Writers in Residence - In Conversation

Contact: matt@artfulscribe.co.uk

A FREE live showcase event at Mettricks Guildhall, featuring Writers in Residence Dinos Aristidou (The Mayflower Theatre), Nazneen Ahmed (Southampton Libraries) and Iain Morrison (John Hansard Gallery).

This event will include a reading from each of the authors, as well as an open Q&A session. The evening will be hosted by University of Southampton's Carole Burns.

Dinos Aristidou, Writer in Residence, The Mayflower Theatre.

Dinos Aristidou has written and directed for the stage in the UK and overseas. He was writer-in-residence at The Gateway in Chester in 2000, commissioned to write the millennium production for the city of Chester, and in 2008 he wrote Milestones to celebrate Watford Palace Theatre's 100th birthday. Between 2004-7 as Education, Youth, Participation Manager at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff he was responsible for the development of new writing. He has written hIDe for Contact in Manchester (2003), Orpheus for The Nuffield in Southampton (2007), and special commissions for youth theatres.

He was commissioned to write Bloom for Forest Forge Theatre Company in 2012 (part of the Cultural Olympiad) and the two-part Leaves on a Line: Lost and Found touring from March 2015.

He was Squad Leader of New Writing South's Portsmouth Young Writers Squad at New Theatre Royal Portsmouth (2011-13) and ran Brighton Theatre Royal Writing for Performance programme (2013-17). He was lead deviser for UCAN Productions production of Good Company (Sherman Cymru 2017) and the Art of Kindness project. He works extensively with artists and young people internationally most recently working with the Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta, USA and with artists in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is currently writer-in-residence at Mayflower Theatre Southampton.

Nazneen Ahmed, Writer in Residence, Southampton Libraries.

Nazneen lives Southampton. She is a historian of migration in the geography department at University College London with extensive experience of running creative workshops with community groups. She is an embroiderer and writes creative non-fiction, fiction for children and adults, and poetry, often inspired by material she discovers in her research on migration and her work with archives. She was selected as one of 12 mentees from 2000 applicants for the 2016/17 round of Penguin Random House’s Write Now Live mentorship scheme which aims to support and publish underrepresented writers. She is working on a historical fantasy novel for older middle grade readers and is represented by Louise Lamont at LBA Books.

As the So Write Libraries Writer in Residence, Nazneen began her residency by running storytimes themed around The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and wrote a creative, decolonial response to the classic children's story which can be read on the So Write Stories blog. She is now running two participatory projects at Central library: So Write Stories, an archive-based creative writing; and So Write Sew, an embroidery group; with a view to an exhibition and publication at the end of the residency.

Photo credit: Laura Cuch

Iain Morrison, Writer in Residence, John Hansard Gallery.

After he finished a degree in music at University of Cambridge, Iain moved to Bristol where he developed a cross-artform practice. He moved back to his home, Edinburgh, in 2010, where he balances independent creative projects with a role at the city's Fruitmarket Gallery.

His performance work includes The Library is Open! a night of drag queen poetry at the Scottish Poetry Library that bagged a Creative Edinburgh award, and a durational presentation of the complete Emily Dickinson poems which he toured to Berlin.

He has a book of poems I'm A Pretty Circler coming out later this year with Glasgow publisher Vagabond Voices.

He is writer-in-residency at John Hansard Gallery in Southampton.

Entry: FREE

Time: 7:30pm (Doors 30mins before start)