Helen Lamb (1956-2017)

Helen Lamb was an award-winning short-story writer and poet. She published a short-story collection, Superior Bedsits, and a poetry collection, Strange Fish. Her story ‘Long Grass, Moon City’ won the Scotland on Sunday/Women 2000 prize and many more of her stories were broadcast on radio and appeared in translation. Her poems ‘The Gardener’ and ‘Spell of the Bridge’ were reproduced as National Poetry Day postcards. ‘Spell of the Bridge’ was also set to music by the acclaimed composer John Musto and premiered at Opera America’s National Opera Center. She also had a longstanding interest in the use of writing for wellbeing and worked with Maggie’s cancer caring centres and Forth Valley Health Board. From 1998 she facilitated writing groups for Open Secret, a confidential service for adult survivors of childhood abuse, and she edited three anthologies of survivors’ writing. She had been working on a novel and lived in Dunblane with the poet and editor Chris Powici.