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Siún Carden

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Other contact method: Contact me through my website contact form: https://www.siuncarden.com/contact
Local authority: Shetland
Languages: English
Siún Carden's headshot

Siún Carden comes from near the Mourne Mountains in County Down and has lived in Shetland for a decade. She won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award for poetry in 2024. 

Her 2026 pamphlet The Boat Game is published by Stewed Rhubarb Press in Edinburgh. It moves through a world of ships, ferry routes, offshore rigs, and subsea cables, tracing the hidden systems that connect lives across oceans and islands, exploring what it means to travel, to depart, and to remain. A first pamphlet, Tract, was published by The Well Review in Ireland in 2023. It spanned Belfast and Shetland and was inspired by religious tracts as ephemeral publications. 

Elsewhere, her poems have appeared in journals including Irish Pages, The North, Magma, The Interpreter's House, Glasgow Review of Books, The Tangerine and Northwords Now. Work also appears in the anthologies Almarks: Radical Poetry from Shetland (Culture Matters) and The Middle of a Sentence (The Common Breath).

Siún is a Lead Reader for Open Book’s Shetland creative writing group and has worked with groups of all ages, including through her work as a lecturer and researcher at UHI Shetland.

Local authorities will 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 will deliver

Chairing events; Panel event; Reading; Residency; Talk; Workshop

Audience will work with

Adult learners; Care-experienced people; Carers; English as an additional language (EAL); Intergenerational learning; Outdoor learning; Adults with additional support needs; People experiencing mental health problems; People living with dementia; Prisoners & young offenders; Reluctant readers; Vulnerable young people (under 18); Vulnerable adults; Vulnerable older people; Young people in the community (e.g. Youth clubs, Guides, Scouts); Young people with additional support needs (under 18) (ASN/SEN)

Topics of work

Coasts, seas & oceans; Environment & climate; Island communities

Age groups published for

Adults

Age groups will work with

0-2; 3-5; 6-8; 9-11; 12-14; 15-18; 18+

Audience size

0-10; 11-30; 31-100