about to be killed, not the state. My reporting on the death penalty won a Folio Silver Medal, and was published in my book Why I Watch People Die.
My bylines currently vary, depending on the form. I write non-genre fiction as g.m. stevenson, poetry in English as greum maol, poetry in Scots as maol, and noir and horror fiction as grm stvnsn.
My poetry is published regularly on Buddhistdoor, but is just as likely to be found, with no byline, on stickers on city walls. I lead writing workshops in schools and prisons, and give performances in which i recite sections of my novels from memory.
My Dharma name is dogo. I have been a Zen practitioner since my early 20s. For six years i served as the Abbot of The Sitting Frog Zen Centre in Phoenix, Arizona. Now i teach internationally online at City Cave Zen, an independent, nondenominational Zen sangha. Before the pandemic, i taught Zen face to face in various venues in Glasgow, and am now once again having in-person meetings in Glasgow, but the online meetings will continue. Much of my Zen practice and teaching happens in the streets.
I am married to daishin, a Sonoran Desert rat turned New Scot who is also a Zen monk. We got married in Iceland in 2019, and we now live in the Wyndford housing scheme in a hermitage we call Comraich airson Lusan Leònte/Wounded Plant Sanctuary. We have a podcast.
I am not on Fcbk or Twttr or Nstgrm, or any other media run by surveillance capitalism.
If you want to ask me anything, you are welcome to email me.
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