360 Narratives

Advisors and Case Studies

Jenny Brown

Jenny Brown established Jenny Brown Associates, the Scottish-based literary agency in 2002, and with her colleagues now represents 150 writers of fiction, non-fiction and children’s writing.   She was previously the first director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council, and presenter of book programmes for Scottish Television.   She was one of the four founders of Edinburgh as first UNESCO City of Literature.   She is currently Vice-Chair of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Chair of the newest Scottish literary festival, Bloody Scotland, devoted to crime writing.

David Griffith

David Griffith is a writer, filmmaker and story development consultant. Having worked as a Producer for Posh Pictures between 2000-2006 making award-winning short films and documentaries, David has concentrated primarily on feature screenwriting since 2007. His feature for Bruce McDonald, ‘HCL2: I Shot Joe Dick’ (2010) was recently shown in the Masters Programme at the Toronto International Film Festival and his own feature ‘TimeLock’ (written, directed and executive produced by himself) is currently in the advanced stages of post-production. In addition to his work for film and TV, he is also a published biographer and has written widely for games and interactive media. One of the lead tutors for the Writers Factory, David also teaches screenwriting for the Lifelong Learning Department at Strathclyde University, and until 2010 taught ‘Narratology and Numerology’ for the Games Programme at the University of Abertay.

Mark Grindle

Mark Grindle trained on UCLA’s Graduate Screenwriting Programme, at Columbia Pictures and on the critically acclaimed Northern Exposure. He has been credited since as screenwriter, script editor, producer and executive producer on over 200 hours of commercial film and TV output. He wrote the screenplay for the film The Princess Stallion and he devised and co-wrote the interactive adventure series Bunja.

Mark coordinated The Writers Factory introductory screenwriting courses across Scotland, set up, established and taught the Masters level Screenwriting and Interactive Entertainment programmes at Screen Academy and was industry storytelling mentor to Dare to be Digital, the international games prototyping scheme. Mark runs the mentoring programme The Gameplay: Screenwriting for Games and oversees a programme of research and development investigating the potential of computer games storytelling for ‘good’.

Fiona Sturgeon Shea

Fiona is the Creative Director of the Playwrights' Studio, Scotland. Formerly Head of Communications at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, Fiona has worked for several important theatre companies in England and  Scotland, including the Citizens Theatre, the Royal Lyceum Theatre and the Orange Tree Theatre.  She recently held posts in the public sector with the Scottish Arts Council and the Scottish Government/National Health Service.

Grant Keir

Facilitator

Grant develops and produces film, TV drama, documentary and cross platform projects with a range of national and international partners. Current projects at his production company Faction North include the feature film, ‘A Very Unsettled Summer’ with Film I Vast and CNC Romania, and the TV documentary ‘Caledonia Australis’ with BBC Scotland and Screen Australia.

Grant attends all the major film markets and festivals and has an extensive network of national and international contacts. Grant has produced films and TV programmes on four continents for broadcasters and financiers including BBC, C4, ARTE, ABC (Australia), UKFC, National Film Board of Canada, Screen Yorkshire, EM Media and NFM. For full credits see www.imdb.com

Before moving to Scotland, Grant was a Director of Inspiral Ltd, a company providing specialist business support services to entrepreneurs in the Creative and Digital Industries (CDI), across the UK www.inspiral.biz . Grant has mentored on Crossover Labs www.crossoverlabs.org and regularly trains film and TV professionals in the art and science of pitching.

Grant is an active member of the Sheffield Docfest Board and a graduate of the European Audio Visual Entrepreneurs (EAVE) professional producer training course.

Vivian French
Case Study

Vivian always wanted to be an actor, and after university she joined a touring theatre company visiting schools. She soon began writing plays for her own company, and subsequently her plays were performed at the Young Vic Studio Theatre, the Wyvern Theatre, Swindon, and other venues. She has been commissioned to write plays for many young people’s companies, including a series of musical plays for the Taliesin Theatre, Swansea (subjects range from the History of Numbers to The Big Stink - ie sewage!) Her most recent play, Baby Baby, was first performed in 2009 and toured Scotland to critical acclaim; a subsequent revival by Dundee Rep gained four stars in the Scotsman this October.

