Programme

Portobello Book Festival: 3rd – 5th October 2025
Tickets for all events are free and available from Portobello Library

The programme for this year’s festival was officially launched at the library last night. Copies are now available to pick up from the library and you’ll find them in various places around Portobello too. Tickets will be available to collect in person from the library from 10am on Saturday morning, 13th September.

Website: www.portobellobookfestival.com
X: @portybookfest
Bluesky: @portybookfest.bsky.social
Instagram: @porty.bookfest
Facebook: Portobello Book Festival

Friday 3rd OCTOBER

The Busy Bodies: A Portobello Tale

12:00 – 13:00, Library Upstairs

The fascinating story of how researcher and editor Lisa Baptie re-discovered, edited and published The Busy Bodies, a long-forgotten gem of the Scottish literary scene. The Busy Bodies is a novel written and set in Portobello in 1827. It details the misadventures of an aristocratic family who have moved to Portobello and caused a scandal locally when published.

Chair: Paul Hudson

Love Comics? Graphic Novel Builder.

13:30 – 15:00, Library Upstairs

In this workshop local comic creator, Edward Ross, gets you started making your own comics full of amazing characters and hilarious stories. Edward brings his book, Graphic Novel Builder, full of tips and ideas for taking your comic creations to the next level! For age 9-12.

Scottish Crime: Facts and Fiction

15:30 – 16:30, Library Upstairs

Scottish crime writers Tom Wood and Rob McInroy talk about the importance of research and authenticity in their work. Tom writes True Crime and Scottish History; his book Ruxton: The First Modern Murder was shortlisted in the Scottish National Book Awards. Rob is the author of the Crime Writers Association longlisted Bob and Annie Kelty historical crime series set in Perthshire from the 1930s to 2010s.

Chair: Paul Hudson

Frankly

19:30 – 20:30, Library Downstairs

Nicola Sturgeon, author of Frankly, the much-anticipated memoir from Scotland’s first female and longest-serving First Minister, in conversation with writer and presenter Alistair Heather.

Saturday 4th October

Strong Women

10:30 – 11:30, Library Upstairs

Natalie Fergie’s 25 Library Terrace and Mhairi Collie’s The Bright Fabric of Life are set in very different places and different eras so what links these two books? Strong, supportive women! From suffragettes to surgeons, from Edinburgh to Ethiopia, this promises to be a fascinating event.

Chair: Joanne Baird

Poetry Writing Workshop

11:00 – 13:00, Tribe Porty, Windsor Place

The writing workshop is led by Samuel Tongue from the Scottish Poetry Library and is open to writers of all abilities.

Bookbug: featuring Roby Walsh

11:00 – 11:30, Library Downstairs

Bookbug with Portobello Library staff, featuring a reading from The Extraordinary Unicorn by our special guest author Roby Walsh.

Robert Fergusson: Selected Poems

12:00 – 13:00, Library Upstairs

Robert Fergusson died in 1774 aged just 24. Burns paid for his tombstone in Canongate cemetery, describing Fergusson as his ‘elder brother in the muse’. Despite his short life, Fergusson left a remarkable body of work in both English and Scots. James Robertson discusses Robert Fergusson’s extraordinary legacy and his poems, many of them comical observations of the Edinburgh of his day, which he describes in his new edition of Robert Fergusson: Selected Poems.

Chair: Gary West

Brave New Music: The Martyn Bennett Story

13:30 – 14:30, Library Upstairs

Martyn Bennett, a radical artist, piper, violinist, composer, producer and DJ, died tragically young at just 33. Martyn’s music continues to attract new fans and fill concert halls two decades after his death. Join Gary West to hear more about this inspirational musician who he pays tribute to in his new book Brave New Music – The Martyn Bennett Story.

Chair: David Francis

Witch Sisters

15:00 – 16:00, Library Upstairs

Two very different books both with a backdrop of witch trials. AD Bergin introduces his historical thriller The Wicked of the Earth and Elspeth Wilson presents her modern campus tale These Mortal Bodies. Twists, turns and dark forces abound!

Chair: Dr Kaye McAlpine

Unheard Voices

16:30 – 18:00, Library Upstairs

This session hears from Mark Baillie, author of Salvage, a mystery exploring the tragic history of Scotland’s Gypsy-travellers, Stephen Christopher, writer, playwright and member of Edinburgh Recovery Activities group, and Jim Aitken, Tutor, and Editor of Windows to our Past, a collection of stories from North Edinburgh.

Chair: Debbie Menezes (Researcher, Social Action Inquiry Scotland)

Cook Out: Cuisine with a View

18:30 – 19:30, Library Upstairs

Harrison Ward, otherwise known as the Fell Foodie, talks about his love of the mountains and outdoor cooking and how they transformed his life from an overweight, depressed alcoholic to author (Cook Out is his first outdoor cooking recipe book), mental health speaker, social media influencer and fit, fell loving foodie.

