In this blog, we highlight three Citizen events from the August 2020 Book Festival Online which examine what ‘community’ means in a time of crisis
Precious objects inspire Citizen writers
Listen to the work of two of our Brunton Citizen writers, where they take precious objects as a starting point for a piece of reflective writing.
Where Dandelions Go: the film
Here we’re sharing in full the story written by children and families from North Edinburgh, in collaboration with Craigroyston Primary School, North Edinburgh Arts, and our Communities Writer in Residence, Eleanor Thom.
“A citizen is…” – your responses in poetry
Discover a new poem, Citizen, created with ideas from our Stories & Scran participants, put together by Leyla Josephine
Creative challenge: turning fridge magnets into poetry
We challenged our Citizen collaborators to create some poetry using 30 randomly-allocated fridge magnet words. Here we share Karen’s response to the challenge and tell you how you can give it a go at home.
Stories & Scran: A Special Citizen Event
It’s not long now until our Stories & Scran event, an evening of food and entertainment, hosted by our Citizen Writers in Residence Eleanor Thom and Leyla Josephine. With live readings, audio recordings and short films created by Citizen participants, the event will showcase the insightful work of local people from North Edinburgh and Musselburgh. Our Community partners Scran Academy will be …
Enjoy Edinburgh International Book Festival from your own home
A spotlight on three Citizen events from our August 2020 programme, which aim to help us understand the meaning of community in the time of Covid-19.
Musselburgh’s Hidden Treasures – Making Stories from Stones
Discover a collection of stories in film, inspired by a game where families in Musselburgh hid and found ‘Story Stones’. Created by Eleanor Thom.
Teaching Children to Fail
In this Guest Blog, Leyla Josephine reflects on her time as Schools Writer in Residence for Citizen.
Book Bags for Citizen
This week we have been packing and distributing book and activity packs to children and adults in Musselburgh and North Edinburgh.
The Keys to Our Lives – a Citizen Podcast
In this podcast, two Musselburgh-based groups join together through poetry and discussion. We invite you to be part of the conversation by submitting your poems, songs and pictures exploring what the theme means to you.
Summer 2020 – Communities Update
An update on where we are with our Communities Programme: Citizen, Story Nation and our Online Festival, in Summer 2020
Musselburgh: Write Where You Belong!
Our Citizen Communities Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom is leading a series of 5 workshops involving writing, stories and crafts in The Brunton Theatre in Musselburgh over the next few months! We want to know about residents’ experience of life in the area and your ideas of home, community and belonging.
Shelf Life
Citizen Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom reflects on the sharing shelf at North Edinburgh Arts – a community resource helping people in need access food and other essential items – as Christmas and a momentous General Election approach.
The Citizens of the Future
The Book Festival’s first Citizen Schools Writer in Residence, the poet and novelist Claire Askew, summarises her inspiring experience working with three Edinburgh high schools to explore ideas of belonging and identity. The Citizen Schools programme was wide-reaching in its first year: I was invited to engage with three very different groups of young people from three different schools in …
Citizen comes to the Book Festival
After a hugely successful event at North Edinburgh Arts in May, we’re excited to bring the discussions, ideas, stories and passion of those who have been involved so far to the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival – the biggest public event of its kind in the world. Read on for details.
Join in with Citizen @ North Edinburgh Arts
A feast of fun, food, and stories for all awaits as we hold a celebration of our Citizen programme, including loads of free activities and a special performance from two top musicians.
Citizen: Women of Wester Hailes
In this audio blog, Eleanor hears from the women of the Create group which meets at WHALE Arts in Wester Hailes, one of our Citizen partners. These women share their stories of home and community, food, family, work and more.
Citizen: Making Zines with Claire Askew
“When I needed to get to know them, I asked the three Citizen schools groups to make zines. I wanted to find out which issues and activities most interested the students; I wanted to give them a creative activity to do and ideally, one which related to books, reading, publishing”
Citizen: Meet Eleanor Thom
Our community writer-in-residence for Citizen, Eleanor Thom, introduces herself and her approach to this new creative programme – read on to find out how you can get involved in sharing stories and shaping events that will take place around Edinburgh and at the Book Festival in 2019 and beyond.
Announcing Citizen
Today we announced the next phase of our year-round programme taking the Book Festival On the Road. Following on from the extremely successful ReimagiNation series across Scotland’s five New Towns, Citizen is a new long-term creative programme working in partnership with organisations across Edinburgh, listening to people’s views about the communities in which they live. Led by Scottish-based writers-in-residence, Citizen …