Wordplay 2017 - Programme by Shetland Arts

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annual literary festival curated by Karen Cunningham 01595 745500 | WWW.SHETLANDARTS.ORG

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Welcome On behalf of Shetland Arts welcome to Wordplay 2017. This year promises an exciting programme, curated by Karen Cunningham, former director of Glasgow’s Aye Write! Festival, and featuring a great line up of authors and events. Special guests include Judy Murray, author of Knowing the Score: Our Family and Our Tennis, award winning Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead, Scottish novelist and social commentator Christopher Brookmyre, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee and David Walker, appearances by world famous authors like Mairi Hedderwick and the award wining Chris Dolan through to opportunities for Shetland writers to pitch their work. We are also hosting “Scotland’s favourite avante-garde noise makers” Neu! Reekie! for a special Friday night performance and the wonderful Americana trio the Stray Birds will be running a masterclass in songwriting. There really is something for everyone. Our thanks go to all our partners and supporters for making this festival possible. Particularly those guests who have decided to travel north and visit us. To ensure that you can attend as many events as you want this year’s festival sees the launch of the Word Card an easy way to pay and get access to (nearly) everything! Browse the brochure or go online, get excited and enjoy the festival.

Karen Cunningham I am delighted to join the Shetland Arts team as Wordplay curator and I hope you are looking forward to this new chapter as much as I am. My aim is to inspire, challenge and entertain you! You may wonder who I am and why I’m here (though I’ve been a regular Shetland visitor for more than 10 years). I was formerly Head of Libraries in Glasgow and founded and was director of Aye Write! Glasgow’s Book Festival. It grew in a decade to become one of the UK’s leading book events attracting top authors and speakers. I hope to bring my love of books and experience of organising festivals to Wordplay. Scotland has a host of book festivals, but the best stand out because they have an enticing flavour that’s all their own. That’s what I hope Wordplay will be – a real taste of Shetland, reflecting not only my passions for Scottish literature and current affairs, but the interests and concerns of contemporary Shetland. The festival is about bringing the best local, national and international writing to you. The world we live in seems increasingly uncertain, but alongside debate and serious issues, are a slew of entertaining sessions and events reflecting the lighter side of life: music, sport, history, poetry, as well as plenty of laughs. An antidote for the times we live in. We may get things wrong, and I hope you tell us if we do. But come along and experience it for yourselves, join in the party, take part in the debate and give a great Shetland welcome to our guests!

THURSDAY 2 NOVEMBER Judy Murray - Knowing the Score Visualising the Words

7 - 8pm 8.30 - 9.30pm

Mareel Auditorium Mareel Auditorium

p4 p5

FRIDAY 3 NOVEMBER

SCHEDULE

BIG Book Bug with Mairi Hedderwick Creative Summit Polly Toynbee & David Walker Shetland Forwirds Concert Party Neu! Reekie! Mixology - Wordplay special

10.30 - 11.30am 2 - 4pm 6 - 7pm 7.30 - 11pm 8 - 11pm 11pm - 1am

Mareel Auditorium Shetland College Mareel Auditorium Aith Hall Mareel Auditorium Mareel Café Bar

p6 p7 p8 p9 p10 p9

SATURDAY 4 NOVEMBER Chasing Spells with Lari Don Ross Collins - There’s a Bear on My Chair! How to Get Published The Wonderful World of Katie Morag Ross Collins - Pictures & Prose Mairi Hedderwick - Shetland Rambles Post Truth: How Bullsh*t Conquered the World Scriptwriting with Chris Dolan Creative Writing The Stray Birds

10 - 10.45am 10 - 10.45am 10.45am - 12.15pm 11 - 11.45am 11.15am - 12pm 12.30 - 1.30pm 2 - 3pm 3.30 - 4.30pm 5 - 6pm 7.30 - 10.30pm

Mareel Green Room Mareel Auditorium Shetland Library Mareel Auditorium Mareel Green Room Mareel Auditorium Mareel Auditorium Shetland Library Bonhoga Gallery Mareel Auditorium

p12 p11 p13 p12 p11 p13 p14 p15 p15 p16

SUNDAY 5 NOVEMBER The Fantastic World of Lari Don Donald S. Murray & Marion Sinclair No Dominion - Louise Welsh The Stray Birds Songwriting Masterclass The Stray Birds Acoustic Gig BBC The Social Share Your Work with Publishing Scotland The Many Voices of Liz Lochhead Places in Darkness - Christopher Brookmyre Late Night Open Mic

