MEET THE AUTHORS

11.00-12.00noon                                                     LIBRARY DOWNSTAIRS

Join Emma Christie (Find Her First) and fellow crime writer Trevor Wood (Dead End Street) as they discuss everything from their latest releases to their writing processes. There will be an opportunity to chat with the authors and ask some questions of your own.

WITCHES IN SCOTLAND

11.00-12.00noon                                                           LIBRARY UPSTAIRS

The past persecution of women accused of witchcraft in Scotland is well known and witches often feature in Scottish history and folklore. 

The Lighthouse Witches by C J Cooke tells the tale of a haunted Scottish island and the mysterious disappearance of three women from the same family. She is in conversation with Olga Wojtas, whose latest novel Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Weird Sisters features Macbeth’s fictional witches.

HOLLYWOOD, TARTAN AND SUBCULTURES

12.30-1.30pm                                                                 LIBRARY UPSTAIRS

Just a few of the topics author, journalist and fashion blogger Caroline Young has covered in her extensive and varied writing on fashion, film and pop culture. Caroline talks about writing and researching her diverse range of books including The Colour of Fashion, Hitchcock’s Heroines, Style Tribes: The Fashion of Subcultures and her latest Fashionquake.

Chair: Ellie Bell-Thompson, lecturer in Fashion and Textiles, Edinburgh College

WRITING YOUR LIFE

12.30-1.30pm                                                          LIBRARY DOWNSTAIRS

Catherine Simpson has used her lived experience to inspire one novel Truestory and two memoirs When I Had a Little Sister and One Body, covering subjects including raising an autistic child, family suicide and experiencing cancer. Join her as she discusses the pros and cons of writing from life. In this, Scotland’s Year of Stories, you may be inspired to start writing your own.

Chair: Louise Kelly

ISLANDS, THRILLERS AND ROMANCES

2.00-3.00pm                                                            LIBRARY DOWNSTAIRS

Christopher Brookmyre’s thriller The Cliff House and Jenny Colgan’s romance An Island Wedding both have Scottish islands as their backdrop.  Chris and Jenny (did you know they are both winners of Celebrity Mastermind?) talk about their writing and discuss the importance of settings in providing atmosphere in their novels.  

Chair: Susan Elsley, writer and island enthusiast

ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF 20th CENTURY MUSIC

2.00-3.00pm                                                                       LIBRARY UPSTAIRS

BBC Radio 3’s Kate Molleson offers a new take on classical musical history. From the Philippines to Ethiopia to Mexico, she shines a light on charismatic composers who made radical music in extraordinary times. This event digs into questions around why the conventional canon needs redressing and how to meaningfully diversify an artform whose dominant narrative has been almost exclusively white and male for centuries.  

ELLEN RENTON: AN EYE FOR AN EYE FOR AN EYE

3.30-4.30pm                                                                   LIBRARY UPSTAIRS         

Poet, performer and theatre maker Ellen Renton talks about and reads from her debut book of poems that look at what it means to be a girl and how this intersects with disability/visual impairment.

Chair: Paul Hudson

PROGRAMMES! PROGRAMMES! FOOTBALL AND LIFE FROM WARTIME TO LOCKDOWN

3.30-4.30pm                                                                LIBRARY DOWNSTAIRS

Cliff Hague’s book is a social and economic history of football and Britain told through football match day programmes. Cliff talks about how more than strips have changed over the decades.

Chair: Steve Harvey

PORTY FOOD MAP, THE TRADERS’ STORIES

5.00-6.00pm                                                            LIBRARY DOWNSTAIRS

Come and listen to the story behind the collation and production of this unique book which gives an insight into the background and range of food outlets in Portobello. Jo Turbitt, who devised the project in collaboration with Portobello Central, is on hand to discuss the project and may have some tasty nibbles to whet your appetite!!

Tickets for all events are available from Portobello Library
Books available from The Portobello Bookshop