Valerie Gillies

Fellow at Queen Margaret University, 2010-12

Valerie Gillies is a poet and non-fiction writer, whose books of poetry include Tweed Journey and The Lightning Tree. She was the Edinburgh Makar, poet laureate to the city, from 2005 till 2008. She received a Creative Scotland Award to travel and write new poems inspired by the springs and wells of Scotland. The Spring Teller appeared in 2009, along with a public outreach project in the healing art of poetry. Valerie frequently collaborates with visual artists and several of her inscriptions feature in the Scottish landscape, with text on stone or bronze at sites such as Galloway Forest Park or along the River Tweed. She co-edited the first electronic Poetry Map of Scotland for the Scottish Poetry Library website. She has held several residencies including those at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, and the University of Edinburgh, and she has taught creative writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and Artlink. Valerie co-facilitates the creative writing workshops at Maggie's Cancer Caring Centre, Edinburgh. In 2009/10 she was engaged in research and writing as an Associate of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, USA. She is currently working on a volume of new and collected poems.

Website:    http://www.valeriegillies.com/

Photograph Credit: Alistair Peebles