I thought I’d do a wee plug for my local book festival today which is coming up in a couple of weeks. I’ve been part of the Portobello Book Festival organising team for 8 years now and I love it! We’re a small team of volunteers and what makes our festival special is that it is completely free, funded entirely by donations. We aim to be accessible to all and to cover a wide range of books.
This year for example, themes include nature, cycling adventures, mental and physical health, the lure of the sea, biographies, food and culture, creating a queer books archive, politics, stories from Scotland and more.
Fiction readers are well catered for with events featuring women in historical fiction, Edinburgh in crime fiction, the victims of Burke and Hare, families and relationships, time travelling librarians and magical books. Our writing workshop, which is open to all, will focus on the beach groynes as our source of inspiration and will take place within sight of the sea.
Most of the events take place in our wonderful local library. We couldn’t do it without the help and support of the staff at Portobello Library! Our local indie bookshop, The Portobello Bookshop, runs a pop-up stall over the weekend selling books by all our authors and chairs, and will be hosting the launch of Mairi Kidd’s new novel The Specimens as part of the festival. Our writing workshop will take place in the local swim centre, a beautiful Victorian building right on the prom.
I will be chairing a couple of events. On Friday I’ll be chatting with Olga Wojtas about her latest novel Miss Blaine’s Prefect and The Gondola of Doom. And on Saturday I’m chairing a panel on Women in Historical Fiction with Jane Anderson (The Paintress), Flora Johnston (The Paris Peacemakers) and Sue Lawrence (Lady’s Rock). All of these books are brilliant and I’m really looking forward to these events.
If you happen to be around Edinburgh the weekend of 4th – 6th October, why not pop along? Tickets, as I mentioned before, are free and have to be picked up in person from Portobello Library. There are usually spaces available on the day though so it’s always worth coming along even if you haven’t got a ticket. No guarantees, but you’ll probably get in!
