The fifth Orkney Writing Fellowship got underway last week, with the arrival in post of the Angus-based writer and playwright, Jan Natanson. Her seven-month residency, the fifth in the islands since 1997, will once again enable school pupils and members of the public to meet and work intensively with a professional writer. It will also provide the writer herself with time and space to concentrate on her own work, a key element in the scheme. The Orkney Fellowship is the northernmost of the three currently in place in the Highlands and Islands area.

A programme of classes, workshops and events throughout Orkney has been organised by OIC Education Department, co-sponsors of the Fellowship with the Literature Department of the Scottish Arts Council. The Fellowship’s local steering group is led by Penny Aberdein, Education Department Service Improvement Officer. Several new ideas will be tried out for the first time during this residency, she says, although it will be based on the successful pattern established during previous years.

Writing classes have already begun with a wide range of pupils at Kirkwall Grammar School and Stromness Academy. As before, Jan will continue to work at those schools over the whole period, and she hopes to visit many primary schools and island schools, especially in the new year. Teachers themselves, it is hoped, will have the opportunity to learn some new strategies for teaching creative writing.

Community-based work will continue to feature as a central part of the Fellowship, and a call has gone out to local writers who may be interested in joining Jan for an evening creative writing class, which will be based in Jan’s office at Stromness Library. As a very experienced writer for drama, Jan would also welcome the chance to work in that medium, with drama groups or in schools.

In a further, new collaboration with Orkney Library, Jan will lead a lunchtime Book Group at Kirkwall Library on the first Wednesday of each month. Another innovation planned for this Fellowship is a residential weekend workshop to take place at an island venue, most likely during early next year. A guest writer will be invited to participate.

As far as her own work is concerned, Jan is delighted to be in Orkney. Islands have always attracted her, and she has often visited Orkney as a holidaymaker – but the idea of being away for a time, off on an island, appeals to her as a writer just as strongly. Freedom from the usual routines of life is something precious to the creative spirit, of course, although that is not the only reason she is pleased to have been given this opportunity.

She feels very lucky as a writer, that as a writer-in-residence she can become involved directly with the community. She loves the landscape of Orkney (and she has a striking view of Stromness harbour from her sitting room window) but she’s not, she says, “a landscape artist – but a people artist.” Both personally and professionally she’s looking forward to playing a part in local life, and to making a contribution to that, as well as to the other benefits the residency brings.
 
There will be an opportunity to meet Jan and hear more about plans for the Fellowship at a “Meet the Writer” evening in the Still Room at Stromness Hotel, from 7.00-9.00 pm on Saturday 13th November. Anyone interested in meeting Jan, or in discussing their writing, is invited to contact her in person at the following numbers: Stromness Library 850907, mobile 07749 602118, or by email: jan.natanson@orkneyschools.org.uk.