In October 2025, we welcomed a brand-new group of avid writers and book readers from schools around Edinburgh to form our new Citizen Collective Team! Communities Programme Assistant, Kuba, brings you a short piece introducing the project and the new faces involved!

Our Citizen Collective programme started back in 2020, inviting a group of young writers from across Edinburgh to engage in weekly online workshops. The project was designed with the intention of not only supporting young people to develop their creative writing skills, but opening the arts industry to all who wish to dive in. As of this week, our new members have participated in five online workshops lead by our Poet and Writer-In-Residence Ryan Van Winkle. Along with Ryan, The Citizen Collective collaborate on creative pieces, tackle unusual prompts, dissect the magic of poetry and other prose, but most importantly, use writing as a tool of personal growth and of course, let’s not forget, fun!

Although Citizen Collective is predominately an online group, we meet throughout the year for cultural outings, and of course, during the August Book Festival. Our most recent – and first outing – with our new group brought us to Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, an institution focused in delivering new writing, and new voices to Scotland’s performing arts scene. A perfect place to witness the visceral world of Oran, a lyrical spoken-word drama written by our Writer-In-Residence at The Spartans Foundation Owen Sutcliffe and impressively acted by Robbie Gordon.

 Robbie also facilitated our first special guest ran session – an opportunity for our members to both ask questions and gain insight into real-world professions in the arts. Robbie spoke about his own journey co-founding Wonder Fools and how his love for both performing arts and writing brought him to the world of live performance and acting. This was particularly interesting for some of our members who have displayed an interest in the art of acting, inviting them to consider it as a profession through a variety of avenues.

Our second guest session was facilitated by Katie Ailes, a poet, educator and academic passionate about innovating the Scottish live literature scene. Katie spoke about her history in the performing arts through dance, choreography and poetry. Katies impressive catalogue of experiences encouraged the Collective to see poetry as an ever-changing field, which can stretch across pre-existing boundaries and collaborate with other forms of art.

This week, we saw Katie and other local artists perform at the Loud Poets monthly Open Mic Night at the Edinburgh’s Storytelling Centre. A true showcase on the multifaceted nature of poetry, which left attendees inspired. One of our very own Citizen Collective members, Ellie Peat, took the stage during the second half to showcase her impressive poem.

We can go on and on about the series of experiences we take our Collective on, but ultimately, we felt that there was no better way of introducing some of our new members than with their very own creative writing skills. Following the viewing of Oran, Citizen Collective were asked to create a short piece inspired by the bold, thrilling and tumultuous story they had just witnessed before them. Here is some of the work their brilliant minds came up with…

 

Mr Death

On dark nights, the kind during winter when stars fear to illustrate the black canvas of night, some people find their best inspiration. Others, they find their worst moments gnawing away at the mind. However, Johnny Bàs, he combines the two. As of late, his urges to paint and draw only strike when he ruminates for too long on the past. Some nights, he can hardly rest, ideas beating into his head like how he had his face beat in by the bullies who tormented him during school.

Tonight is one of those nights. Johnny is thinking of his friend, Kyle Garris, the only person who isn’t family that he knows how to banter with. Sure, the guy has that bloody weirdly posh British accent that clashes against the rough Scots one, and maybe he calls Johnny’s favourite football team shit one too many times, but it’s better that than nothing at all. Anything is better than nothing. Paintings won’t bring Kyle back, but the physical representation of what Johnny feels at least helps.

Hell isn’t real. There’s no such thing as Hell. So why is it that there’s a gaping maw opening in the wooden floorboards, beckoning forth anyone who dares step too close? Johnny abandoned his religion when he was a teenager, he’s learnt to believe himself before the name of a faceless deity that does nothing to stop people from doing bad things. He knows that Hell isn’t real.

“Come on, take the dive.” Murmurs a voice, oddly comforting to the worried thoughts of Johnny.

A man stands in the same image as him. A mirror, but there’s no glass to reflect. This is a separate entity.

“Who’re you?” Johnny questions tentatively.
“Hades,” A matter-of-fact response, not at all what was expected. “You want to see him, don’t you?”

The man points to the hole. Down, go down. That’s what he wants. Johnny lacks hesitation to stop himself at the mere idea that maybe his friend will be at the bottom. He leaps in, like how one plunges into a swimming pool, only there’s no water. It feels as if the descent won’t end now that it’s started. The long continuous fall is only broken once a floor of stone meets his face, though not a bruise is left, since, bizarrely, Johnny is stopped just short of that stone. Then he’s ungraciously left to drop the small distance with a soft ‘thud’, which isn’t painful in a physical sense, but certainly a blow to his pride.
“Where th’ fuck am I?” Is all Johnny can muster, picking himself up and looking around.
A faint teal light, flickering like fire, illuminates only a fraction of what’s ahead, but it’s enough to let him see what’s around him. Rows and rows of dark wooden coffins, lined up neatly like dominoes ready to be toppled.

“Well? Take a look.” Speaks up a voice from behind, the one belonging to Hades.

By Josiah Martin

 

Limbo

“It drips way too much down here.”

She addressed the cave flatly, only half-entertained by her lacklustre attempt at distraction. Talking to yourself is a sign of madness, Jaime told herself, but it staves off the inevitable spiral of panicking thoughts, more intense with every second of utter sensory deprivation.

“Must be raining in the real world.”

Faint plops and trickles drifted through the air, engineering the impression of dampness when in fact breaths came coarse and ragged, scraping Jamie’s windpipe. She stubbornly held in the urge to cough, instead taking slow, shallow lungfuls of dust. Her legs were cold against the rock floor. Her arms were sore from hugging her knees. Her eyes were beginning to see their own imaginings, electric blurs and slashes where there was only empty, black space.

“Some waiting room this is,” she said, then added, “not very visitor friendly.”

And it wasn’t, was it? A cave, literally a hole in the wall that she clambered into, searching for the Underworld’s entrance which swallowed her up like a gumdrop. The phone that brought her here had helpfully powered itself off midway through Lara’s last text:

“Wait in the cave until a map pops up on the screen. Without it, you’ll wander into someone else’s nightmare. Thank you, so much for this. I don’t know how I could even-”

The phone’s screen was still dark. She wondered when, if ever, it would see fit to light up, to accept her entry into the Underworld and lead her into the next stage of death. Maybe Lara had been wrong, and this was the first test all along – how long would Jamie persevere until terror broke down her conscience? How long until she turned back, desperately scrabbling through the dark for a chink in the wall? Heck, maybe this was just another part of Lara’s torture, sending a flighty seventeen-year-old something to promise salvation she couldn’t make good on – she was in hell, after all.

Jamie’s nostrils flared. No, she thought, then out loud insisted: “No!” She would not be the cruel false hope entertaining some god of nightmares. She would not trade her own fears for someone else’s, even if they had really only just met. Lara reached out to her, and Jamie wouldn’t sever that lifeline. She would trust Lara, because her soul was at stake too.

The phone buzzed weakly. Jamie scooped it up, squinting into the unguarded brightness. A map shone out, leading her down a right-hand tunnel she could now see by the screen’s light. She smiled.

“I’m coming Lara.”

By Coral Cresswell

 

The Citizen Collective is part of Edinburgh International Book Festival Communities Programme, and is supported by Nancie Massay Charitable Trust