Monday 13 September 2010
6.30pm – 9pm

Matthew McVarish is an actor and writer trained at QMU and RSAMD. His acting and playwriting career began simultaneously when he wrote and performed his one-man-musical One man went to Busk. He continues to perform in theatre, TV and radio and write. Productions include Oran Mor's biggest grossing show to date Sweet Home Balmaha which he co-wrote and performed in, and his play To Kill a Kelpie has been selected for a tour of the USA next year. Matthew is currently writing a new play with Poorboy Theatre Co., with which he is an associate artist, and training with the BBC to become a new member of the River City writing team.

See www.matthewmcvarish.com for more.

Author, publisher and presenter Keith Charters founded and runs Strident Publishing, which specialises in fiction for ages 8-18, with some crossover titles. Its first book, DarkIsle, won the 2008 Royal Mail Awards For Scottish Children's Books and is now an international success, and many further award-shortlisted and nominated titles have followed. His own debut novel, Lee and the Consul Mutants, topped The Herald's Children's Bestsellers list and has been followed by two further Lee novels, with a fourth title imminent. He presents at 120+ schools, libraries and book festivals each year in the UK and Ireland. Additionally, Keith is Cultural Enterprise Office's Specialist Literature Adviser and sits on three of Publishing Scotland's committees.

See www.keithcharters.co.uk for more.

Gavin Inglis has been a busker, web tech, journalist, public relations executive and stage manager. He writes both long and very short fiction, and teaches flash fiction at Edinburgh University and the Edinburgh Book Festival. Always exploring new ways to tell a story, he works with music, photography, immersive games and hypertext.

Gavin is president of Writers' Bloc, a spoken word collective which has been producing themed shows since 2001, with titles like The Fall of the House of Fraser and To the Devil an ASBO. He is a small press publisher and energetic stage performer who favours top hats and smoking jackets.

See www.gavininglis.com for more.

Sandy Thomson is Artistic Director of Poorboy and Cultural Enterprise Office's Dundee and Tayside Adviser. Sandy has worked in the theatre industry for twenty years. Trained at RADA, as Artistic Director for groundbreaking site-specific theatre company Poorboy, she has written and directed shows performed in train stations, office blocks, churches and streets; staged car chases and manhunts across Glasgow, sea voyages in Dundee and fashion parades in St Andrews. Her work has received various Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland nominations and she leads Scotland's largest professional actors' ensemble. Her mentoring and support work has included posts at RSAMD and QMUC and she has worked extensively as an arts specialist and in arts administration and cultural facilitation roles with national bodies and local authorities.

See www.poorboy.co.uk for more.

Promoted by

Cultural Enterprise Office

Supported by

Aberdeen City Council
Scottish Arts Council
Musa
North East Writers