Scotland's Stories: Friendship – Writing workshops

As part of this year's Scotland’s Stories: Friendship writing opportunity, we’ve teamed up with three incredibly talented authors to help inspire you to write about your own experiences of friendship.

Each author will be delivering a tailored writing workshop, sharing some fun, practical exercises you can use to get started with your own story.

So, if you're struggling for inspiration and fancy picking the brain of one of these wonderful authors, sign up for a workshop now!

Workshop dates

• Workshop with Courtney Stoddart, Saturday 17 May, 11–1pm, Edinburgh Central Library(this link will open in a new window)
• Workshop with Alan Bissett, Saturday 17 May, 11–1pm, Paisley Central Library(this link will open in a new window)
• Workshop with Anna Stewart, Saturday 24 May, 2–4pm, Broughty Ferry Library(this link will open in a new window)

Meet our authors

• Courtney Stoddart(this link will open in a new window) is a poet and performer whose work situates itself within the Bardic lineages. She has been published across multiple anthologies and has performed on stages both nationally and internationally within the last five years. Stoddart reached the finals of BBC Words First competition in 2019, only three months after she began performing. Later that year, she featured in Hannah Lavery’s Lament for Sheku Bayoh at the Lyceum Yheatre, which ran for three consecutive years. Her work mainly focused on understanding colonialism, history and the parallels with present day, sharing her own experiences growing up mixed ethnicity in Scotland. Courtney received Scottish Book Trust’s Ignite Fellowship in 2021. In more recent years, her work has been deeply embedded in the realms of nature, alchemy, myth and magick, exploring the mysteries of the feminine, death, grief, faith and healing.
• Alan Bissett(this link will open in a new window) was born in Falkirk in 1975. His acclaimed first novel, BOYRACERS, published whilst he was still a student, was based on his adolescent experiences growing up there. His ambitious second novel, THE INCREDIBLE ADAM SPARK, was extraordinarily well received. A full-time writer and playwright, he has acted onstage in his own ‘one-woman show’, ‘Times When I Bite’, which was also adapted for film. His plays ‘The Ching Room’, ‘Turbo Folk’ and ‘The Moira Monologues’ have all been recent stage successes. The Shutdown won two Jim Poole awards for Best Scottish Short Film 2009. Alan has also been a support act for Malcolm Middleton, The Vaselines and Zoey Van Goey. He currently is much in demand as a live performer of his own work.
• Anna Stewart(this link will open in a new window) is a recipient of a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and was shortlisted for The Royal Academy and Pin Drop Short Story Award, Bloody Scotland’s Short Story Competition, and awarded The Dragons’ Pen at Edinburgh International Book Festival. Her story, ‘The Way I Breathed’ was recently published alongside A.L Kennedy and Ben Okri in, A Short Affair (Scribner 2018). Anna’s stories have also been published in Riptide Journal, Gutter Magazine, New Writing Dundee, The Weekend Read, and Dostoyevsky Wannabe Cities: Dundee. She was commissioned by the Scottish Book Trust to write stories for their Rebel project, The Edinburgh International Science Festival, UN International Mother Language Day, and invited to read her work in Scots at the Scottish Parliament.