Writers head to France for Robert Louis Stevenson literature fellowship

Four Scottish writers will be heading to France this summer as the 2009 recipients of the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, taking up residency at the Hôtel Chevillon at Grez-sur-Loing – a frequent haunt of Stevenson in the 1870s which is now an international artists’ retreat.

The first writer, playwright Iain Finlay Macleod has just left for France, he will then be followed by novelist Zoë Strachan, playwright Jo Clifford and poet Jim Curruth, who will each spend a six week period at the retreat to concentrate on new writing.

The Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship was first introduced in 1994 and aims to offer Scottish writers the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the great writer by spending time at his former retreat to develop their own writing. The Fellowship is administered by the Scottish Arts Council and supported by the National Library of Scotland.

This year’s selected writers are –

Iain Finlay MacLeod
Iain Finlay Macleod is a writer and director from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.
Iain Finlay has extensive experience of writing for stage, film and television. His plays include The Pearlfisher, I was Beautiful day, Homers and Alexander Salamander. An opera he wrote - St. Kilda - will be shown at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival.
 
Iain will be splitting his residency with visits to the retreat in both May and October.   He hopes to work on a number of commissions - a play, a film script and a radio drama.
 
Zoë Strachan
Zoë Strachan is the author of Negative Space and Spin Cycle (both Picador). The former won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award. Zoë also writes short stories, essays, journalism and drama and other pieces for radio. She has been a Hawthornden Fellow and UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence at the National Museum of Scotland, and in 2008 she was awarded a Hermann Kesten Stipendium and spent time in Nuremberg. She lives in Glasgow where she teaches part-time on the prestigious Creative Writing programme at Glasgow University.

Zoë will be heading to France in late June and plans to edit her new novel, Play Dead, and start work on her first stage play, Old Girls.

Jo Clifford
Jo Clifford is a writer, performer and teacher who lives in Edinburgh.
She is author of about 75 scripts, in every dramatic medium, that have been performed all over the world. Recent work includes Leave to Remain, and An Apple a Day. The Royal Lyceum will premiere her Every One in March 2010. Her other plays include Faust Parts One and Two, Anna Karenina, Great Expectations, Light in the Village and Losing Venice.

Jo’s residency starts on 31st July and she hopes to write a prose work on the links between the feeling heart and the surgical heart.

Jim Carruth
Jim Carruth is a poet from Renfrewshire. He coordinates the Clydebuilt Poetry Apprenticeship scheme and is the chair of St Mungo's Mirrorball, the network of Glasgow poets. Jim has had three chapbook collections of poetry published. His first - Bovine Pastoral was published in 2004 was runner up in the Callum MacDonald memorial award. This was followed by High Auchensale  and Cowpit Yowe. Cowpit Yowe was also showcased in a solo exhibition at The Tramway in 2008.  Recently, he has also collaborated with lino-cut artist Barbara Robertson on the illustrated fable Baxter's old ram sang the blues.

Jim will be starting his residency on September 11th until October 22nd and plans to edit his first full collection and, inspired by the French countryside, work on a longer sequence exploring man’s relationship with nature.

This year’s four writers were chosen through an application process and by a selection panel consisting of writers Janice Galloway and Chris Dolan, Project Manager Fiona Graham and representatives from the Scottish Arts Council and National Library.

Both writers on the panel are previous RLS Fellows and have spent time at the Hôtel Chevillon. Janice Galloway’s latest work This is Not About Me was largely written during her residency in 2006. Playwright and author Chris Dolan cites his residency in 1999 as a key turning point in his career, resulting in his first television commission.

Commenting on this years selected authors Chris Dolan said: ‘The Robert Louis Stevenson fellowship is growing in importance every year. The very fact that writers of the quality of Jo Clifford and Zoe Strachan apply proves that. It’s also pleasing that poets and dramatists, like this year’s other winners, Jim Carruth and Iain Finlay MacLeod, see its value.

‘Hôtel Chevillon is a near-perfect place to write, and keeping the connection with Stevenson is not simply a romantic notion. Scottish writers have a fine record of looking outwards, of engaging with other cultures and languages. Winning the Fellowship was crucial for me and it’s encouraging to see the award flourish.’

Jim Tough, Chief Executive of the Scottish Arts Council added: ‘Many artists have to juggle their practice around competing work and family commitments.  The opportunity to take time out to concentrate on their practice can provide an invaluable creative and career boost.

‘A key aim of the Scottish Arts Council is to support artists to fulfil their creative and business potential. The Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowships are one of a range of residency programmes we offer across the artforms to help fulfil this aim.’

Cate Newton, Director of Collections and Research at NLS said ‘The National Library of Scotland is delighted to support the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship and we congratulate the successful writers. I’m particularly pleased to see this award supporting the best in Scottish writing across many forms and I look forward to seeing the creative results of these residences and perhaps in time adding them to our collections..’

Notes to editors

1. The Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship was initiated in 1994 by Franki Fewkes, a Scottish RLS enthusiast then living in France. It is managed by the Scottish Arts Council and jointly funded with the National Library of Scotland.

2. The Scottish Arts Council is a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) which was established by Royal Charter in 1994 and is also a Lottery distributor. The organisation serves the people of Scotland by fostering arts of excellence through investment, development, research and advocacy. Our corporate aims are: to support artists to fulfil their creative and business potential; to increase participation in the arts; and to place the arts, culture and creativity at the heart of learning. We invest £60m each year, including £15 million of National Lottery funding. For more information visit: www.scottisharts.org.uk

3. The National Library of Scotland (www.nls.uk) is the home of the collected knowledge of Scotland, with over 14 million printed items including books, maps, manuscripts, newspapers and magazines as well as archives of sound and film.

4. Further details on the selected authors can be found by visiting the following websites.
Iain F Macleod - www.iainfmacleod.com/
Jim Carruth - www.jimcarruth.co.uk
Zoe Strachan – www.zoestrachan.com/
Jo Clifford - www.teatrodomundo.com/biog.html

Contact email(s)

media.office@scottisharts.org.uk

Issued by: Scottish Arts Council