We are pleased to announce our full panel of Authors:
1030 LIZ LOCHHEAD is something of a national treasure. She has long been one of the nation’s favourite poets and an award-winning playwright to boot. She’s had a huge amount of success in particular doing Scottish language versions of classic plays from Moliere to Euripides. Plus a rollicking version of Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped off. Her latest poetry collection A Handsel features many of her favourite poems and several new ones.
Liz will be chaired by BBC Scotland’s Arts Correspondent Pauline McLean whose beat covers all Scotland’s arts genres. She’s a big favourite with Cove and Kilcreggan audiences.
1200 ALEX GRAY is one of Scotland’s favourite crime writers. Her DCI Lorimer series has now sold more than a million copies worldwide. The latest book in this hugely successful series is Out of Darkness which was published earlier this year. She is the co-founder of Bloody Scotland, the national crime writing festival based in Stirling.
Alex will be chaired by another book festival regular, Susan Stewart who is the director of the Open University in Scotland.
1400 AASMAH MIR has written a fascinating memoir which chronicles both her own upbringing in Scotland and her mother’s very different experiences as a Pakistani bride who followed her new husband to Scotland. Aasmah, who suffered from crushing shyness at one point in her life, is now a host with Times Radio and spent some years co-hosting the Saturday Live Show with the Rev Richard Coles. Her book started life as A Pebble In The Throat, but the paperback is simply titled Glasgow Girl.
Aasmah will be chaired by book festival committee regular Ruth Wishart who also edits the local Pen Mag in addition to writing two regular weekly columns.
1530 JOSIE LONG is a well kent comedienne who has performed nine times at the Edinburgh Fringe in addition to shows in America and Australia. Her new book is Because I Don’t Know What You Mean and What You Don’t is a series of sharply observed short stories which plays to another of her many observational strengths. She’s now based in Scotland.
Josie will also be chaired by BBC Scotland’s arts correspondent Pauline McLean.
1030 KEN McNAB was a sports journalist who now works in communications from his Glasgow base. More importantly in this context, he is probably the most knowledgeable Beatles fan in captivity.
Originally, he penned AND IN THE END which chronicled the final days of the Fab Four as a group. Now with SHAKE IT UP BABY he turns his attention to the rise of Beatlemania and why they became a sixties phenomenon which continues to fascinate each new generation.
Ken will be chaired by journalist and former BBC political editor Brian Taylor who returns to the Cove and Kilcreggan Book Festival as one of its most popular and widely knowledgeable chairs.
12 noon JEN STOUT has become one of the most sought after young writers in the UK. Originally from Fair Isle she spent most of her life in Shetland before taking advantage of a scholarship to Russia. She left when that country invaded Ukraine and NIGHT TRAIN TO ODESA is her compelling account of that war through the eyes and voices of those she met there.
Jen will be chaired by the legendary photojournalist and foreign correspondent David Pratt, who is no stranger to covering all manner of conflicts.
1400 GAVIN FRANCIS is a GP but also a prolific and award-winning author whose output is quite extraordinary given the fact that he is a working doctor in both Edinburgh and Orkney. But always a restless native he has also travelled widely from the Arctic to the Antipodes. His latest book THE BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS is published this year and examines both the physical and metaphorical ways in which we make connections with each other
Gavin will also be chaired by Brian Taylor, the former political editor and now weekly Herald columnist who has these crucial building blocks of all good journalism, curiosity and a fertile imagination.
1530 PETER ROSS had a huge hit with his first book A Tomb with a View and brings his quirky observational skills to STEEPLE CHASING, a tour round some of the stranger stories attached to churches up and down the UK. The fact that he self describes as a “non believer” probably allows him to bring a beady and objective eye to his task. Peter will chaired by our own Ruth Wishart.
