2024 marks the anniversary of the lifting of the controversial ‘ban’ on women’s football in Scotland. Three football enthusiasts – poet Julie McNeill and sport historians Prof Fiona Skillen and Dr Karen Fraser – have teamed up to mark this important milestone bringing together the forgotten history, legacy and voices of Scottish Women’s Football. Footballing stories, legacies, rituals and memories are captured uniquely in poetry and prose celebrating the breadth of voices which make up the rich tapestry of Scottish Women’s Football. Untold tales are brought to life, hidden histories are uncovered and everyday stories of women defying the odds are captured and celebrated in this entertaining and enlightening session.

Part of Paisley Book Festival’s The Beautiful Game series, in which we invite authors to reflect on their experiences as players, managers and fans of the nation’s favourite sport.

This event is part of the Paisley Book Festival. For more information and to book, please follow the link below.

Ever wondered what it’s like to write in Gaelic? Paisley Book Festival are delighted to welcome Glasgow-based writer Shelagh Campbell to the festival to chat about her new novel, Far na Slighe, published just last month, in a bilingual event suitable for both Gaelic and English speakers. In the first half of the event, Shelagh will read from the book and chat about her experience of writing in Gaelic with the Director of the Gaelic Books Council, Alison Lang. In the second half of the event, Shelagh will lead a gentle creative writing workshop for those who want to take part and give writing in Gaelic a try for themselves – no prior writing experience is necessary.

A bheil ùidh agad ann an sgrìobhadh anns a’ Ghàidhlig? Tha sinn air ar dòigh fàilte a chur air Shelagh Chaimbeul, sgrìobhadair à Glaschu, a bhios a’ bruidhinn aig an fhèis mun nobhail ùir aice, Far na Slighe, a chaidh fhoillseachadh sa Mhàrt. Bidh an tachartas seo dà-chànanach agus freagarrach don a h-uile duine. Anns a’ chiad leth den tachartas, bidh Shelagh a’ leughadh bhon nobhail agus a’ bruidhinn mu dheidhinn sgrìobhadh sa Ghàidhlig ann an còmhradh le Alison Lang, Stiùiriche Chomhairle nan Leabhraichean. Anns an dàrna leth, bidh Shelagh a’ stiùireadh bùth-obrach aotrom, neo-fhoirmeil ann an sgrìobhadh chruthachail dhaibhsan a tha airson feuchainn ri sgrìobhadh sa Ghàidhlig. Chan eil eòlas sam bith air sgrìobhadh deatamach.

This event is part of the Paisley Book Festival. For more information and to book, please follow the link below.

Poets in Paisley presents An Evening With Nutmeg, Scottish football’s finest print magazine. Join us as Nutmeg Editor and football writer Daniel Gray interviews the legendary Rose Reilly and crime novelist and founder of the Scotland Crime Writers’ football team, Craig Robertson. Interspersed with poetry celebrating the beautiful game from multi award-winning poets Graham Fulton, Stephen Watt and Julie McNeill, this unique event will be a lively celebration of our national game.

Part of The Beautiful Game series, in which they invite authors to reflect on their experiences as players, managers and fans of the nation’s favourite sport.

This event is part of the Paisley Book Festival. For more information and to book, please follow the link below.

Speak Oot: Dundee’s Festival of Trade Unionism

Join Neil Findlay for a book event and discussion around his book, If You Don’t Run, They Can’t Chase You.

We must examine the campaigns and struggles people have gone through, listen to their stories, study their actions and in turn look at the world now, and apply what we have learnt to build new movements to campaign and deliver the changes we want to see.

Neil Findlay brings together stories from the frontline in the fight for social justice in the awe-inspiring compendium, If You Don’t Run, They Can’t Chase You.

Some of the actions recorded were victorious, some were not; but all of them are an opportunity to learn about the human spirit, about promoting and defending ideals and principles, about personal strength, collective action, leadership, justice, democracy and common decency.

This collection has been brought together to help us better understand the shoulders on which we stand today and how to make the world a better place.

