Gerda Stevenson is an award-winning writer, actor, director, and singer-songwriter whose multifaceted career has made significant contributions to Scottish arts and culture, particularly through her pioneering work in promoting and celebrating the Scots language. Born and raised in the Scottish Borders, Stevenson grew up hearing Scots spoken in the street and at the local primary and secondary schools she attended, whilst also being exposed to literary Scots at home through her father, the composer Ronald Stevenson, who had a deep interest in Scottish poetry and set the works of many Scots language poets to music.
Although Stevenson’s parents are English, from Lancashire, her father’s engagement with Scottish literature proved formative. He set the words of many Scots language poets to music, including works by Hugh MacDiarmid, Sydney Goodsir Smith, Helen B Cruickshank, and William Soutar. As a child, Stevenson was particularly thrilled with Soutar’s poem “Bawsy Broon,” and she recalls her father taking her and her sister for walks in the woods, where he would read aloud the poetry of Walt Whitman and James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, whilst they played among the roots of an old Scots pine tree. Though the poetry was beyond their understanding at the time, Stevenson loved listening to the words and rhythms, and she never forgot Hogg’s haunting poem “Kilmeny.”
Hugh MacDiarmid, another Borderer from Langholm, lived nearby and was a regular visitor to the Stevenson family home. The young Gerda was deeply moved by his poem “Empty Vessel,” making a painting of it as a teenager. This immersion in literary Scots, combined with hearing the language spoken in her community, meant that although Scots wasn’t spoken within her family, she grew up intensely aware of the language—its different registers, its ability to express the world around her, and crucially, the world of her imagination.
Stevenson trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and has worked extensively in theatre, television, radio, film, and opera throughout Britain and abroad. Her film and television appearances include a BAFTA-winning performance as Best Film Actress in Margaret Tait’s feature film “Blue Black Permanent,” as well as roles in “Braveheart,” “Midsomer Murders,” “Heartbeat,” “The Bill,” and “Taggart.” She is regularly heard in BBC Radio 4’s popular “Paul Temple Mysteries,” playing Steve, the feisty wife of the eponymous hero, and has recorded numerous programmes for BBC Radio 4, including “Book at Bedtime” readings of classic Scottish novels such as Muriel Spark’s “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”
As an actor working in theatre, radio, film, and television, Stevenson has engaged with many Scots language texts, classic and contemporary. She appeared in several productions of David Lyndsay’s great sixteenth-century play “Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis,” which contains what she describes as some of the most sublime dramatic poetry in Scots she has ever had the privilege to speak—a Scots with French resonances as well as wonderful, rich demotic Scots. She has also acted in Scots language plays by Liz Lochhead, Hector McMillan, and Edwin Morgan, including the title role in Morgan’s “Phaedra” at the Lyceum in Edinburgh, in which Morgan deliberately uses a whole gamut of Scots vocabulary, boldly crossing regional boundaries.
As a writer, Stevenson works in both English and Scots, feeling fortunate to have access to both languages. She has stated that there are some things she can express more vividly and with greater authenticity in Scots rather than English, and vice versa. For her, it’s a question of instinct—the voice always dictates the language. When she writes in Scots, she draws upon the sound of the language as she heard it spoken growing up in the Scottish Borders, whilst also employing her awareness of literary Scots. Beginning always from a basis of Borders Scots, she nevertheless at times uses a mixture of registers and dialects, something close to MacDiarmid’s “synthetic Scots” approach.
Stevenson’s poetry collections have received widespread acclaim and demonstrate her commitment to celebrating Scotland’s linguistic and cultural heritage. Her first collection, “If This Were Real” (Smokestack Books, 2013), was described by Ron Butlin in The Sunday Herald as “the best of the new in contemporary Scottish poetry—not to be missed.” The collection was published in Italian as “Se Questo Fosse Vero” by Edizioni Ensemble, Rome, in 2017.
Her second poetry collection, “Quines: Poems in Tribute to Women of Scotland” (Luath Press, 2018, with a second edition in 2020), charts the contribution made to Scottish history and society by remarkable women from Neolithic times to the twenty-first century—singers, politicians, a fish-gutter, queens, a dancer, a marine engineer, a salt seller, scientists, sportswomen, including a whole football team, and many more. Jackie Kay reviewed it in The Observer as “Fabulous. A ground-breaker of a book.” The collection has been published in Italian by Edizioni Ensemble and is also being translated into French. “Quines” is studied on Glasgow University’s Contemporary Scottish Literature course.
Her most recent poetry collection, “Tomorrow’s Feast” (Luath Press, 2023), includes her brilliant libretto for “The Ancient Mariner,” a contemporary retelling of Coleridge’s epic poem commissioned by the University of Edinburgh. Menna Elfyn praised the collection, stating: “A collection by Gerda Stevenson is always a literary event of significance. Her poems are vigilant, prudent, and lucid, full of lyricism and wit… She is a visionary who sings the world alive.”
