Saturday 5th October – 11am – Portobello Baptist Church Hall
Sam McColl and Alex Brown talk about the Edinburgh portrayed in their novels Call Billy! and Hit Me. Complex characters and gritty story lines draw us into a city that’s both flawed and raw.
Chair: Paul Hudson
Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.
Saturday 5th October – 10am – Library Upstairs
Who would have guessed a humble cabbage was used to treat scurvy or that the taxonomic name for the thistle – Scotland’s iconic emblem – means something like ‘donkey’s fart’? Greg Kenicer, botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and author of the beautifully presented Scottish Plant Lore: An Illustrated Guide reveals much more about our ancient and modern Scottish flora.
Chair: George Anderson
Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.
Saturday 5th October 11.00am-1.00pm
PORTOBELLO BAPTIST CHURCH CAFÉ
Writing workshop open to writers of all abilities and all styles. Come and flex your writing muscles in the company of other local writers and writing enthusiasts. Led by local nature and travel writer J L Hall.
Please note that this event is currently full. Please check the library for any return tickets.
As we pride ourselves on being a very local festival, tickets are only available to pick up in person from Portobello library in Rosefield Avenue. Tickets for each event, which are free, are limited to four per person per event. This is to try to ensure that as many people as possible get the chance to attend the events they would like to.
However, tickets for quite a few of our events this year are already completely gone. It’s always worth checking the library for returns. If you have a ticket and can’t go anymore please return them to the library so others can get the opportunity to attend.
Remember that there are always a few tickets available just before each event. Although we cannot guarantee admission, it is always worth turning up on the day. So far, we’ve never turned anyone away!
8.00-10.30pm LIBRARY DOWNSTAIRS
OPENING EVENT: FIRST WORDS…. LAST LINES
Our ever popular cabaret-style event, hosted by David Francis, takes a new format this year. It will feature local composer/musician Gareth Williams, writer and storyteller James Spence and performance poets Jo McFarlane and Alex Callaghan who will all entertain us with their take on the theme “First words …. last lines”.
Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.
Friday 4th October – 2pm – Jameson Gate
Our Friday afternoon event sees us pay a return visit to Jameson Gate where you can hear Sara Sheridan who is a successful novelist, activist, feminist and perfumer. In this session she shares an insight into her work and talks about her latest book Where are the Women?: A Guide to Imagined Scotland exploring beyond the traditional male-dominated history and heritage of Scotland.
Chair: Viv Cree
Tickets for all Portobello Book Festival events are free and can be picked up from Portobello Library in Rosefield Avenue.
If you like the sound of this event, you may also be interested in Are We There Yet? which will be on Sunday 6th October at the library from 11.00am-12.00noon. This will look at the road to equality for Scottish women writers with writer and biographer Jenni Calder, novelist Regi Claire and Professor of Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling Claire Squires.
Not long to go now until you can find out what’s inside the programme for the 11th Portobello Book Festival. We are looking forward to revealing the line-up which, as always, includes local authors as well as those from further afield. The Festival, which runs from Thursday 3rd – Sunday 6th October, offers the diversity of subjects and authors that has become a distinctive feature of our programme. And yes, you are reading that correctly – we are beginning a day earlier than normal with a special event on Thursday 3rd September. All will be revealed soon.
You can pick up a copy of the programme from our brilliant bookstall at the Village Show in Rosefield Park this Sunday 1st September from 2-5pm or it will be available from Portobello Library and various local businesses from next Monday. Tickets for all events are free and must be collected in person from the library from Monday 2nd September. Some tickets will be available 15 minutes before events.
The full programme will be published here next week with more detailed posts on each event following in the lead-up to the festival.
Portobello Book Festival 