Former nurse and now successful artist/writer Fi Bailey brings her uniquely engaging and therapeutic writing workshop to Outwith on 7th September. We asked her what people can expect from Cut Out: AS: What was the inspiration behind Cut Out? FB: I wanted to complement the festival’s musical offering with a technique often used when writing lyrics. Playing with words that already exist gets rid of an intimidating blank page for some.
Ahead of his Outwtih Festival Queer Words Writing Workshop on Friday 9th September at Fire Station Creative, we put a few questions to BAFTA Scotland winner Michael Lee Richardson to find out what makes him tick as a writer: AS: What inspired you to become a writer? MLR: A lot of writers say they’ve been writing ever since they could hold a pen, and that’s not my story. I’ve always loved
https://outwithfestival.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/V1.mp4 Storming back after a Covid absence, Outwith 22 starts 6 September and runs til Sunday the 11th. It features a world class art exhibition, a whole day of live music, international film, top comedy, writing masterclasses, spoken word nights and a host of heritage, cultural and other activities. Check out the programme and book tickets on outwithfestival.co.uk and keep an eye on Avocado Sweet over the next couple
Adam Smith, Mary Somerville and Gordon Brown are not the only bright sparks to have hailed from Kirkcaldy. Admired by Sir Walter Scott, whom she knew, Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain, Marjory Fleming was a child prodigy poet born in the town on 15 January 1803, the third child of accountant James Fleming and his wife Isabella. Isabella was a surgeon’s daughter and, as a gifted intellectual herself, Marjory’s
In the modest seaside town of Burntisland in Fife in the early 1780s lived a girl who would become the pre-eminent thinker in science and mathematics of her day, known and feted throughout Europe. Eventually a school, an Oxford College, an island, even a crater on the moon would all be named for her. But first Mary Somerville had to negotiate her way through a society that did not expect
Gregory Burke is originally from Rosyth near Dunfermline. Burke’s first play was Gagarin Way, set in the factories of West Fife. Black Watch, for the national Theatre of Scotland, debuted at in 2006 and met with critical acclaim. It has since been performed throughout Scotland and has toured in London, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Other works include Occy Eyes, The Straits, Unsecured, On Tour, Liar, Shellshocked and Hoors. More recently, Burke wrote the screenplay for the film 71, about a
Jennie Erdal is the author of Ghosting, a memoir of her childhood in Lochgelly and of being the long-serving ghostwriter of Naim Atallah, the publisher and owner of Quartet Books. She worked for him for 20 years, first as a translator of Russian novels, then as a commissioning editor and finally as unacknowledged ghostwriter. Ghosting was chosen as a BBC Book of the Week and was shortlisted for the Saltire Scoiety First Book Award and for the JR Ackerley
Joe Corrie was born in 1894 in Slamannan near Falkirk. A few years later his family moved to Cardenden in Fife. He left school at 14 in 1908 to work in the local pits and during the First World War he worked at a colliery in Ayrshire. On his return to Cardenden in 1918 he began writing verse and it wasn’t until the twenties that he began working on plays.
Former headteacher Christina Banach is from Lochgelly. Her debut novel Minty is published by Three Hares Publishing, based in London. Fife features heavily in her book, in particular Ruby Bay in Elie. A member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Society of Authors, Christina is working on her next book – a contemporary ghost story-come-psychological thriller, set mainly in Glencoe. www.christinabanach.com
Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America’s celebrated Edgar Award for ‘Resurrection Men’. He has also been shortlisted for the Edgar and Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark’s Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix