Jo Gilbert

Jo Gilbert is a spoken word artist and writer based in Aberdeen and has been writing professionally for six years. WTF is normal anyway? is Jo’s debut poetry collection, which was published by Seahorse Publications in August 2022.

Jo’s work is influenced by a myriad of things – music, art, poetry, film, history, prose, photography, sound, landscape, class, and people – filtered through personal experience and innumerable factors that weave the direction our creative paths take. Jo writes in her native tongue of Doric (NE Scots) and in English.

As well as writing, Jo is an experienced creative writing practitioner who has worked with festivals, arts organisations, art galleries and theatre companies to design tailored workshops for a broad range of participants and specific groups, from primary three schoolchildren to a group of women over 60 years of age. These commissions cover a range of disciplines and formats, including poetry, spoken word, film poems, prose, writing for wellbeing, editing, performance techniques and starting out in publishing poetry.

Jo also works with the Elphinstone Institute delivering creative writing and Scots language input to PDGE students, language students, primary and secondary schools, as well as teaching online Doric classes to new and experienced learners.