William Hershaw
William Hershaw is a Scottish poet, playwright, musician and Scots language activist.
Hershaw's first major collection of poetry, The Cowdenbeath Man, Scottish Cultural Press, 1998, was a series of elegies about the decline of the coal mining industry in Central Fife. He won the Callum MacDonald Award for Winter Song in 2005, and The McCash Prize for Scots Poetry in 2011.
In 2012, he revived The Bowhill Players as a musical ensemble, performing at The Edinburgh Festival Fringe and creating new musical settings for Corrie's poetry.
In 2016, Grace Note published his Scots version of The Tempest and Michael, a ballad play about the medieval polymath Michael Scot of Balwearie. An audio recording of Michael was released under the Scotsoun label in 2021, performed by the Bowhill Players.
The Sair Road, published in 2018, is Hershaw's Scot's Language version of the Stations of the Cross set during the 1984 Miners' strike. This is a collection of poems illustrated by artist Les McConnell.
In 2020, Hershaw was runner up in the Scots poetry competition at the Wigtown Book Festival.
Further collaboration with McConnell produced Earth Bound Companions and Saul Vaigers - A Scottish Saints Calendar, both published in 2021.
William Hershaw is a member of the editorial board of the Scots Language Society.
Poetry collections
Four Fife Poets/Fower Brigs Ti A Kinrick, Aberdeen University Press, 1988The Cowdenbeath Man, Scottish Cultural Press, 1997 Fifty Fife Sonnets/Makars, Akros Publications, 2005Johnny Aathin, Windfall Publications, 2010 Happyland, Fras Publications, 2011Postcairds Fae Woodwick Mill, Orkney Poems in Scots, Grace Note, 2015 Stars are the Aisles, Neepheid Press, 2016 Buirds, Roncadora Press, 2017The Sair Road, Grace Note Publications, 2018 ISBN 978-1-907676-96-3Earth Bound Companions, Grace Note Publications, 2021 ISBN 978-1-913162-15-3Saul Vaigers, Grace Note Publications, 2021 ISBN 978-1-913162-1-39
Dream State - The New Scottish Poets, Polygon, 1994Scotlands - Poets and the Nation, Carcanet, 2004Skein of Geese - Poems from the 2008 Stanza Festival, Stanza PublicationsThe Smeddum Test, 21st Century Poems in Scots, Kennedy and Boyd, 2012Scotia Nova, Luath Press, 2014
Drama
The Tempest, translated in Scots, Grace Note, 2016 Michael Scot of Balwearie, A Ballad Play in Scots, Grace Note, 2016, Jennie Lee’s History Project, Grace Note, 2017
Novel
Tammy Norrie, The House Daemon Of Seahouses, Grace Note Publications, 2014
Music
A Fish Laid At The Door, Dances With Whippets Records/Birnam CD; 2002A Song Cycle For Craigencalt Ecology Centre, Dances With Whippets Records/Birnam CD 2009Cage Load Of Men - The Joe Corrie Project, Bowhill Players, Fife Council/Fras Publications/ Birnam CD 2013
Education
Teaching Scots Language, Learning Teaching Scotland, 2002Scots Language and Literature - Examples and Activities, Learning Teaching Scotland, 2002