We’re thrilled to welcome two additions to the SBWN team: Sumayya Usmani and Layne Whittaker!
Sumayya Usmani (she/her) is the SBWN committee’s Fundraising Manager – a brand-new role we’ve been able to create thanks to Creative Scotland funding.
She is an award-winning author and writing mentor, born and raised in Pakistan, now living in Glasgow. She is a Scottish Book Trust Next Chapter Awardee (2021) and the award winning author of two cookbooks and one food memoir. Sumayya completed her MLitt in Creative Writing at University of Glasgow with distinction in 2024 and is currently doing a Doctorate of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.
Her literary interests and thesis is a novel about the culinary legacies and cultural erasure of belonging through colonisation and the Partition of India. Sumayya offers freelance editing and mentors writers and runs an online writer’s membership community called Qissa.
Learn more about Sumayya at her website, Instagram, and Substack.
Layne Whittaker GMBPSS (she/her) is our BSL Interpreter, another role that Creative Scotland funding has enabled us to create. She is a qualified RSLI and has been involved in the deaf community for 22 years. She first began her journey as a freelance interpreter 10 years ago. Her passion, as well as being an interpreter, is Psychology, She has an undergraduate degree in psychology and a MSc in occupational psychology, with a focus on EDI within the interpreting profession. Learn more about her via her profile on Interpreters of Colour.
You’ll be seeing Layne at various events throughout our programming, providing BSL interpretation services for attendees.
Huge thanks to Sumayya and Layne for joining our team, to Creative Scotland for awarding us the funding to make this a reality, and of course to the SBWN community for supporting us on the journey here and onward!