The 14th Portobello Book Festival was a great success and
we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. One lady when collecting her tickets said Portobello Book Festival is the highlight of her year and it’s certainly the highlight of ours.
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Over the weekend, Portobello Book Festival attracted over 500 people to the library, Jameson Gate and the Portobello Bookshop, and comments across the board have been very positive indeed. Our intention is always to try as far as possible to make sure that those who make up the community of Portobello see themselves, their experience and their interests reflected in the programme. The programme is also designed to bring together a distinctive mix of subjects, writers, commentators and readers.

The organising team would like to thank:

All our participating writers for inspiring and entertaining us

The talented musicians who took part in the Friday evening event Songs from the Last Page

Our fantastic chairs for keeping everything running smoothly

Our soundman Jock and his assistant Riley for making sure that everyone could be heard

Our volunteer Antonia who was a great help on a busy Sunday

Our security man Bill for providing a cheery presence at the door over the weekend and dealing with a rowdy attendee. Don’t worry, it was only Oreo the cat!

The Portobello Bookshop for hosting a great event to kick off the festival. Also for providing staff for the weekend and making sure all our authors’ books were available for sale after each event

Jameson Gate for hosting a fantastic and very popular event on Friday afternoon 

A special thanks to Paul Hudson and the staff of Portobello Library, a fantastic resource on our doorstep. The collaboration with the library and the help and time given by the library staff are what make the festival the success it is

And of course, thanks to everyone who came along to the events and created such a vibrant atmosphere

We start to plan our October festival well in advance so if you’re interested in being considered for inclusion, contacting us in the first half of January is a good idea. There are always limited spots and after our early planning sessions most of these are already accounted for. We’re volunteers so can’t always keep track of requests carrying over year on year, so getting in touch in early January makes it easier for us to consider you.

The 2023 programme will be launched early September
with tickets available shortly afterwards.