The Edinburgh International Book Festival

I have just returned from the Edinburgh International Book Festival and I am still buzzing – because I wasn’t there as part of the audience – I was there as an author.

Mine was a joint event with the lovely Sarah Crossan, author of dystopian duology Breathe and Resist as well as the Carnegie nominated The Weight of Water. Or event was called The End is Nigh and formed part of the Baillie Gifford Schools programme of events, hosted by Hannah Love of Faber, who was as lovely as her name suggests.

We read extracts and answered questions about our books, both about the writing process and our inspirations as well as the environmental issues our books address and the emerging genre of Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction).

Afterwards we had the opportunity to meet some of the kids and sign books for them in the festival bookshop. A couple of school groups had come across from Glasgow and they’ve given the event a lovely write up here.

 The Book Festival was held in the beautiful Charlotte Gardens, event venues and bookshops set up around the edge with lawns and seating in the middle where people gathered to drink coffee or eat their lunch. The authors had a separate area, the Author’s Yurt, where we could chat and relax both before and after our events

Of course no visit to Edinburgh during festival time would be complete without checking out The Fringe and we spent some time sampling all that the city has to offer at this time of year. Some of the street acts we saw were quite superb and the whole city was vibrant and alive.

Participating in The Edinburgh International Book Festival was a wonderful experience and has to be one of the highlights of my year so far.