Places of Significance is a creative writing workshop led by Em Strang, our September guest poet. Focussing on the more-than-human inhabitants of place and places, the workshop links to South West by South, Gill Russell’s exhibition in Gallery 1. The workshop will be hosted online by Taigh Chearsabhagh.
Em Strang is a poet, novelist, mentor, workshop facilitator, and founder of Scottish charity, Three Streams. She has a PhD in Creative Writing (ecological poetry) from the University of Glasgow. Her writing preoccupations are with ‘nature’ (birds and horses feature in almost all her poems) and spirituality; in particular, what does it mean to be human during an era of unprecedented ecological, social and economic crises? She is particularly interested in embodied practice: how breath, movement and voice inform and engage both writer and audience.
Em’s first collection, Bird-Woman, was published by Shearsman in 2016. It was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Best First Collection Prize, and won the Saltire Poetry Book of the Year. Her second collection, Horse-Man, came out with Shearsman in September 2019. Her novel, QUINN, which explores incarceration, male violence and radical forgiveness. will be published by Oneworld in 2022.
Over the past decade, she has taught Creative Writing in schools, universities and prisons, and continues to perform her poetry at venues across the UK, and will be reading a selection of her work on Thursday 30th September from 7:30pm for Taigh Chearsabhagh’s regular Last Thursday’s Poetry Evenings.
Taigh Chearsabhagh would like to thank Live Literature Scotland for their support.