10.30 - 11.30am 12.30 - 1.30pm 2 - 3pm 2 - 3pm 4 - 6pm 4 - 5.30pm 4 - 5pm 7 - 8pm 8.30 - 9.30pm 9.30 - 10.30pm

Mareel Auditorium Mareel Auditorium Mareel Auditorium Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall Mareel Auditorium Mareel Green Room Mareel Auditorium Mareel Auditorium Mareel Café Bar

p17 p18 p19 p20 p20 p21 p21 p22 p23 p24

THURSDAY 2 4

Judy Murray - Knowing the Score Thu 2 Nov | 7 - 8pm | Mareel Auditorium | £12/£10

An accomplished tennis player herself, and perhaps Scotland’s most inspiring celebrity Mum, Judy Murray has not only raised two Wimbledon champions (Andy for the men’s singles and Jamie for doubles) but is doing everything in her power to lend a hand to encourage girls who have ambitions in sport. All this success hasn’t come easily, it’s been set against a backdrop of struggle and loss and here she talks about the highs and lows of her incredible journey laid out in her book, Knowing the Score. Judy is a former Scottish international tennis player with 64 national titles to her name. She became Scottish National Coach in 1995, the same year that she became the first woman to pass the Lawn Tennis Association’s Performance Coach Award. She initiated the Scottish Development School programme which ultimately produced four Davis Cup players and one Fed Cup player, including her Grand-Slam-winning sons.

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Visualising the Words Helen Fitzgerald, Chris Dolan & Sergio Casci Thu 2 Nov | 8.30 - 9.30pm | Mareel Auditorium | £8/£6

Three of Scotlands top writers share their experiences of writing and adapting for stage and screen. Novellist and scriptwriter, Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of Dead Lovely, The Devil’s Staircase and Viral. She grew up in the small town of Kilmore, Victoria, Australia, and studied English and History at the University of Melbourne. Via India and London, Helen came to Glasgow University where she completed a Diploma and Masters in Social Work. She has worked as a probation and parole officer for ten years, most of it in Barlinnie, where she helps to prepare serious offenders for release. She’s married to screenwriter Sergio Casci, and they have two children.

Films include The Ring (BBC), the Imax production, Mistgate and Poor Angels, starring Peter Mullan. He runs a Masters degree course in Television Scriptwriting at Glasgow Caledonian University. Sergio Casci is a writer, actor and broadcaster, known for The Caller, American Cousins and Katie Morag. Among the numerous awards received for American Cousins was an Audience Award for Best Film at the Milan International Film Festival and a BAFTA Scotland award for Best Screenplay. His television credits include River City, Personal Affairs and Sea of Souls. He has adapted his wife, Helen Fitzgerald’s books for TV.

Novellist, script-writer and screen-writer, Chris Dolan’s stage plays include: Sabina, which won a Fringe First and The Pitiless Storm and The Cause Of Thunder both written for David Hayman. Dolan’s TV and radio, includes Taggart and River City, plus adaptations of Garcia Marquez, R L. Stevenson and Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels for Radio 4.

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BIG Book Bug with Mairi Hedderwick

FRIDAY 3

Fri 3 Nov | 10.30 - 11.30am | Mareel Auditorium | FREE

in partnership with Shetland Library and Scottish Book Trust Bookbug gifts book bags to every child in Scotland and runs free song & rhymes sessions across the country, and to celebrate Wordplay, Shetland Libraries are joined by Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Booktrust and the warm, witty and wonderful writer that is Mairi Hedderwick. Winner of the inaugural Scottish Booktrust Outstanding Achievement Award, Mairi’s books have been popular with children for more than 30 years and been translated into six languages. She has written or illustrated more than 30 titles for children, including her most famous creation, the Katie Morag books, which were adapted into a TV series for CBBC and have recently found a new fanbase in China. Marc Lambert, CEO at Scottish Book Trust, said: ‘Readers have been enjoying Mairi Hedderwick’s books for more than 30 years and will continue to love them for decades to come. She has captured the imagination of children across the world with her beautiful stories and watercolours. The character of Katie Morag is a beloved part of Scottish culture and Mairi’s strong support of nurturing quality writing, while her own work inspires readers, make her so important to the literary landscape in Scotland.’

