Scottish Writers' Centre - By Writers, For Writers

Scottish Writers' Centre - further information

International Women's Day Poetry Book Launches

A.C. Clarke & Amy Anderson - 7pm - 29th March

A.C. Clarke, who lives in Glasgow, is a prize-winning poet who has had three full collections published, Breathing Each Other In (Blinking Eye Publishers 2005), Messages of Change (Oversteps Books 2008) and most recently Fr Meslier's Confession, inspired by the atheist priest, Jean Meslier (Oversteps Books 2012). Her pamphlet A Natural Curiosity, inspired by Glasgow?s Museum of Anatomy, was published by New Voices Press in 2011. She will be reading from Fr Meslier?s Confession at the Dartington Ways With Words festival in July.

Amy Anderson was brought up in North Wales and has been writing since she moved to Glasgow in 2007. After being taught by Donny O? Rourke in 2010, she gained a place on the Clydebuilt Mentoring Scheme (St Mungo?s Mirrorball and Glasgow Life) to support developing poets at the beginning of their publishing careers. Amy has been published widely in magazines and journals and her debut Pamphlet A Clever Inference of Light to be published soon, explores the consciousness of the urban and the rural, the manmade and the natural and the shifting tones of nationality. And from the rain songs of windswept Glasgow to the music of her native Wales, she searches for the ways in which the spiritual inhabit all these dimensions.

The Writers' Hub

Opens in April and will be available fortnightly on Thursdays, 2-5pm in the Clubroom for all writers to visit and watch short TED films of International authors speaking about aspects of writing, catch up for details of workshops, book borrowing and chat.

April 5th: Elizabeth Gilbert, author of 'Eat, Pray, Love' talking about 'Nurturing Creativity'.

April 19th: Chris Abani, author of 'Graceland' telling 'Stories of Africa'.

May 3rd: Amy Tan, author of 'Kitchen Gods', on 'Creativity'.

May 17th: Chimamanda Adichie, author of 'Half of a Yellow Sun' on 'The Dangers of the Single Story'.

May 31st: (1-4pm) James Geary, a former writer for Time Europe and now an editor for Ode magazine. 'Metaphorically Speaking'

June 14th: Elif Shafak, author of 'The Bastard of Istanbul' on 'The Politics of Fiction' or Isabel Allende on 'Passion'.

June 28th: Shekar Khapur-Bollywood Director on 'Inspiration' or James Cameron, 'Before Avatar-A Curious Boy'

Gaelic & Scots/English Writing Groups

Mondays 7-9pm, SWC 1st Floor Office at CCA

Gaelic Group Dates with Catriona Lexy-Campbell & Maureen McLeod

April:16th & 30th; May: 21st; June: 11th

Scots/English Group Dates with Guest Facilitators(TBC)

April 23rd; May 14th & 28th; June 18th

Combined Showcase: June 25th 2012

*In Process Masterclasses

Whereby well-known literary figures share an exploration of their creative process with an emphasis on aspects of crafting using readings and other media of their choice to illustrate how and what works for them.

(Thursday evenings 7- 8.30pm-Clubroom)

April 12th: Alan Bissett- on Playwriting

Alan Bissett is a novelist, playwright and performer from Falkirk who now lives in Glasgow. In 2011 he was named Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Writer of the Year. His play Turbo Folk was shortlisted for Best New Play at the Critics? Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2010. He wrote and performed his own ?one-woman show?, The Moira Monologues, which toured Scotland to great acclaim and is now in development with the BBC. His novels include Boyracers (2001), The Incredible Adam Spark (2005), and Death of a Ladies? Man (2009), which was shortlisted for a Scottish Arts Council Fiction of the Year prize. His most recent book, Pack Men (2011) was called a ?landmark in Scottish fiction? by Irvine Welsh. The short film which he wrote and narrated, ?The Shutdown?, has won awards at several major international film festivals and was shortlisted for a Scottish BAFTA.

