Heather Kiernan

I’m a retired Epidemiologist having graduated from Toronto and Cambridge Universities specializing in Public Health and Preventative Medicine. In the last decade, I have been a freelance writer and editor working with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Reforesting Scotland. A former Trustee of Peace & Justice Scotland and Christian CND, I co-curated Peace Cranes, a major exhibition of 140,000 origami paper cranes representing the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 as part of the Just Festival followed by Consequences: Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age. A lifelong activist for Nonviolent Direct Action to oppose war and social inequality, my focus has been on children since spending time in Palestine with CPT and Pax Christi. So when I brought Moon Tell Me Truth to the Scottish Poetry Library last summer, I arranged for the P6s in Royal Mile Primary School to write and illustrate their own poems in response to those of the children of Gaza; the result was We All Need Peace.