Three writer-performers will craft the story alongside Aberdeen playwright Mae Diansangu
A new play premiering at this year’s WayWord Festival is opening its script up to local writers. A Mustard Seed from a House Untouched by Death, written by Aberdeen writer Mae Diansangu, follows a grieving woman who learns of a cure to revive the people she’s lost. To get it, she must find the cure’s key ingredient: a mustard seed from a household that death has never touched.
Diansangu isn’t writing the whole thing alone. Three local writer-performers will each build one of the households the woman visits on her journey, weaving their own storytelling extracts in alongside Diansangu’s script. Applications are open until Sunday 30 August, and the play premieres at Cowdray Hall.
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WayWord runs 3 to 11 October across the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Cowdray Hall, with headliners including Rosie Jones and authors Jenni Fagan, Mairi Kidd and Elle Machray. The programme itself comes from a team of local young people, and features author panels on migration, workshops treating poetry as activism, and over 30 events that are free or low-cost.
Millie Hamill, the festival’s youngest committee member, won last year’s Nan Shepherd Creative Writing Prize and has gone on to programme her own event, a conversation between BAFTA-winning animator Will Anderson and oral storyteller David Hughes about bringing characters to life. “WayWord is so rewarding because you get the opportunity to meet so many lovely people while getting a behind-the-scenes insight into how festivals and events come together,” she says.
North East Voices, WayWord’s showcase of local spoken word poets and singer-songwriters, moves to St Nicholas Kirk for the first time this year, following the closure of the Blue Lamp. This year’s line-up includes Rachel Groves, the 2026 BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year.
What: WayWord Festival 2026
When: 3–11 October
Where: University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Cowdray Hall and St Nicholas Kirk
Tickets and info: waywordfestival.com
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