Billy Collins

Brian Boyd - The Curriculum for Excellence Professor Brian Boyd, contributor to the groundbreaking report The Curriculum for Excellence, examines how to improve the effectiveness of schools and learning for all in this inspirational 2008 event… Sebastian Barry After being awarded the coveted Costa Book of the Year Award earlier in the year for his incredibly moving novel The Secret Scripture, Irish writer Sebastian Barry went on to receive the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction too, which was announced in a… Kirstin Innes (2015 Event) Winner of the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize, Kirstin Innes’ bittersweet debut, Fishnet takes us deep into the world of sex workers, tracing one woman’s obsessive quest for answers following her sister’s mysterious disappearance… David Peace Before his 2009 event, David Peace discusses how and why he creates fiction from real-life incidents, looking at, amongst other writings, his Tokyo Trilogy and Red Riding Quartet… Rodge Glass reading After Drink You Can Turn Earth Upside Down The versatile and entertaining Somerset Maugham Award-winner Rodge Glass reads his story on the theme of Elsewhere… Juliana Buhring (2017 Event) Feats of human endurance never cease to amaze and enthral. In 2012, against all odds, Juliana Buhring became the first woman to circumnavigate the world on a bike, after very little training and with barely any financial backing. In this event, recorded… Alastair Reid Gatecrash the final evening of the 2008 Book Festival to hear the brilliant 'word magician', citizen of the world, translator, poet and more, as he talks about his work and reads from a new collection of writing… Alexander Masters Alexander Masters' biography of homeless Stuart Shorter, Stuart: A Life Backwards, has been hailed by critics as startling, remarkable, rare, haunting and uplifting. In this utterly absorbing event from 2006, he asks how a life can follow such a troubled… Tracy Chevalier Talking about her new novel Remarkable Creatures, the queen of the historical novel this time tackles Mary Anning, the fossil-obsessed girl who discovered whole plesiosaurs in the Dorset cliffs. Her finds invited people to question the literal truth of… Limmy (2015 Event) Appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the first time with his first book, Daft Wee Stories, Brian Limond, aka Limmy…