For more information on this event and the Speak Oot festival, please follow the link below or contact speakoot@gmail.com

Join Waterstones Inverness on the 20th April at 11am to celebrate the launch of The Boy, The Witch & The Queen of Scots, a  new children's novel by award winning author Barbara Henderson. 
Expect spying games, interactive drama and royal riddles - and be the first to get your copy of this brand new book signed!

No.
Not the Palace.
Anywhere but the Palace.

12-year-old Alexander Buchan was once content, training as a falconer at Strathbogie Castle in Huntly. But when his Earl sends him to Edinburgh to the court of the newly arrived Mary, Queen of Scots, the boy finds himself lured into a world of intrigue, terror and treachery. Alexander knows right from wrong, but how can he hope to outwit his master's murderous messenger'? Surely no one can defy an Earl – especially one whose wife is rumoured to be a witch!

Soon, more than the boy’s own life is at stake: his friend Lizzie is arrested and the angry clouds of Reformation Scotland gather around the young Queen.

It seems that Alexander must spy – or die.

For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

The Hutters Rally is a gathering of hut dwellers, dreamers and developers, planners, builders and bodgers. If you are curious about what hutting can offer or already deeply involved in building or enjoying your own hut, they’d like to see you there.

Registration is from 9am, followed by a full day (10-5) of talks, discussions, workshops and networking. There will also be a Marketplace area with stalls from craftspeople, land agents, builders, projects and more. If you are interested in having a stall, please email huts@reforestingscotland.org.

Headline speakers:
Peter McQueen, author of The Art of Hutting
Lesley Riddoch on What can Norway teach us next?

Talks and panels on
Five ways to build a hut
Building with unusual materials
Huts for healing
How to find land for a hut
Planning workshop
Hut site development
Hutting on FLS land
Volunteering on hut builds
Reclaim, re-use and scrounge - low-cost, low-impact building
Planning workshop
What do hutters need from courses?
Composting loos
Forest gardening for hutters
Managing hut site land
Soapbox session
Huts marketplace stalls
... and more!

reforestingscotland.org/hutters-rally-2024

The Venue
The Caird Hall is in Dundee city centre, very handy for public transport. Parking options are at https://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/images/caird-hall-parking-map. You can bring a packed lunch or book a catered lunch with your ticket or there are lots of places to buy food in the city centre. Water and hot drinks will be available throughout the day.

For more information and to book tickets, please follow the link below.

By working together, we aim to build an economy focused on human and ecological wellbeing. Can the people of Moray create a place of health, fairness and belonging for all? Our communities and environment would thrive, and the economy should serve our shared purpose.

Can we take any inspiration from a new film about Denmark? ‘Denmark: The State of Happiness’ by Lesley Riddoch

Danes are judged the happiest people on earth, with the world’s best energy system, a GDP per capita almost a third higher than Britain, more bikes in daily use than the Netherlands, a swim just 15 mins away from every Copenhagen resident and state-run TV that changed the face of drama with Borgen, the Killing and the Bridge. Yet Denmark is small (with about half Scotland's land mass and the same population). It has less oil/coal/gas to fuel its economy and lost an empire - just like Britain. Yet the Danes have bounced back to become the modern, eco-leaders of Europe. How did they do it? And what can we in Moray take inspiration from?

For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

Join us on Wednesday 3rd April 2024 in the George Washington Browne room at Central Library where we will be joined by author Tim Bell. Tim will be discussing his work Choose Life. Choose Leith. The book first arrived in 2018 and is now back with a second edition published this month. Copies will be available for purchase on the evening.

Please note: Tim will be reading some passages from Irvine Welsh's original novel Trainspotting during the talk so the audience should expect to hear some foul language. Please consider this before making a booking to attend. 

Some praise for Choose Life. Choose Leith. 

This hugely informative book...is a hard-hitting social history brimming with local knowledge.  
Alastair Mabbott, Sunday Herald Life Magazine

No other book is needed now. Choose Life, Choose Leith: Trainspotting on Location is the book that lets others know what locals knew when they first read [Trainspotting]… Irvine Welsh has found the Boswell for his Johnson.  
Gordon Munro, The Leither

For more information and to book tickets, please follow the link below.

