Speaker biographies
Francis Bickmore
Francis Bickmore is Senior Editor at Canongate Books, where he has worked for the last nine years specialising in fiction. In that time he has worked with novelists including Yann Martel, James Meek, Louise Welsh, Alasdair Gray, Philip Pullman, Scarlett Thomas and Nick Cave.
David Bishop
David Bishop is a part-time lecturer on Edinburgh Napier University's new Creative Writing MA, where craft and vocational skills are his main subject areas. He's the author of 20 published novels, had a play broadcast on BBC Radio 4, scripted numerous graphic novels and more than a dozen audio dramas (variously featuring Doctor Who, Judge Dredd and the Daleks). Since attaining an MA in screenwriting with distinction from Screen Academy Scotland in 2007, David has concentrated on film and TV projects. He's written an episode of the medical drama series Doctors, due for broadcast on BBC1 in February 2010. David is also creative consultant on an animation project in development for BBC3 and is working on children's TV drama concepts with a Scottish production company.
Anne Caldwell
Anne Caldwell is a poet and CPD manager for the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), the one organization supporting the development of creative writing of all genres and in all educational and community settings throughout the UK. She is a highly experienced trainer, creative writing lecturer and runs NAWE's one to one coaching programme for writers as well as other professional development opportunities. Her first full length collection will be out with Cinnamon Press in 2011.
Philippa Cochrane
Philippa originally trained as a teacher of English in secondary schools but she has since worked in the arts for her whole career, specifically with organisations that specialise in working in educational and community settings. She has worked for Scottish Book Trust for six and a half years, changing roles as the organization has developed. In her current role as Learning Manager, she co-ordinates a range of programmes that connect learners of all ages with authors, reading and writing.
Linda Cracknell
Linda Cracknell is a writer of prose and radio drama including two published collections of short fiction Life Drawing (NWP, 2000) and The Searching Glance (Salt, 2008). A Creative Scotland Award in 2007 launched her into writing creative non-fiction about a series of journeys on foot, each of which followed a story or theme. She is editor of a non-fiction anthology on the wild places of Britain and Ireland, A Wilder Vein, (Two Ravens Press, 2009).
Linda was writing fellow at Brownsbank Cottage 2002-5 and has tutored many workshops including Arvon Foundation courses. She has facilitated creative writing as part of a number of major school projects focusing on diverse themes such as stars and constellations, a long distance footpath, and worked in schools in Dumfries and Galloway during the national research project ‘Arts Across the Curriculum'. She was a mentor on the British Council/University of Lancaster's ‘Crossing Borders' project 2003-6 in which British writers worked with writers from African countries. She is currently a Royal Literary Fund fellow at Stirling University. She lives in Highland Perthshire.
Photo © Phil Horey
Steve Dearden
Steve Dearden is the Director of the National Association for Literature Development, the professional body for all involved in developing writers, readers and literature audiences, and of The Writing Squad, a two year programme for writers in Yorkshire aged 16-20, which he set up with Danny Broderick in 2001. He is an Associate Producer for imove, part of Yorkshire's Cultural Olympiad. He also devised and produced a UK/Canadian exchange and web project (http://www.foundland.net) and founded the reading projects www.light-transports.net and www.bradfordsquare.net. He was one of three Yorkshire-based writers working with three from Ostrobothnia, Finland on Interland, a watery tour and publication (http://www.intland.net) and was writer in Residence at Bluewater Shopping Centre as part of www.architexts.org
Freelance work ranges from visioning and business planning with arts organizations (including North East-based Flambard press and conducting a Live Literature Review for Arts Council England North East), through the community consultation on Manchester's Cultural Strategy to hosting readers days and writers events.
From 1991-2000 Steve worked as Literature Officer at Yorkshire Arts. From 1987-1991 he was Director of the Ilkley Literature Festival and from 1982 to1985 was Arts Officer at the University of Durham.
Julie Ellen
Julie became the first Creative Director of Playwrights' Studio, Scotland in February 2004. She is responsible for determining the organisation's artistic policy and delivering activities with playwrights in Scotland and internationally. Previously Julie was producer for Suspect Culture, Deputy General Manager of Theatre Centre London and Artistic Director of the Duke of Cambridge Pub Theatre. Julie originally trained as an actor at QMUC, Edinburgh and worked as an actor and director in Scotland and London. Recent directing work includes Sandy Nelson's Glimmering Nymph for Play, Pie & a Pint, Assistant Director for Dundee Rep's Sunshine on Leith by Stephen Greenhorn and Kieran Lynn's The Stranger from the Sea for New Writing, New Worlds.
Fiona Gibson
Fiona Gibson grew up in a tiny Yorkshire village called Goose Eye. Desperate to escape country life, she left school at seventeen for her dream job - working on Jackie magazine in Dundee. This involved writing horoscopes (which she made up) and readers' true life experiences (which, er, she made up). Fiona spent her twenties in London, editing more! magazine, Just Seventeen and Bliss, before relocating to Lanarkshire, Scotland with her husband, their twin toddlers and baby daughter. In the throes of early motherhood, she decided to write a novel, Babyface, followed by three more novels for Hodder. Her latest, Mummy Said the F-word, reached the top ten in hardback.
