BOOKS | Events
Nicola Morgan: The Teenage Guide to Stress Blackwell’s, 53–59 South Bridge, 622 8218. 6.30–7.30pm. Free but ticketed. Morgan explores the ways in which teenagers deal with stress. Friday 20
Glasgow FREE Poetry Café | Seeds of Thought The Arches, 253 Argyle Street, 565 1000. 5–7pm. See Thu 19. FREE Arild Tveito Publication Launch CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, 352 4900. 6pm. Oslo artist Tveito launches the publication he created after his 2013 residency at CCA and GSS. With screening, discussion and drinks. FREE Islands are the New Cities Waterstones, 174 Argyle Street, 248 4814. 7–8.30pm. Free but ticketed. Talk on why crime writers are fascinated with island settings, with Craig Robertson, Simon Sylvester and Alex Gordon.
Edinburgh Disruption in the Publishing Industry: Digital, Analytics and the Future University of Edinburgh Business School, 29 Buccleuch Place, edinpubconf.net 9am–5.30pm. £119 (students £79). Learn about the ways in which the publishing industry is changing in the brave new digital world.
✽ Rally & Broad Counting House, West Nicolson Street, 07989 508436.
7.30pm. £5. Rally & Broad wrap up their second year of ‘literary-flavoured cabarets’ with Liz Lochead; Leo Condi & band; popster Lou Hickey; artist Michael Daviot; Glasgow’s Sam Small and poet Harry Giles.
Dunbar CoastWord Various venues, coastword. co.uk Times vary. Prices vary. Weekend- long festival in Dunbar. Highlights this year include Bernard MacLaverty and Liz Lochhead.
Saturday 21 Edinburgh Nothing but the Poem The Saltire Society, 9 Fountain Close, 22 High Street, 557 2876. 11am–12.30pm. £5 (£4). See Tue 17. FREE Neu! Reekie! and Too Much Fun Club The Brass Monkey Leith, 362 Leith Walk, 554 5286. 5–10pm. Sun 22 noon–5pm. Poetry, music and a World Animation Showcase, plus live outdoor mural painting with Too Much Fun Club on Sunday. Part of LeithLate.
Monday 23
Glasgow Sally Magnusson: Where Memories Go – Living With Dementia Waterstones, 174 Argyle Street, 248 4814. 7–8.30pm. £3. Magnusson talks about her mother’s long struggle with dementia.
Tuesday 24
Glasgow In Process with Lesley McDowell CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, 352 4900. 7–8.30pm. £6 (£3; SWC members free). The Glasgow author speaks on her life and career as a writer, including her latest novel, Unfashioned Creatures.
Thursday 26
Glasgow FREE Kate Rawles: The Carbon Cycle Glasgow Women’s Library, 23 Landressy Street, 550 2267. 5.30– 7.30pm. See Around Town listings.
✽ Assault’n’Battery v Assault’ n’Sauce Waterstones, 174 Argyle
Street, 248 4814. 7–8.30pm. Free but ticketed. Crime panel discussion, with west coast writers – Caro Ramsay, Douglas Skelton and Matt Bendoris – versus east coast – Doug Johnstone, Frank Muir and Neil Broadfoot.
46 THE LIST 12 Jun–10 Jul 2014
word night, hosted by Robin Cairns. Email for a five-minute slot. Edinburgh FREE Golden Hare Book Group Golden Hare, 102 West Bow, 629 1396. 6.30pm. Get your book on with some fellow bibliophiles.
Wednesday 2
Glasgow Word Play Tron Theatre, 63 Trongate, 552 4267. 8–11pm. £2 suggested donation. Open mic night with acoustic music, poetry and prose. Edinburgh Charlie Stross: The Rhesus Chart Blackwell’s, 53–59 South Bridge, 622 8218. 6.30–7.30pm. Free but ticketed. Scottish writer launches latest in his Laundry Files series.
Thursday 3 Glasgow James Oswald: Dead Men’s Bones Waterstones, 174 Argyle Street, 248 4814. 7–8.30pm. Free but ticketed. Crime writer launches the fourth in his Edinburgh-set Inspector Mclean novels.
Saturday 5
Glasgow ✽ Glasgow Comic Con CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, 352 4900. Times tbc. Also 6 Sun. Day ticket £14; weekend ticket £18–£22.50 (£10). Meet Hannah Berry (Britten and Brulightly), Rufus Dayglo (Tank Girl), Simon Furman (Transformers) and John Wagner (Judge Dredd), among others. There’s also book dealers, toy sellers, indie comic publishers and comic creators.