Creative Summit Fri 3 Nov | 2 - 4pm | Shetland College | Invite Only

In the context of Our Islands, Our Future and the developing Scottish Cultural Strategy, Shetland Arts has invited a range of national literature partners, industry representatives and academics to have a creative conversation that will seek opportunities to develop new collaborative partnership and address issues such as:- Our islands are not remote – creative industries in the social media age; The place for dialects in contemporary Scotland; The importance of partnerships – in changing economic circumstances – no man is an island; Cultural Strategy; National Library Strategy. The results of this dialogue will be published on the Shetland Arts Website and will not only inform Shetland Arts’ literature development strategy but will hopefully influence national policy.

Polly Toynbee & David Walker - Dismembered Fri 3 Nov | 6 - 7pm | Mareel Auditorium | ÂŁ8/ÂŁ6

Toynbee and Walker travelled around Great Britain gathering the voices of the people who make up the state: nurses and patients, teachers and parents, policemen and civilians. The story they tell is one of dismemberment across our nation state: a fragmented NHS, a reduced police force, divided schools and a vulnerable military. Dismembered lays bare the deliberate dismantling of the public sector and its consequences. Our post-Brexit well-being and prosperity are now at stake. Polly and David have co-authored Dogma and Disarray: Cameron at Half-Time, Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today, The Verdict: Did Labour Change Britain? and Better or Worse: Did Labour Deliver? Polly is a columnist for the Guardian. She was formerly BBC social affairs editor, columnist and associate editor of the Independent, co-editor of the Washington Monthly and a reporter and feature writer for the Observer. David is contributing editor to the Public Leaders Network and former director of public reporting at the Audit Commission.

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Shetland ForWirds Concert Party

Mixology

Fri 3 Nov | 7.30 - 11pm Aith Hall | £10/£8

Fri 3 Nov | 11pm - 1am Mareel Café Bar | FREE

Celebrate Shetland’s Dialect storytelling and skit-writing tradition in a variety concert featuring performances by local songwriters, poets, writers and other performers. In collaboration with Shetland Forwirds.

Join our house DJ, DJ Lyall for Funky tunes with a literary theme accompanied by Wordplay Reel Gin Cocktails.

- Wordplay Special

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Fri 3 Nov | 8 - 11pm | Mareel Auditorium | £16/£12

Join us for a night of spoken word, film and music with Edinburgh’s exciting “avant-garde noisemakers” (The Skinny). Featuring performances from poets Michael Pederson and Kevin Williamson, alongside author Jenni Fagan and local poet Roseanne Watt, will be music from hip-hop band Stanley Odd, with a smattering of short animations and film throughout. Founded in December 2010 by poets Michael Pedersen and Kevin Williamson, Neu! Reekie! is a literary, music and animation collective with an international output; plus a record label and publishing house in tow.

SATURDAY 4

Ross Collins On graduating from Glasgow School of Art, Ross won the MacMillan Prize for his first picture book. Since then he’s illustrated over 100 books for children and written about a dozen or so. Children in over 20 countries seem to enjoy them and several have won enormous, glittering awards. Ross’ Greenaway shortlisted book, The Elephantom, was adapted into a critically acclaimed play by those clever people at the National Theatre who made that War Horse thing. There’s a Bear on My Chair was also short listed for the Greenaway and won the inaugural Amnesty CILIP Honour. When he’s not creating children’s books he enjoys working on character development for animation studios like Laika and Disney. He also likes walking in the Scottish glens with his dog, Hugo, who is an idiot, and his partner, Jacqui, who is not.

There’s a Bear Pictures on My Chair! & Prose Sat 4 Nov | 10 - 10.45am Mareel Auditorium | £8/£6

Sat 4 Nov | 11.15am - 12pm Mareel Green Room | £5

“this stylish, Dr Seussian, laughtogether picture book delights in simple scanning rhyme, funny lines, a surprising ending and Collins’s sure, comical draughtsmanship”

Ages 6-9 Join Ross for a fun-filled workshop on illustration, perfect for bairns. Hear him talk about creating books for children; Where does he get those strange ideas from? How does he decide what colour that monster fish thing should be? These and other startling questions will be answered, and then you can have a go at illustrating your own story!

