Highland Folk Museum and Storylands Sessions offering unique creative writing series
Badenoch’s writers and budding writers are being invited to ignite their creativity in an inspirational series of workshops.
Led by local author Merryn Glover, a creative partnership between the Highland Folk Museum and Storylands Sessions will see participants delving into the lesser-known stories of the Highlands, inspired by unique objects from the Museum’s collection.
Each month, attendees gather at the Museum’s Am Fasgadh building to explore intriguing artefacts like a Women’s Land Army jumper and an anti-poaching man trap!
The latest workshop this month included a 200-year-old shepherd’s plaid and Laggan sheep-farmer, Campbell Slimon (pictured below) who took the group to the Shepherd’s bothy.
The September event on Tuesday will be inspired by the traveller’s tent and October’s by a selection of wheeled items in the Am Fasgadh store.
The objects act as springboards for imaginative journeys – stories, poems, memoirs, or drama – with no limitation on genre or style and no expectation to write about history or the Highlands.
“Let the objects spark your creativity and see where it takes you!” says Highland Folk Museum curator, Helen Pickles.
“We’re really excited to work in partnership with Storylands Sessions to explore objects from the collection in this way. The objects that we hold in our collections store can tell many stories, whether these are real or imagined.
“Objects are great for prompting creativity; it could be a feeling, a sound, or a memory which is evoked, or thoughts of who might have owned the artefact in the past.
“Every individual will have a unique response to the items that we’ll be using as inspiration, and we can’t wait to see the creative outcome of these sessions.”
Ms Glover told the Strathy: “We’ve been running storytelling and writing workshops for the Sessions since September 2021, always seeking new inspiration and fresh approaches to how we capture our ideas in words.
“This collaboration with the Highland Folk Museum is the perfect catalyst and we’re very thankful to the team there for hosting us.”
The workshops are offered to anyone aged 16 and over and take place on the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Writers can secure their spot on Eventbrite via Storylands Sessions or email Merryn at storylandssessions@gmail.com with “Word Workshops” in the subject line for any enquiries.
Instead of a workshop in November, there will be a celebration event on Tuesday 19th at Am Fasgadh where anyone is invited to hear participants share their work from across the year. Bookings via Eventbrite.
The Highland Folk Museum, run by High Life Highland, is mainland Britain’s first open-air museum and was founded by Dr Isabel Grant in 1935.
Storylands Sessions, a project of Badenoch Heritage, is a community music and storytelling project which includes folk music workshops with musician, Hamish Napier, in Kingussie and monthly community shows in Kincraig.
See the Eventbrite collection for all information and bookings. The project is funded this Season by Creative Scotland, the Cairngorms National Park and generous donors.
