Colin Will was FWS Makar for 2010/2011

Colin Will was the Makar for 2010/2011. He has had five poetry collections published, the latest being The floorshow at the Mad Yak Café (Red Squirrel Scotland 2010).

He has chaired the boards of StAnza and the Scottish Poetry Library, and he is webmaster for Poetry Scotland. He is also a publisher, under the name Calder Wood Press. He lives in Dunbar, near the Scottish borders.

He has travelled widely within Europe, and he has also visited the USA, Japan, China and Tibet. His themes reflect a love of people and the natural world, often in language derived from his scientific background.

Shiela Templeton was FWS Makar for 2009/2010

Sheila Templeton is the Makar for 2009/2010. Originally from Aberdeenshire...a Buchan quine...she now lives on the Ayrshire coast.

She has been a first prize winner in both the McCash Scots language and Robert McLellan poetry competitions, with the poems My Land and Ripening, respectively, both in 2007.

Her work has also won many other prizes eg first prizes in the SAW poetry competition and Ayrshire Ottakers book shop poetry competition as well as several previous McCash awards.

Her first pamphlet collection Slow Road Home came out in 2004 (Makar Press), and another collection is due to be to be published by New Voices Press in 2010.

Sheila also gives readings of her work, sometimes solo, sometimes with the Makar Press Poets' performance group and is an enthusiastic contributor to many of the Open Mic poetry sessions available in the West of Scotland.

AC Clarke was FWS Makar for 2007/2008

A C Clarke is an active member of Scottish PEN. Her pamphlet, The Gallery on the Left, was published by Akros Press.

She was awarded a menteeship in 2005 on the Royal Literary Fund Mentoring Scheme, her mentor being Mario Petrucci, and her first full collection, Breathing Each Other In, was published in 2005 by Blinking Eye Press.

She won the Petra Kenney award in 2005, and was commended in the 2006 National Poetry Competition.

In 2007 she won the Brownsbank International Poetry Competition and was short-listed for the Hamish Canham award.

Her second collection, Messages of Change, was published at the end of 2008.  She is currently working on a collection based on the atheist priest Jean Meslier.

Anne lives in Glasgow.

Robin Cairns was FWS Makar for 2008/2009

Robin Cairns is a performance poet. Having written plays, music and journalism he turned to verse by chance on millenium night in Manchester Airport. He had no idea it could be so much fun.

To many people Robin is a comic poet. To himself he is a poet using comedy as a way of buying time to offer his tuppenceworth to the world.

Robin travels to perform across Scotland on a regular basis, at poetry nights, slams, comedy clubs, ceilidhs (lots of ceilidhs) after-dinner engagements, in schools, in libraries, rock festivals, arts festivals, what have you got? He has had work published in various collections, including "Skein Of Geese" (the book resulting from the gathering at the Stanza poetry festival of 100 poets) and "Glasgow Tales" published by Endpapers. A short collection of his work "Last Man With Sky" is in print and available to buy.

Robin is never happier than when he has an audience laughing - as long as he knows he has something up his sleeve to squeeze a tear out of them soon.