– THE SUNDAY TIMES

A hilarious tale about an angry mouse and a smug polar bear, shortlisted for the 2017 Bookbug Picture Book Prize.

Chasing Spells with Lari Don

The Wonderful World of Katie Morag - Mairi Hedderwick

Sat 4 Nov | 10 - 10.45am Mareel Green Room | £5

Sat 4 Nov | 11 - 11.45am Mareel Auditorium | £8/£6

Ages 8-12 Lari Don is the multi-award-winning author of over thirty books for children of all ages. She grew up in the north-east of Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh.

Settle down for a storytelling session with popular children’s author Mairi Hedderwick!

Her Spellchasers trilogy tells the story of Molly, a girl who’s been cursed to shapeshift into a hare! When she finds herself in a curse-lifting workshop with four magical classmates, Molly is determined to solve their curse conundrum. Delving into Molly’s adventures from The Beginners Guide to Curses, The Shapeshifters Guide to Running Away and The Witch’s Guide to Magical Combat, Lari will reveal the magic of how to turn the spark of an idea into an exciting story, and how to imagine adventure of your own.

Winner of the inaugural Scottish Booktrust Outstanding Achievement Award, Mairi’s books have been popular with children for more than 30 years and been translated into six languages. She has written or illustrated more than 30 titles for children, including her most famous creation, the Katie Morag books, which were adapted into a TV series for CBBC and have recently found a new fanbase in China.

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How to Get Published

Mairi Hedderwick - Shetland Rambles

Sat 4 Nov | 10.45am -12.15pm Shetland Library | £7

Sat 4 Nov | 12.30 - 1.30pm Mareel Auditorium | £8/£6

Join Publishing Scotland for this interactive workshop, as they give budding authors hints and tips on how to get their work out there! Award winning, Dingwall-based Sandstone Press, the most northerly publishing house of its type in Britain, characterised by their high editorial and design standards; and the outstanding Edinburgh based children’s publisher Floris (Saltire Society Scottish Publisher of the Year 2016), will discuss current trends and what publishers want to see. Some of our brilliant festival authors will be on hand to share their experiences.

Mairi Hedderwick follows the footsteps of Victorian artist John J Reid, looking at and redrawing the places and views depicted in his book, Art Rambles in the Highlands and Islands. The result is a beautiful, poignant and entertaining journey through the islands of Shetland.

Publishing Scotland is the network body for the book publishing industry in Scotland, working to promote and protect the interests of its members, both nationally and internationally.

Born in Gourock in 1939 Mairi moved to the Isle of Coll at the age of seventeen when she took a job as a mother’s help. She is the author and illustrator of the popular children’s series, Katie Morag, which she loosely based around her own experiences of island life. She has also written and illustrated several travel books, including Highland Journey and An Eye on the Hebrides.

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Post Truth: How Bullsh*t Conquered the World James Ball, Adam Civico & Marianne Taylor Sat 4 Nov | 2 - 3pm | Mareel Auditorium | £7

The story of bullsh*t: what’s being spread, who’s spreading it, why it works - and what we can do to tackle it. A panel debate with author and journalist, James Ball; Herald journalist Marianne Taylor; and Shetland Times editor, Adam Civico. 2016 marked the birth of the post-truth era. Sophistry and spin have coloured politics since the dawn of time, but two shock events - the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s elevation to US President - heralded a departure into murkier territory. From Trump denying video evidence of his own words, to the infamous Leave claims of £350 million for the NHS, politics has rarely seen so many stretching the truth with such impunity. This is bigger than fake news and bigger than social media. It’s about the slow rise of a political, media and online infrastructure that has devalued truth. James Ball is an award-winning journalist. Now a special correspondent at BuzzFeed UK, previously at The Guardian, James played a key role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden. At WikiLeaks he was closely involved in Cablegate – the publication of 250,000

classified US embassy cables in 2010 – as well as working on two documentaries based on the Iraq War Logs. He is a lecturer on City University’s Interactive and Investigative journalism courses. Marianne Taylor has worked in a variety of areas for media organisations including the Guardian, the BBC and the German newspaper Die Welt. She now primarily write features, columns and leaders for the Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times. Adam Civico has been editor of the Shetland Times since 2012. Before moving to Shetland he was assistant editor of the Barnsley Chronicle, where his career in Journalism began.

