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Helen Lynch

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Contact: h.lynch@abdn.ac.uk
Local authority: Aberdeenshire
Languages: English
Helen Lynch's headshot

Helen Lynch is an author and academic based in the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen. She published The Elephant and the Polish Question, a collection of interlinked short stories set in Poland during the collapse of Communism, in 2009. Her second collection, Tea for the Rent Boy, completed with the help of a Creative Scotland Writer's Bursary, was published in 2018. Some may also know her as the whistle player and dance caller in popular North-East, all-female ceilidh band, Danse McCabre.

Her research, on politics and poetry in the seventeenth century, resulted in the book Milton and the Politics of Public Speech in 2015, and she has written interactive online educational resources for schoolchildren, Beowulf for Beginners and The Knight with the Lion. Teaching for Scottish Culture & Traditions Association for many years, she co-edited The Aberdeen Collection: 250 Contemporary Scottish Tunes in Traditional Style in 2017.

She has performed at numerous festivals and literary events, participated in panel discussions and delivered workshops on various themes: most recently her ‘Elsewhere to Be’ series focusses on empowering young writers of Polish linguistic and cultural heritage to express and reflect on their experiences through creative writing.

Local authorities can visit

Aberdeen City; Aberdeenshire; Angus; Argyll and Bute; Clackmannanshire; Dumfries and Galloway; Dundee; East Ayrshire; East Dunbartonshire; East Lothian; East Renfrewshire; Edinburgh City; Falkirk; Fife; Glasgow City; Highland; Inverclyde; Midlothian; Moray; Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles); North Ayrshire; North Lanarkshire; Orkney Islands; Perth and Kinross; Renfrewshire; Scottish Borders; Shetland; South Ayrshire; South Lanarkshire; Stirling; West Dunbartonshire; West Lothian

Events can deliver

Panel event; Reading; Residency; Talk; Workshop

Audience can work with

Adult learners; English as an additional language (EAL); People experiencing mental health problems; Vulnerable adults; Young people in the community (e.g. Youth clubs, Guides, Scouts)

Topics of work

Activism & protest; Ageing; Biography & memoir; Childhood; Class & society; Contemporary fiction; Emigration & immigration; Event production; Fairy tales, folklore & mythology; Family; Gender equality; Historical fiction; History; Music; Nature; Rural communities; Travel writing; Violence & abuse; World War 1; World War 2

Age groups published for

Adults

Age groups can work with

15-18; 18+

Audience size

0-10; 11-30; 31-100; 100-500