From the 10th to 25th of August the Edinburgh International Book Festival returns for two weeks, bringing together over 500 events with the most exciting writers and thinkers on the planet to ignite imaginations, foster human connection, and challenge the status quo.
We’re delighted to have several of our authors taking part in this prestigious gathering, across fiction, poetry, history and more. See our full list of events below, with dates and times, along with links to the festival website for tickets.
Check out our pictures from this year’s festival below!
ROSEMARY GORING
Tuesday 13 Aug 10:30 – 11:30
Rosemary Goring is a historian, novelist and literary editor, and author of Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary, Queen of Scots. Despite spending just 12 years in Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots irrevocably shaped the nation; she inhabits our imagination like no other monarch. In Homecoming, Rosemary ‘breathes life into this legendary queen’ (Southern Reporter), exploring the tumultuous Scottish years of her reign with fresh eyes. Hear her in conversation with Ruth Wishart, talking about the iconic places that were the backdrop for Mary’s singular life.
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE
ROSEANNE WATT
Tuesday 13 August 13:45 – 14:45
Tuesday 13 August 19:30 – 21:00
Roseanne Watt is a poet, filmmaker and musician from Shetland, whose debut collection, Moder Dy, won both the Eric Gregory Award and the Somerset Maugham Award on publication. In her first event, she will be appearing alongside Jen Hadfield and Amy Liptrot to celebrate the writing of Orkney and Shetland. Then on Tuesday evening she will be reading at the festival’s Future Poets event, celebrating a decade of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Hosted by Michael Pedersen, this will be a fantastic celebration of 10 years of supporting young and emerging Scottish poets, with readings from an exciting line-up of past winners and nominees.
TICKETS FOR THE MORNING EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS FOR THE EVENING EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
JEN STOUT
Monday 12 Aug 14:15 – 15:15
Tuesday 13 Aug 14:00 – 15:00
Wednesday 21 Aug 16:00 – 17:00
Jen Stout is a journalist, writer, and radio producer from Scotland, frequently working in Ukraine. Her reports are often found in the Sunday Post and on BBC Radio, and she is the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller, Night Train to Odesa. Jen will first be chairing an event with Patricia Evangelista, discussing six years of reporting on the Philippines’ state-sanctioned killings, carried out in the name of Duterte’s war on drugs.
This will be followed by an event in conversation with Allan Little, where together they compare notes of their experience of journalism across the generations. Lastly, on 21st August, she will be chairing a conversation between Olesya Khromeychuk & Andrey Kurkov, discussing, over two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, where they talk to Jen about their stories from Ukraine.
TICKETS TO MONDAY 12th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO TUESDAY 13th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO WEDNESDAY 21st EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
LIZ LOCHHEAD
Wed 14 Aug 10:30 – 11:30
Thu 15 Aug 19:00 – 20:30
Sun 25 Aug 11:45 – 12:45
Liz Lochhead was Scots Makar from 2011–2016 and was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. She has published several plays and poetry collections, and in 2023 received the Saltire Society Lifetime Achievement Award. Liz will begin on Wednesday morning with readings and talk about her new collected poems, A Handsel, followed by a special guest reading on Thursday the 15th alongside Fiona Shannon and James Robertson, and more. To round off her festival appearance, she will take to the stage on Sunday 25th alongside rising star Henry Bell, where they will be discussing friendship and poetry across the generations.
TICKETS TO WEDNESDAY 14th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO THURSDAY 15th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO SUNDAY 25th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
HANNAH LAVERY
Sunday 11 Aug 17:00 – 18:00
Tuesday 13 Aug 17:45 – 18:45
Thursday 15 Aug 12:00 – 13:00
Thursday 15 Aug 18:45 – 19:45
Friday 16 Aug 18:15 – 19:15
Hannah Lavery is an award-winning poet and playwright, and was appointed Edinburgh Makar in November 2021 for a three year term. This year she has a bumper five appearances at the Edinburgh Book Festival, including an event celebrating her new poetry collection, Unwritten Woman alongside Salena Godden, joining Donald Smith to look ahead to the 900th anniversary of Edinburgh’s founding, and chairing Hollie McNish to talk about her latest poetry and essay collection, Lobster. Full details can be found below.
TICKETS TO SUNDAY 11th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO TUESDAY 13th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO THURSDAY 15th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO THURSDAY 15th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS TO FRIDAY 16th EVENT AVAILABLE HERE
ALISTAIR MOFFAT
Thursday 15 Aug 10:30 – 11:30
Alistair Moffat was born and bred in the Scottish Borders, is a former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Director of Programmes at Scottish Television and founder of the Borders Book Festival. He has written more than thirty books on Scottish history. Join Alistair in conversation with James Jauncey, where he will be talking about his latest book, The Highlands and Islands of Scotland: A New History, discussing what he unearthed about these regions: from the rich history of battle lines to the changing story of Scotland’s dramatic landscapes, from the prehistoric to modern.
TICKETS FOR THURSDAY 15th AVAILABLE HERE
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
Monday 19 Aug 17:00 – 18:00
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the highly successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which has sold over twenty-five million copies, and his various series of books translated into over forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. He returns to the Edinburgh Book Festival with his newest stand alone novel, The Winds From Further West – a story of chance encounters, richly atmospheric and packed with compassion and humour. Chaired by James Crawford, this is an event McCall Smith fans will not want to miss.
