Award winning Zambian author, Ellen Banda-Aaku, has made the 18-person shortlist for the 2012 Commonwealth Writers Book Prize, with her novel, Patchwork. Banda-Aaku is currently on residency at Cove Park.

Awarded for best first book, the Commonwealth Book Prize is open to writers who have had their first novel (full length work of fiction) published between 1 January and 31 December. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £10,000. Chair of the Commonwealth Book Prize in 2011, Margaret Busby said “The significance of a prize such as this becomes greater with each year. It is vital to encourage and celebrate the talent of newly emerging novelists whose words have the potential to inspire and enrich the entire literary world. Searching out and promoting the best first books of fiction internationally is a serious task, a great honour and a wonderful challenge.”

Ellen has already won the Macmillian Writers Prize, The inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her work. She comes to Cove Park as part of our Writers of the African Commonwealth series in partnership with Creative Scotland’s Creative Futures.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Ellen Banda-Aaku

We are delighted that Luke Fowler has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize. This nomination was for his recent exhibition at Edinburgh’s Inverleith House and his outstanding film ‘All Divided Selves’. This work focuses on the Glasgow-born psychiatrist R.D Laing and includes archival representations of Laing and his colleagues. The film was developed during Luke’s three-month visual arts residency at Cove Park in 2009.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Luke Fowler

Glasgow International begins on 20 April and includes exhibitions by a number of Cove Park’s recent visual arts residents: Pio Abad, Henry Coombes, Graham Eatough, Ruth Ewan, Graham Fagen, Ilana Halperin, James McLardy, Ciara Phillips and Charlotte Prodger. Henry Coombes will present a new film work – ‘I am the Architect, this is not Happening, this is Unacceptable’, developed during his Cove Park residency last year. This work will be shown Glasgow’s House for an Art Lover.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Henry Coombes
• Ruth Ewan
• Graham Fagen
• James McLardy
• Ciara Phillips
• Charlotte Prodger

‘Galapagos’ opens at Liverpool’s Bluecoat gallery in May this year. This group exhibition includes work by 2011 Cove Park visual arts resident Alison Turnbull and is the result of the visit she and 11 other artists made to the Galapagos archipelago over a five year period. Further information on this project is available here and the exhibition will tour to Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery later this year.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Alison Turnbull

The Glasgow Schools is a project by former visual arts resident Ruth Ewan on Glasgow’s Socialist and Proletarian Sunday Schools. The exhibition will run from Sunday 22 April during Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, 2012 and is realised in association with The Common Guild.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Ruth Ewan

Previous Cove Park resident Maria Fusco will present a new project at Whitechapel Gallery, London, next month. This new sound work features extracts from her novel ‘Sailor’, a work the writer developed during her 2011 residency.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Maria Fusco

Published by Sternberg Press, this new catalogue documents the work of visual artist and 2011 Cove Park resident Chris Evans. The publication includes texts by Penelope Curtis, Marina Vishmidt and Tirdad Zolghadr, and was designed by Will Holder.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Chris Evans

All Divided Selves is a new film by artist Luke Fowler who was Visual Arts resident at Cove Park in 2010. The film, which was developed initially during his residency at Cove Park and subsequently on a residency at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, considers the legacy of radical psychiatrist R.D. Laing. The film will have an installation at CSS Bard from November 9th – December 23rd then travel to Inverleith House in Edinburgh in February 2012. For more information click here.

Related Artist's Profiles:

• Luke Fowler

Previous Cove Park crafts residents Jane Kelly (2004), Andrea Walsh (2008) and Deirdre Nelson (2010) have work in ‘Craft In Dialogue’ which opens at Dovecott Studios on 3rd November 2011. Deirdre’s work also features a collaborative piece with Christos Tsiolkas, Cove Park’s International literature resident 2010.

The exhibition celebrates the work of makers who have received craft development bursaries from the Inches Carr Trust since it was established in 1996. Including a diverse range of work and showcasing many of Scotland’s leading craft practitioners.

The purpose of the bursaries is to help established artists develop their skills or research a particular aspect of their practice.

Find more information here.

Calling all poets: a unique opportunity at Cove Park to develop your performance and find your true voice.

Applications are welcomed from poets to take part in this course from April 2nd – 7th 2012. The deadline for applications is Friday December 8th 2011. For a course description and other details please email Polly Clark on polly.clark@covepark.org.

Click here to view the flyer for this course, and go to ’2011′ on this website to find out more about the 2011 course.

A new solo exhibition by artist Deirdre Nelson ‘Contemporary Souvenir’ opens this Friday 7pm at Sirius Arts Centre . Cobh. Co Cork Ireland. With an interest in social history Nelson has  explored the colourful town of Cobh and its stories of lace makers, knitters, ships, emigration, and the sea. The exhibition runs from 14th October – 13th November.

Application guidelines for both the 2012 craft and visual arts residency programmes are now available here. National and international artists are welcome to apply and the deadline for all our applications in Friday 27 January 2012.

The Jerwood Charitable Foundation who generously support Cove Park, invite artists from across making disciplines to submit proposals for Jerwood Makers Open, a £37,500 exhibition and commissioning opportunity from Jerwood Visual Arts. For more information about this opportunity see the Jerwood Makers Open website.

Previous Cove Park residents Nao Matsunaga, Andrea Walsh and  Dawn Youll will be exhibiting work in AWARD, the BCB’s major survey of current ceramic practice in the UK. Presented at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, the home of the finest historic and contemporary collections of ceramics outside London, the exhibition brings together the leading edge of contemporary creative ceramics design, practice and manufacture. For more information see the BCB website.

This is a new solo exhibition by former visual arts resident Ciara Phillips. Showing at Kendall Koppe, Glasgow, the exhibition runs through October 2011.