Scriptwriting

Creative Writing

with Chris Dolan

with Louise Welsh & Zoe Strachan

Sat 4 Nov | 3.30 - 4.30pm Shetland Library | £7

Sat 4 Nov | 5 - 6pm Bonhoga Gallery | £7

Hone your scriptwriting skills with Chris Dolan, a novelist, playwright, and writer for film, TV and radio. Chris runs a Masters degree course in Television Scriptwriting at Glasgow Caledonian University. He also writes regularly for radio and TV, including Poor Angels, An Anarchist’s Story: The Life of Ethel MacDonald; episodes of Taggart and River City and has adapted the Rebus novels for BBC Radio.

Join Louise Welsh, Professor of Creative Writing at University of Glasgow, and her colleague and partner Zoe Strachan, author and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, for a masterclass in the form. Louise Welsh is the author of eight novels including, The Cutting Room, Death is a Welcome Guest and No Dominion. Her awards include the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger and the City of Glasgow Lord Provost’s Award for Literature. She is the editor of Ghost, One Hundred Stories to Read with the Lights On. She has presented over thirty radio features and written many short stories and articles. Louise has also written libretti for opera, most recently the critically acclaimed Scottish Opera/Music Theatre Wales production The Devil Inside (music by Stuart MacRae). Zoe Strachan is author of three novels, Negative Space, Spin Cycle, and Ever Fallen in Love. She also writes short stories, libretti, plays, essays and journalism. She teaches on Glasgow University’s Creative Writing programme and is on the Board of Directors of Glasgow Women’s Library

Sat 4 Nov | 7.30 - 10.30pm | Mareel Auditorium | £18/£14

Shetland Arts and Ragged Wood Present The Stray Birds as part of Wordplay 2017. Returning to Mareel for the second time The Stray Birds are one of the hottest bands on the US roots music circuit. Since first taking America by storm in 2013, they have gone on to win a huge fanbase, following triumphant appearances at big festivals around the world such as Celtic Connections, Cambridge Folk Festival, MerleFest and Tonder. Their most recent album Magic Fire builds on the success of The Stray Birds’ 2014 Yep Roc debut, Best Medicine, which was hailed by NPR’s World Café for its “strong harmonies and sharp songwriting” and debuted at #2 on the Billboard Bluegrass chart. It is their first album with an outside producer, their first

with venerable guest musicians, and their first truly collaborative songwriting effort. More importantly, perhaps, it’s an album of mosts: the most exciting and engaging music they’ve ever composed paired with their most outspoken and insightful lyrics yet. Support provided Scottish acoustic duo Jellyman’s Daughter and local favourites Kansa. Wordcard membership discount does not apply to this event.

01595 745500 | WWW.SHETLANDARTS.ORG

The Fantastic World of Lari Don

SUNDAY 5

Sun 5 Nov | 10.30 - 11.30am | Mareel Auditorium | £8/£6

Come and join award winning children’s writer Lari Don as she takes us on a fantastic journey. Hero Helen and her fabled beast friends must battle minotaurs, wrestle with wolves, fight fairies, solve riddles and travel across Scotland on a series of ever more dangerous quests. Born in Chile and brought up in Scotland, Lari is a prolific children’s fantasy writer with a passion for storytelling. Her first children’s book, First Aid For Fairies, was published in 2008 and won a Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children’s Books a year later. Since then she has written many other fantasy novels, most recently completing her popular Spellchasers Trillogy, as well as a number of re-workings of traditional tales, including Secret of the Kelpie, and the Tale of Tam Linn. She has also written picture books for pre-school children, such as The Big Bottom Hunt.

