Paisley Pattern

An award winning poet, author, playwright, writer of non-fiction and scripts, Janet Paisley counts among her many awards BAFTA and RTS nominations; 1999 Canongate Prize; Peggy Ramsay Memorial award; Sutton, Scotwrite and BBC prose prizes as well as Scottish national, national, Swanage Arts and MacDiarmid Trophy prizes for poetry. Janet has held two SAC writing fellowships, has been awarded several writers' and playwrights' bursaries.

Elaine Kay grew up in Paisley, but has lived in Aberdeen for eleven out of the last twelve years, and justifies the fact that she writes mainly short stories and short poems on the pretext that she works full time and doesn't have time to write anything longer.

John Bolland writes novels, short stories and poetry in English and Scots. Born in Paisley, he has lived in Aberdeenshire since 1984. Much of his work is set in the North-East of Scotland or in the international oil industry.

Helen Elizabeth Ramsey is presently lurching from crisis to crisis and becoming scattier by the day. She is hoping that when the dust settles (literally) at home, and her sense of humour kicks in, the sagas of the last six months will provide oodles of new material. At the moment she is looking back at her time spent working in the woods and walking the tightrope between autobiography and fiction.

Robert McKay Lothian is a regular on the North-East writing scene. His unusual take on life is manifested in his short fiction and poetry. Parallel universes, scheming giraffes, miniature witches; what is he on?

Robert Ramsay is from Angus, has been a philistine, engineer and farmer. As retirement looms he is discovering the arts: writing poetry and such.

Morag Skene was born and brought up in the North-East of Scotland. She even lives in a lovely, traditional North-East farmhouse with a huge garden, just outside Peterhead, which she would really enjoy if she was ever there. Unfortunately, Morag's interests in writing, dancing, drama, her wee grandaughter, jazz and making a fool of herself singing on open mic nights, mean she has to drag herself into the big bad city of Aberdeen far too often!

Charlie Styles had a music lesson in 1958 and, after years of practice acquired a job as lead alto sax with a 4 piece band at the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen. He then moved on to play with the Fred Cowie Band at the Douglas Hotel. In 1968 Charlie decided to take a gap year, which lasted until 1999, when, having decided to give up the fags he could afford to buy and study the mouth organ. Eventually, in 2005 he gained a place with the Aberdeen Jazz Orchestra. Sadly, in 2006 he was diagnosed with terminal Old Timers Disease.

Promoted by

Lemon Tree Writers

Supported by

The Lemon Tree
Aberdeen City Council
Aberdeen Central Library
Live Literature Scotland (Scottish Book Trust)