Speakers For Second Day of Write Now 2012

We've got a really varied lineup for the second day of the conference. The first panel, 'What Happens When Elephants Teach Zoology,' kicks off the day with discussion of a subject close to all of our/your hearts: what does teaching creative writing entail? Does it actually work? What would the perfect creative writing programme look like? Come with lots of questions and be prepared to spend a day thinking and talking about creative writing in all of its guises (even writing for/by comedians and/or aliens!). See below for more detailed information. Please remember to book by the 19th of January for your discounted place by calling 0141 548 3511 during normal business hours, or online using this link: http://onlineshop.strath.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&catid=19&modid=2&prodid=113&deptid=157&prodvarid=0


Write Now 2012 – Conference Day Programme
9:00am – Registration
9:30am – Welcome and housekeeping
9: 40am – Panel 1
10:45am – Break for tea and coffee
11:00am – Panel 2A or 2B
3 papers (20mins each) plus 30mins at the end for Q & A discussion
12:45pm – Lunch
1:30pm – Panel 3A or 3B
3 papers (20mins each) plus 30mins at the end for Q & A discussion
3:00pm – Break for tea and coffee
3:15pm – Panel 4A or 4B
3 papers (20mins each) plus 25mins at the end for Q & A discussion
Break to relocate to Main Hall
5 pm – Keynote Address Alan Bissett, Ewan Morrison & Zoë Strachan
Close 6pm

Panel 1 - What Happens when Elephants Teach Zoology?
Lesley Glaister - St Andrews University
Elizabeth Reeder - University of Glasgow
Zoë Strachan - University of Glasgow
On Process and Teaching within a Community of Writers
Elizabeth Reeder, Zoë Strachan and Lesley Glaister will discuss their creative processes and how they influence their teaching. How does individual creative practice influence the choices we make when teaching others? Do we practice what we preach? Is there a place for the mentor in the teaching of creative writing? And what might the ideal creative writing programme look like?

Panel 2A – Poetry and The Landscape
Jen Cooper - University of Aberdeen
Creating ‘Imaginary States of Nature’: The Uses of Free Verse in Contemporary Nature Poetry
Ken Cockburn
The Road North: A Journey Through Scotland and Poetry
Shane Strachan - University of Aberdeen
Flinty Souls: Narrating the North-East
Panel 2B – Fact, Fiction and History
Gill James - University of Salford
Uncovering history: three tools, three strands and three fact-fiction relationships used in writing an historical novel.
Sally O’Reilly - Brunel University
Myth and monolith: tackling the Shakespeare legend.
Ursula Hurley - University of Salford
Writing in the dark? Carrying a torch for ancient historical fiction.
Panel 3A – Teaching and Judging Creative Writing
Raymond Soltysek - University of Strathclyde
A Little often: changing the creative writing culture in secondary classrooms.
Dr. Maeve Tynan - University of Limerick
‘Mimicry is an act of imagination’: Strategic Imitation in the Creative Writing Classroom
Mary Aherne - University of Hull
The Booker Prize: Who are the winners and losers in a cultural field dominated by the marketplace?
Panel 3B – There’s Poetry in Everything (Even Aliens)
Mary McDonough - University of Strathclyde
Curation vs Creation: understanding and interpreting autobiographical material
Dorothy Alexander – Centre for Lifelong Learning
Adventures in technique: experiments in found – using restricted vocabularies to access creativity and cross media.
Russell Jones - Edinburgh University
Edwin Morgan and Science Fiction Poetry – Edwin Morgan: Scots Makar, respected academic, alien.
Panel 4A – Does Scotland Need Creative Writers?
Alicia Stubbersfield - Liverpool John Moores University
The Writer at Work: One Answer to the Question ‘What use is a degree in Creative Writing?’
Jacqueline Smith, Ron Butlin, Gerry Loose - Scottish Writers Centre
The Future of the Scottish Writers Centre
Panel 4B – Comics, Crime and more Comics
David Manderson – University of the West of Scotland
Lost Borders: A Paradigm Shift in Crime Fiction
Gordon Robertson
From the Dark Ages to the Renaissance - The New Wave of British Comics
Siân Bevan
Why So Serious? How Comedy Can Shape a Writer.

Zoë Strachan at Write Now 2012

This is Zoë Strachan (see image above). 


We are thrilled that she is going to be a panellist at Write Now 2012. So thrilled that I thought I would tell you a bit about her. I was even more thrilled to discover that she has a perfectly readable bio, and there is very little for me to actually DO, other than cut and paste. I was also happy that she has a really nice headshot, as I am not feeling up to the challenge of Photoshopping anyone today. In all seriousness, I am looking forward to hearing people ask her lots of questions about whether or not it is really possible to teach creative writing.


On a sort of unrelated note: I am looking forward to talking to her about the University of Iowa, where she had a fellowship at the International Writing Program. I studied Speech Pathology and Audiology across the river, on the science ghetto part of the campus, looking longingly at the English building, wishing I had been less responsible and just done writing instead.


If you'd like to see Zoë, you can still register and get the early bird conference discount by booking via the University of Strathclyde online shop: http://onlineshop.strath.ac.uk/. Click on the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty link.








_______________________________________






Zoë Strachan is the author of three novels: Ever Fallen in Love (Sandstone Press, July 2011), Spin Cycle and Negative Space (Picador). The latter won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award. In 2003 The Independent on Sunday listed her in their top twenty novelists under 30, and the Scottish Review of Books selected her as one of their new generation of five young Scottish authors in 2011. Her short stories and essays have been included in numerous journals and anthologies, she contributes journalism to various newspapers and magazines and her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3. She has received two writer’s bursaries from the Scottish Arts Council, a Hawthornden Fellowship and was UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence at the National Museum of Scotland. In 2008 she was awarded a Hermann Kesten Stipendium and spent time in Nuremberg, and in 2009 she received a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship which took her to France to write. In 2011 she undertook a British Council visiting fellowship at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa. In recent years she has become more interested in interdisciplinary projects, for example collaborating on the exhibition and publication ‘I throw my prayers into the sky’ (Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia, Germany) with visual artists Laura Murray and David Sherry and writer Louise Welsh. Recent works for theatre are ‘Panic Patterns’ (with Louise Welsh, Citizen’s Theatre and BBC Radio Scotland) and ‘Old Girls’ (which opened the 2009/10 season of A Play, a Pie and a Pint at Oran Mor in Glasgow). Her short opera Sublimation (with composer Nick Fells) toured Scotland in May 2010 with Scottish Opera before going to Cape Town, South Africa in November 2010. She has taught on the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Glasgow since 2003 and is currently working on a major new opera project for Scottish Opera for 2012. You can find out more at www.zoestrachan.com<http://www.zoestrachan.com>


Zoë Strachan is an award-winning novelist who also writes plays, libretti, short stories and essays. She was born in Kilmarnock in 1975. In 2003 The Independent on Sunday listed her in their top twenty novelists under 30, and the Scottish Review of Books selected her as one of their new generation of five young Scottish authors in 2011. She has been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship, the Hermann Kesten Stipendium and a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. Her latest novel is Ever Fallen in Love, has just been shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize, and in autumn 2011 she was British Council Writer in Residence on the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow.www.zoestrachan.com<http://www.zoestrachan.com/>


One more thing: you can follow her on Twitter. She says that she is a bit scared, so play nice. Her handle is: @zoestrachan