Sheena Blackhall

Sheena Blackhall (b. Sheena Booth Middleton) was born in 1947 in Aberdeen, daughter of the manager of Strachan's Deeside Omnibus Service, Charles Middleton, and his second cousin, farmer's daughter Winifred Booth. She was educated in Aberdeen, but summered in Ballater for many years. Her brother, Ian Middleton, was an accomplished organist and clavichord player, who was the manager of a merchant bank in São Paulo, Brazil, where he settled and died.[2] During the typhoid epidemic in Aberdeen of 1964, Blackhall was hospitalized in the town's City Hospital for several weeks.[3] The family transport firm, owned by her aunt, closed as a side effect of this.

After a year's study at Gray's School of Art, Blackhall passed a teaching diploma and worked for a time as a special needs teacher, marrying and raising a family of 4 in this period, when she wrote children's stories for BBC Radio Scotland. In 1994 she obtained a Bsc (Hons. Psych) from the Open University, going on to gain an M.Litt with Distinction from Aberdeen University in 2000. From 1998–2003 she was Creative Writing Fellow in Scots at[4] Aberdeen University's Elphinstone Institute and is currently attached to the Institute as an Honorary Research Associate. In 2003 she travelled as part of a group to Washington, showcasing Scotland's culture as a guest of the Smithsonian Institution. In 2007 she was Creative Writing Tutor at the Institute of Irish and Scottish studies at King's College, and two years later was Writer in Residence during Aberdeen University's Word Festival.[5] In April 2009 she was inaugurated as Makar[6] for Aberdeen[7] and the North East of Scotland.[8] The Doric Board appointed Blackhall Nor East Makar for 3 years in November 2019. She has had over 190 pamphlet published. In 2023 she was accepted into the Order of the Scottish Samurai.

She has won the Robert McLellan tassie for best Scots short story 3 times (1989, 1990, 2001) and the Hugh MacDiarmid trophy for best Scots poem 4 times (1990,2000,2001,2010). In 1992, she shared the Sloane Award with Matthew Fitt from St. Andrew's University. Other prizes include awards from the Doric Festival, the Bennachie Baillies, and from the TMSA for ballad writing and traditional singing. She has twice been shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Poetry Pamphlet prize (2005 & 2009). In 2007, Lallans Magazine awarded her the William Gilchrist Graham prize for best Scots short story. She has also been shortlisted for the McCash poetry prize. She has also won the prize for best Scots Poem at Wigtown. Her short story 'The Wall', was the winning entry in Bipolar Scotland's 2013 competition, featuring in the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. In 2016 she became an Honorary Fellow of the WORD Centre for Creative Writing, Aberdeen University. In 2019 she was presented with The Janet Paisley Lifetime Achievement Award.In 2020 Blackhall became an Honorary Officer of Merit of the Confraternity of the Knights of the Most Holy Trinity (Priory of Scotland) . She was to be awarded the Eagle of Honour medal, to be presented by the Knights after the coronavirus pandemic passed.

She trained as a Creative Writing tutor with Survivor's Poetry Scotland, under Larry Butler, and was a member of the Arts and health organization, Lapidus. A Buddhist, she goes on annual retreats to Dhankosa, Balquidder. Blackhall also worked alongside Aberdeen's well loved 'first lady of drama' Annie Henderson Inglis MBE at Aberdeen Arts Centre, from 2003–2010 delivering weekend storytelling and drama workshops for three- to eight-year-olds.

• Sheena Blackhall' Scottish Poetry Library

• Sheena Blackhall's Screivins
• National Library of Scotland
• Poem Hunter
• Bio on BBC website
• Pastoral on G.P.S.
• Official Website
• Podcasts via Scots Language Centre
• Bio on Scottish Book Trust
• Scottish Storytelling Centre