Jews with kilts

A Celebration of Jewish Writers in Scotland Free -All welcome! INVERNESS LIBRARY, FARRALINE PARK, INVERNESS IV1 1NH Sunday 22nd April 2012
2.15 pm -5.30 pm Meet the Authors Discussion Refreshments
Book signing
This event is part of the Scottish Government funded 'Being Jewish in Scotland' inquiry and will be followed by a discussion about the preliminary findings
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION & TO BOOK YOUR PLACE Sign up at Inverness Library 01463 236 463 Or contact SCoJec Project worker Fiona Frank Tel 07779 206522 or email fiona@scojec.org
Meet the Authors: Rodge Glass, J. David Simons, Sharon Mail, Annemarie Allan Activities for young readers aged 8-13 with Annemarie Allan
Q and A session: Life as a Jewish Writer in Scotland CHAIR Ephraim Borowski Director, Scottish Council of Jewish Communities www.scojec.org/jewishinscotland.html
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. He co-authored the graphic novel Dougie’s War: A Soldier’s Story (Freight, 2010). His new novel, Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs, (‘A complex and moving portrayal of obsession, football and heroes with boots of clay’ – Will Self) is published in April 2012 by Tindal Street Press. Rodge was brought up in the Manchester Jewish community and now lives in Glasgow where he is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Strathclyde University.
Sharon Mail is an author and freelance writer. Her first book, We Could Possibly Comment – Ian Richardson Remembered, in tribute to the acclaimed Scottish actor, who was a friend, was published in August, 2009. Sharon began her professional writing career in 2006 when she became a full-time journalist for the Jewish Telegraph Group of Newspapers and she has been writing weekly as the JT’s Scottish correspondent on a freelance basis for the past four years. She is a a member of Strathkelvin Writers.
J. David Simons was born in Glasgow in 1953. He studied law at Glasgow University and became a partner at an Edinburgh law firm before giving up his practice in 1978 to live on a kibbutz in Israel. Since then he has lived in Australia, Japan and England working at various stages along the way as a charity administrator, cotton farmer, language teacher, university lecturer and journalist. He returned to Glasgow in 2006. His first novel, The Credit Draper was published in May 2008 by Two Ravens Press and was short-listed for The McKitterick Prize in June 2009. His second novel The Liberation of Celia Kahn was published in February 2011 by Five Leaves Publications along with a re-print of The Credit Draper. He was the recipient of a Writer’s Bursary from Creative Scotland in September 2009 and was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in April last year. Set in the early 20th century, The Credit Draper deals with the Scottish-Jewish experience of a young Russian immigrant going off to become a travelling salesman in the Highlands.
Annemarie Allan was born in Edinburgh. Her father was a French/Jewish immigrant and her mother came from the immigrant Irish community in Scotland. Her first novel, Hox, which deals with the issues of genetic engineering and animal experimentation, won the 2007 Kelpies Prize and was shortlisted for the 2008 Scottish Children’s book of the Year and Heart of Hawick book awards. Breaker, her second novel, focuses on a potential environmental catastrophe when a tanker collides with the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth. Her third novel, Ushig, a fantasy based on Scottish myths and legends, was shortlisted for the 2011 Essex Children's Book Award. Her latest, as yet unpublished, children’s book is about the experiences of a young Jewish boy who finds himself adrift in a mining community in pre-war Scotland, having escaped from Danzig the morning after Kristallnacht. Annemarie will be running activities for young readers aged 8-13 during the first part of the afternoon.
Ephraim Borowski, MBE, Director of SCoJeC, is Convener of the Scottish ethnic minority umbrella, BEMIS; Chair of the Regional Deputies of the Board of Deputies of British Jews; and a lay member of the General Teaching Council. He was a member of the Scottish Government's Race Equality Forum and both the EOC and CRE Scottish committees, and a founder of the Scottish Inter-Faith Council. Before his retirement from Glasgow University, he was head of the Philosophy Department, President of the Association of University Teachers, and a member of Court. He is a regular contributor to BBC Scotland's Thought for the Day.