May 10th: Brian Whittingham & Janet Paisley - on 'Labour to Craft'

Janet Paisley is an award winning poet, author, playwright, non-fiction and scriptwriter, writing in Scots and English. A prolific and popular writer, first published in 1979, her work has been translated into German, Russian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Catalan, Spanish, Hungarian, Ukranian, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch and is widely anthologised. Awards include BAFTA and RTS nominations for Long Haul, a 2000 Creative Scotland Award to write Not for Glory; 1999 Canongate Prize; 1996 Peggy Ramsay Memorial award for Refuge; Scottish National, Swanage Arts and MacDiarmid Trophy poetry prizes; Sutton, Scotwrite and BBC prose prizes. In 1996 Alien Crop was shortlisted as Scottish Book of the Year and Sooans Nicht was Critics Play of the Year. In 2003 Not for Glory was in the World Book Day Top Ten Scottish Books and featured on the nation?s favourite books of all time list of 2005. Her critically-acclaimed historical novels, White Rose Rebel and Warrior Daughter, are published by Penguin.

Brian Whittingham poet, fiction writer, editor and playwright & ex-steelworker /draftsman, who was born and lives in Glasgow. He has published seven poetry collections, including Bunnets n Bowlers ? a Clydside Odyssey (Luath Press) a collection of poems from his early days working as an apprentice and then draughtsman in the Glasgow shipyards. Drink The Green Fairy (Luath Press). Septimus Pitt & The Grumbleoids (also Luath). Brian has written 4 plays and has had various short fiction published. He was co-editor of New Writing Scotland in 2010.

June 14th: Liz Lochhead on Playwriting

Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead was born in Motherwell, Lanarkshire. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art, then, while working on her earliest collections of poetry, taught art at schools in Glasgow and Bristol for eight years, till in 1978 she went to Canada for a year, after being selected for the first Scottish Writers Exchange Fellowship.

Her first collection of poems, Memo for Spring (Reprographia, 1972), won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, as did Dreaming Frankenstein (Polygon, 1984). She was a recipient of a Cholmondley Award for Poetry, and has already been honoured by both her host institutions, being a Fellow of Glasgow School of Art and an Honorary Doctor of Letters of Glasgow University. She has been similarly honoured by the Universities of Aberdeen, Stirling, Strathclyde, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Dundee, Abertay, of Queen Margaret University College and Glasgow Caledonian University, and is a Fellow of RSAMD and of Glasgow Institute of Art.

Her poetry collections include Dreaming Frankenstein (Polygon, 1984), True Confessions and New Clich?s (Polygon, 1985) Bagpipe Muzak (Penguin, 1991), and The Colour of Black and White: Poems 1984-2003 (Polygon, 2003).

Her plays include Tartuffe (Polygon, 1986), Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (Penguin, 1989) and the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award-winning Medea (Nick Hern Books, 2000).

Liz Lochhead lives in Glasgow. She was appointed the city's Poet Laureate in February 2005 and is also an Honorary President of the Scottish Poetry Library. She was appointed National Poet of Scotland in January 2011.

Debates & Discussions

(Thursday evenings 7-8.30pm in the Clubroom)

April 26th: All the Languages of Scotland & World Book Night Giveaway-Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'

Our fifth great Debate & Discussion event for 2012. ?All the Languages of Scotland? discusses all the languages and voices of Scotland. Scotland is more multi-cultural than ever before with peoples from across the world choosing to make this country their home. Are the literary voices of Asian, Afghani, African, Indian, Polish, Irish, Iraqi, European and West Indian, to name but a few and of course, not forgetting Scots and Gaelic; being heard and read, whether it be by book or kindle? Are these writers being considered equally by publishers and booksellers? Do they want to be-do you want to be? Come tell us about your experience. Tell us what the Scottish Writers? Centre can do to help you. Presenters TBC. Check the SWC Website for updates.

May 24th: Other Worlds-Other Dimensions

We want to hear your opinions about the place of fantasy, science fiction, paranormal and magic realism in comics, novels (graphic or text), poetry and short story format. An opportunity for discussion and debate that is out of this world! Special guests to be announced.

June 21st: Wild Writing

We want to hear your opinions and inspirations from an eco-friendly, totally natural, no holds barred perspective for a celebration of the lands we love, the sea we follow or the rivers and mountains we cross to mine and express our own wildness when writing. Special guests to be announced.

Unless stated all events in Clubroom at the CCA, 350 Sauchiehall St. G2 3JD