Giff on the Way Home was an essay series written during David Ian Giffen’s return to Scotland in the summer of 2026, more than four decades after leaving Glasgow for Canada as a child.
What began as writing about return became an examination of something more complicated: what it means to belong to a place that shaped you largely through memory, family and distance. Written from roads, coastlines, churches, pubs, football grounds and the places where personal memory meets inherited history, the essays move through faith, fatherhood, immigration, identity, loss, accountability and home.
The series does not arrive at a simple recovery of what was left behind. Instead, it asks whether coming home might mean accepting everything that happened in between—and bringing that person home too.
Giff on the Way Home concluded in August 2026.