Project Pages
Open the Door 2018 Online Activities
Open the Door 2018 We wanted our first literary festival to be unique; it broke down the barriers between writers and readers and generated poignant, important discussions. For 2018 we […]
City of Glasgow College Responses
HND Illustration and HND Computer Arts students from City of Glasgow College created pieces inspired by the life and work of Muriel Spark. Working with City of Glasgow College’s talented […]
Creative Spark
Has Open the Door inspired you to pick up a pen (or take to the keyboard!) and write something of your own? These online creative writing exercises, created by Donna […]
Sandie Craigie (1963-2005)
Biography Words by Jess Orr. Additional words from the introduction to Coogit Bairns (Red Squirrel Press, 2015). Sandie Craigie was a performance poet of Edinburgh with a strong personality and a great […]
Olive Fraser (1909-1977)
Biography Words by Jess Orr Olive Fraser was a poet from Nairn – ‘A headlong kind of a girl, a force of energy and adventure’ (Ali Smith) – whose burgeoning […]
Muriel Spark (1918-2006)
Biography Muriel Spark was educated in Edinburgh, became editor of Poetry Review, and later published a series of biographies on figures like William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley and Emily Brontë. While she […]
What is Open the Door?
Never before has Scotland’s literary scene been as energised and bold as it is today, and a large part of that is thanks to the brilliance of contemporary women writers. It seemed only right to celebrate this achievement of women writers with a festival of their own and so Open the Door was born.
In May 2017, Glasgow Women’s Library hosted the first Open the Door festival, a day-long event with authors including Val McDermid, Leila Aboulela and Mary Paulson Ellis. The format of the day invited some of the best to open the door to some of the newest practitioners of their art and the result was full of scintillating conversations and magical literary moments. From curiosity to world-building and film noir to the battle to get published, Open the Door 2017 emphasised the need to provide a platform for discussions around women writers and readers in Scotland.
We wanted our first literary festival to be unique; it broke down the barriers between writers and readers and generated poignant, important discussions. For 2018 we want to invite the world to Open the Door and so this year we’re hosting the festival online. We want the online world to be abuzz with conversations around what it is to be a woman writer and reader. We’ve gathered content from contemporary writers and readers and designed a programme of discussion points and questions for you to ponder. Get creative and get involved!
As well as hosting discussions around modern women’s writing, we’ll be shining the spotlight on 3 women writers from the 20th century.
Open the Door logo, digital assets and 2018 schedule designed by Rachele Dunn.
Accessibility
We’ve tried our hardest to ensure that all of our content is as accessible as possible but, due to unforeseen circumstances, some of our longer videos do not have subtitles. We are working hard to produce transcripts of these videos and they will be made available soon. If you would like to be notified of when these transcripts are available, send an email to hannah.wright@womenslibrary.org.uk and we will send you an email when the documents are ready.
