At Scots in London we are gearing up for the programme launch for the first ever St Andrew’s Book Festival – celebrating Scotland in London’s heart. The Festival line-up is packed full of household names and international best-sellers, as well as debut novelists who have been shortlisted for numerous awards plus a couple of famous debut names – Judy Murray and Lorraine Kelly! An avid reader I’m really excited to be working on this Festival.
A couple of weeks ago members of the Book Festival team spent an inspiring (and hot!) day on the ground event planning at our beautiful venues. These include Scotland House on Embankment, The Caledonian Club in Belgravia and St Columba’s Church in Knightsbridge.
A whole host of best-selling authors have now been announced including Sir Alexander McCall Smith, a prolific international best-seller of well over 300 books; tennis legend Judy Murray; Andrew O’Hagan, author of Mayflies, and TV icon Lorraine Kelly. Crime fiction enthusiasts will have plenty to enjoy, with events featuring Sir Ian Rankin, the multimillion-copy worldwide bestseller of over thirty novels and creator of John Rebus; Ann Cleeves, best known for her detectives Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez and Matthew Venn who can be found on TV in ITV’s Vera, BBC One’s Shetland and ITV’s Long Call respectively and Chris Brookmyre, creator of investigative journalist Jack Parlabane. Other fiction authors include Hugo Rifkind and Malachy Tallack.
Whatever types of books are your bag there will be events to match. There are memoirsand biographies from Simple Minds guitarist Derek Forbes, Scottish writer and broadcaster Damian Barr who hosts The Big Scottish Book Club, plus Chitra Ramaswamy on the story of her decade-long friendship with Holocaust survivor Henry Wuga. There will be politics from Gavin Esler and James Naughtie, best known for presenting BBC Newsnight and Radio 4’s Today programme respectively, and Jen Stout discussing her
coverage of the human cost of the conflict in Ukraine. Two historians are also
joining the line-up – Alistair Moffat, one of Scotland’s most respected popular
historians and journalist Alan Taylor who is currently writing an ‘autobiography’
of Edinburgh. There is also geography and the environment with Kat Hill’s tour
of the UK in search of bothies.
The programme also includes a spoken word showcase chaired by Michael Pederson, a prize-winning Scottish poet and author and the Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh. ‘A Fantastic Racket’ will feature spoken word musician Bee Asha, Scottish artist, musician and writer Bill Drummond and two former Makars (National Poets of Scotland) Jackie Kay and Liz Lochhead. Jackie Kay has been awarded an MBE and CBE for services to literature, and Liz Lochhead received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2015.
Scots in London is also proud to be providing a London platform to debut and early career writers through two dedicated events. The first event will feature winners of this year’s Saltire Awards for which entries are currently open. The shortlist will be announced on The Scotsman in mid-September. Scots in London is also delighted to have secured funding from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland to support a debuts’ showcase and promote cross-border literary connections.
The box office will be opening early September – you can keep to date with all the latest Festival news at http://www.standrewsbookfestival.org. See you there!
Picture Credit: Scotland House
Jennifer Rowland 