Enjoy a sparkling drinks reception and a delicious lunch while two award-winning authors tell you more about their writing inspirations and journey to getting published. Take a table of ten and fill it with clients or friends or book individual spaces and meet likeminded people.

The authors will be Gemma Morgan, author of Pink Camouflage and Claire Daverley, author of Talking at Night.

The Author

Gemma Morgan began her career as an Army Officer and was the first woman to be awarded the Carmen Sword from HRH Princess Royal. She was Captain of the Wales lacrosse team, gaining 85 Caps.  Gemma is an inspiring keynote speaker and leadership consultant sharing her expertise on a range of subjects  including women in leadership, resilience, and what it takes to build a high-performing team.   She is also a campaigner for mental health awareness and an ambassador for the charity, Help for Heroes.

The Book

When Gemma Morgan was 33, her husband found her by the roadside, delirious and choking on her own vomit. She was happily married with two young children, an outstanding army service record and a first- class international sporting career. But underneath she was a wreck.

In 1996 she had been one of the few female recruits at Sandhurst’s prestigious Military Academy. Experiencing first-hand the Army’s culture of misogyny, toxic masculinity and sexual abuse soon challenged her assumptions about the values she thought were at the heart of what it meant to serve. A highly unusual deployment then found her unarmed in the blood and mayhem of a war zone, powerless to alleviate the suffering surrounding her.

In her own words, Gemma shares the hard-hitting story of her abandonment by the Army, her subsequent battle with PTSD and her battle back from the brink.

The Author

Claire Daverley has been writing stories since she was 6 years old, inspired by art, film and many trips to the library. After graduating with a degree in Fine Art from the University of Oxford, she began a career in publishing, writing about books by day but penning her own by night, on trains, and in the light of the early mornings. She has spent most of her ife in Hertfordshire, but recently relocated to Scotland with her husband and spaniel. 

 The Book

For those that willed on the romance between Emma & Dexter in David Nicholls’ One Day and felt the pang of first love between Connell & Marianne in Sally Rooney’s Normal People, meet Will and Rosie.

Meeting as teenagers, they are opposites in every way, but over secret walks home and late-night phone calls, they become closer, destined to be one another’s great love story.    Until one day, tragedy strikes, and any possibility of them being together shatters. But that tragedy – and their history – is what will connect them forever…

For more information and to book, please follow the link below.

Following the first volume of Bill Hare’s exploration of Scottish Artists, Scottish Artists in an Age of Radical Change, this new volume, Scottish Art and Artists in Historical and Contemporary Context published by Luath Press will expand on his invaluable contribution to the cultural development of modern and contemporary Scotland.
Joan Eardley, Alan Davies, the Boyle Family, Ken Currie, Anthony Hatwell, Doug Crocker, Jack Knox, Lys Hansen, William Turnbull, Iain Robertson, Douglas Gordon and John Kennedy – these are just some of the artists who Bill Hare explores in both their historical and contemporary contexts.
From body politics to the Athenian way to Scottish artists in Venice, this book reveals the importance and intellectual power this generation of Scottish artists have had over decades through a compilation of in-depth essays and interviews.

Join Bill at Edinburgh’s Central Library for an insightful talk on his new book and the landscape of Scottish art.

For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

Hugh McMillan takes us on a journey to examine the role Galloway played as he attempts to retrace their route, responding with humour.

Accompanied by his friend Charles Armitage Brown, and on a tight budget, John Keats arrived in Dumfries on 1 July 1818. The friends tramped furiously across Dumfriesshire and Galloway, recording their feelings in poems, letters and journals. The next three years saw the greatest flowering of Keat’s poetry. Hugh McMillan takes us on a journey to examine the role Galloway played as he attempts to retrace their route, responding with humour and respect via his own poetry and his own experiences in the great man’s footprints.

