Speaker biographies
Drew Campbell held the Scottish Arts Council Writing Fellowship for East & Midlothian from 2002-05 and is the current Writer-in-Residence at Lomond School in Helensburgh. A novelist, scriptwriter and (occasional) poet, he has facilitated workshops for primary and secondary school pupils, asylum seekers, disabled groups, and many community writing groups over a period of fifteen years. Drew is also the current President of Scottish PEN.
Linda Cracknell is a writer of prose and radio drama. Her short fiction includes two published collections: Life Drawing (Neil Wilson Publishing, 2000) and The Searching Glance (Salt Publishing, 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. The unpublished manuscript Doubling Back, was shortlisted for the Robin Jenkins Literary Award for environmental writing in 2009. She is editor of a non-fiction anthology on the wild places of Britain and Ireland, A Wilder Vein, (Two Ravens Press, 2009). She has abridged novels and non-fiction, and written a number of afternoon plays for BBC Radio Four, the latest The Three Knots, broadcast in December 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 focussing 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 and lives in Highland Perthshire.
For full CV see: http://lccv.blogspot.com/
http://www.lindacracknell.com/
Fiona Gibson grew up in a tiny village called Goose Eye in Yorkshire. Desperate to escape country life, she left school at 17 to work on teen magazine Jackie in Dundee. She went on to edit More, Just Seventeen and Bliss magazines, and for the past 14 years has worked as a freelance writer for Marie Claire, Red, the Observer, Daily Mail, Elle, Sunday Herald and many others.
She has had four novels published by Hodder & Stoughton and her latest book, Mum on the Run, was published by Harper Collins in February 2011. Fiona’s first children’s book, a story for 9-12 year-olds, will be published by Scholastic in August.
Fiona lives in Lanarkshire with her husband, their 14 year-old twin boys, 10 year-old daughter and newly-acquired rescue dog Jack.
Jules Horne’s writing includes plays (Traverse Theatre, Quondam, BBC Radio), news and features (BBC, Swiss Radio International) and a whisky label (Scotch Malt Whisky Society). She has spent time in Grez-sur-Loing on the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, and teaches on the Open University’s Advanced Creative Writing course. Her writing business, Texthouse, provides words for companies, web designers and marketing agencies. www.texthouse.co.uk
Associate Director, Dundee Rep
Jemima was born in London and grew up in Bristol. She trained at Queen Margaret University and on a Scottish Arts Council Traineeship with the Royal Lyceum Theatre and Stellar Quines Theatre companies.
Productions as Associate at Dundee Rep include: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Sleeping Beauty, A Doll’s House, Equus, The Elves and the Shoemakers and The Elephant Man (winner of the 2009 CATS Award for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Design). Prior to this as a visiting director, she directed Beauty and the Beast (nominated at the 2008 CATS Awards for Best Production, Best Director and Best show for Children & Young People, winner of the award for Best Design). Current productions include St Catherine’s Day and Anna Karenina.
She has also directed Peter Pan, The Glass Menagerie and A Christmas Carol (nominated for 2005 CATS Award for Best Director and by the Critics Circle for Best Newcomer) for the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh; The Ducky for Borderline Theatre Company, co-directed Transform: Fife for the National Theatre of Scotland, Baby Baby for Stellar Quines, Shetland Arts and Perissology Theatre Productions; a workshop production for Grid Iron Theatre Company of Roald Dahl’s short story Lamb to the Slaughter; Paines Plough’s Ravenhill for Breakfast; Moonwalking, Killing Brando, Elf Analysis and The Date for the Oran Mor; Talking to Terrorists at the RSAMD; Three Sisters at Queen Margaret University; an interactive play website called Sweet Fanny Adams in Hyperspace Eden for 59 Ltd and children’s show Hambledog and the Hopping Clogs for Perissology, which played at the Edinburgh Fringe and went on to tour to the English Theatre in Warsaw.
As an assistant director she worked on various shows at the Traverse Theatre, the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Stellar Quines, the Edinburgh International Festival, Grid Iron and The National Theatre of Scotland.
Eleanor has worked in the book industry since the early 1990s, firstly with Dillons, then as part of the newly formed and much missed Ottakar’s book chain, working her way up the ranks from assistant store manager to becoming the first Operations Manager in Scotland. Here she effectively established a wide range of contacts within the literary and arts field in Scotland, which helped Ottakar’s grow into a unique and recognisable brand. When the company merged with Waterstone’s in 1996, Eleanor became Regional Manager for West Scotland, continuing to support and promote established and new Scottish writing. Having recently left Waterstone’s, Eleanor intends to continue working in the arts/literary field. She has two grown up children, Kirsty a published writer, and Ross who has just moved to Toronto in pursuit of a career in the film industry.
