Stella Duffy
co-director, Fun Palaces
Stella Duffy is the Co-Director of the Fun Palaces campaign for cultural democracy. In four annual weekends of action since 2014 there have been 934 Palaces, created by 24,000 local people, with 340,000 people taking part in free, hands-on arts, science, craft, tech, digital, heritage and sports events. Fun Palaces believes that everyone, in every community, can be a cultural leader for that community - thereby not only ensuring that everyone has access to consuming culture, but that everyone has access to creating culture.
In addition to her work with Fun Palaces, Stella is an award-winning writer with 16 novels published in 15 languages, over 65 short stories, and 14 plays written and devised. She has worked in theatre for over 35 years as an actor, writer, deviser, playwright and facilitator. She regularly speaks on diversity and inclusion, especially women's, LGBTQ+, and class issues.
She was awarded the OBE for services to the Arts in the Queen’s Birthday honours 2016 .
Twitter:@stellduffy