I have rheumatoid arthritis plus type 1 diabetes amongst other things. I wanted to put together a little video of what my day with these things looks like in the context of being a professional songwriter. This video contains needles…

A post shared by John Wilson (@jayswilson23) on Oct 10, 2017 at 11:29am PDT

Since I'm giving a presentation in this year’s CS Lewis Festival my Instagram search tab is full
of CS Lewis quotes under the heading 'things you…

 Airline Rep: I’m sorry, madam, but a keyboard is not a musical instrument’.

Me: I’m talking about the kind that you hit the keys and they play notes, not one you plug into a computer.

Airline Rep: I understand that,…

So, let's turn the tables and have the artists interview the presenter..

1. What drew you to Celtic music?

From an early age, I'd been introduced to Celtic sounds through my mom's own love of Celtic music. I would say…

I never heard the screech of breaks because the driver didn’t break. He simply hit my father and kept driving, the police in pursuit. It was April 1984 and I would turn 8 in May. My mother jumped out of…

So once more I found myself in an airport waiting to fly to Glasgow, a city I had last seen in May. The flight from Belfast took a grand total of 25 minutes. As Steven McKnight, my esteemed guitarist…

Peregreni

In the town where I live there is a bottle bank. In the year 590 AD St Columbanus, a saint of the Celtic Church, stood at the spot where it stands and bid farewell to his ninety year old…

To Soothe the Savage Breast…

Musick hath charms to sooth a savage Breast,

To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.

William Congreve, The Mourning Bride 1697

One summer when I was 22 I was sitting in a circle of…

Caledonian Summer (nearly)

Ah, the life of a wandering minstrel. Some years ago I was in Tuscany when I met a New Yorker in a vineyard. He told me he’d never want to go to Ireland, it was so cold…

 Back to the Old Country

More than a hundred years ago, my great-grandmother left Donegal (Rosapenna, Carraig Airt direction to be precise) in search of adventure in the Big Smoke of Belfast. She ended up with eight children in the…

I was walking one evening along the North Down coast

And as I walked I was thinking

Of the one I loved the most.

As the sun set on Bangor, far across the waves,

Dark against the horizon

I glimpsed…

The Journey of Making ‘Twenty Miles from Home’

The Title

The title Twenty Miles from Home is intended to conjure a journey. The perception of the listener directs its meaning; you have been on a long journey and are in…