Chair: Rona Gray

Sunday 5th October

Losing the Sky

10:30 – 11:30, Library Downstairs

Andy Lawrence, Regius Professor of Astronomy, Edinburgh University: “A new generation of large satellite constellations pollute the night sky …. pushing us towards a space debris run-away that may make space industry unsustainable. The scary thing is that this may be the thin end of the wedge.“

Chair: Doug Johnstone

Hold Fast: Motherhood, My Autistic Daughter And Me

10:30 – 11:30, Library Upstairs

It was obvious to Catherine Simpson from the beginning that there was something different about her first child, Nina. Join Catherine to hear about the ups and downs of mothering an autistic child, the joy of accepting them as they are and not how the world says they should be, and the power of unconditional love.

Chair: M Louise Kelly

Ways to See the World

12:00 – 13:00, Library Downstairs

A panel of authors with different perspectives on travel – Claudia Esnouf presents her book Walk Like A Girl, Colin Renton discusses The Wine Runner and Jon Davey tells us about Fifteen Days In Paris. Chair: Esa Aldegheri, (editor of There She Goes: New Travel Writing by Women)

A Boy and a Bomb: The Story of My Father

12:00 – 13:00, Library Upstairs

Local author Geoff Pearson (Roker Beach) talks about his research into his family history and the story of his father Tom, who never said much about his family. Geoff explores DNA and atomic bombs, what probably happened, and the consequences.

Chair: Paul Hudson

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Glaciers

13:30 – 14:30, Library Downstairs

Celebrating the recent publication of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham – The Glaciers, editor and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust Director, Rob Airey is joined by many of the contributors to the book: celebrated filmmaker Mark Cousins, Edinburgh University’s Professor of Glaciology Pete Nienow, esteemed poet Alyson Hallet and the Trust’s Archivist Tilly Heydon to talk about the book, all things glacial and Barns-Graham.

Not Enough Blue

13:30 – 14:30, Library Upstairs

The bones of a blue whale, a man paints only blue canvases, the woman in Vermeer’s bluest painting speaks, and angels with blue feathers creep into the writing. Meet the author and find out how fact and fiction collide in Douglas Bruton’s books Blue Postcards, With or Without Angels, Hope Never Knew Horizon and Woman in Blue.

Chair: Joanne Baird

Campaigning for Edinburgh

15:00 – 16:00, Library Downstairs

Cliff Hague OBE, and former chair of The Cockburn Association, in discussion with DJ Johnston-Smith, a former Assistant Director, about their book The Cockburn Association 1875-2049. They take us on a tour of the essential role the Association has had in its 150 years of campaigning for parks, walkways renovation, and conservation areas, and against motorways, monstrosities and mischief. Keeping a watchful eye on all proposed “developments” and looking to the future – what next?

Indigenous Soul: Gaza and Me

15:00 – 16:00, Library Upstairs

Nada Shawa’s “voice and story are a bridge between Scotland, her home since childhood, and Gaza .… Her words are an almighty call to justice, a heart’s keepsake and a love song to family, culture and home”. (Karine Polwart)

Chair: Jennie Renton

Democracy in Crisis?

16:30 – 18:00, Library Downstairs

Lindsay Paterson, Emeritus Professor of Education Policy, University of Edinburgh, Satwat Rehman, Chief Executive of One Parent Families Scotland and co-chair of Scotland’s Just Transition Commission, and Shannon Vallor, Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Chair: Donald Bloxham, (Richard Pares Professor of History, University of Edinburgh)

Mining The Myths

17:00 – 18:00, Library Upstairs

RM Brown (Song of the Stag), Angie Spoto (The Bone Diver) and Janis Mackay (On a Northern Shore) explore how the rich tradition of Scottish mythology and folklore has inspired their writing. From selkies to ballads, Orkney to the Borders, we’ll be going through Scotland’s magic with a fine-tooth comb. Dive deep into some magical and murky waters with us!

Chair: Grace Baird

VENUES

PORTOBELLO LIBRARY

14 Rosefield Avenue, EH15 1AU

TRIBE PORTY

19 Windsor Place, EH15 2AJ

PORTOBELLO BOOK FESTIVAL is organised by a group of local book enthusiasts in collaboration with Portobello Library. Tickets are free and contributors are not paid. The festival is entirely dependent on donations to meet basic running costs. Books by contributing authors and chairs can be purchased from The Portobello Bookshop’s pop-up bookstall in the library over the course of the weekend.

We are delighted that, with the support of the Live Literature Fund, children’s writers will be visiting two of our local schools. These events are for school pupils only.

BRUNSTANE PRIMARY SCHOOL

School visit from Edinburgh-based poet Nadine Aisha Jassat, author of The House at the Edge of the World.