Not long to go now to find out what’s inside the programme for the 10th Portobello Book Festival. We are looking forward to revealing the line-up for our 10th Festival which, as always, includes local authors as well as those from further afield. The Festival, which runs from Friday 5th – Sunday 7th October, offers the diversity of subjects and authors that has become a distinctive feature of our programme. To celebrate our 10th anniversary, and with the support of Creative Scotland, we are publishing a collection of original work Postcards from Portobello, which we hope reflects the diversity of Portobello life. This will be available free during the Festival.

You can pick up a copy of the programme at the Village Show in Rosefield Park on Sunday 2nd 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 can be collected in person from the library from Monday 3rd September. Some tickets will be available 15 minutes before events.

The full programme will be published here next Monday with more detailed posts on each event following in the lead-up to the festival.

So that’s Portobello Book Festival over for another year. We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.

Over the weekend, there were about 1000 people in and out of the library and the Baptist Church Hall, 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 – to be inclusive and local but never parochial! This year’s festival was perhaps the most diverse to date.  The programme is also designed to bring together a distinctive mix of subjects, writers, commentators and readers creating what we hope is an atmosphere that is convivial and stimulating

The organising team would like to thank:

The talented musicians and writers who took part in our SongBook opening event

All our participating writers for inspiring us

Our fantastic chairs for keeping everything running smoothly

Our soundman Hamish for making sure that everyone could be heard

Jock, our resident joiner!

Blackwell’s Bookshop for providing staff for the weekend and making sure all our authors’ books were available for sale after each event

Portobello Baptist Church for their help and use of the premises

Jon Davey who took some amazing photographs

A special thanks to Paul Hudson and the staff of Portobello Library, a fantastic resource on our doorstep, without whose help and time we would not be able to run our festival

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

The 2018 programme – our 10th festival! – will be launched early September with tickets available shortly afterwards. The organising team will be starting to plan for this very soon. Any ideas and suggestions will be warmly welcomed.

The 2018 Portobello Book Festival will run from 5th-7th October.

Another small selection of photos you may have seen on Twitter over the weekend. Not quite the same quality of those already included in the blog as they are only from a phone camera!

A selection of fantastic photos from our brilliant opening evening, thanks to Jon Davey. (All photos copyright Jon Davey Photography)

Unfortunately, due to illness, we have had to cancel the Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Sons session tomorrow at 3.30pm in the library. Apologies for any inconvenience or disappointment caused.