The Portobello Book Festival organising committee have already met to start planning this year’s festival. We are excited to have had lots of interesting suggestions passed on to us and of course we all have lots of ideas ourselves. It’s already looking like it’s going to be a great festival again. So save the dates – this year’s festival will run from Thursday 5th October to Sunday 8th October.

Don’t forget you can keep up with the book festival on all kinds of social media,
including our new Instagram account.
Click the links and give us a follow!

Twitter: Portobello Book Festival

Facebook: Portobello Book Festival

Instagram: Portobello Book Festival

Believe it or not, we will be starting to plan for our October 2023 festival early in the new year. We begin 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 a small group of 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.

Don’t forget you can keep up with the book festival on all kinds of social media,
including our new Instagram account.
Click the links and give us a follow!

Twitter: Portobello Book Festival

Facebook: Portobello Book Festival

Instagram: Portobello Book Festival

The organising team has been busy planning a brilliant Portobello Book Festival for 2022. This year it will begin with an event at The Portobello Bookshop on Thursday 29th September then run over the weekend until Sunday 2nd October. Full details will be revealed early September so watch this space.

We start to plan our October Festival in January 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 making our job easier and getting in touch in early January makes it easier for us to consider you. 

This year you will be able to watch two of our events online. The Caledonia Crime Collective will be chatting about the diversity of Scottish crime writing from 12 noon on Saturday 2nd October and Peter Geoghegan discusses his book Democracy for Sale from 3.30pm on Sunday 3rd October.

To view these events, simply visit this website at those times and you will find a link to watch. They will also be available to watch again later.

We know a lot of people enjoyed the online events last year and we did consider trying to do some more online this year. However, as a small, free, volunteer-run festival, regrettably we simply don’t have enough people to be able to comply with the Covid regulations while also trying to stream or film for later. The number of people allowed to attend each event is strictly limited and include the contributors, staff and volunteers. We are sure you will understand that we have had to prioritise everything we need to put in place to ensure the Festival can go ahead in person this year.

If you have been having a look through the programme for this year’s Portobello Book Festival and noting down the events you would like to see, then NOW is the time to get yourself down to the library! Tickets and printed programmes are available from today, exclusively from the library in Rosefield Avenue. You don’t need to book a time to pick up tickets.

Tickets can only be collected from Portobello Library in person, in advance. Due to covid restrictions, unlike in previous years, tickets will not be available on the door on the day. When collecting tickets, you are restricted to two per event per person. Library opening hours are Monday and Wednesday 1-5pm, Tuesday and Thursday 10-5pm, Friday and Saturday 10am-2pm.

Click here to see the full programme

Saturday 3rd October – 1pm
Click Youtube link below to watch the interview

Doug Johnstone is the author of twelve novels. Several of his books have been bestsellers and three, A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015), were shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last decade, and has been an arts journalist for twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three solo EPs released, and he currently plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also player-manager of the Scotland Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh.

The Big Chill is the second in a trilogy of books about the Skelfs, three generations of women who have to take over the running of a funeral directors and a private investigators when the patriarch of the family dies.

Doug’s website is  www.dougjohnstone.com

Books by all our participating authors are available to order from The Portobello Bookshop.
Click here to visit the PBF page

All our events this year are available to watch or listen to again at your leisure. To make it easy for you to find them, we’ve posted all the links on this page. Just click to go to the event page and enjoy!

Archie Foley – More Footprints in the Sand

Anne Stormont – Finding Fulfilment

Tom Mole – The Secret Life of Books

Janis Mackay – A Sense of Place and Imagination

Doug Johnstone – Dark Humour

Edward Ross – Gamish: A graphic History of Gaming

John D Burns – Mountaineer, writer, storyteller, talks to Portobello Book Festival

Captivating Crime with Jackie Baldwin and Olga Wojtas

Gavin Francis – Island Dreams

Sheila Averbuch – Social and Anti-social Media

Peter Ross – A Tomb with a View

Leonie Charlton discusses Marram with Peter E Ross

Letters from Lockdown

“Resolving the climate emergency: Why societal and environmental sustainability are interdependent” with Dr Keith Skene 

Donald Bloxham – History: Why Bother?

Through Travellers’ Eyes