Queer Words Project Scotland 2024
To be published in 2025 by 404 Ink, FIERCE SALVAGE will be the follow-up to 2019’s WE WERE ALWAYS HERE.
Fierce Salvage will feature new work from the five mentors and mentees who took part in Queer Words Project Scotland 2024 (more info below), as well as submissions from writers either from or living in Scotland. By turns meditative and provocative, tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious, Fierce Salvage will be a snapshot and celebration of the best new queer writing in Scotland today.
Find out more here, and pre-order your copy from 404 Ink!
This year, Queer Words Project Scotland pairs five brilliant established writers with five emerging queer writers, based in Scotland, who could benefit from mentoring, advice and access at the early stages of their career.
THE MENTEES
Lakshmi Ajay
Lakshmi Ajay is a visual artist, writer and social worker in Mental Health and Addictions. She has performed at the Feminist Cabaret at the Edinburgh Radical Book Fair in November 2023, and is currently a writer-in-residence at ECHO, the editorial platform of Take One Action Film Festival. Her art has been exhibited at Blunt Knife Co. and she has completed a Rhubaba writing salon curated by Lola Olufemi. Her work is inspired by her experiences of migration, finding pockets of community along the way and dreaming of abolitionist futures. She creates art in the hope that they lead to enduring spaces of care, connection and revolution.
Eve Brandon
Eve Brandon (they/them) lives in Glasgow. They work in archives and keep busy writing horrid little stories. Their most recent work has been featured in CloisterFox and The Crow's Quill. You can find them on Twitter at @EveBrandon_
Colin McGuire
Colin McGuire is a Glaswegian living in Edinburgh. In 2018 he published a pamphlet, Enhanced Fool Disclosure with Speculative Books. He won the Out-Spoken Prize for Best Poem and Film in 2018 for his poem ‘The Glasgae Boys’. In 2020, he received the Ignite Fellowship, from the Scottish Book Trust to work on a new collection of poetry. He facilitates writing workshops as part the Live Literature Program with the Scottish Book Trust and Open Book Charity. He teaches ESOL with refugees, is a meditation teacher with an MSC in Mindfulness from The University of Aberdeen, as part of the course he studied at Samye Linge Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Eskdalemuir.
Shona Floate
Shona Floate is a Glasgow based writer from Broughty Ferry, Dundee. Her writing is informed by her own experiences of queer womanhood and family, aiming to dissect the queerness of certain relationalities, especially motherhood and intense female friendships. She completed an MLitt in Women, Writing and Gender at the University of St. Andrews in 2022 and an undergraduate degree in English Literature at The University of Glasgow in 2021.
Suki Hollywood
Born in Belfast on Valentine's Day, Suki Hollywood is a writer and poet. Her self-published debut novel Jesus Freaks – a queer thriller – is available now. Her work has been featured in Gutter, Deleuzine, SPAM, Water Wings and more. Suki’s two poetry pamphlets, Heart Eyes and This Suit, are available now via www.sukihollywood.com, along with This Suit’s companion film, which was included in the SQIFF 2021 selection. In 2023, Suki provided the words for ‘☆ Yes, I can see the stars ☆’, a billboard campaign for beloved queer venue, Bonjour (RIP)
THE MENTORS
Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall has been a professional writer for 25 years and has written, co-written or ghost-written over 20 non-fiction books. Her memoir about coming out as trans, Carrie Kills A Man (404 Ink, 2022), was shortlisted in the Discover category of the 2023 British Book Awards. She lives in Glasgow with her children, a greyhound and too many guitars.
Colin Herd
Colin Herd is a poet and Lecturer in Creative Writing at University of Glasgow. His books include Too Ok (2011), Glovebox (2013), Oberwilding - with SJ Fowler (2015), Click & Collect (2017), Swamp Kiss (2018), You Name It (2019) and Cocoa & Nothing - with Maria Sledmere (2023). He was highly commended in the Forward Prizes in 2013 and his work has also been included in the anthology 100 Queer Poems edited by Andrew McMillan and Mary Jean Chan.
Heather Parry
Heather Parry is a Glasgow-based writer. She is the author of a novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, and a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You. She is the editorial director of Extra Teeth magazine and co-created The Illustrated Freelancer’s Guide with artist Maria Stoian. She works for the Society of Authors, a trade union for writers.
Mae Diansangu
Mae Diansangu is a queer poet and spoken word artist from Aberdeen. She has performed at literary festivals across Scotland and appeared on BBC Scotland's Big Scottish Book Club and BBC Radio 4's Tongue and Talk. Her series of poems "black lives, heavy truths" is part of the National Library of Scotland's collection. You can read her work in the anthologies Tales fae the Doric Side and Re creation - a queer poetry anthology. Mae writes in both English and Doric, and her first collection BLOODSONGS (Tapsalteerie) will be published in Autumn 2024.
Shola Von Reinhold
Shola von Reinhold is a writer and artist. Her debut novel LOTE won the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
THE CO-ORDINATORS
Ryan Vance is a writer, editor, designer and general literary busybody, with a penchant for speculative fiction and queer representation. One Man’s Trash, his debut collection of speculative short fiction, was published by Lethe Press in 2021. He also co-edited We Were Always Here: A Queer Words Anthology, published by 404 Ink in 2019. He currently edits and designs for Gutter Magazine.
Michael Lee Richardson is a writer based in Glasgow. Michael’s short film, My Loneliness is Killing Me, directed by Tim Courtney, won a BAFTA Scotland Award in 2018. Michael currently has film and television projects in development with Kindle Entertainment, Balloon, Projector Pictures, Tigerlily and Bombito, and Michael's radio drama, The End of the World, aired on BBC Radio Scotland in November 2020. Michael is passionate about telling rich, authentic stories about queer and working class lives and culture.
Queer Words Project Scotland 2024 is funded by Creative Scotland.
