Scots Scriever (Sept 2022 – Sept 2023)

As the National Library of Scotland’s Scots Scriever (supported by Creative Scotland), I created new works in North East Scots (Doric) inspired by the national collections. My primary project was contemporary fiction inspired by the ballads of Anna Gordon Brown, which she learned while living in Old Aberdeen, some appearing in Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy, and many becaming Francis James Child’s favoured versions in his ballad collection. I also creating other smaller poetic and performance works inspired by archival material and verbatim.

Publications from this project thus far include:

• ‘Beyond the Sea’, commissioned as part of Scottish Book Trust’s Scotland’s Stories: Adventure (November 2023). In print and online.

• ‘Dads’ in Gutter 28 (August 2023)

• Two poems and accompanying article in Discover magazine (National Library of Scotland, June 2023)

DREEPIN (2021)

As part of Fertile Ground’s CRUDE curatorial project, I presented a new spoken-word installation, DREEPIN in August 2021 in Look Again’s Project Space.

Hello sexy… Through dark humour and an overload of innuendo, DREEPIN presents the contradictions and hypocrisies surrounding Aberdeen’s, and the world’s, dependency on the oil industry as a seeming economic necessity, yet a ticking time bomb with devastating ramifications. Through a queer subversion of petromasculine culture, it re-imagines this hypermasculine industry and its associated fetishisation of oil drilling, hedonism and petrol-head culture as a bad romance between Aberdeen and oil – our North Sea sugar daddy – who has long proved toxic, but hard to quit…

You can read more about the project on Fertile Ground’s website.

The Bill Gibb Line (2019 to 2021)

Originally commissioned for Look Again 2019, The Bill Gibb Line is a spoken-word film and exhibition inspired by the life and career of Scottish fashion designer Bill Gibb, which was exhibited at Aberdeen Art Gallery (22 February 2020 – 16 May 2021). The Bill Gibb Line podcast featuring all of the poems from the exhibition and a monologue of Gibb’s story can be heard on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can read more about the project on my blog.

Grampian Hospitals Art Trust: Shared Collective Heritage (2019 – 2021)

From autumn 2019 to summer 2021, I am the Project Writer for GHAT’s Shared Collective Heritage project, supporting staff, patients and visitors at Grampian Hospitals to engage with the hospitals’ art collections, connecting them with local heritage.

Nesta Alternarratives (2020)

My story ‘IMBED-X: Find Jenna’ was shortlisted for Nesta’s Alternarratives competition in 2020, which sought to inspire new ways of storytelling online for young readers. You can read the story on the BBC Taster website.

Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship 2018

I was one of four writers selected by Scottish Book Trust for the 2018 Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. In November of 2018, I was in residence at the Hôtel Chevillion International Arts Centre in Grez-sur-Loing in France, working on a new project inspired by the life and career of Scottish fashion designer Bill Gibb.

Muriel Spark 100 (2018)

I was selected by Creative Scotland and the National Library of Scotland to create new short stories in celebration of Muriel Spark's centenary in 2018. These stories were published as Nevertheless: Sparkian Tales in Bulawayo (amaBooks) inspired by Spark's time in Africa and by my own experiences of visiting Aberdeen's Zimbabwean twin city, Bulwayo. Find out more about the selected projects here. You can purchase a print or e-version of the book via African Books Collective.

Queer Words Project Scotland (2018)

In 2018, I mentored emerging writer Christina Neuwirth as part of Queer Words, coordinated by Ryan Vance and Michael Lee Richardson. The other mentors were Jo Clifford, Harry Josephine Giles and Kirsty Logan. Work from the project will be published by 404ink on 31 January 2019 as part of a new anthology, We Were Always Here. You can find out more about the project here and can pre-order a copy of the book here.

A Mother's Journey (2015) and #BUKA (2016)

In conjunction with the global research initiative, IMMPACT, I wrote a play to raise awareness of transport issues for women in labour in low- and medium-income countries. This was performed at the 2015 May Festival to a sold-out audience and guests from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Read all about the project on my blog.

On an exchange visit to Bulawayo in November 2016, I worked with Sue Fairburn (Gray's School of Art), Sally Thomson (Grampian Hospital Arts Trust), Cliford Zulu (National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo) and six local artists to create a new arts-in-health collective in Bulawayo, #BUKA (look at), through which the artists created new work in response to, and in enhancement of, maternal health environments. Read more about the project here.

Unreal Estate: Reflecting and Redressing Aberdeen City (2016)

As part of the 2016 Look Again Festival of Visual Art and Design in Aberdeen, Unreal Estate was a project created by artist Gabrielle Reith which invited visual artists, writers, school pupils and the general public to reflect on, and redress, Aberdeen City and its cultural and architectural heritage. I was commissioned to write new works about five of the ten chosen buildings on Union Street. These works were exhibited in the Bon Accord Shopping Centre from the 28 April – 2 May to over 3,100 people, alongside new writing and music from Fitlike Records (Charley Buchan) and new works by ten visual artists. Find out more about my involvement via my blog.

Write Aberdeen - Write Regensburg (2013-15)

I founded and coordinated this twin city writing project in conjunction with Aberdeen City Council and the Volkshochschule (VHS) in Regensburg, Germany. After running competitions and writing workshops in both cities, a collection of winning works entitled Passages was launched at the 2015 University of Aberdeen May Festival. Read more about the project here.

100 Words Doric and Gaelic project (2012-13)

Alongside two visual artists, I worked as a Doric Language Specialist, running community workshops and a Twitter campaign (@100wordsABDN) to help find Aberdeen's favourite Doric and Gaelic words. These words were then transformed into works of art exhibited at Aberdeen Arts Centre and Seventeen.