Open The Door 2021

Project Pages

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Our Calm Slam Winner!

For this year’s Calm Slam, we asked you to take inspiration from the work or history of this year’s Open the Door festival’s three historic writer/artists: Wendy Wood, Zarina Hashmi […]

two papercut outs of speech bubbles sit on top of a shocking pink background

In Conversation...

For Open the Door 2021 we are excited to explore the wide and often uncharted field of writers who make artworks and artists who write, and the array of ways […]

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Workshops

The theme for this years Open the Door women’s writing festival is writers who are artists and artists who are writers. These online workshops all explore this relationship between writing […]

Illustration of Wendy Wood, depicted in traditional Scottish attire against the Scottish landscape to illustrate her ties to the country. She holds a book in one hand as a nod towards her writing career. Two ghostly figures similar to her character illustrations appear from the book. In the other hand she holds a megaphone representative of her involvement in Scottish nationalism.
Wendy Wood by Rhian Muir, DJCAD Illustration Student

Wendy Wood

Wendy Wood (1892-1981) – writer, artist, sculptor, political campaigner, storyteller Born Gwendoline Emily Meacham in Maidstone on 29 October 1892, Wendy’s family moved to South Africa in 1894, where they […]

Cropped, paper cut-out portrait of Edith Simon close-up looking straight at viewer with red, orange, pink, yellow and white paper for her face and green for her oversized glasses.
Inspired by Edith Simon. Credit: Jane Barker

Edith Simon

Edith Simon (1917-2003) – artist, writer, playwright, historian, translator, illustrator Edith Simon was born in Berlin Germany, in 1917. She excelled at art and history in school – in 1927, […]

A digital portrait of Zarina from the shoulders up. The image is in black and white. Zarina has short dark hair and dark eyes. Her portrait is shaded with quite bold brushstrokes in the style of a painting. There is one of Zarina’s letters written in Urdu within the shading in Zarina’s face and neck, parts of it being immersed underneath some brushstrokes and some showing through. The background features the repetition of a simple house shape which has been linoprinted, so there are other textural vertical lines in the background. The background is quite light compared to Zarina’s face which is the main focus of the image.
Zarina Hashmi by Cara Barbour, DJCAD Illustration Student

Zarina Hashmi

Zarina Hashmi (1937-2020) – artist, printmaker, poet For her art work, she is known simply as Zarina, choosing not to take on either her father or husband’s last name.  Zarina […]

What is Open the Door?

Never before has Scotland’s literary scene been as energised, bold, and international 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 2017.

Open the Door is unique; it is a festival that breaks down the barriers between writers and readers and generates poignant, important discussions. The title of the festival comes from Catherine Carswell’s classic work of fiction and we want to create open doors into the worlds of reading and writing through every event and conversation.

Festival Theme

Inspired by Glasgow’s long history of bold, creative women, our theme this year will be writers who are artists and artists who are writers, and we’ll be celebrating how they weave these two practices together. 

From workshops to nurture your own creativity, to convivial conversations to inspire and illuminate, and social media activity taking place each day, our Festival will open the doors into the worlds of reading, writing and art. Featuring contemporary writers and artists including Amanda Thomson, Amy Gear, Shazleen Khan, Kate Charlesworth, Sabba Khan, and Nyla Ahmad and spotlighting the work of historic writers and artists Wendy Wood, Edith Simon and Zarina Hashmi, this is a Festival like no other.

Events at a Glance

Wednesday 14th April

2pm: Calm Slam Workshop: Inspired by Art

Monday 10th May

1pm: In Conversation with Amanda Thomson and Amy Gear

Thursday 20th May

2pm: Stitches and Stories

6.30pm: Absence/Presence

Friday 21st May

2pm: Concrete Poetry Workshop

6.30pm: In Conversation with Kate Charlesworth and Shazleen Khan

Saturday 22nd May

2pm: In Conversation with Sabba Khan and Nyla Ahmad

We know that it’s helpful to know what to expect when booking on to online events so we’ve written a blog which you can find here, telling you a bit more about the booking process and how we create a friendly and accessible space online.