TICKETS FOR MONDAY 19th AVAILABLE HERE
JAMES CRAWFORD
Thursday 22nd Aug 17:00 – 18:00
The search for hidden landscapes drives the work of Shetland-born author James Crawford, whose books have explored borders, lost buildings, and – in conjunction with his BBC series Scotland from the Sky – the views revealed by photography from the air. At the Edinburgh Book Festival he will be in conversation with Dan Richards about his latest book, Wild History: Journeys into Lost Scotland, revealing his experiences in searching for the nation’s abandoned buildings and landmarks.
TICKETS FOR THURSDAY 22nd AVAILABLE HERE
IONA LEE
Saturday 10 Aug 18:45 – 19:45
Saturday 17 Aug 16:00 – 17:00
Saturday 17 Aug 18:45 – 19:45
Iona Lee is a writer, of poetry and non-fiction, an artist, illustrator and spoken-word performer from Edinburgh. She has been a prominent member of Scotland’s live poetry scene for almost ten years, appearing on radio and television, and reading her work in venues and on festival stages across the UK and Europe. Join her at the festival, first as part of the Poetry for the People panel alongside Caleb Femi, Salena Godden, Vanessa Kisuule, Holly Pester, Michael Mullen and Sam Riviere, followed by a celebration of her debut poetry collection, Anamnesis alongside Jenni Fagan. She will finish up her festival by chairing Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natalie Diaz, discussing how sharing words helps us remember and imagine.
TICKETS FOR SATURDAY 10th AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS FOR SATURDAY 17th AVAILABLE HERE
TICKETS FOR SATURDAY 17th AVAILABLE HERE
EILIDH MULDOON
Saturday 10 Aug 10:00 – 11:00
Eilidh Muldoon studied Art History and gained an MFA in Illustration from Edinburgh College of Art in June 2013, where she is currently a tutor. She is also a freelance artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in prints, greetings cards and giftware. On Saturday morning, break out your pencils and dive into a drawing and colouring workshop, where Eilidh will reach you to recreate images from her latest children’s colouring books!
THIS EVENT IS CURRENTLY SOLD OUT
SARAH RANKIN
Friday 16 Aug 14:30 – 15:30
Since being a MasterChef finalist in 2022, Sarah Rankin’s career has expanded from marketing to a new life as a food writer, chef demonstrator, recipe development specialist and private dining caterer. This year we were delighted to publish her debut cookbook, Kith, and she’ll be bringing its delights to the stage at the festival. Essays are sprinkled between recipes and Rankin writes movingly about her passion for ingredients, the seasons that nurture them, and those who tend, harvest, and prepare them too. See her live in conversation with Claire Urquhart.
TICKETS FOR FRIDAY 16th AVAILABLE HERE
VAL McDERMID
Friday 16 Aug 20:30 – 21:30
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than forty languages, and have sold over nineteen million copies. She is the author of our latest Darkland Tale, Queen Macbeth, a tale of treachery, massacre, and ruthless ambition, and where the real Lady Macbeth is revealed. She will be joined by Steph McGovern to discuss the real character behind one of Shakespeare’s most memorable and charismatic villains.
TICKETS FOR FRIDAY 16th AVAILABLE HERE
JENNI FAGAN
Saturday 17 Aug 16:00 – 17:00
Jenni Fagan is a poet and novelist, has won awards from Creative Scotland, Dewar Arts, Scottish Screen and Scottish Book Trust among others, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. We’re delighted to be publishing her latest poetry collection, A Swan’s Neck on the Butcher’s Block with an exclusive EIBF event alongside Iona Lee. A Swan’s Neck on a Butcher’s Block is an achingly honest, vivid collection that dares to challenge ideas of what it is to live and to be alive.
TICKETS FOR SATURDAY 17th AVAILABLE HERE
LYNSEY MAY
Sunday 18 Aug 17:45 – 18:45
Lynsey May is won first place in the Fresh Ink novel contest in 2020, a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2013, a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2015 and a spot as Cove Park’s Emerging Scottish Writer in 2016. Polygon published her debut novel, Weak Teeth, and she’ll be joined by Margaret McDonald at the festival, talking about the thrill of a first novel, and the human nature that her take on vulnerability, responsibility and complicated relationships.
TICKETS FOR SUNDAY 18th AVAILABLE HERE
Find our Festival Titles Below!
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Hardback | Pub: 18 Apr 2024£25.00MasterChef finalist Sarah Rankin has a passion for Scottish produce and flavours and for feeding people. Being a food lover encompasses not just a passion for the ingredients themselves, but also for the seasons and weather which nurture them, and…
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Hardback | Pub: 02 May 2024£12.00
Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows . . . A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions – a…
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Paperback | Pub: 03 Aug 2023£10.00
Iona Lee’s debut collection charts the journey of the writer, artist and performer into adulthood. Written in a unique voice, Iona playfully toys with thematic devices in this entertaining exploration of art and artifice, absence and impermanence,…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 Sep 2024£10.99
A scintillating collection from one of Scotland’s most original voices. Jenni Fagan converses with the poets of the past; through them, she communes with demons and explores a world that is continually at odds with itself. The poet voyages, as…
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Hardback | Pub: 19 Oct 2023£25.00
Liz Lochhead is one of the country’s leading poets. Her work has paved the way and inspired some of the most inspirational voices writing in Scotland today, including Ali Smith, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy. In A Handsel, the…
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Paperback | Pub: 23 May 2019£10.99Winner of the Highland Book Prize. ‘The old Shetland fishermen still speak with something like reverence of the forgotten art of steering by the moder dy (mother wave), the name given to an underswell which it is said always travels in the…
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Hardback | Pub: 02 May 2024£17.99When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, millions of lives changed in an instant. Millions of people were suddenly on the move. In this great flow of people was a reporter from the north of Scotland. Jen Stout left Moscow abruptly, ending up on a…