Her first books for children were published in 1990, and she has since written over 200 books including board books for babies, plays for new readers, non-fiction, contemporary fairy tales for fluent readers and novels for teenagers. She is an editorial consultant, reviewer and anthologist, and regularly works with illustration students at ECA on projects involving students and children in schools.

Vivian is amongst the most borrowed authors in UK libraries - her books were borrowed well over half a million times last year.

Andrea Gibb
Case Study

Andrea Gibb is a Scottish film and television writer who in 2003 wrote the feature film Dear Frankie, starring Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler, which won the Women in Film and Television Script Award in 2004.

In 2005 she was nominted for the Carl Foreman Award at the BAFTAs for Afterlife.

Since then, she has worked on a range of projects, including adaptations of Vikram Seth's best selling novel An Equal Musicfor Cuba Pictures and Susan Cooper's children's book The Boggart for the Jim Henson Company. 

In 2009 she adapted Rose Tremain's award-winning novel The Road Home for BBC1.

Rodge Glass
Case Study

RODGE GLASS is the author of the novels No Fireworks(Faber, 2005) and Hope for Newborns (Faber, 2008), as well as Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography( Bloomsbury, 2008), which received a Somerset Maugham Award in 2009. Recently, he was co-author of the graphic novel Dougie’s War: A Soldier’s Story(Freight, 2010), which was nominated for several awards. He is currently a Lecturer at Strathclyde University, also Associate Editor at Cargo Publishing. Rodge has been published previously by Tindal Street Press: his story ‘I Know My Team and I Shall Not Be Moved’ appeared in the 10th anniversary anthologyRoads Ahead (Tindal Street Press, 2009).

Tom Knights
Case Study

Tom Knights is the writer and designer for the recent iPhone and iPad hit Celtic Heros. He has a longstanding fascination and love of game narratives, and the potential they hold for writing and storytelling. Aside from games, Tom has had various short stories published, and has a graphic novel in development. He lives and works in Glasgow.

Rona Munro
Case Study

Rona Munro has written extensively for stage, radio, film and television including Jim Loach's ' Oranges and Sunshine' starring Emily Watson which opened in April 2011.  Her first screenplay, the critically acclaimed Ladybird Ladybird (1994) directed by Ken Loach, was followed by Max Färberbäck’s hugely popular Aimee and Jaguar (1999). Her play 'LITTLE EAGLES' commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company opened at Hampstead theatre in April 2011 and her romantic comedy 'PANDAS' opened at the Traverse theatre Edinburgh in the same week. Other theatre work includes the internationally successful  plays '“IRON',’ ‘'BOLD GIRLS'’  and 'THE LAST WITCH' which was the main drama piece presented at the official Edinburgh International Festival in 2009. Other theatre credits include '‘LONG TIME DEAD'’ produced by Paines Plough Theatre Company and adaptations of  '‘MARY BARTON'’ and ‘'WATERSHIP DOWN’' which were produced by Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith. Her translation of Evelyne de Cheneliere's 'STRAWBERRIES IN JANUARY' was produced by the Traverse in 2006 and a contemporary version of Lorca's 'THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA' was produced by the National Theatre of Scotland in 2009. TV work includes the  dramas ‘'REHAB'’ directed by Antonia Bird and the BAFTA nominated '‘BUMPING THE ODDS'’ for the B.B.C.  She has also written many other single plays for radio and tv and contributed to series such as ‘CASUALTY’ and ‘DR WHO’. She is the co-founder and resident writer for Scotland's longest running small scale touring theatre company, THE MSFITS who's most recent production, 'MAD BAD AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW', began a  tour throughout the UK in March 2011. 

360 Narratives is supported through Creative Scotland’s Creative Futures programme: promoting, connecting and developing Scotland's creative practitioners.