This event is part of the Kirkcudbright Book Week 2024. For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

Celebrate the bicentenary of the life and works of Lord Byron at this special musical event. 2024 marks 200 years since the death of this leading figure of the Romantic movement. This one-off event will also mark the launch of a new limited edition print and plate made exclusively for the National Galleries of Scotland by Scottish artist Calum Colvin.

Featuring a musical celebration of Byron with his poems set to music performed by internationally celebrated Scottish opera singers Brian Bannatyne-Scott (Bass) and Beth Taylor (Mezzo-soprano), accompanied by John Kitchen on piano.

There will be a special introduction from Professor Fiona Stafford, University of Oxford a published author, and specialist on the literature of the Romantic period, including the works of Byron, Burns, Keats and Wordsworth, as well as David McClay, an expert on Byron. This will be followed by Calum Colvin talking about his new work, from which his limited-edition print is taken.

Calum Colvin OBE RSA is a major contemporary Scottish artist whose work combines photography, painting, and installation, and often deals with issues of Scottish identity and culture.

After the performance, join us for a complimentary drink and a chance to meet the artist and performers. Colvin will be signing his books and his new Byron limited-edition print will be available for sale. There will be 10% off all purchases on the night, including the limited-edition print.

Ticket numbers are limited, and we expect high demand for this very special celebration of Lord Byron, so book now.

For more information and to book tickets, please follow the link below.

Join Serafina Crolla at Typewronger Books to celebrate the launch of her latest novel Children of This Land.

The moving and delightful story of the Valente family, although fiction, is grounded in first-hand knowledge of the way of life in Picinisco, southern Italy, in the post-war years. Poverty, separation and loss were common experiences that caused many to emigrate. Yet the hardships were more than balanced by a culture of family warmth and vitality, shared connection to the land and an intimate understanding of how to work it.

A born storyteller, Serafina Crolla was inspired to write Children of This Land when visiting the cemetery in her native village of Picinisco. There, she saw a headstone for ‘An exemplary mother of nineteen children’. She was deeply struck by the eloquent simplicity and poignancy of this memorial inscription. As the daughter of a shepherd, Serafina well understood the joys and hardships that life would have entailed for this family.

Through the vicissitudes of life, ties to this place hold strong for the Valentes. The nineteen children who make up the family tell their stories of love, marriage, trials and tribulations, loss and pain of immigration. Serafina’s own family emigrated to Scotland when she was a little girl but she returns to her homeland often, for, as she puts it: ‘A love for Picinisco as deep as the valleys and as pure as the snow-capped mountains is never forgotten.’

To register your interest please follow the link below.

A family friendly event at Òran Mór hosted by the legendary actor & theatre maker Tam Dean Burn.

An afternoon celebrating one of Scotland’s greatest writers, Alasdair Gray, with readings, workshops, stalls, a treasure hunt and more. Lunch is included in the ticket.

For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

The Luath Press publication of Alasdair Gray’s A Gray Play Book, which includes the 1993 Poor Things film script, can be purchased here.

Douglas Watt is a Midlothian-local historian and historical novelist (and a Yes Dunbar member). His talk will focus on the relationship between the Company of Scotland’s attempt to establish a colony at Darien in Central America which is often said to have triggered the 1707 Union between Scotland and England.

Douglas is the author of the prize-winning The Price of Scotland, a revisionist history of the Darien Disaster, and a series of historical crime novels set in late 17th century Scotland. He also works as a financial writer.

This event is hosted by Yes Dunbar and will take place at 7pm on 21 February at Dunbar Town House. This is a free event, though donations are welcome. It’s not essential to pre-book, but if you are planning to come it’s helpful if you can email bookings@yesdunbar.scot so we have an idea of numbers.

For more information please follow the link below.

"I think painting has to be more – much, much more – than about paint. There has to be a vision and a voice, a feeling that is as much about ideas and emotions as sensual visual experience". KEN CURRIE
 
Recently published by Luath Press Ken Currie: Paintings and Writings provides a unique insight into the thought-world of Ken Currie’s challenging and enigmatic art. For over four decades Currie has created some of the most confrontational and intriguing paintings in the contemporary art world. For the first time Currie has made available his studio journals. The result is a fascinating dialogue that explores the motives and aspirations of his inscrutable paintings.

