William Hershaw
William Hershaw (born Newport On Tay, Fife, 19 March 1957) is a Scottish poet, playwright, musician and Scots language activist.
Hershaw's first major collection of poetry, The Cowdenbeath Man, Scottish Cultural Press, 1998, was a series of elegies written about the death of the coal mining industry in Central Fife. He won the Callum MacDonald Award for Winter Song in 2005, and The McCash Prize for Scots Poetry in 2011.
In 2012 he reconvened The Bowhill Players (originally a drama company founded by playwright Joe Corrie during the General Strike of 1926) as a musical ensemble performing at The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, writing new musical settings for Corrie's poetry.
His most recent work includes a Scots version of The Tempest and Michael (both 2015), a ballad play about the medieval polymath Michael Scot of Balwearie.[1][2] [3]
References
- "Home - Scottish Poetry Library".
- "Author details - Scottish Book Trust".
- Bibliography: Poetry Collections: Four Fife Poets/Fower Brigs Ti A Kinrick (with John Brewster, Harvey Holton, Tom Hubbard, Harvey Holton), Aberdeen University Press, 1988; The Cowdenbeath Man ,Scottish Cultural Press, 1997; ISBN 1 898218 68 4 Fifty Fife Sonnets/Makars, Akros Publications, 2005 Johnny Aathin, Windfall Publications, 2010; ISBN 978 0 9557264 3 9 Happyland, Fras Publications, 2011 Postcairds Fae Woodwick Mill, Orkney Poems in Scots, Grace Note, 2015, ISBN 978-1-907676-62-8 Stars are the Aisles, Neepheid Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9956504-0-4; Buirds, Roncadora Press, 2017 Selected Poetry Anthologies: Dream State - The New Scottish Poets, Polygon, 1994; Scotlands - Poets and the Nation, Carcanet, 2004; Skein of Geese - Poems from the 2008 Stanza Festival, Stanza Publications; The Smeddum Test, 21st Century Poems in Scots, Kennedy and Boyd, 2012; Scotia Nova, Luath Press, 2014 Drama: The Tempest, translated in Scots, Grace Note, 2016, ISBN 978-1-907676-75-8 Michael Scot of Balwearie, A Ballad Play in Scots, Grace Note, 2016, ISBN 978-1-907676-76-5 The Iolaire,, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, 2016 Jennie Lee’s History Project,, Grace Note, 2017 Novel: Tammy Norrie, The House Daemon Of Seahouses, Grace Note Publications, 2014, ISBN 978-1-907676-43-7 Music: A Fish Laid At The Door, Dances With Whippets Records/Birnam CD; 2002 A Song Cycle For Craigencalt Ecology Centre, Dances With Whippets Records/Birnam CD; 2009 Cage Load Of Men - The Joe Corrie Project, Bowhill Players, Fife Council/Fras Publications/ Birnam CD; 2013 Education: Teaching Scots Language, Learning Teaching Scotland, 2002; Scots Language and Literature - Examples and Activities, Learning Teaching Scotland, 2002.