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Linda Williamson
Creative work as an author-storyteller began in collaboration with Scottish Traveller Duncan Williamson as his wife and postgraduate in the School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University (1975-1995). Sustaining the inheritance of the West Coast Travelling People’s oral literature, twelve storybooks were traditionally published: documenting indigenous knowledge, celebrating the Travelling Peoples’ cultural diversity, emphasizing the balance between humans and the natural world. As carriers of intergenerational and community-based knowledge, the tradition bearers of Scotland’s only indigenous ethnic minority preserve in their folktales an invaluable source of ecological insights for benefiting the climate, and securities for our children’s quality of life.
Since Duncan's death in 2007, my work horizon has expanded to the world of myth and star lore in the ancient astronomies of Native America and India. Live storytelling performances of tribal tales in collective memory -- the circumpolar constellations, creation of the sun and moon -- offer new perspectives in the cosmology of Duncan Williamson’s Traveller tales and the continuing, posthumous collections.
New work centres on dramatic formats for traditional storytelling with colleagues in TRACS projects. Writing progresses with a centenary publication of the collected works of Duncan and Linda Williamson.
(Photo credit: John McKay, Glasgow Herald)