Stevenson has also published two acclaimed short story collections. “Letting Go” (Luath Press, 2021) received glowing reviews, with Alan Spence describing it as “A wonderful collection. The stories strong, the writing pitch perfect. Full of warmth and humour, gloriously affirmative, achingly bittersweet,” and James Robertson calling it “Brave and vibrant.” Her second collection, “Cat Wumman: Tales O Nine Lives” (Luath Press, 2024), presents nine different stories about contemporary Scottish life inspired by folk tales from around the world, Scots ballads, and the poetry of Coleridge and Hugh MacDiarmid, all written in Scots.
“Cat Wumman” has been particularly praised for its demonstration of the richness and vigour of the Scots language. James Robertson noted: “Gerda Stevenson has mined the seams of ballad, song and folktale to produce these eldritch and uncanny stories, and delivers them in a Scots that wonderfully demonstrates the richness and vigour of the language.” Dr Sylvia Warnecke of The Open University, Scotland, praised Stevenson’s “mastery of the short story genre” and highlighted her “pioneering work in making this language, intrinsic to Scottish culture, accessible to diverse audiences and give a voice to the Scots-speaking communities in today’s Scotland.”
Stevenson’s other books include “Inside & Out: The Art of Christian Small” (Scotland Street Press, 2019), with an introduction and poems by Gerda, which was reviewed in The National as “One of the most beautiful books ever published in Scotland,” and “Edinburgh” (Allan Wright Photographic, 2019), a collaboration in poetry and images with landscape photographer Allan Wright that Richard Holloway described as “A stunning tribute to that magnificent old hypocrite, the city of Edinburgh.”
As a playwright, Stevenson has written extensively for BBC Radio 4, with original plays as well as dramatisations of classic Scottish novels. Her stage plays include the award-winning “Federer Versus Murray,” which toured to New York in 2012 as part of the Scottish Government’s NYC Scotland Week celebrations and is published by Salmagundi, USA, and “Skeleton Wumman.” Her opera libretto “The Ancient Mariner,” a contemporary retelling of Coleridge’s epic poem, was commissioned and produced by the University of Edinburgh in 2018. Her theatre productions and literary festival readings have toured to Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Trinidad, Italy, USA, UK, and Ireland.
Stevenson is the founder of Stellar Quines, Scotland’s leading women’s theatre company, and served as Associate Director of Communicado Theatre Company for twelve years, working with Gerry Mulgrew on many productions in administrative, acting, and directorial capacities. She performed in and directed her stage play “Federer Versus Murray,” demonstrating her versatility across multiple aspects of theatre production.
As a singer-songwriter, Stevenson released the album “Night Touches Day,” which led to her being nominated three times for the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards in the Scots Singer of the Year category. Her musical talents extend to performances that integrate song with storytelling, drawing on Scotland’s rich traditions whilst bringing contemporary sensibilities to the work.
Stevenson’s awards and honours reflect the breadth and quality of her contributions. She won a BAFTA Best Film Actress Award for her role in Margaret Tait’s “Blue Black Permanent,” was winner of the Robert Tannahill Poetry Prize in 2017, and won the YES Arts Festival Poetry Challenge in 2013. She is the recipient of Scottish Arts Council and Creative Scotland awards. In 2018, she gave the Thomas Muir Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Festival and the George Mackay Brown Memorial Lecture in Orkney. Nominations include three times for the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland, three times for Scots Singer of the Year for the MG Alba Trad Awards, and for the New York League of Professional Theatre Women’s Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award.
Stevenson’s contribution to Scottish culture extends beyond her individual creative work. Through founding Stellar Quines, she created opportunities for women in theatre. Through her teaching and advocacy, she has encouraged others to engage with Scots language and Scottish literature. Through her collaborations with composers, photographers, and other artists, she has demonstrated the richness that emerges when different art forms combine. Through her international touring and publishing, she has brought Scottish culture to global audiences.
Her work is characterised by several distinctive qualities: a deep engagement with Scottish literary traditions combined with contemporary innovation; a commitment to women’s voices and stories; a love of language in all its registers; an ability to move seamlessly between tragic and comic modes; and a generosity of spirit that welcomes audiences into the worlds she creates. Whether writing about historical Scottish women in “Quines,” exploring environmental themes in contemporary retellings of James Hogg’s “Kilmeny,” or crafting dark, eldritch tales in “Cat Wumman,” Stevenson brings both scholarly knowledge and emotional depth to her work.
Gerda Stevenson’s receipt of the Janet Paisley Services to Scots Award recognises her exceptional and sustained contributions to the Scots language through poetry, prose, drama, and performance. Her pioneering work in making Scots accessible to diverse audiences whilst maintaining its authenticity and power has enriched Scottish cultural life and ensured that the language continues to thrive as a vehicle for contemporary creative expression.