The Write Stuff: Scots Whay Hae!’s Top 10 Picks Of The Edinburgh International Book Festival 2025…
- Alistair Braidwood
- Aug 8
- 6 min read
This year's Edinburgh International Book Festival returns to Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) for the second year, and once again it offers a varied and extensive programme. This year the key theme is that of Repair, and there are close to 700 events featuring 641 writers from 35 countries.
Taking place from 9-24th August the EIBF is set to continue to be a welcome literary oasis in the city as the pandemonium that is Edinburgh in August rages all around.
You can find all the details of who, what, when, and where at edbookfest.co.uk, but, with so many events to choose from, here is Scots Whay Hae!'s guide to 10 things to see at this year’s festival.
Click on the highlighted titles to learn more and get tickets...
For music lovers of a certain age - actually, of any age - this promises to be an unmissable event, with broadcaster and journalist Nicola Meighan the perfect host for a panel which includes writer and musician Carrie Marshall, journalist and author Chitra Ramaswamy, theatre director, playwright, actor, and musician Cora Bissett, and musician and co-founder of the Chemikal Underground record label Emma Pollock, and there's also going to be live music from Little Acres', and member of the Hen Hoose Collective, Cariss Crosbie. 1995 was one of the most culturally significant years in living memory, and it'll be great to hear the stories and anecdotes from just a few of those who played their part and contributed to what was going on.
Leila Aboulela and Karen Campbell, two of the finest writers around, will be talking about their latest novels, A New Year and This Bright Life respectively. Both share a rare ability to write with an honesty and insight about human nature, often presenting and representing people who rarely appear in fiction. Both novels deal in part with growing old, grief, often complex cross-generational relationships, and the emotional upheaval of unexpected life changes. Chaired by Claire Urquhart, expect a warm and thought-provoking conversation full of empathy and understanding.
There are lots of great music related events at this year's festival, and this promises to be one of the most interesting. Carrie Marshall's Small Town Joy explores the past, present, and future of queer music in Scotland and its influence both at home and aboard. Musician, broadcaster and academic Gary West's book Brave New Music, looks at the life and work of the late, great, Martyn Bennett - a musician who would change the face and identity of Scottish music before his untimely death in 2005. Chaired by Scots Whay Hae's Ali Braidwood, this promises to be a discussion which is not simply about the music but our culture more widely and how the former is central to the latter.
There's a game, I'm sure you know it, which asks who you might pick as your perfect dinner guests, and this panel includes four individuals who could easily make my list. Taking place in Dynamic Earth's planetarium, this event will be hosted by Edinburgh Makar and novelist Michael Pedersen, with guests, fellow poet Hollie McNish, wildlife photographer Gordon Buchanan, and musician Lomond Campbell. Together they will celebrate and explore the natural world through poetry, imagery, and music. A magical evening is guaranteed.
This event is a justified and welcome celebration of Scottish writing today, and features the talents of Eilidh Akilade, Cal Flyn, Katie Goh, Victoria Mackenzie, Callum McSorley, and Graeme Macrae Burnett, with playwright, poet and performer Imogen Stirling in the role of Chair. You may know these writers, you may only know a few, but even if they are all new to you this is an event which will showcase the diversity of voices and ideas which abound across Scotland's literature today. This will be a distilled and detailed version of a conversation which is ongoing, and will give audiences, and the writers themselves, plenty to ponder.
Travel writing has a long and celebrated tradition, but one which has all too often been written from a male perspective. There She Goes: New Travel Writing by Women (published by Saraband Books) is an anthology of travel tales which celebrates the stories of women is a brilliant and at times achingly beautiful collection of essays which look to offer alternative narratives and a more complete picture overall. Join editor Esa Aldegheri and contributors Linda Cracknell, Alice Tarbuck & Amanda Thomson who will share their insights and some of the stories in the collection, and most likely others which didn't make it.
It's important for new talents to have their place at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and two of the most exciting come together to discuss their debut novels and their experiences of the process of being published for the first time. A winner of the BBC National Short Story Award, Saba Sams' novel Gunk has been selected as a "book of the summer" across a number of publications. Winner of 2023's Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award, Alessandra Thoms' Summer Hours (set against the backdrop of a sweltering Edinburgh summer) has received rave reviews. Both novels look at love and friendship, and the complex nature of both, and announce the arrival of two exciting literary voices. This event is Chaired by Beth Cochrane.
Two of the most respected and diverse writers of the 21st Century, Doug Johnstone and Ewan Morrison have covered, between them, crime, cults, science fiction, sex, malls, malts, and so much more. For this event they celebrate 100 years of the National Library of Scotland and its literary archives, which include material about and from contemporary writers. Chaired by fellow novelist Mary Paulson-Ellis, this promises to be a fascinating conversation about documenting the life and work of 'living writers', the reality of just what that means, and what is relevant in terms of cataloguing creativity.
Music journalism can shape our tastes and identity arguably more than any other form, and this event brings together three of the best writers from different, yet interwoven, times. Dylan Jones has been one of the chief chroniclers of popular culture for decades, editing (among others) The Face, Arena, i-D, GQ as well as a number of newspaper titles. His new book 1975: The Year the World Forgot makes a claim for it to be considered a vital year in the narrative arc of post-war music. Miranda Sawyer was a key commentator on the music and culture of the 1990s in particular, and her book Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs looks in-depth at that period. Arusa Quershi is a writer, editor and music programmer whose book Flip the Script: How Women Came to Rule Hip Hop also looks beyond the music to examine the wider culture and how one effects the other. Ali Braidwood from Scots Whay Hae! chairs this event, and is very excited about it!
Foday Manah's debut novel The Search for Othella Savage (published by Quercus Books) has won the Mo Siewcharran Prize-winning debut, been shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut Prize, and named one of The Times' "best crime books of 2025 so far". Set in Scotland’s Sierra Leonean community, based on real events, and drawing on the writer's own life-experiences, the novel ask questions of morality, responsibility, (on an individual and communal level) and the limits of both. Foday will be Chaired by Halla Mohieddeen.
Click here to hear Foday Mannah (and the other shortlisted authors for the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut Prize) on the Scots Whay Hae! podcast,
You can keep up with all the news and events at the EIBF by following on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and flickr, and subscribe to the YouTube channel.
What an inspiring roundup from Scots Whay Hae!’s Top 10 Picks of the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2025! The selection beautifully reflects the diversity, creativity, and depth of storytelling that keeps readers coming back year after year. It’s exciting to see how literature continues to evolve while still cherishing tradition—something that resonates beyond books, much like custom stationery designs, where every detail tells its own unique story.