Open Fund for Individuals: May 2021 highlights
One of the more rewarding aspects of being a Literature Officer is getting to see the difference funding can make, giving writers and other creative literary folk time, space and resources to make new work, explore different forms and deepen partnerships. Our first round up of the type of work being supported through the Open Fund for Individuals has already inspired several of you to get in touch to ask your plans meet our criteria: we look forward to many more conversations like that in the future.
So, who else has been supported and what are they planning to get up to? Joma West is working on her third novel, an experimental piece of Science-fiction/Fantasy exploring the nature of creativity and how it is linked to health and survival. There is plenty of monkeying around from illustrator Michael Kirkham as he works on his first children’s picture book, exploring his own understanding of movement by working with a professional dancer as part of his research.
We have a strand of writers casting their eyes back in time, with historical fiction from Lesley McDowell, inspired by the children of Scottish plantation owners and enslaved women, that challenges the notion that Scots weren’t involved directly in slavery until the early 19th century. George Gunn wants to bring the poetry of Scotland’s past into the imagination of Scotland’s future readers through his second novel, set on Dunnet Beach in the mid-1800s. Overseeing a glorious collaboration between filmmakers, musicians and composers, Chrys Salt has been turning a narrative poetry sequence based on the impact of the Klondike gold rush on both the indigenous people of Yukon into an artist film to be toured round festivals and venues.
There’s also a strand of writers looking into family relationships, with an exploration of expectations of motherhood as Aoife Lyall researches and writes her second full-length collection of poetry. Meaghan Delahunt is finishing a first draft of a non-fiction that examines mother-daughter relationships through the prism of death and dying. Laura Lam is taking a step outside of her comfort zone and turning to autofiction and an account of three generations of her family, supported by her mother and a mentor as she navigates a different way of structuring her work.
And where we we be without a decent dollop of adventure? Taking a break from the Siberian wilderness, Polly Clark is battling the high seas and training as a skipper as part of her research into her next novel. And Andrew James Grieg is re-working the much-loved R L Stevenson classic, Kidnapped, into a contemporary thriller with themes of trafficking, immigration, sexual exploitation and state sponsored terrorism.
If you’ve received funding from Creative Scotland to support the development of your writing — in any form or genre — or your literary work as a programmer or in another role, and would like to be included in my next round-up, please get in touch viccy.adams@creativescotland.com
*all Creative Scotland funding awards are listed on the Creative Scotland website on a monthly basis.
