The following people are participating in, or have contributed to the organisation of, The Lit Parade Glasgow West End Festival, 2012. To book your free place on Wednesday 13th June - call 0141 330 1860 (Mon-Fri, 10 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.)

Mo Blake

Mo Blake is a writer of prose and poetry and is one of four founding directors of Read Raw Ltd, who showcase the work of writers throughout the UK. The Read Raw team are cultural partners to Renfrewshire Council and are currently working with Renfrewshire Mental Health to stage a poetry gala throughout Renfrewshire. Mo's poetry and short stories have been published in various anthologies including the Scotia Bar Poetry Finalists' Anthology 2010 and on www.inksweatandtears.co.uk. Mo is currently a student of Glasgow University's MLitt Creative Writing course and one of the organisers of The Lit Parade.

Mark Buckland - special guest.

Mark Buckland is the young Scottish publisher who established Cargo Publishing in 2009. He creator of Cargo Crate, Scotland's first ever eBook imprint. Cargo also publishes the £10,000 Dundee International Book Prize. Mark is also the inspiration behind Margins Book and Music Festival.

 

Pat Byrne

Pat is a part-time student on the MLitt Creative Writing Course at Glasgow University. After many years of writing reports, reviews and features she's enjoying being back at Uni and trying her hand at making up stories. Pat also co-writes songs with her husband Jim Byrne and keeps busy running her website: www,glasgowwestend.co.uk. She is one of the organisers of The Lit Parade.

James Carson

James Carson is from Glasgow. His stories, articles and reviews have been published in magazines and anthologies, in print and online. James is currently studying Creative Writing in Glasgow University’s celebrated MLitt programme. James is one of the organisers of The Lit Parade.

 

Alan Gillespie

Alan lives in Glasgow, Scotland. He has not been published in Gutter Magazine, New Writing Scotland or in the Edinburgh Review. He is not a recipient of a New Writers' Bursary from the Scottish Book Trust, and he has certainly never performed his work at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. His debut short story collection will not be published, by anyone, anytime soon. Say hello at alangillespie.wordpress.com

 

David Greaves

David has so far refused to stop writing about dinosaurs. His work has appeared in the 'Verge' 2011 fiction anthology and the 'From Glasgow To Saturn' journal, and his prose-poetry pamphlet, 'Hinged', was released by the New Fire Tree Press in 2011. He is originally from the North but his accent needs work.

Paul McCafferty

Born in Elderslie. Grew up in Paisley. Lived in Canada for 10 years where he won the Toronto spoken word prize in 1996, the prizes being-A publishing contract with Insomniac Press and performing at Lollapollooza, the North American Glastonbury. Paul has published over thirty poems and a couple of short stories (Prose being one of the things he came to the M-Litt to try to perfect.) He recently finished work on a co-written adaptation Of Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy and was nominated for best screenwriting at Milan. A fact which has him pinching himself.
'Am I...dreaming?'

Linda Duncan Mclaughlin

Linda lives in the West End of Glasgow with a grumpy cat and understanding neighbours. She completed the MLitt in 2010, winning The Glasgow Student Short Story Prize and The Gillian Purvis New Writing Award along the way. This gave her a taste for Master's degrees and she's now completed an MA in Television Fiction Writing at Caledonian with the added bonus of a Script of the Year prize. She’s now ready to launch herself on the world with a novel-in-progress, numerous short stories and a portfolio of TV scripts. Run for cover...

 

Josianne Azzopardi Mamo

Josianne, born and raised in sunny Malta, is one of the organisers of The Lit Parade.  In 2011, she was awarded an Arts Scholarship, funded by the Government of Malta, to study Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow.  Her work has appeared in The Turl, an anthology of work produced on a Creative Writing Summer Programme at the University of Oxford (2009).  Some of her current projects include a work-in-progress novel, which is set on an infamous street in 1950's Malta, and other short fiction.  She is the author of Strait Street Narratives, a website which holds the secrets of British veterans who visited her homeland after the Second World War. 

 

Tracy Patrick

Tracy Patrick is a writer, performer and graduate of the MLitt in Creative Writing at Glasgow University. She has won poetry slams in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and performed at various venues including the Wicker Man festival. She has written poetry, monologues, short stories, and had work published in numerous magazines. Recently she completed her first novel. For eleven years, she was editor of Earth Love poetry magazine, an environmental poetry journal that donated all its proceeds to conservation causes. She is currently working on a second Earth Love anthology.

 

Kevin Scott

Kevin is a Glasgow-based writer and journalist trying not to let the fiction of his imagination get confused with the facts of his day job. He is currently studying an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. Kevin's fiction has been published in From Glasgow To Saturn and the Scottish Book Trust's Days Like This anthology.
He's on that internet thing at www.kevscott.net

 

Zoe Strachan - special guest

Zoe Strachan completed the MLitt in Creative Writing at the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. Her first novel Negative Space was published in 2002 (Picador), followed by Spin Cycle in 2004 and Ever Fallen in Love in 2011 (Sandstone). She also writes short stories, libretti, plays, essays and journalism. Her work has been nominated for various prizes and she picked up a range of awards - recently her book Ever Fallen in Love was shortlisted for Scottish Book Awards 2012. Zoe currently teaches part-time on the MLitt Creative Writing Course at University of Glasgow.
http://zoestrachan.com/