Compiled and edited by the art historian Tom Normand, this book penetrates the creative imagination of a truly visionary artist.

"Ken Currie belongs in a great and distinctively Scottish imaginative tradition... He is a master of the business of painting, of hand and eye, but he does not stop at that. He uses his command of his means profoundly to comment on the world and cast some illumination in its dark places". DUNCAN MACMILLAN, The Scotsman

For more information and to join the waitlist, please follow the link below.

Join the Scottish Storytelling Centre for the premiere screening of Green City: Healing and Hope, a new storytelling film exploring the grassroots movement to turn Edinburgh green. The struggle for net zero will be won or lost in cities, so how is Edinburgh doing after 900 years as a burgh? Hear directly from people and places who think global and act local.

Green City is a companion piece to Blue City (2022), which explored Edinburgh as a city by the sea. Film is 65mins followed by an open discussion and conversation.

Narrated by Donald Smith, who provided the introduction to Why Gardens Matter; with contributions from fellow storytellers and activists.

Co-Directed by Sandy McGhie (Channel 7A) & Donald Smith.

Produced by the Scottish International Storytelling Festival.

This event is free but ticketed. For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

The Alcove: Poetry in Edinburgh have a wonderful smorgasbord of poets prepared for you, with words coming from Glasgow, Cumbernauld, Penpont and Edinburgh itself! Prepare yourselves for a great gamut of verse, and if you fancy a go yourself, sign up to the open mic on the night!

Poets include:

Hugh McMillan

Julie McNeil

Chris Boyland

James Roberts

Annie Foy

For more information and to register your interest please follow the link below.

Kokumo Rocks will read and perform a selection of her vibrant and intense poems at the 2024 Winter Words Festival. In 1991 she decided to change the direction of her life following a near-death experience, and began to fulfil her life-long ambition to become a performance poet. Kokumo’s poetry explores the themes of love, race, freedom and imprisonment, which she does with a sense of fun and humour – proud to include ‘the flabby bits’.

From the Scottish countryside to Nigeria, via the metropolitan high street and her childhood experiences, Kokumo paints her world with colour and spirit. Kokumo – the name means ‘this one will not die’ – lives by the motto ‘if you don’t ask you won’t get’, and believes that passion can turn the ‘mundane into excitement’. She has been inspired by poets including Maya Angelou, Benjamin Zephaniah and Ivor Cutler, but above all by ‘growing up black in Scotland’.

“A power of a writer are you.”
Benjamin Zephaniah

For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

Poet & writer, Hugh McMillan in The Leaves of the Years will explain & illustrate why Ayrshire born & educated Willie Neill was probably the finest poet writing in Dumfries & Galloway in the 20th century.

For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

Come together with Dr Clark McGinn and the University of Glasgow staff for a special gathering to honour the life, literary contributions, and enduring legacy of the esteemed Scottish poet, Robert Burns. Join them in the splendid setting of The Hamilton, Washington DC.

This delightful evening presents an opportunity for the esteemed alumni and cherished friends of the university to come together once more. It is a chance to rekindle connections and stay updated on noteworthy accomplishments and the latest developments from the past year.

The night's program will include engaging readings by Dr Clark McGinn, captivating entertainment, as well as a delightful service featuring drinks, canapés, and a thoughtful gift for the guests.

Join them for an unforgettable evening of camaraderie, culture, and celebration, to pay tribute to the enduring spirit of Robert Burns.

For more information and to register, please follow the link below.

Join the National Galleries Scotland for a special evening with renowned Scottish artist Ken Currie and art historian Tom Normand in the Great Hall of the Portrait Gallery.

To celebrate the release of Normand’s new book, Ken Currie: Paintings and Writings, this event offers insights into four decades of Currie’s career. Enjoy this fascinating dialogue, exploring the motives and aspirations of Currie's inscrutable paintings.

