Fully Booked: Scots Whay Hae! Previews Aye Write 2025...
- Alistair Braidwood
- 4 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Moving from Spring to Autumn - running from 6th to 16th November - Glasgow’s Book Festival Aye Write offers something for everyone. Lovers of fact, fiction, poetry, prose, autobiography, biography, crime (real and fictional), memoir, music, food, and any other form of writing that takes your fancy, are all well catered for.
The festival is mostly split between the Mitchell Library and Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall with plenty of guests from home and abroad, perfectly suiting a book festival which has always been international in scope, but with its roots firmly planted in the city.
You can find what's on and when by downloading the full programme which will help you plan your festival, and you can also keep up to date with events as they unfold by following Aye Write on Twitter, Instagram, or on Facebook.
But before you do that, below are SWH!’s carefully selected Top 10 highlights to give you something to think about.
Click the orange titles and links below for further details on our selected events, and to go to relevant interviews and reviews.
In Benbecula, Booker-shortlisted author Graeme Macrae Burnet writes a fictionalised account of a real-life triple murder on the remote Hebridean island and its subsequent aftermath. A story of darkness, violence, and madness, lightened by moments of black humour and absurdity.
Meanwhile, Francine Toon transports her readers to a little corner of Fife in her new book, Bluff. Set amongst the ancient cobblestone of a Scottish coastal town, Francine blends the tension of a mystery with the chill of a modern gothic. This is a story where every shadow holds a secret, and every revelation brings her characters closer to a truth that could shatter their worlds.
Ambrose Parry returns with a fifth instalment of his acclaimed crime series. The Death of Shame sees heroine Sarah Fisher investigate the disappearance of a young woman in a plotline based on disturbing real events. When a relative seeks her help in searching for her missing daughter, Sarah is thrust into a lurid mystery that takes her to some of the darkest and most depraved corners of the capital.
Joining Ambrose is Allan Gaw, author of To the Shades Descend. Visiting from London, Dr Jack Cuthbert unexpectedly finds himself at the centre of a horrifying crime in Glasgow. Cuthbert must navigate a political minefield, with British fascists and the city’s notorious razor gangs in the frame. To solve the case, he needs to gather all the expertise he can from those around him. But, out of his usual surroundings and working with strangers, who can he trust?
Dive into Glasgow’s vibrant musical heritage with the founders of Glasgow Music Tours, Alison Stroak, Fiona Shepherd, and Jonathan Trew, as they discuss their new book, Glasgow’s Greatest Hits.
Covering folk to funk, pop to punk, this bite-sized book celebrates the significant gigs, beloved venues and famous (and infamous) musicians who have stayed, played and made music in the UK’s first UNESCO City of Music.
From Simple Minds to Sydney Devine, The Blue Nile to Belle & Sebastian, Alex Harvey to the Apollo, Glasgow’s Greatest Hits gathers a host of tall tales and fascinating facts, big names and lesser-known legends in one pocket compendium.
This event includes live performances — and maybe one from you? Sign up for ‘Bandeoke’ and give us a song from one of your favourite Glasgow artists.
Mae Diansangu, Louise Welsh, Lewis Hetherington: Who Will Be Remembered Here - Queer Spaces in Scotland
Mae Diansangu, Louise Welsh, and Lewis Hetherington are just some of the authors who contributed to Who Will Be Remembered Here: Queer Spaces in Scotland.
In this special discussion, author and journalist Carrie Marshall sits down with the trio to discover how the book reconsiders and reimagines the built and natural world through a queer lens. Queerness weaves through Scotland’s past, but it’s largely intangible and absent from accounts of what came before. In this collection of stories, fourteen authors explore the places and spaces which define their queer history, from theatres and hillsides to amusement arcades and libraries — wherever they’ve found meaning.
By making invisible stories visible, Who Will Be Remembered Here captures something of the richness, complexity and beauty of a history that belongs to all of us.
Four years ago, at the age of 56, Justin Currie was having problems playing guitar on one of Del Amitri’s best-known and most popular songs, “Nothing Ever Happens”. Something wasn’t right. After the tour, he went to see a neurologist. So begins The Tremolo Diaries, Currie’s poetic, self-deprecating journal as he deals with his Parkinson’s diagnosis and an epic US tour.
Part meditative memoir, part fascinating travelogue of life on the road in the 21st century, Justin guides us from gig to gig via art galleries, parks, bars, and sites of natural beauty. As he contemplates the long-term ramifications, both personally and professionally, of this incurable and little-understood condition, he allows us into a world of love and friendship, life and loss.
