Performances
Liz Lochhead
One of Scotland’s most celebrated writers, Liz Lochhead is a poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Appointed Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011, she held the title of Scotland’s Makar from 2011 to 2016.
Liz began performing poetry in the 1970s and her first collection of poems Memo for Spring won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award. She has since published numerous award-winning poetry collections, including The Colour of Black and White and Dreaming Frankenstein.
Liz uses Scots in various poems and is a champion of the aural and oral tradition of poetry reading. Her work also draws frequently upon aspects of Scottish history and culture.
Liz’s writing often reveals her roots in the West Central Scots dialect area. This is a large area, encompassing Scotland’s biggest city and many of its largest towns and its dialect shows great variety from place to place.
James Kirk
Founding member of Orange Juice, James Kirk has continued to create and make music in various forms. Currently, with a truckload of songs in the wings, expect a new release and gigs sometime in 2022.
Ciara MacLaverty
Ciara MacLaverty was born in Belfast, grew up on Islay and lives in Glasgow. She has published short stories and two pamphlets of poetry - Seats for Landing and Past Love in the Museum of Transport. In 2006, 'Peeled' was selected by Janice Galloway as one of 'The Best Scottish Poems of The Year.' A New Writer's Award from the Scottish Book Trust followed in 2017. Commissions include poetry for Scottish Opera and Edinburgh Book Festival. She's been blogging for twenty years and is currently working on a memoir.
The Times Literary Supplement described her as 'a born enthusiast.'
Antonia Abbot
Antonia Abbot is a writer, poet and spoken word artist based in the southside of Glasgow. She has three daughters and started her writing career after the birth of her first child. Her children serve as a constant inspiration for much of her work which contains a deep connection to motherhood but also looks at the human condition as a whole. She shows an ability to reach into the psyche and evoke an emotional response through her writing, much of which is a reaction to events that influence her and the world around her.
Eugene Kelly
(The Vaselines, Captain America & Eugenius)
photo © Niall Webster
Warren McIntyre
(Starry Skies, Ducks, Moondials)
Thi Wurd
Andrew Cattanach is a Glasgow-based writer and editor. He has published fiction in thi wurd, New Writing Scotland and Gutter magazine. A graduate of The Glasgow School of Art, he is a former reviewer and editor for The Skinny and gets by working as a freelance copy writer and magazine editor.
Alan McMunnigall was born in Glasgow. He is editor at thi wurd, which he founded in 2006 as a platform to put on literary events and support writers. Eventually thi wurd grew into an indie publisher that produces its own literary art, publishing an array of new and established writers/artists in book and magazine form.
Brendan Breslin was born in Glasgow in 1988. He studied an MA (Hons) Liberal Arts Literature degree at the University of Glasgow. His most recent fiction appeared in The Common Breath’s The Middle of a Sentence anthology (2020). He currently lives in Dumfries.
Gill Davies is a writer and radio producer from Helensburgh who lives on the loudest street in Glasgow. Her short stories have been published in thi wurd and From Glasgow to Saturn. Gill writes for the travel blog Spotted by Locals.
Kate McAllan is an artist and writer, based in Glasgow. She studied drawing and painting at the Edinburgh College of Art. Kate is a member of thi wurd. She is currently developing an illustrated collection of her short stories.
Katie Paterson is a writer from Glasgow. She completed a Literature RMA at Amsterdam University in 2015 and, after a stint in London, returned to Glasgow, joining thi wurd in 2018. She now works as a freelance content and copywriter.