The End o Anither Auld Sang
Brownsbank Fellows
James Robertson
Following his tenure at Brownsbank (1993-94), James Robertson became the first Writer-in-Residence at the Scottish Parliament. He set up Kettillonia, a small pamphlet press in 1999, and is general editor of Itchy Coo, the successful Scots children’s book imprint.
James was born in 1958 and grew up in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire. A poet, editor, novelist and publisher, he is an active and prolific figure in the contemporary Scottish literary scene.
His second novel, Joseph Knight, won the Saltire Society Book of the Year in 2003 and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year award. His third novel, The Testament of Gideon Mack, was published by Hamish Hamilton in June 2006 and was long-listed for the Booker Prize. He has also translated into Scots Roald Dahl's classic novel, The Fantastic Mr Fox, as The Sleekit Mr Tod.
Matthew Fitt
Matthew Fitt was the Brownsbank Writing Fellow from 1995 – 1997. Born in Dundee, Matthew has since been Writer in Residence for Greater Pollok and has produced poetry films for the Royal Festival Hall and Hampden Stadium. A teacher and experienced translator, his publications include Kate o Shanter’s Tale and other poems, Time Tram Dundee, numerous books for children and the first science fiction novel in Scots, But n Ben A-Go-Go, written partly at Brownsbank Cottage.
Another innovation which sparked to life around the ingle at Brownsbank is Itchy Coo. With former fellow James Robertson, Matthew co-founded the Itchy Coo imprint and education programme in 2002. This remarkable project to promote the Scots language in education and the wider community has gone on to work in over 1000 schools, deliver 500 teacher training events, publish 35 new titles and sell a quarter of a million books. Through Itchy Coo, Matthew and James have presented the case for Scots at the Scottish Parliament, the European Union and the United Nations in New York, securing the inclusion of the Scots language as an integral part of the new Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. And it all started because of the Brownsbank Fellowship and Hugh MacDiarmid.
A THOOSAN THANKS FAE THE ITCHY COO EDUCATION PROJECT
You can still buy and enjoy Itchy Coo’s braw books for bairns o aw ages. They can be found in all good bookshops or on-line by following the links to the Amazon website. Please also keep checking the Black and White Publishing website for new titles.
However, we are sad to announce that the popular Itchy Coo Education and Outreach project has come to an end.
The Itchy Coo project began in 2001. You can read about what Itchy Coo achieved in its first ten remarkable years, 2001–2011, in our Review, compiled specially to mark the conclusion of the Education and Outreach project.
For a summary, see Itchy Coo - At a Glance or download the full review at The Story of Itchy Coo.
Gerry Cambridge
Gerry Cambridge was born in Lancashire in 1959 and has lived in Scotland since 1972, the first twenty five years of which were based in a caravan in Ayrshire. He founded the Scottish-American poetry magazine The Dark Horse in 1995 and was Brownsbank Writing Fellow from 1997-1999.
His work has appeared in the anthologies Dream State: The New Scottish Poets, The Faber Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry and The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth Century Poetry. His poetry collections include The Shell House, Madame Fi Fi’s Farewell and Other Poems, The Dynamite Project and Light Up Lanarkshire. His pamphlet Blue Sky, Green Grass: A Day at Lawthorn Primary won the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award in 2004.
Gerry's collection 'Nothing But Heather!': Scottish Nature in Poems, Photographs and Prose features his own natural history photography and was written during his residency at Brownsbank. Many of its poems are about species found in the local landscape, and its introduction begins with the experience of living in the cottage.
aonghas macneacail
Aonghas Macneacail was born in 1942 on the Isle of Skye. He has published several collections of poems, mostly in Gaelic with parallel English translations, including An Seachnadh/The Avoiding and Oideachadh Ceart/A Proper Schooling, the latter winning the 1997 Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. A collection of poems in English, Rock and Water, appeared in 1990. His latest book is a collection of Gaelic poems, Laoidh an Donais Oig/Hymn to a Young Demon.