Tom Newlands won the McKitterick Prize for Only Here, Only Now, a mid-90s coming-of-age tale that follows 14-year-old Cora Mowatt, stuck on a seaside council estate full of dafties, old folk and seagulls. Drawn from life but written with riotous imagination, Tom explores what it means to grow up in a forgotten corner of Scotland and dream of a life that feels out of reach.
Margaret McDonald won the Carnegie Medal for Glasgow Boys, a tender story of young masculinity, friendship and growing up in foster care. Finlay is studying for a nursing degree, against all the odds. But coming straight from care means he has no support network. Banjo is trying to settle in with his new foster family, but he can’t forget all that has happened, and his anger and fear keep boiling over. Can the pair let go of the past before it drags them under?
Callum McSorley won the McIlvanney Prize for Squeaky Clean and follows it up with the raw, darkly comic Paperboy. DCI Alison McCoist is back: newly promoted and even less popular. Chuck Gardner is the proud owner of a confidential paper-shredding business and a serious betting habit. When Chuck finds some scandalous paperwork and McCoist investigates a corpse under a flyover, they’re sucked into a deadly stramash of gangland wars and police corruption.
In That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack, Jack is an old man, living alone in the cottage where he grew up. It’s here where, one evening, something appears on his doorstep. Something that throws off the rhythm of his solitary existence in the most profound way. This is a story of unlikely friendship, longing, the power of music and the pull of home. It is about a life revisited — and reimagined.
In Andrew Meehan’s Best Friends, we’re introduced to Ray and June. After lives spent picking up the pieces, he's not romantic material, and she's not even friend material. When it comes to learning how to be with other people at the age of 70-plus, they’re unlikely companions. Yet, as understanding blossoms into friendship, June and Ray find themselves slowly rediscovering the joy that's been missing from their lives for so long. The right person at the right time.
The short-lived Blitz club in London’s Covent Garden was more than just a place to hang out or be seen: it was the catalyst for a counter-culture explosion, rallying against all that Thatcher’s leadership had ushered in by the dawn of the 80s.
Tuesday nights boasted a fearless cast – from Boy George and Spandau Ballet to Grayson Perry, Wham!, and Alexander McQueen. They were the vanguard of a very different England; socially liberal, loud and proud, celebrating diversity, but also fiercely individualistic. If Britain stood in black and white, the Blitz Kids switched on the colour.
In Blitz, Elms reflects on a club night founded by working-class kids, one whose impact reverberated beyond its doors, through the worlds of art, literature, fashion and music, and into the present day.
The third edition of Glasgow on a Plate by the legendary Ferrier Richardson features 20 of the best chefs and restaurants in Glasgow. Intelligently written and beautifully illustrated, each page reveals another example of the exciting culinary possibilities available in the city. This book will inspire you to explore the vibrant and creative Glasgow restaurant scene and try out some of the superb recipes from the city’s top chefs.
Meanwhile, restaurateur and Saturday Kitchen favourite Julie Lin celebrates all parts of her identity with Sama Sama: Comfort food from my Malaysian-Scottish Kitchen. Encouraging simplicity for maximum joy in the kitchen, Julie teaches us to cook with soul, trust our palates and broaden our ideas of authenticity. Enjoy accessible dishes with explosive flavours, such as Chilli Crisp Puttanesca, Steak au Sichuan Poivre and Kaya Croissant-and-Butter Pudding.
Douglas MacIntyre cut his teeth (and his first record) as an 18-year-old guitarist in Hamilton band Article 58. MacIntyre established his own label, The Creeping Bent Organisation, in 1994. Creeping Bent: A Leap Into The Void is MacIntyre’s written account of running an independent label, working with an array of artists, and releasing his own music. Creeping Bent will cease operations in December 2025 after 30 years of active service.
In Katy Lironi’s memoir Matilda in the Middle, she documents her time as the vocalist of Edinburgh C86 group The Fizzbombs — part of a scene that included Shop Assistants, Jesse Garon & the Desperadoes, and Rote Kapelle. Katy has been involved with Creeping Bent from its inception, making fanzines and releasing records as the vocalist of The Secret Goldfish.
Caledonia Screaming, by award-winning filmmaker Grant McPhee, explores punk’s effect on Scotland circa 1976/77, with groups in towns throughout the country learning three chords, forming bands and self-releasing 7” singles. The book features interviews with over 100 Scottish punk musicians and London contemporaries, as well as promoters, label owners, music journalists and fanzine writers.
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