Literary CV for Dr Joe Murray

 

NAME
Dr Joe Murray
85 Carham Drive
Cardonald
Glasgow
G52 2HF

CREATIVE DISCIPLINES
Poet (English/Scots)
Spoken Word Artist (English/Scots)
Writer (English/Scots)
Songwriter
Podcaster

EDITORSHIPS
(with the exception of Media Bridge Ltd. all editorships were on a part time basis)

West Coast Magazine (Managing editor) x 28 issues 1988-1998 was funded by the Scottish Arts Council and produced, mainly by Murray, Gordon Giles and Kenny McKenzie with design work by Alan Mason. It was the first Scottish literary magazine to be completely produced in-house to a professional standard for press. West Coast Magazine showed the way for those other superb magazines and journals that soon came behind it, such as Rebel Inc, Northwards, Cutting Teeth, The Dark Horse and Nerve, et al.
NB Editors were never allowed to publish their own work in the magazine.

Open World, the journal of Open World Poetics (Geopoetics) (co-editor and production) x 3 issues 1990-1994

Taranis Books, editor (Media Bridge Ltd.) x 10 titles (fiction, non-fiction and poetry) 1990-1993
Published authors include: Alison Prince, Brian Whittingham, Janet Paisley, Agnes Owens, Janice Galloway and more.

Mythic Horse Press (MHP) x 12 titles (fiction, non-fiction and poetry) Including1995-
Published authors include: Gerry Loose and Kenneth White.

Glasgow City of Poets Annual Review: Issue 2004; Issue 2005

PUBLISHED WORKS
Walking on Scoraig: seventy for seventy MHP (Collection) x 70 poems 2024*

Thorn (Collection) MHP x 20 nature poems (summer) 2024

Glasgow City of Poets Annual Review Issues: 2023 (x 9 poems); 2024 (4 poems)

Earth is our Home (Anthology Playspace Publications and WCM) x 5 poems 2022

Stravaigin #10 Journal of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics x 3 poems 2021

Surfing (Anthology New Voices Press) 2021 1 x poem

Poets Time (Anthology Seahorse Publications) 2021 x 2 poems

Glasgow: historical city (Anthology Seahorse 2019 Publications) x 1 poem

Growing and Dying for Janet Paisley 2019 (an appreciation) Seahorse Publications) x 1 poem

Sometimes I Radiate (Anthology Seahorse Publications) x 1 poem 2017

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Gap in writing years 1999-2012**
10 Seasons ed. Gerry Loose, Luath Press x 1 poem 2005 editor request
Northwards (Northwards No 14?) x 2 poems 2003
Alasdair Gray an appreciation British Library x 1 short story 2003 editor request
Back to the Light (anthology Mariscat Press and Glasgow Libraries) x 1 poem and story 2002
editor request
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ruchazie Moon (Collection) Neruda Press x 32 poems 1998

New Writing Scotland (Anthology No 15?) sequence of six short poems 1996 or ‘97

nomad (journal of Survivors’ Poetry Scotland) poetry in various issues 1992-1999

Northlight series of five poems hand printed on card 1992

LITERTARY READINGS
Over five decades Joe Murray has read at many literary events around mostly Central Scotland.
West Coast Magazine held regular reading events for ten years poets and musicians.
Joe Murray along with a fellow editor co-produced all but one of the literary events for Glasgow’s City of Culture festival.
Taranis Books organised book launches with poets and musicians Murray read at many of them.
In 2019 and 2022 Murray produced the poetry events for the Paisley Road West Fest in Glasgow.
In 2022 he read at a number of venues in Paris and Dublin for Scotland in Europe’s Words Over Water events.
Also in 2022 he was the featured reader at COP 26 event in Glasgow hosted by Celtic Music Radio’s Gavin Paterson.
In March 2024 Murray was invited to the Balloch Open Mic as a featured reader.

On April 19 2024 Murray was the featured poet at an SNP charity dinner to read for Humza Yousaf MSP, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, former First Minister of Scotland and Stephen Flynn MP, SNP leader at the House of Commons as well as other MSPs, MPs and City Councillors.

RADIO
Along with Alasdair Gray, Murray broadcast a Postscript show for BBC Radio Scotland. This was aired twice in 1998.
In 2022 Murray was a guest reader on Simone Murray’s (no relation) Sunny Govan Radio show and In November 2023 he was a guest reader on Jeanette Hill’s show on News for Scotland’s media podcast on Spotify.

SONGS
Doon the Waater commissioned for the Govan Music Festival 2025 (Opening Song)
Deep December Snow
Where are the Summers I used to know? (a Glasgow Parody)
People Time and Place (recorded by Gavin Paterson – video film produced for Glasgow Barons). This has since been printed as a poster poem.
Oor Man fae the Shaws (written for the John Maclean 100 anniversary competition sung by Tam McGarvey). This has since been printed as a poster poem.
Wonderful Winnie (about Glasgow aviator Winnie Drinkwater and her Glasgow Mural) not recorded.

WRITING WORKSHOPS & GROUPS
1990s Murray, along with Janet Paisley, hosted the Govan Coven in the meeting rooms at his office suite in Ibrox, a writers’ Group for 13 professional writers’ to get feedback on their own work. This lasted for some months.
Around the same time, for a number of years, along with Carl McDougall and Freddie Anderson he was a judge for Glasgow Southside Writers’ annual poetry competition.
As a learning manager with National Trust for Scotland (NTS) at Pollok House in Glasgow, Murray organised 8 weeks of music writing workshops with kids from a local school to work with professional musicians from Atlantic Seaway music and the Berklee Institute of Boston to write songs and music. This culminated in two Celtic Connections concerts at Pollok House where the children performed with the musicians in the afternoon concert.
In 2014 at Pollok House, Murray organised a Children’s Writing Festival for schools in poetry and song. There were 300 workshop spaces over three days for five local schools and he employed writers: Ken Cockburn (Writing in Scots), Liz Niven (Writing in Scots) Gerry Loose (Nature Writing), Brian Whittingham (Poems about Art) and Linda Jackson (Songwriting). A book was produced of the children’s work and distributed to the schools involved. The book, Keekin Through Windaes, was edited by Murray and included writing exercises for children written by him.
2017 as part of an NTS wide competition Murray organised classical music workshop with the Scottish National Orchestra (SNO) for teenagers to write music based on the House.
In 2022 Along with the director and playwright, Steve Crone, Murray ran a 10 week course free for new writers at the Kinning Park Centre for S.T.A.G.E (part of Scotland in Europe). These workshops were aimed, though not exclusively, at people recovering from mental health issues and were intended to facilitate health and wellbeing.

OTHER
(1992-2010) As a typesetter and publishing designer, Joe Murray worked closely with Alasdair Gray producing almost all of his books and designing his website. He also produced over twenty Mariscat Press books during that time.

* Walking on Scoraig was to be published by Seahorse Publications but the timeline did not suit so the author asked for the return of the manuscript and published it earlier.

** The gap in his own literary career is due to going to university and working as an academic. He has a honours degree in ecology and a PhD in the environmental impacts of NHS Scotland’s buildings. Later, working as a learning manager with the National Trust for Scotland, he created children’s learning projects and workshops. Any poetry or fiction published between 1999 and 2012 was at the request of individual editors.