Welcome to the 5th part of Week 1 – these are just snippet reviews from some of my festival experience. Enjoy your bite of SAHLF 2021. Full Author Bios can be read on the SAHLF website.
All the featured books can be purchased in the S@HLF Bookshop here.
Sunday’s programme was fantastic, I only had chance to get to a few events.
Learning Your Inner Witch: a Poem-Spell Writing Workshop
Join author Alice Tarbuck for a relaxed poem-spell writing workshop to learn about your inner witch, and to find words for reconnecting with the world. You don’t need anything more than something to write on and something to write with.
Alice Tarbuck is an award-winning poet and writer. She has taught Creative Writing at the University of Dundee, and was a 2019 Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Awardee for poetry. Her debut non-fiction book A Spell in the Wild: a year (and six centuries) of Magic is published by Hodder & Stoughton. She works as a Lead Reader for literacy charity Open Book. Additionally, she has taught workshops for the National Library of Scotland, the Scottish Poetry Library, the University of Edinburgh and further afield. She has chaired events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Dundee Literary Festival and at bookshops around Scotland.
© SAHLF Programme
Alice also received a special mention the day before in the Witches of Scotland podcast – Claire Mitchell QC and Zoe Venditozzi event.
It was going to happen at some point and unfortunately it happened here… my very old and in need of being replaced tech let me down and it was a 20 minute voyage to get into the workshop, so I missed introductions and the initial exercise – I arrived full of tech-rage and stress…
and within less time than it took to get in to the workshop – I was calm! This workshop was magic!
Not only was Alice Tarbuck an incredible workshop facilitator but the activities were terrific and some of the writing which came and approaches and thoughts that surfaced will definitely be pursued. It got me to consider magic in a different way and I even left pages in the notebook -a good sign because it means I plan to go back and repeat or extend.
I am SO glad my tech didn’t let me down totally and I managed to join in with this amazing group.
Earthed: A Courageous Memoir for Our Uncertain Times
Join Rebecca Schiller as she reads from Earthed: A courageous memoir for our uncertain times. A story of living in both an unfamiliar world and a volatile mind, Earthed explores how a place has the power to transform us and how the land can be both a dream and a nightmare.
BIO:
Rebecca Schiller is a writer, journalist and the author of Your No Guilt Pregnancy Plan (Penguin Life) and Why Human Rights in Childbirth Matter. She is co-founder and trustee of the human rights charity Birthrights and a regular contributor to the Guardian. Rebecca and her family raise a motley crew of goats, geese, ducks and chickens. They work their small plot to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers and restore wildlife to the land.
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It was an interesting interview, hearing Rebecca Schiller’s writing process and how the book changed over time, her natural inclination to find patterns and the life of goats and ducklings as well as extracts of the book and a discussion about neurodiversity.
‘ A beautiful memoir of one small plot of land and one complex human mind; a story of our interconnection and an ambitious search for the truth.’ Amy Liptrot
‘A stunner. Full of wisdom about the world we are all looking at with new eyes.’ Emma Freud
The Importance of Uplit
Writers Tim Ewins, Victoria Dowd, Gill Harvey, Matson Taylor, Nicola Gill, and Cat Walker discuss the emergence of Uplit fiction, why lighthearted and heartwarming stories are important, and how anyone can channel their inner comedian.
Cat Walker
Cat Walker was born in the sunny seaside town of Scarborough in North Yorkshire. The Scoop is her debut novel. Cat also writes poetry and co-wrote and directed (probably) the world’s first lesbian field hockey musical which sold out performances in Brighton, Eastbourne and (pretty near) the West End of London. During lockdown Cat unexpectedly became a bestselling poet when she was published in Poems for a Pandemic (HarperCollins) alongside Darren Smith’s powerful ‘You Clap for Me Now’.
Victoria Dowd
Victoria Dowd’s debut novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder, was In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel’s Book of the Year 2020 and is short listed for The People’s Book Prize and TCK’s Reader’s Choice Awards 2021. The second book in the series, Body on the Island, was released in February 2021. Her books are a modern, darkly comic take on Golden Age crime fiction. Victoria was awarded the Gothic Fiction prize for short fiction in 2019.
Gillian Harvey
Gillian Harvey has written comment pieces and features for Guardian, Telegraph and Independent, and regularly writes features for magazines including People’s Friend, Woman’s Weekly and Reader’s Digest. Her ‘Under the Covers’ column takes a sideways look at life as an author. Gillian’s first novel, Everything is Fine, was published with Orion in May 2020. Her second, Perfect on Paper, is due for publication in May 2021.
Tim Ewins
Tim Ewins has previously written for DNA Mumbai, had two short stories highly commended and published in Michael Terence Short Story Anthologies, and had a very brief acting stint (he’s in the film Bronson, somewhere in the background). We Are Animals is his first novel.
Nicola Gill
Nicola Gill lives in London with her husband and her two sons. At the age of five, when all of the other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, she decided she wanted to be an author. Her ballet teacher was very relieved.
Matson Taylor
Matson Taylor enrolled on the Faber Academy ‘Writing A Novel’ course. The Miseducation of Evie Epworth is his first novel.
© SAHLF Programme
This panel was a fun watch. I had not come across the genre term Uplit – it’s a fairly new literary term and they played Romesh Ranganathan’s game –one of the panelists is not wearing trousers – we were invited to guess who.
It was entertaining and delightful. A great way to finish the first festival weekend!
All books available at the SAHLF Bookshop
‘Charming and relatable’ SOPHIE COUSENS
Totally relatable, totally uplifting, totally a must-read’ TRACY BLOOM
‘Brilliantly funny and engaging’ NICOLA GILL
‘The perfect escapist read’ EMMA MURRAY
‘Warm and witty – I quickly grew to love the characters.’ BETH O’LEARY , Sunday Times
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