The talk will be held in the stunning surroundings of the Great Hall at the Portrait Gallery, home to some of Currie’s most notable works, including The Three Oncologists, and Unknown Man, a recent acquisition by the National Galleries of Scotland.

Following the talk, Ken and Tom will be signing copies in the cafe where you can enjoy a glass of wine and receive 10% off any purchases in the shop on the night.

For more information and to book tickets please follow the link below.

Come together with Dr Clark McGinn and the University of Glasgow staff for a special gathering to honour the life, literary contributions, and enduring legacy of the esteemed Scottish poet, Robert Burns. Join in the splendid setting of Bute Hall, situated within the Gilmorehill campus.

This delightful evening presents an opportunity for the esteemed alumni, dedicated faculty, and cherished friends of the university to come together once more. It is a chance to rekindle connections and stay updated on noteworthy accomplishments and the latest developments from the past year.

The festivities will commence with a delightful drink reception, followed by an exquisite four-course meal. The distinguished guest speaker, Dr Clark McGinn, will share insights into the world of Robert Burns. The evening will be further enriched with captivating entertainment, and we'll conclude our celebratory gathering with a lively ceilidh.

Join them for an unforgettable evening of camaraderie, culture, and celebration, to pay tribute to the enduring spirit of Robert Burns.

For more information and to register, please follow the link below.

Magnaccioni (Roman dialect): people who live to eat well. 

On Wednesday 13th December get in festive spirit the Italian way with Anne Pia. Dr. Anne Pia, poet, essayist, and translator lives in Edinburgh. She is the grandchild of Italian immigrants and was raised surrounded by the culture, traditions and dialect of southern Italy. Her new book, Magnaccioni: My Food… My Italy is a glorious celebration in poetic prose and recipes of a part of Italy, of a philosophy, culture and way of life which she shares with an infectious joy. Anne invites you to join her in becoming magnaccioni.

Magnaccioni, a cookery book that not only teaches you to cook like an Italian but also to live like one. Get ready to don your dancing shoes and indulge in authentic recipes with Anne Pia's celebration of Italy. CAV GIOVANNA EUSEBI

This is more than a cookery book. It is a glorious ‘Te Deum’ to Italy expressed through food, wine, music and anecdote. When you feel the ‘nostalgia d’Italia’ really badly and can’t hop on a flight straight away, open this book, plunge in and all will be well. CAV. RONNIE COVERY, Honorary Italian Consul

If you liked Stanley Tucci’s Taste, you’ll love this. SCOTTISH FIELD

This is a free event, all welcome.

How and why did a religious country like Scotland in 17th and 18th centuries, get involved in slavery and how was it eventually ended?

Come along to The Outhouse (12A Broughton Street Lane, Edinburgh) at 4 pm for a talk by Kate Phillips on her book Bought and Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery.

In 1660 King Charles 11 won Jamaica from the Spanish and offered its land to both the Scots and the English. Many from Scotland took up this offer to become Jamaica’s earliest settlers (Campbell is the most common surname in Jamaica).To push up production of colonial exports the Royal African Company was launched to sell enslaved people to work in plantations. Scottish merchants lent the settlers funds to buy slaves in exchange for sugar and tobacco to be delivered to Scotland for processing and re-sale. Kingston Jamaica became the biggest slave distribution centre in the world.

The law was changed to make enslaved people ‘property’ (chattel slaves) to ensure these merchants could recover bad debts in our courts, it also made slaves mortgageable property. The average price of a slave 2,400 lbs of sugar or £17, was paid back in a couple of harvests. Planters remortgaged their enslaved workers, expanded their estates and bought more slaves.

They sent home to Scotland for skilled builders, carpenters, masons and managers known as bookkeepers, to work their growing estates. Scotland’s hard wearing linen was exported to clothe the slaves and salted fish to feed them (salt fish and akee became Jamaica’s national dish).