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Donald S. Murray & Marion Sinclair Sun 5 Nov | 12.30 - 1.30pm | Mareel Auditorium | ÂŁ8/6

Lewis-born and Shetland-based writer Donald S. Murray in conversation with Marion Sinclair, Chief Executive of Publishing Scotland. Join us for a discussion of Donaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work and his transition from unpublished to published writer. Donald S. Murray originates from the Isle of Lewis and now lives in Shetland. His first poetry collection was Between Minch and Muckle Flugga, and since then his writing has focussed primarily on islands and their seabirds. The gannet especially features in The Guga Hunters and Praising The Guga, and in his illustrated collection The Guga Stone; Lies, Legends and Lunacies of St Kilda. His most recent publication is Herring Tales: how the Silver Darlings influenced human taste and history, which contemplates the role of herring in the politics, science, history, religious and commercial life of our ancestors. Marion Sinclair is Chief Executive of Publishing Scotland. She has worked in the book publishing sector for 28 years, and as a university lecturer on a postgraduate degree programme in Publishing before joining Publishing Scotland in 2003. Marion is also a board member of the Gaelic Books Council, of BookSource, the book distributors, and Literature Alliance Scotland, as well as a

committee member of the Sabhal Mor Ostaig Library Advisory Group, the National Strategy for Public Libraries in Scotland Advisory Group, and Saltire Society Publisher of the Year panel. Publishing Scotland is the network body for the book publishing industry in Scotland, working to promote and protect the interests of its members, both nationally and internationally.

No Dominion: The Plague Times Trilogy Louise Welsh in conversation with Zoe Strachan Sun 5 Nov | 2 - 3pm | Mareel Auditorium | £8/6

It is seven years since the Sweats wiped out most of the world’s population and a small community on Orkney are trying to rebuild the rudiments of a democratic society - No Dominion is the final instalment of Louise Welsh’s Plague Times Trilogy, following A Lovely way to Burn and Death is a Welcome Guest as the new community on Orkney fight fear, anger and suspicion to defend their way of life.

Zoe Strachan is author of three novels, Negative Space, Spin Cycle, and Ever Fallen in Love. She also writes short stories, libretti, plays, essays and journalism. She teaches on Glasgow University’s Creative Writing programme and is on the Board of Directors of Glasgow Women’s Library

Louise Welsh is the author of eight novels including, The Cutting Room, Death is a Welcome Guest and No Dominion. Her awards include the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger and the City of Glasgow Lord Provost’s Award for Literature. She is the editor of Ghost, One Hundred Stories to Read with the Lights On. She has presented over thirty radio features and written many short stories and articles. Louise has also written libretti for opera, most recently the critically acclaimed Scottish Opera/Music Theatre Wales production The Devil Inside (music by Stuart MacRae).

Songwriting Masterclass

Acoustic Gig

Sun 5 Nov | 2 - 3pm | Carnegie Hall £25/£22 (Ticket includes access to concert)

Sun 5 Nov | 4 - 6pm | Carnegie Hall £10/£8 (£20 Family Ticket available*)

Take part in a songwriting masterclass with incredible American folk band The Stray Birds. Learn how they construct their songs, and how to create pieces starting with your own words and lyrics. Bring your own instrument!

Join us for an acoustic and family friendly, afternoon gig with the hugely popular Stray Birds, plus local support. Wind down your Sunday with their unique blend of beautiful vocal harmonies and rootsy americana. *Family tickets are available for groups of up to 4 people where at least two of those people are under 16.

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BBC

Share Your Work with Publishing Scotland

Sun 5 Nov | 4 - 5.30pm Mareel Auditorium | FREE

Sun 5 Nov | 4 - 5pm Mareel Green Room | FREE

BBC The Social is a digital content stream by BBC Scotland aimed at 18-34 year olds and created by new and upcoming talent. Reaching over 10 million people per week, BBC The Social is delivered across multiple social media channels. The Social showcases the passions of young digital content creators across Scotland.

A chance for local writers to read in front of a panel of industry specialists. Each writer will have 5 minutes to share their work and receive feedback from the panel. This session has limited capacity, so booking early is recommended.

Want to be a star on BBC The Social? Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your chance to get involved. This workshop will give you a chance to meet and chat with a BBC The Social producer, learn how to film using your phone, and give you the skills you need to create a social media masterpiece. Maybe youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be the next viral hit!

Publishing Scotland is the network body for the book publishing industry in Scotland, working to promote and protect the interests of its members, both nationally and internationally.

