Liz Niven

LIZ NIVEN lived in Glasgow for the first twenty years of her life. Since then, she has lived in Dumbarton, Easter Ross, Galloway and now Dumfries.  A former teacher, she has been Writer-in-Residence for dgaa, Scots Language Development Officer for Dumfries & Galloway Education Department and is now Cultural Co-ordinator for Creative Writing in D&G’s schools. For many years she has been a leading consultant on the use of Scots Language in Education, editing resources for education, co-writing the Advanced Higher Examination in Scottish Language and writing the first Dossier on Scots in Education for Mercator in the Netherlands. Her poetry and language related writings are widely published (UK, USA, Canada, Netherlands, Slovakia, Czech Republic) and broadcast on BBC Scotland, Radio 4, BBC Northern Ireland and ITV. Her award-winning poetry includes collaborations with sculptors for wood and stone installations on the River Cree in Galloway and commissioned poetry for Highlands & Islands Airports Ltd’s Gateway Arts Project. The latter commission is the subject of a television documentary entitled ‘Poet on a Plane’. She has been awarded two Scottish Arts Council Writers’ Bursaries, in 1996 and in 2003, and was awarded joint first prize in the Herald/McCash Poetry competition 2003.