Jessica Brough is a writer, a psycholinguistics Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh and the founder of Fringe of Colour – a promotional platform, events producer and support network for people of colour at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The grassroots project involves a publicly accessible database of shows by Black and Brown performers at the festival and a free ticket scheme that aims to make these shows more accessible to young people of colour across the festival period. In 2019, Jess was the recipient of the Total Theatre Award for Significant Contribution, Dave’s Edinburgh Comedy Panel Prize Award and the Creative Edinburgh Independent Award for the work of Fringe of Colour. The project has been supported by festival venues, the Fringe Society, Lighthouse – Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop, and public donations. 

In 2019, Jess was published in Volume 2 of The Bi-Bible: New Testimonials, with an essay titled ‘Erotic Computer’. Jess’s debut short story ‘Thank God in the Acknowledgements’ will be published in Scottish literary magazine Extra Teeth in November.