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The Many Voices of Liz Lochhead Sun 5 Nov | 7 - 8pm | Mareel Auditorium | £10/£8

Liz Lochhead is both transgressive and popular; as Anne Varty wrote, ‘her work is that of one woman speaking to many, and one person speaking for many’. Come and listen to her voice, in Scots and English, hear her discuss her love of music, the creative arts, her work for the theatre as well as her poetry. A voice that is not always that of a woman, or always that of a Scot. She does not want to be confined by either her gender or her nationality. The radio as much as the theatre has been an impetus to creation for Liz, and it is her ability to speak with conversational intimacy within a public space that is one of the hallmarks of her work. The sound of her own voice is immediately engaging. Her relish of a whole variety of language registers and rhythms, her sensuality and humour, her loving descriptions – ‘the decency of good coats roundshouldered’ – and her outspokenness have made Liz an enormously popular poet. Poet Laureate of Glasgow (2005) and then Scots Makar – the National Poet for Scotland – from 2011-16, she was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2015.

Places In Darkness – Christopher Brookmyre Sun 5 Nov | 8.30 - 9.30pm | Mareel Auditorium | £10/£8

Christopher Brookmyre in conversation with Chris Dolan. Christopher Brookmyre was a journalist before the publication of his award-winning debut Quite Ugly One Morning established him as one of Britain’s leading crime novelists. The masterly Black Widow was winner of the Theakstone Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the McIlvanney Prize. In his brand new novel Places in Darkness millioncopy-selling Christopher Brookmyre takes his thrilling crime fiction further than ever before – into the far reaches of space, taking his thrilling police procedurals to a fantastically realistic science fiction setting, and like the best science fiction uses alternative reality to ask philosophical questions about the human condition. Chris Dolan, novelist, scriptwriter, poet and playwright and author of the Maddy Shannon series of crime novels Potter’s Field and Lies of the Land. As well as working on the 3rd Maddy Shannon novel, and another novel, he runs a Masters degree course in Television Scriptwriting at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Late Night Open Mic Sun 5 Nov | 9.30 - 10.30pm | Mareel Café Bar | FREE

Wordplay takes over our popular open mic event for a special late night edition. Hosted by Magnus Stout, anyone and everyone is invited to share a song, or a tune, a new piece of prose, poetry or stand up, or whatever you want - the stage is yours! Join us for a relaxed vibe and a chance to enjoy some emerging talent and established performers alike sharing a stage.

Word Card £40/£25 Get unlimited access to all festival events* with a Word Card! Members will benefit from priority booking, as well as exclusive offers and the chance to meet Wordplay guests at our special reception event.

* Word Card discount does not apply to The Stray Birds on Saturday 4 November.

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EDUCATION

Education Programme We are delighted that Amnesty International UK is supporting our Wordplay Education Programme. Throughout the festival, authors will visit primary and secondary schools across the isles, using fiction as a vehicle to discuss topics such as human rights and freedom of speech. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s never too early to discuss these topics with young people, and AIUK believes that reading fiction increases empathy and compassion, while developing social understanding. Fiction has real power to further human rights education: books are about taking responsibility and your impact on the world, and we will explore this with our authors in this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Education Programme. Amnesty International will also run CPD training for teachers, providing resources and innovative ways to introduce these topics to the classroom. Upper secondary pupils will also get the chance to meet some of the other authors visiting the festival, with classroom sessions with award-winning authors and poets designed to engage and inspire.

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AMNESTY

Amnesty International

Amnesty International have been defending human rights around the world for over 50 years. Working to protect women, men and children wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied. As a global movement of over 7 million people, Amnesty International is the world’s largest grassroots human rights organisation and have received the Nobel Peace Prize for their life-saving work.

Amnesty Imprisoned Writers Series The Mareel Café Bar will play host to Amnesty International’s Imprisoned Writers Series, pop-up events with the team from Amnesty International and our Wordplay visiting authors and focusing on Human Rights, Freedom of Speech and other important topics throughout the Festival. Look out for these free sessions over the festival weekend, and check our website for details!

Shetland Islands Council

SHETLAND’S BOOKSHOP Bringing books to Shetland since 1949

Now “on tour” at WORDPLAY 2017 Visit us at Mareel

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