Sunday 6
Edinburgh ✽ Neil Gaiman: The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains
Usher Hall, Lothian Road, 228 1155. 7.30pm. £25. Gaiman’s revolutionary multimedia storytelling event, with illustrations from Eddie Campbell and a score from FourPlay String Quartet.
Monday 7
Edinburgh Waverley and Walter Scott Central Library, 7–9 George IV Bridge, 242 8100. 7–8pm. Free but ticketed. Mark the 200th anniversary of Waverley with writer and critic Stuart Kelly. Tuesday 8
Glasgow Poetry and Film with Alastair Cook CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, 352 4900. 7pm. £6 (£3; SWC members free). In this masterclass, lens-based artist Cook explores the intersection of poetry and film: the film-poem. Edinburgh FREE Hush Hour Lucky Liquor Co, 39A Queen Street, 226 3976. 7pm. Silent book reading party. See feature, page 43.
Wednesday 9 Glasgow Poetry@The Ivory Ivory Hotel, Langside Avenue Shawlands, 636 0223. 7.15–9.30pm. £2–£3. Poetry event with guest readers, local musicians and open mic spots. Supported by the Scottish Book Trust.
Thursday 10
Glasgow ✽ An Evening with Rainbow Rowell Waterstones, 153–157
Sauchiehall Street, 332 9105. 6.30pm. £3 (£2). The young adult novelist discusses her latest. See preview, above.
RAINBOW ROWELL Thanks to hit novels Eleanor & Park and Fangirl, Nebraska-based Rainbow Rowell (her real name) is currently one of the best-loved authors in young adult literature. But, while she certainly knows how to capture the acute agony and ecstasy of teenage life, Rowell also writes with heartbreaking realism about adults. Like her debut Attachments, her new book Landline is as smart and complicated as it is romantic. ‘I can’t seem to help writing love stories,’ Rowell laughs. ‘I definitely
crave romance. When I was young, I craved romance in books but I didn’t want to read just romance – love plays such a big part in our lives it shouldn’t be cut out and restricted to its own fiction.’ Landline is certainly much more than ‘just romance’: it’s about
missed opportunities, families, and – sort-of – time travel. Georgie McCool (also her real name) is a successful TV writer in LA who’s always putting her work first. So when her husband Neal leaves her for Christmas with their two young children in tow, she’s afraid he won’t come back – until she finds a yellow landline telephone in her childhood bedroom that seems to be a portal to the past. It isn’t quite sci-fi – rather, in the tradition of Big and 13 Going on
30, it’s a nod to fantasy, with shades of Back to the Future, Quantum Leap and even It’s a Wonderful Life. But, magic phone aside, there’s a very real root to Landline’s story. ‘I think Georgie’s most like me of all the characters that I’ve written,’ Rowell admits. ‘She’s married to a stay-at-home dad, my husband’s a stay-at-home dad. She has two children, I have two children. I tend to write about my anxieties – it’s what I’m afraid will happen. And I write a story working it out.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ Landline is released on Thu 3 Jul; Rainbow Rowell talk and book signing at Waterstones, Glasgow, on Thu 10 Jul.
Edinburgh The War Poets’ Collection at Edinburgh Napier University Lauriston Castle, 2a Cramond Road South, 228 1155. 10.30am. £8. Curator Catherine Walker talks about the collection, which honours Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
Friday 27
Edinburgh Guid Crack Club Waverley Bar, 1 St Mary’s Street, 557 1050. 7.30–10pm. Suggested donation £3. Regular storytelling club. Tonight: Jackie Carothers. Saturday 28
Glasgow FREE The BGCP Presents the Buff Club Institute for Higher Learning The Buff Club, 142 Bath Lane, 248 1777. 11am–6pm. Also Sun 29. See Around Town listings.
Sunday 29
Glasgow FREE Federation of Writers (Scotland): Sudden Fame Hillhead Library, 348 Byres Road, 339 7223. 2–4pm. If you’ve ever wanted to get up on stage and read from that work in progress, here’s your chance. Three-minute slots are allocated on a first-booked basis; email acclarke6@ btopenworld.com West End Festival. Booking essential. Edinburgh Joe Abercrombie: Half a King The Pleasance, 60 Pleasance, 622 8218. 6.30pm. £5. The fantasy author shares insight into his new coming-of-age tale. Tickets from Blackwell Bookshop.
Monday 30
Glasgow FREE Last Monday at Rio The Rio Café, 27 Hyndland Street, robin.cairns@ btconnect.com 8pm. Poetry and spoken