Stone Made of Circle

Testimony to the ‘shaping of a mindscape in a landscape’, A Stone Made of Circle is an experimental island monograph from the salt-lashed edges of the Hebridean archipelago which tracks a voyage into themes as personal as they are universal—wildness, origins, belonging, enchantment—and a call for a radical reconnection to the living Earth.A Stone Made of Circle is a collection of encounters with islandness. It is also one way of answering the question: what is an island? A work of briny imagination, this elemental ensemble takes us through the basaltic cracks of deep time, across roiling Atlantic seas to the shore’s edge to meet with ancient seaweed spirits, airborne lighthouse keepers, fierce weather gods, rollicking skeleton kings and living ancestors, all while reckoning with—and revelling in—life at the edges.Diaries, essays, poems, notes, recipes and photographs make up this almanac of attention, which charts a journey through some of life’s most pressing questions: What does it mean to be kin… to be kind? Do we belong? Are we truly alive? What, in our collapsing world, is at stake? Based in the Hebrides, A Stone Made of Circle is a testament to the enlivening power of place.

Hannah Close is a writer, photographer-filmmaker and cultural curator. She is currently making a documentary exploring the deep connections between people and place, and co-convening creative residencies under sail. Her island monograph, A Stone Made of Circle, is forthcoming in 2026 with Humans & Nature Press. She holds an MA in Engaged Ecology with a focus on island studies, and created the popular online course, KINSHIP: World as Archipelago for the transformative learning platform, Advaya. She grew up in the West Country and now lives in the Hebrides with her dog, Rune, following many roving years along the west coast of the Atlantic archipelago.