David Wood

David is developing a new autobiographical work, IV Effigy, centred on his experience of growing up artificially, adored and astonishingly gay. Blending spoken word, direct address and song, he hopes to answer questions about the pressures we put on ourselves to be worthy of the love we receive.  

David is a director, facilitator and writer. He especially loves new writing and theatre for young audiences. Previous work includes: Untitled 2009 (Queen Jesus Productions); A Ladder to the Stars (Visible Fictions); and Member (FairlyLucid Productions). He’s equally excited and terrified about this project and can’t wait to get stuck in.

Gillian Macdonald

Gillians’s project, PRINT FOR A REASON stems from the art of communication; the power it possesses and the positive impact it can create. A politically inspired print will be developed to create a ‘visual protest’ garment, utilising Gillians construction skills, as a platform of advocacy surrounding the issues presenting the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Gillian Macdonald is an award winning, queer fashion designer working from a creative studio in Glasgow. As an artist/designer, Gillian’s work explores themes of gender identity and sexual orientation with the aim of speaking out forcefully for all members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Gillian runs her own business, working on stagewear and made-to-measure garments.   

Laila Noble

Laila Noble is a Queer identifying Director, Producer and Playwright from Wales, based in Scotland. She is the inaugural winner of the St. Andrews Playwriting Award and the premier of this play will be in early 2023. Laila is also a winner of the Scottish Arts’ Club Bright Spark Award, runner up for Theatre Uncut’s Political Playwriting Award and was recently a finalist for the Hope Mill playwriting award. Her recent directing work includes Young Writers Scratch (Traverse Theatre), Waves (Alice Mary Cooper) and Moonlight on Leith. She is currently in rehearsal for the Scottish Tour of The Bush which will feature as a Made in Scotland showcase at Summerhall’s Fringe this year. Laila is the Artistic Director of ClartyBurd (New Scottish Companies Award 2021) and is an L20 artist supported by the Lyceum Theatre.  

Laila will be writing a full draft of her new play ‘Flick and Pie Go Fishing’ for OutFest and will share a section of the new material. 'Flick and Pie Go Fishing' is a dip into the pool of online love. They fall. Hard. Wrapped safe in the emoji universe of typos and drunk texts. Flash forward to real life and there’s more to handle than your social media feed. A delicate, humorous and honest look at Queer love. There may be plenty of fish in the sea, but always look out for sharks’. 

Levi & August

Door Ajar Comics is an independent, experimental small press based in Edinburgh exploring the Queer, the Gothic, and the Uncanny. Run by writer/poet, august (in the wake of) dawn (she/they), and illustrator and poet, Levi J. Richards (he/they), their work explores and interrogates the dark corners of the psyche and what may skitter there, just out of the corner of your eye. 

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD will be a anthology of Trans Gothic Horror featuring three short comics that each explore how the trans experience interweaves with the horror genre through folklore, faith and the surreal. Each of these standalone narratives come together to paint an uncanny reflection of the ways in which we can both lose and find ourselves in between the cracks.

Lou Collins

Lou Collins is a student and writer, working primarily in poetry and non-fiction. Recent work appears with SPAM and Sticky Fingers, and they co-host the poetry collective Queerios. Their writing practice often draws on other creative mediums, and their sketchbooks form a key part of the poem-writing process. 

Lou will be using the Braw Bursary to work on a series of sonnets which engage with questions of queerness through pop culture, with a particular focus on American TV shows such as The Golden Girls and Murder, She Wrote.   

Morgan Black

Morgan Black is a multidisciplinary artist, currently pursuing a PhD in gender and aesthetics at DJCAD, with specific focus on the non-binary and transgender body, self, and viewpoint. Their practice encompasses video, performance, drawing and comix, and the removal of cultural and artistic distinctions and boundaries such as ‘highbrow/lowbrow’

Welcome! is a series of three mini comic books, in which trans persons from three different nations describe their experiences of transgender life under their respective political regimes, illustrating the legal, cultural and social barriers which obstruct trans rights in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Nelly Connor

Nelly Connor is a trans multimedia artist currently based in Aberdeen, Scotland. Her art primarily focuses on the visual examination and deconstruction of her own mental health and psyche, an uncompromised look at one's experience as a trans woman in the information age. 

Neily land is a collection of artwork collated alongside excerpts of personal notes and poems from Nelly's diary created over the last two years during her early days of transitioning in lockdown, this exhibition will mark the end of this multi year project with a final physical piece. 

Rylan Gleave

Rylan Gleave is a classically trained composer and vocalist working now in experimental and divergent fields. Under moniker All Men Unto Me, he explores the instrumental qualities of his late-breaking trans-masc voice, and his love for avant garde, post-punk, Baroque opera, theatrical black metal, and drone. 

Rylan’s project includes developing All Men Unto Me’s second album, by collaborating with performers, creating demo tracks, and fully notating the score. The album is structured around a Requiem, critically examining the idea of a “protagonist” by re- and de-contextualising ancient religious text, and by exploring Queer reverence in relationships, and the abuse of patriarchal power.  

Vee Smith & Sadiq Ali 

The Kelpie and the Phoenix (working title) is a new research and development project by Sadiq Ali and Vee Smith to investigate making a queer circus show for children and young people. Using Chinese Pole, Aerial Rope, storytelling and costume, Sadiq and Vee hope to expand their existing practice and bring contemporary circus theatre to new audiences.   

Sadiq Ali and Vee Smith are Scottish circus and performance artists. Graduates of the National Centre for Circus Arts, they have been commissioned to create work for the Wandsworth Arts Fringe, And What? Queer Arts Festival, The Camden People's Theatre and have undertaken residencies with Summerhall, Assembly Roxy, Dancebase and Catherine Wheels. Their first full length show The Chosen Haram was the winner of the Innovate Award at the Scottish Emerging Theatre Awards 2021 and is part of the 2022 Made In Scotland Programme for the Edinburgh Fringe.