Alice Tarbuck
Hello, I’m Alice and I am a part-time Literature Officer at Creative Scotland. I joined the Literature Team in July 2021, and my usual working days are Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.
After reading English and Medieval English for my undergraduate and MPhil degrees at the University of Cambridge, I then moved to London, where I worked at HarperCollins in editorial. It was fascinating to gain experience of the breadth, scope and speed of commercial publishing, and I hugely enjoyed getting to be hands-on, helping make authors’ work the best it could be!
After that, I moved home to Scotland, where I completed a PhD at the University of Dundee and the Scottish Poetry Library, where I studied the visual poet Thomas A. Clark, whose archives sit within the SPL. During that time I worked for the National Library of Scotland, and loved getting to know their vast collection. I was also a bookseller and events programmer for indie bookshop Golden Hare Books, where I was so delighted to be able to engage with brilliant and diverse writers across Scotland and further afield.
Before joining Creative Scotland, I taught Creative Writing at the University of Dundee and lead creative writing workshops for organisations such as the National Library of Scotland and the University of Edinburgh, which let me exercise my excitement for new writing!
I’m also an author, and was lucky enough to receive a New Writers Award for poetry from the Scottish Book Trust, so spent time working on my first full collection. I wrote my debut non-fiction book, A Spell in the Wild: A Year (and Six Centuries) of Magic, which was published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2020. When not writing, I hugely enjoy event chairing, and have been lucky enough to chair events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Portobello Books, and further afield. My work as a Lead Reader for Open Book, a Scottish literacy charity, has been enormously rewarding, and my involvement leading their ‘Off the Beaten Track’ group, which focuses on BAME, LGBTQ+ and disabled voices in poetry, has given me a chance to highlight and celebrate the diverse voices which are so vital to literature.
There are so many exciting projects to be part of at Creative Scotland, and hope that my experiences in the literature sector have prepared me well to support all of our applicants — be they organisations or individuals. I’m particularly invested in access in all its forms, whether it is helping to dismantle barriers to entering the literature sector; ensuring that the sector is as diverse as it can be, or ensuring that events and opportunities consider all access requirements. I’m also the Lead Officer for Glasgow Women’s Library.
Do get in touch with myself or any member of the team to talk through the funding application process. You can email me at: alice.tarbuck@creativescotland.com.
