Tue 15 Nov, 6pm-7.30pm
Jackie Kay shared her experiences as a looked after child and the search for her family roots, as documented in her 2010 memoir Red Dust Road. She was in conversation with Janaya Pickett, writer, researcher and project facilitator for the Bluecoat’s Looked After Children project.
From 2016 - 21 Kay was the Makar, Poet Laureate of Scotland. She has been honoured for her services to literature and won many awards for her work, including the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998. Her biography of blues singer Bessie Smith featured as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in 2021.
Looked After Children
This event was part of the Bluecoat's Looked After Children project, which aimed to commemorate the lives of the children who were students in the Bluecoat building when it was used as a charity school.