For the past thirteen years, Fiona has worked as a freelance writer, contributing to Red magazine, Marie Claire, The Observer, Zest, Prima, Mother & Baby and the Telegraph. She also writes a weekly column chronicling her family life for the Sunday Herald. When she's not writing she loves to run, cycle, draw, play tenor sax and sink into a deep bath with the door locked.
Photo © Mark Hamilton
Jamie Jauncey
Classics and a law degree might not seem the most obvious qualifications for a career as a writer, but the bug struck early and I was on the way long before I realised it. I first started writing for businesses when my own, a small magazine publishing company, went bust in the early 1980s. Since then I've learnt a lot more about business - mainly by writing for other people's.
Today I'm based in Scotland, to which I returned in 1990 after 20 years in London. As well as my own client work, I'm a partner in the Dark Angels programme of Creative Writing in Business courses, and a member of the Scottish Storytelling Centre's Stories at Work team. I'm one of the Scottish founders of 26, a nationwide group of writers and business people who champion a more imaginative use of language at work. I've contributed to a number of business books and publications.
My fifth novel, The Reckoning, was published by Young Picador in November 2008. I'm also on the board of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the world's largest literary festival. In the past I've chaired the Society of Authors in Scotland, sat on the Scottish Arts Council's Literature Committee, and been chairman of the judges for both the Scottish Children's Book Awards and the Pushkin Prizes.
I also have a part-time career as a musician. At one time it was the pop scene. Today I play the piano with various Scottish traditional bands.
Jane McKie
Jane McKie is originally from West Sussex and now lives in Linlithgow, West Lothian with her husband and two children. Her poems have been published in various magazines and anthologies, including New Writing Scotland and Granta's New Writing Volume 15. Her first collection, Morocco Rococo (Cinnamon Press), was awarded the Sundial / Scottish Arts Council prize for best first book of 2007. Her second collection, When the Sun Turns Green, came out with Polygon in 2009. She runs a small press, called Knucker Press, which invites writers and artists to work together on books and pamphlets.
Adrian Mead
Adrian Mead is a former night club bouncer and a hairdresser turned writer and director of film and TV. He has since directed six short films and developed a career as a writer of television drama. His credits include ITV's Blue Dove, Where The Heart Is, BBC's The Eustace Brothers and Waking The Dead.
In 2005 Adrian wrote and directed his first feature film, Night People. The critically acclaimed winner of the BAFTA Scotland Audience Award had its UK theatrical release in 2006/7 and has screened at numerous international festivals.
‘Adrian Mead crafted moving and beautifully lensed vignettes from a night of despair and hope in Edinburgh.' Adam Dawtrey, Variety
Whilst developing film and TV projects with a number of international companies, Adrian recently branched into animation; writing for the legendary Dennis & Gnasher for Nine Network Australia and CBBC.
His book Making It As A Screenwriter has been hailed by leading industry professionals as the definitive career guide for aspiring screenwriters. It is available to download from www.meadkerr.com and all monies raised go to the UK charity Childline.
Nicola Morgan
Nicola Morgan is an award-winning and popular author, choosing to write mainly for teenagers. She has written around 90 books including novels and non-fiction about the brain, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Notable works include her famously gruesome novel Fleshmarket; the Aventis short-listed Blame My Brain: The Amazing Teenage Brain Revealed; and her latest thriller, Deathwatch, featuring a girl being stalked by an obsessive insect-collector. Her books are widely translated.
Nicola is a regular speaker about books, reading, the brain and teenagers (often simultaneously) and about how to get published and stay published. She blogs energetically and acerbically about publishing and writing at helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com. After recently stepping down as Chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland, Nicola now hopes to devote more time to her writing and speaking career and occasionally her family.
Fiona Pilgrim
Fiona Pilgrim is Professional Development Manager, Cultural Enterprise Office. Originally trained at Edinburgh College of Art, Fiona has worked as a lecturer, an administrator and project manager for arts organisations, and a designer and maker for ceramic and textile businesses.
Louise Welsh
Louise Welsh is the author of three novels, The Cutting Room, Tamburlaine Must Die and The Bullet Trick (Canongate Books). Her new novel Naming the Bones will be published by Canongate in March 2010. She recently collaborated with the composer Stuart McRae on a short opera, Remembrance Day for Scottish Opera's 5:15 series and her new play, Memory Cells, opened at The Arches in Glasgow this October. She's the recipient of several awards, the most recent of which is the City of Glasgow Lord Provost's Award for Literature. Earlier this year she was a fellow at the Villa Hellebosch, Vollezele, Flanders. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. Louise has worked with creative writers in schools, universities, and community groups and is a mentor for The Scottish Book Trust.
