Sunday 6th October – 3.30pm – Library downstairs

History is a mirror we hold up to our present selves. James Robertson considers how our view of Scotland’s past has changed in recent years and what influence that has on the way we see the country today.

Chair: Jenni Calder

Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.

Sunday 6th October – 2pm – Library Upstairs

Respected magazine and newspaper designer Neil Braidwood explores the changing face of publishing. He is joined by author and self-publisher of The Blue Suitcase Marianne Wheelaghan and Nathaniel Kunitsky of Knight Errant Press who work with queer and under-represented writers to publish intersectional stories.

Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.

Sunday 6th October – 2pm – Library downstairs

Michel Faber has written nine books including Whitbread-shortlisted Under the Skin, the highly acclaimed The Crimson Petal and the White, The Book of Strange New Things, which won the 2015 Saltire Book of the Year, and most recently Undying, his first poetry collection.

Chair: Donald Canavan

Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.

Sunday 6th October – 12.30pm – Library upstairs

North East folksinger Jock Duncan spent over 50 years interviewing ‘the Jocks’ – Scottish veterans of the Great War. Jock’s labour of love is a unique glimpse into the lives of those who left the farms of Aberdeenshire, Angus and Perthshire for France, Flanders and the shores of Gallipoli. Gary West, who edited the collection, shares these fascinating tales.

Chair: James Robertson

Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.

Sunday 6th October – 12.30pm – Library downstairs

Catherine Simpson’s ‘tormented, riveting and bleakly funny memoir’ is the subject of this session in which local readers, including book groups, meet the author.

Chair: Jane Meagher

Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.

Sunday 6th October – 11am – Library Downstairs

This session gives an opportunity to hear authors Edward McLaughlin and Agnes Houston discuss their writing on dementia. Edward’s book Vivid Rebellion cuts through any assumptions that a diagnosis of the condition signals an automatic loss of personality and agency, while Agnes’s Talking Sense overturns the longstanding conventional wisdom that dementia is primarily about memory. 

Chair: Christeen Winford

You can download a free copy of Talking Sense by following this link: https://www.hammond.com.au/about/news/talking-sense

Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.

Saturday 5th October – 8pm -The Dalriada on Portobello Prom

After a busy day enjoying listening to the many authors taking part in the festival, why not round off Saturday by showing off your literary knowledge at a book quiz at the Dalriada on the prom? No tickets are required and it costs just £1 per person to enter. The quiz begins at 8pm and will run until approximately 10pm. It’s a good idea to get along early though as the quiz is very popular and once it’s full, it’s full!