Over a period of 30 years, he has held creative writing fellowships with various community and educational bodies, including the Gaelic College in Skye, Brownsbank (2000-2002), Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, and, most recently, in eight Dumfries and Galloway schools.
His work has been widely translated and has appeared in many magazines and anthologies both in the UK and abroad. He has written plays and scripts for television and radio. In 1993 he wrote a four-part documentary series on Gaelic culture for Scottish Television and Driven West, a five-part drama for BBC Radio Scotland, and has recently worked, as a co-writer, on the feature film Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle. He has also collaborated with various musicians, writing libretti and songs, and has toured all over the world to give recitals and lectures.
Linda Cracknell
Linda Cracknell is a fiction and drama writer whose short story collection Life Drawing was published in 2000 after the title story won the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short story competition in 1998. In 2001 Life Drawing was short listed for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award. Her second collection The Searching Glance has recently been published by Salt Publishing.
A number of Linda's stories and plays have been broadcast by BBC Radio. The Best Snow for Skiing, her play about poet Hugh MacDiarmid's wife, Valda Trevlyn Grieve, was broadcast by Radio Four in July 2005. The play was inspired by Linda's position as Brownbank Fellow (2002-2005).
Linda is also a creative writing teacher and workshop leader with various residencies in Scotland and further afield, including mentoring African writers through the Lancaster University/British Council ‘Crossing Borders’ scheme. In 2006, she worked as a visiting writer on the Arts Across the Curriculum project in Dumfries and Galloway.
To read about Linda's Brownsbank Experience, click here.
Tom Bryan
Tom Bryan was born in Manitoba, Canada in 1950, to a Scottish mother and Irish-Canadian father. He has previously been writer-in-residence for Aberdeenshire and the Scottish Borders and Arts Development Officer for Caithness. He currently lives in Kelso and plays blues harmonica for fun.
Tom has edited three magazines: Northwords, The Broken Fiddle and The Eildon Tree. He is a widely published fiction and non-fiction writer. His poems and stories have been widely published in literary magazines throughout the world during the last two decades.
He is the author of several anthologies of poetry and short stories, non-fiction and novels, including: North East Passage; Rattlesnake Road; Redwing Summer; Rich Man, Beggar Man, Indian Chief; The Sons of Macomish; The Wolfclaw Chronicles; Twa Tribes; and Wolfwind.
Tom is an experienced and respected workshop leader and performer. He has worked in schools, community centres and youth clubs, prisons and with adult writing groups and those with learning disabilities. He is thoroughly down to earth and unpretentious about writing and writers.
Carl MacDougall
Back in Glasgow he worked for 10 years as a copy-taker on the Scottish Daily Express. At this time he was also heavily involved with the burgeoning folk song movement, working on the influential Chapbook magazine with Arthur Argo and Ian Philip. He left the Express, published two collections of folk tales; then he moved to Fife, where he founded and edited Words magazine, where extracts of Alasdair Gray's Lanark and stories by James Kelman and Agnes Owens first appeared.
While working in radio and television, he wrote the stories which appeared in Elvis is Dead. Since then he has written three prize-winning novels, Stone Over Water, The Lights Below and The Casanova Papers. Billy Connolly has called Carl 'a hero of mine, a great storyteller', and George Mackay Brown said 'The Lights Below is a masterpiece - one of the great Scottish novels of this century.'
Carl introduced and edited the classic anthology of Scottish short stories, The Devil and the Giro and has also written for theatre, including an award-winning adaptation of The Good Soldier Schweik and, more recently, an adaptation of Molière's Don Juan for the Highland Festival. With Douglas Gifford, he published Into a Room, the Selected Poems of William Soutar, which followed the Soutar Centenary Exhibition which he researched, wrote and devised. Painting the Forth Bridge: A Search for Scottish Identity was published by Aurum Press.
Carl recently wrote and presented Writing Scotland, an eight part series for BBC television. As well as the book of the series, he also worked on the website.
