We’re delighted to be bringing Stirling Makar Kevin P Gilday and guests Alan Bissett, Hannah Lavery and Jane Borges together for a very lively evening of spoken word performance and conversation.
This event is part of the Stirling Council’s Off the Page festival and we are going to be hosting the final event of the festival in University of Stirling library.
About Kevin
Kevin P. Gilday is an award-winning poet and performer from Glasgow. He is a National Theatre of Scotland Associate Artist, a BBC Writersroom Scottish Voice, a UNESCO City of Literature Writer in Residence and one of Scotland’s most celebrated contemporary poets. He was recently included in the Saltire Society’s ’40 under 40’ list celebrating outstanding Scottish creative talent and is the official Makar of Stirling. Kevin has performed his poems internationally, from Hollywood to East Kilbride, including major festivals like Glastonbury, runs at the Edinburgh Fringe and large-scale tours of the UK, Europe, the US and Canada.
About Hannah
Hannah Lavery is a poet and playwright from Edinburgh. Her debut poetry collection Blood Salt Spring (Polygon) was nominated for a Saltire Prize in 2022, her second collection Unwritten Woman was published by Polygon in August 2024. Hannah is the former Makar (poet laureate) for the City of Edinburgh, co-host of feminist arts podcast QuineCast and was an Associate Artist at National Theatre Scotland (NTS) her plays for NTS The Drift and Lament for Sheku Bayoh and The Protest have toured extensively.
About Alan
Novelist, playwright, performer and Falkirk boy Alan Bissett is very much in demand as a live act. As well as appearing in countless schools across Scotland, he has performed at prestigious international festivals in New York, Toronto, the Hague, Melbourne, Bejing, Zagreb, Kikinda and Lagos. His novels include Boyracers, The Incredible Adam Spark, Death of a Ladies’ Man and Pack Men. His works for the stage include his award-winning trilogy of plays The Moira Monologues. He has been shortlisted for numerous awards including Best New Play at the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland in 2010 and 2017, Best New Fiction at the Scottish Arts Council Awards, 2010 and 2012, and Scots Language Writer of the Year in 2021 and 2023.
About Jane
Jane Borges is an India-based independent journalist, author and oral historian. Her debut novel, Bombay Balchão (2019), was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puruskar and Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize. She has also co-authored the non-fiction Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands (2011) with S. Hussain Zaidi. The Bollywood film Gangubai Kathiawadi was based on a chapter from the book. In 2022, she won the RedInk Journalism Award. She leads Soboicar, an oral history project chronicling the lives of Christians who migrated from the Konkan to the city of Mumbai. Her upcoming novel draws from her research on Catholic neighbourhoods in Mumbai, where she lives.
📢 Evening with Makar and Friends
📆Thursday, 15th May
⏰18:30 – 20:00
📌 Jisc Innovation Suite, Library Level 3
If you would like to attend you can Sign up here.