​Cowie’s storytelling is an entertaining thrill. She moves from the conversational to the comic to the otherworldly with ease…

​The Scotsman, ​about With The Devil’s Assistance

​Based on Argyll’s Cowal Peninsula Shona is an acclaimed storyteller and participatory artist with a broad international career. She trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in Applied Theatre and L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq before working as a docent at the Musée du Louvre,  founding Story-Education company Fósforo, in São Paulo, Brazil and travelling with her collective Senza across Europe and Tunisia to research and platform stories of Mediterranean migration.

As an associate with The Village Storytelling Centre, she became one of Glasgow Life’s 2019 Artists in Residents, was awarded by the Scottish Civic Trust and continues to run pioneering projects in the care, recovery and her​​itage sectors. Internationally Shona holds lead roles in several European Commission projects concerning youth activism, trauma recovery and prevention and building UNESCO aligned heritage communities. She is an Executive Committee member of the Federation of European Storytellers and in 2022 became the first storyteller in residence for a European Capital of Culture, in Kaunas, Lithuania.  

She has recently become a community councillor and is trying to grow potatoes - tips on how to do either successfully are welcome! 
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Some Very Nice Things People Have Said 

Intimate, insightful, potent work, from an artist at the height of her powers.

The Quintessential Review about ‘Careering’

Shona is a fantastic performer who not only has a huge repertoire of stories but can gently weave new stories, blending fact with fiction or history with meaningful connection to the audience. 

However, it is Shona's applied practice that has led to her developing and delivering some of our most notable recent projects. Shona has the ability to connect with any group, to support them to reflect on their stories safely, with gentle care and, where appropriate, a much needed sense of humour.  Shona is an excellent practitioner and one of the UK's leading applied storytelling experts. 

Helen Mill, Village. Storytelling Centre, Executive Director

Shona’s storytelling is innovative and international, funny and fearsome, passionate and professional! She has a deep understanding of where stories come from and where they should be going. Her performances for our Edinburgh Fringe and Scottish International Storytelling Festival programmes have been first rate, loved equally by audiences, critics and her peers.
                       
 Daniel Abercrombie, Associate Director, Scottish International Storytelling Festival

Not much is known about [the women] Mary Hill, but Shona was able to bring her alive through inputs from the community and her research into 18th-century ways of life. She demonstrated that history is not only written on paper by historians but it’s very much still alive and that the community can have role in filling in the gaps to make it its own, in their present.

Aurora Segan, Maryhill Burgh Halls