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July 2002

FIRST ARTS DEVELOPMENT OFFICER APPOINTED FOR CAITHNESS

The Highland Council has appointed Tom Bryan to be the first Arts Development Officer for Caithness. Based within the Council's Education, Culture and Sport Service in Wick, his job will be to encourage and help sustain the arts in Caithness, ranging from music and drama, to literature, film, crafts and the
visual arts.

Canadian-born of Irish and Scottish background, Tom is no stranger to the Highlands, having lived in Strathkanaird, Wester Ross, for many years, when much of his work first appeared in the West Highland Free Press. He is a widely-published and broadcast poet, short story writer, novelist and non-fiction writer. His own background in the arts has centred on music (he played harmonica in the eclectic Borders band Wolfwind), drama, folk and film clubs.  He edited the influential Highland literary magazine Northwords from 1992-1997, at a time when it featured such promising new writers as Kevin
McNeil and Alan Warner, and encouraged writing in Gaelic and Scots.  He also edited the Broken Fiddle and founded the Borders magazine, The Eildon Tree.

Tom was writer-in-residence for Aberdeenshire from 1994-97 and the Scottish Borders from 1998-2001, giving him a solid grounding in arts development as part of a community-based arts team.  Tom is eager to make contact with all practising artists and arts organisations in Caithness. He said: Caithness has always had a flourishing and energetic indigenous arts scene and has been a historical crossroads for many cultures.

There are many artists in all fields working and living here and its one of my long-term goals to make sure that Caithness isnt left out of the bigger arts picture in Scotland, particularly where funding is involved, just because it is so far from the Central Belt where many funding decisions are made which
affect us all.

There are many exciting developments in Caithness and it is a good time to be a part of that and to help others fight for local arts provision.  My experience of living and working in the West Highlands as a writer is that artists can become very isolated and need as much support as they can get. I hope to be
part of that support network.

The post is jointly funded by Scottish Arts Council, CASE and The Highland Council.