Nicola McCartney is an award winning playwright, director and dramaturg. She is currently Associate Playwright of the Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland with commissions to Royal National Theatre, National Theatre of Scotland and the Abbey Theatre, Dublin among others. She was Artistic Director of Glasgow-based new writing theatre company, lookOUT from 1992 to 2002.
Originally from Belfast, she first trained as a theatre director with the Northern Irish women’s theatre company, Charabanc and at the Citizens Theatre, and among many other productions, directed the 1996 national touring version of the award-winning Trainspotting (ad. Harry Gibson, G & J Productions).
As a playwright her work includes: Laundry, Easy, Entertaining Angels, The Hanging Tree, Transatlantic, and Home (dir. Carol Moore). Other work includes: The Millies (Replay); Cave Dwellers (7:84 Scotland Theatre Co.), Heritage (Traverse), For What We Are About To Receive (Brunton Theatre), Convictions (Tinderbox, Irish Times Theatre Awards Best Production 2001), Underworld (Frantic Assembly) and Lifeboat (Catherine Wheels) which won the TMA/ Equity Best New Show For Children & Young People 2002), Standing Wave: Delia Derbyshire In The 60s for Tron Theatre/ Reeling & Writhing and The Hero Show (EGYT), A Sheep Called Skye, (National Theatre of Scotland), Bog People (Big Telly Theatre Co) .
Nicola has worked as a dramaturge for a range of companies including Vanishing Point, TAG, Theatre Hebrides, Theatre Cryptic, Stellar Quines and the Edinburgh International Festival 2005. She has had a range of residencies both academic and community-based and specialises in working with children and young people from diverse backgrounds, both in the UK and internationally. Nicola is one of the Associate Playwrights of the Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland again this year having been one of the inaugural associate writers in 2005. She was Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Edinburgh until 2008 and has had a number of writer-in-residence posts including University of Ulster and Shetland Arts. She was a recipient of a Creative Scotland Award 2003 to work on her first novel.
Nicola has also written for radio, TV and film. In television she has written for many TV programmes including The Bill and River City and developed new projects for BBC Scotland, STV and Channel 4, Tiger Aspect and Ideal World. She has also developed projects for Freeway Films/ Scottish Screen and is currently writing the screen version of Heritage for Brocken Spectre Films. She is attending the Conference in Banff following work with Nightswimming in Toronto, financed by her Federation of Scottish Theatre Unplugged Award 2010.
Born Edinburgh, studied English Lit at Trinity College Dublin. Published in a variety of genres from contemporary commercial fiction to ghostwriting and historical fiction to children's picture books.
A self-confessed swot, I am obsessed with stories, words and historical detail. I thoroughly enjoy events and in the last year, in addition to a variety of book festival and library appearances, I took part in an exhibition of writers' responses to historical objects at the V&A during London Design Festival. This involved me writing a poem which was displayed only a couple along from Andrew Motion's. I'm unexpectedly geeky.
I run my own website and often find myself evangelising twitter and blogging on a variety of sites including the London Review of Books as well as writing for the printed press (most recently the Scotsman, The Natural History Museum magazine, The National Library of Scotland magazine and - believe it or not - the Women's Institute Magazine). I sit on the SOAIS committee and am an active member of 26, a UK group dedicated to the importance of all kinds of writing in our society.
In 2011 I'll be taking part in another museum exhibition this time at the National Museum of Scotland, and appearing at both the Eden Project and the National Trust for Scotland (among other events). I have had two books out in the last two months and am currently working on a series of cosy crime stories and two historical novels - one about chocolate production in the 1830s and one about Antarctic exploration. Upcoming work includes the historical novel Secret of the Sands (HarperCollins, February 2011) and the children's picture book I'm Me (Chicken House, March 2011).
Follow on Twitter: @sarasheridan
JL Williams was born in New Jersey and studied at Wellesley College and on the MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. Her poetry has been published in journals including Poetry Wales, The Wolf, Shearsman, Fulcrum and Stand. In September 2009, thanks to the Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary, she journeyed to the Aeolian Isles to write a collection inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses entitled Condition of Fire (published by Shearsman Books).
JL Williams is also the Literary Officer at the Traverse Theatre, plays in the bands Laertes, Why Are You Crying? and Horsebreaker and can be found on the Live Literature-funded list of Scottish Book Trust Authors. She regularly makes melopoesie (music and poetry) with the composer and musician James Iremonger.