Slave dealers in West Africa wanted imported iron ore, Venetian beads and printed Indian cloth in exchange for enslaved people. Slave traders avoided high import taxes by loading these goods in Scotland’s small harbours from Campbeltown to Stromness. (Twenty four ships did regular business with local merchants in Campbeltown). Their town councillors bought shares in slaving ships. Together the Campbeltown ships carried 133,275 African men, women and children into a life of slavery. Over 22,000 of these died while crossing the Atlantic.

Government ended the trade in1807. When parliament widened the franchise in 1832 the people of England and Scotland swept out the MPs who had defended slavery and ended the practice in all of Britain’s colonies.

Everyone is welcome to the free event; people are warmly invited to bring an item of food to put on the table and help take away everything at the end so there is no waste.

For more information please follow the link below.

The story of how Scotland's first major exhibition on tartan in over 30 years came to life.

Join the curatorial team and discover the process of developing and staging the Tartan exhibition. Learn the inside story on everything from formulating the exhibition narrative through to its planning and execution.

Speakers:

Lynne Coleman (chair and author of How Scotland Dressed the World)

Jonathan Faiers (Professor of Fashion Thinking, University of Southampton, U.K)

Kirsty Hassard (Curator and fashion historian)

Dr Mhairi Maxwell (Curator of Modern and Contemporary History at National Museums Scotland)

James Wylie (Assistant Curator at V&A Dundee)

For more information and to book tickets, please follow the link below.

Join Emeritus Professor George G. Youngson on Zoom to discuss his book Bringing Life to Aberdeen with the Aberdeen and North East branch of The Saltire Society.

Bringing Life to Aberdeen chronicles the history and development of midwifery and maternity services since their inception in Aberdeen.

How did Aberdeen revolutionise modern midwifery and mother and baby care? Whether you were born in – or gave birth in – Aberdeen or elsewhere, you will probably have benefitted from the pioneering work of some of the people mentioned in this book.

Bringing Life to Aberdeen highlights many of the individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of midwifery and neonatal services, and describes their influence and impact. Foremost amongst these are the lasting and defining accomplishments of Professor Sir Dugald Baird and Lady May Baird who give their name to a new hospital dedicated to the care of women and their babies in North East Scotland, known as the Baird Family Hospital.

Zoom Link:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89433607057?pwd=d1MyNlAzRlpjdnREaUZac3E1bHFiUT09

Meeting ID: 894 3360 7057

Passcode: 384004

Join Typewronger Books as Anne Pia will be reading some poems and extracts from Keeping Away the Spiders and her new book, Magnaccioni :My Food My Italy on the theme of identity, self-making and freedoms. 

In a series of honest, often humorous and brutally frank essays, Anne Pia discusses sexuality, gender identity, reluctant feminism, and food as a sumptuous, sensual game-changer. Keeping Away the Spiders shows how positive energy can be drawn from life’s most challenging experiences. Anne asks the central question: ‘Who am I and who do I want to be?’ and invites the reader to do the same.

Magnaccioni (Roman dialect): people who live to eat well. 

Writing as a passionate food aficionada, Anne Pia has created a convivial and open-hearted cookery book that invites you into her kitchen. In Magnaccioni, she shares her own family recipes and the food she has enjoyed in Italy based on la cucina povera, la cucina di terra – the use of fresh produce and simple ingredients to create sumptuous, joyful feasts.

This is a free event, no booking required. For more information on Typewronger Books and their events program, please follow the link below.

Stephen Gethins, former MP and now Professor of Practice in International Relations at St Andrews University, discusses his book Nation to Nation: Scotland's Place in the World.

The book has been described by writer and broadcaster Billy Kay as 'a hugely important book about Scotland's global reach, which reminds us of our past and explores our options in the present... a book which is intensely relevant to our future as an independent and sovereign European nation'.

This promises to be a fascinating evening with some valuable insights. Perth and Kinross YES Hub would be delighted for you to join them in the Murray room at the Salutation Hotel, Perth to hear what Stephen has to say.

Doors open 7 pm for a 7:30 pm start.

For more information and to book tickets, please follow the link below.