* Our mobile library service is back on the road. Timetables can be found here. There will be no mobile service w/b 15th Aug due to staff shortages*
**Galston Library is currently experiencing network connection issues. While this is addressed the Digital Bus will visit the library from 2.45-4.15pm on Wednesdays throughout August. (Unfortunately there is no printer on the bus).
Imprint Book Festival 2021
We’re currently in the planning stages of IMPRINT 2022! Watch this space for further information coming soon!
Imprint 2021 was a little bit different, it was composed of series of online events which coincided with Book Week Scotland.
The events got underway with Research in Fiction Writing with Saeida Rouass on Friday 19th November.
Saeida Rouass is the author of Assembly of the Dead, a historical detective novel set in Marrakesh in 1906 and inspired by the true story of the ‘Moorish Jack the Ripper.’ She is also the author of Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter and has contributed to the anthologies The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human – Tales of Many Muslim Worlds (2019), Our Morocco (2020) and We Wrote in Symbols; Love and Erotica by Arab Women (2021). She has been published by the Independent, Newsweek, Skin Deep and Wasafari Magazine and is currently working on the sequel to Assembly of the Dead. She is a 2019 Churchill Fellow with work focused on the impacts of violent extremist violence on women and Minoritised communities. She is a Trustee of Al Hasaniya Moroccan Women’s Centre and was awarded a Churchill COVID-19 Action Grant to research the impacts of the pandemic on domestic violence services for Moroccan and Arabic speaking women in London.
Colin McGuire is an award winning poet and performer from Glasgow, who now lives in Edinburgh, known for his dynamic, engaging performances. He has also been widely published in anthologies and literary journals. Colin is also an ESOL teacher and Mindfulness Meditation practitioner. He has performed across Scotland and the UK, winning the Shore Poets Quiet Slam in 2014 and the Luminate Slam 2015 and a semi-finalist in the BBC Fringe Slam in 2013 and 2018.
Colin won the Out:spoken award for the ‘film poetry’ category and best poetry overall in London in 2018. He has been a Lead Reader and Creative Writing Workshop facilitator for several years with Open Book Charity, running sessions in communities and prisons around Scotland.
He regularly runs Mindfulness and Expressive Writing Workshops with schools, charities and libraries
Imprint patron Zoe Strachan was joined in Conversation by Sara Sheridan
Sara Sheridan is a writer and activist who is interested particularly in female history. She has written more than 20 books. Zoe Strachan writes across different forms: novels, short stories, essays, libretti and teaches on the University of Glasgow Creative Writing programme.
The enjoyable session saw Zoe and Sara discuss one of Sara’s newest publications, The Fair Botanists. Edinburgh, 1822 Romp and intrigue in Scotland’s Enlightenment City centred around the Royal Botanic Garden in the run up to the visit of George IV.
All events were free but donations were welcome to support the delivery of the programme.
School Events for Book Week Scotland
On November 18, David Ross met with schools at the Dick Institute for a writing workshop.
Ross Collins also hosted an online event for schools the day before on the 17 November.