Scots Scriever Shane Strachan with Ellie Beaton
Saturday 23rd September, 12-1pm BST
Main Hall King's Pavilion, King's College Campus University of Aberdeen
Local loon Shane Strachan is the National Library of Scotland’s Scots Scriever, creating new work in response to the nation’s Doric (North-East Scots) archives. Shane will perform his latest fiction set in 1990s Aberdeenshire, which responds to the 18th C. North-East ballad repertoire of Anna Gordon Brown, alongside live ballad singing from Ellie Beaton.
Shane Strachan will also perform new poetry inspired by other national archives. As well as a novella, Nevertheless: Sparkian Tales in Bulawayo (amaBooks), many of Shane’s poems and stories have appeared in magazines including Gutter and New Writing Scotland, and in queer anthologies Out There (Freight) and We Were Always Here (404ink). He has staged work with National Theatre of Scotland, including the multidisciplinary project, ‘The Shelter’. In 2018 he was awarded a Scottish Book Trust Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship through which he developed his spoken-word podcast, film and exhibition, The Bill Gibb Line, about the famed North-East fashion designer. The work was exhibited at Look Again in 2019 and re-exhibited large-scale at Aberdeen Art Gallery across 2020-2021. Shane holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen where he now lectures in Creative Writing.
Ellie Beaton is a Classical and Folk musician hailing from Rothienorman, Aberdeenshire. She won MG Alba Scots Singer of the Year 2021 and was a BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year Finalist in 2021. She is currently studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
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