Women’s Stories Project

I had great fun telling tales as part of Women’s Stories at the Grassmarket Project, on behalf of Scottish PEN and Edinburgh City of Lit.

I was so pleased to be asked to lead one of four workshops taking place in April and May 2016 as part of the Women’s Stories project.

Women’s Stories is run by Scottish PEN on behalf of Edinburgh City of Lit. Its aim is to gather the stories of women from Edinburgh who might not normally have their tales told, before presenting them in the form of a specially commissioned graphic novel.

I worked with several women from the phenomenal Grassmarket Project in Edinburgh on how we tell everything from lies to hidden stories about ourselves and our lives.

I also introduced them to some of the ‘Unknown Women’ who appear as 19th century plaster-cast phrenology heads in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. We know very little about these women except what they looked like and the label they were given by the men in charge i.e. ‘extreme cunning’, ‘cautious type’.

What stories might they have had to tell?