Stewart Ennis

I’m a novelist, playwright, poet, performer, tutor and occasional photographer. As a performer I trained at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier. In 1990 I co-founded Benchtours Theatre, creating  many acclaimed shows throughout the nineties and noughties. For several years I was prison creative writing lecturer at HMP Shotts. The work occasionally involved helping prisoners create work for their children. Visiting Time, an anthology of prison writing was published in 2019.  My stories and poems for children and adults have appeared in Gutter, The Curlew, The Caterpillar and various print anthologies. I’ve had several plays for adults and children and my performance work has taken me throughout Europe, India, East Africa and Cuba.

Most recently! In 2019 I was awarded the Aberdeen-Curtin Alliance scholarship to study a creative writing PhD at Aberdeen University & Curtin University, Perth, Australia. My first novel, Blessed Assurance, was published in 2020. As of 2022 I’ve just written an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes and The Speckled Band for Theatre Sans Frontiers, and Yoyo and the Little Auk, (a collaboration with Visible Fictions, RSNO, composer Euan Stevenson and animator Gavin C Robinson), a story that explores Scotland’s diverse cultures, and introduces classical music to 3- 6 year olds.

(Photo credit: Flora Robinson Ennis)

(Works in Scots)