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GMB NEWS
www.georgemackaybrown.co.uk
2007
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Communications Officer:
Lynette Webb
Communications Assistant:
Andrew Learmonth
Council
Offices, Kirkwall,
Tel:
(01856) 873535
Fax: (01856) 870488
Email:
lynette.webb@orkney.gov.uk –
ext 2228
Email: andrew.learmonth@orkney.gov.uk
– ext 2242
January 15 2007
SEARCH BEGINS AND ENDS
IN STROMNESS
The search to find the first George Mackay Brown Writing
Fellow is over.
Orkney-based writer, Pam Beasant, has been appointed to the
post following significant interest from around the world.
Pam is a long-term resident of Stromness - George Mackay
Brown’s home and where the fellowship will be based, in Stromness Library.
Supported by the Scottish Arts Council’s partners
artist residency programme, Orkney’s Community Economic Development programme
and Orkney Islands Council’s arts development service, the Fellowship will run
throughout 2007 as a part of Orkney’s Highland 2007 community programme
celebrations.
Pam will now divide her time developing her own work and
developing and delivering community based projects. She said:
“Linking
the Fellowship with GMB’s name makes it an appropriate memorial to him while
the wider aim - to promote all forms of writing in Orkney and bring in fresh new
voices - is a huge challenge. The scope is so wide it is terrifying although
that’s what makes it exciting! The
Fellowship allows time and space for me to develop my own writing, and I am very
proud to be the first GMB Fellow, and look forward to a hard-working and
enormously fulfilling year.”
Clare Gee, Arts Development Officer at Orkney Islands
Council, and manager of the Fellowship said: “We’re delighted to have
appointed such a strong, talented and varied writer to the post. The Fellowship
will create and deliver an innovative array of community based writing projects
throughout the year, which will directly benefit many people in Orkney, as
support Pam in her personal development as a writer. It will also strengthen
Orkney’s reputation for literature and its writers. This important project has
national and international significance in the literary world, but also a local
and personal aspect to it too.”
Alistair
Peebles, Literature Representative and Chair of the Orkney Arts Forum, said:
“I welcome Pam’s appointment wholeheartedly, as I do the commitment shown by
all the funding partners, not least by Orkney Islands Council, and by many
others who have contributed. Of all
the art forms, writing is perhaps what Orkney is best known for, and George
Mackay Brown’s work and the work of writers who came before him certainly
deserves to be recognised in this way.”
Becky Ford of Stromness Library, where the fellowship will be
based, said: “I am delighted that Pam will be based at the Stromness Library
for the Fellowship. The Library already hosts enthusiastic reading and writing
groups which will benefit enormously from the input of a professional writer.
The development of the relationship between the library and the Fellowship opens
up exciting opportunities for the future support and promotion of writing in
Orkney.”
If you are interested in being involved in the programme
contact Clare Gee at Orkney Islands Council, on 01856 873535.
