billkirton
billkirton
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Mar 7, 2012 (14 years) |
6 years | 2 | 1 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Mar 7, 2012 (14 years)
- Last activity
- 6 years
- Topics created
- 2
- Replies created
- 1
Bio
Born in Plymouth, England ages ago. Studied French at Exeter University. While teaching at Hardye’s School in Dorchester, started PhD on the theatre of Victor Hugo. That led to a lectureship at Aberdeen University. Took early retirement in 1989 to concentrate on my writing.
I’ve also been a voice-over artist, TV presenter and have extensive experience of acting and directing, in French language plays as well as works by Shakespeare, Orton, Beckett and Ionesco. I spent a sabbatical year at the University of Rhode Island Theater Department, which commissioned translations of 3 Molière plays from mw, one of which I directed myself. The script also won third prize in the British Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Translation competition, 1999.
I wrote and performed:
songs and sketches in revues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe;
stage plays, which were performed in Scotland and the USA;
and radio plays for the BBC, two of which were also broadcast in Australia.
Since the late 1990s, I’ve concentrated on prose fiction and written many short stories and ten novels, two of which have won awards, with a third being long-listed for the Rubery International Book Award. Five of the novels form a mystery series as police procedurals, two are historical mystery/romances, two are satirical, humorous pieces, and there’s one for children.
I’ve held posts as a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at universities in Aberdeen, Dundee and St Andrews and, from 2015 to 2018, was the organiser of a Scotland-wide scheme called The Bridge, which places professional writers in schools to help students with the transition to writing at university. I still give workshops in schools from Orkney to Dundee as part of the scheme and I’ve written five books in Pearson Educational’s ‘Brilliant’ series on study, writing and workplace skills. I also co-authored 'Just Write' for Routledge.
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