We’re head over heels to have the chance to celebrate our new home in a recycled hospital. To honour the building’s remarkable history the best way we know how, we’re stitching together a collection of your stories, all based in the old Royal Infirmary.
Guest Blog: Spartans’ Writer in Residence Owen Sutcliffe
29th April 2025Owen Sutcliffe is an award-winning writer, musician, and community worker. Since late 2024 he has been our Writer in Residence at The Alternative School at Spartans Community Football Academy. Here he reflect on his time so far in post. ...
March author visits to Edinburgh Sick Kids
25th March 2025Since 2021, we’ve been working with the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity to bring authors and illustrators onto the wards of the Royal Hospital of Children and Young People. Activity includes reading, drawing, playing games and ...
Reflecting on our Citizen celebration event
27th February 2025Back in December 2024, we celebrated the achievements of our Citizen project with the community partners and local people who have been involved over the last six years. Here, Communities Programme Assistant, Jodie, reflects on the eveni...
Open call writers and Edinburgh College of Art: Words from the Wards
28th January 2025Towards the end of last year, we extended our Words from the Wards project, collaborating with illustration students from Edinburgh College of Art to create work visualising the stories we’ve been collecting from the old Edinburgh Roya...
On site with the Communities Programme at the August Book Festival
26th September 2024This year, we welcomed several groups to the Festival site, held special author visits with our community partners and there were daily Communities Programme events throughout the Festival. This year, Communities Programme activities w...
Citizen at the North Edinburgh Community Festival
23rd May 2024As part of our Citizen project, early this month our Communities Team and Adults Writing Group helped take the joy of the Book Festival to children and families at the North Edinburgh Festival. Relaunched in 2022 the North Edinburgh Co...
Our First Citizen Trainee Writers in Residence: Hannah Ekekwe and Lintong Zhang
25th April 2024Since 2019, we have appointed Writers in Residence to work with community partners and local people on our long-term creative project, Citizen. In this latest edition of On the Road blog, we thought we’d introduce you to our first ev...
Citizen Writers and Edinburgh College of Art: Deliverances from Death
11th April 2024At the end of last year, our Citizen Writers collaborated with illustration students from Edinburgh College of Art to create a set of postcards, inspired by The University of Edinburgh’s Alice Thornton’s Books Project. Eleanor Thom, our ...
Reflecting on Singapore International Foundation’s Arts for Good Fellowship
7th March 2024Over the autumn and winter, Communities Programme Director, Noëlle Cobden had the privilege of being part of Singapore International Foundation’s (SIF) Arts for Good (A4G) Fellowship. The fellowship aims to foster an international com...
Catching up with the Citizen Adult Writing Group
14th February 2024Since 2019, we’ve been working with community partners and local people on our long-term creative project, Citizen. In this month’s On the Road blog, we thought we’d check in with the Citizen Adult Writers Group: an enthusiastic, p...
Communities ’23: End of year reflection
21st December 2023As 2023 comes to an end, our Communities Programme Director, Noëlle Cobden, reflects on her top five highlights in what has been another bumper year for the Book Festival’s Communities Programme. We have had a busy year of Communities...
Claire Askew at the The Ripple Project
4th December 2023The Ripple Project work with local people in the communities of Restalrig, Lochend, and Craigentinny to create opportunities, tackle poverty and inequality, and foster togetherness. Founded on the values of respect, dignity, equity, and ...
Poetry Sessions at the Corstorphine Dementia Project
25th October 2023Since the beginning of October, poet Ken Cockburn has been running weekly poetry sessions at the Corstorphine Dementia Project: a warm, person-centred day centre for local people living with varying stages of dementia. With a focus on re...
Communities at the August Book Festival
11th October 2023This year, we welcomed several groups to the Festival site, held special author visits with our community partners, and there were Communities Programme events throughout the Festival. Communities Programme activities were an integral ...
Guest Blog: Susie McGuinness
30th June 2023Our June blog comes from special guest writer – Susie McGuinness – who joined the Book festival as our new Communities Programme Assistant a few weeks ago. Read on to hear more about Susie’s first few weeks in the job and her highl...
A New Collaboration with The Ripple
24th May 2023Since the beginning of the year the Communities Team have been developing a new partnership with The Ripple, in Restalrig (North East Edinburgh). Read on to hear more about The Ripple, what’s happened so far and our future plans for th...
Guest Blog: Eleanor Thom
27th April 2023In this guest blog our Citizen Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom shares her experience working with the North Edinburgh Over-50s Drama Group and why elephants are so important. ‘Elephants never forget’, the saying goes. I’d just a...
New Project with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service
29th March 2023Recently we worked with young people and staff from NHS Lothian’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) on a three-day creative writing and illustration project. For several years the Book Festival’s Communities Programm...
Story-sharing with Streetreads
21st February 2023Over the autumn, our Citizen Writer in Residence, Eleanor Thom visited Streetreads to deliver story-sharing and creative writing sessions. Streetreads is a library in central Edinburgh which is open to people who are experiencing homeles...
Guest Blog: Chris Barkley
25th January 2023Hear from Chris Barkley, an award-winning author who's been inspiring young people at The Alternative School at Spartans Community Football Academy as our Writer in Residence....
Illustration Collaboration 14
24th December 2022In a series of posts, we are delighted to share the artworks that third year Edinburgh College of Art illustration students created in response to texts by our Citizen Writing Group...
Illustration Collaboration 13
22nd December 2022In a series of posts, we are delighted to share the artworks that third year Edinburgh College of Art illustration students created in response to texts by our Citizen Writing Group...
Illustration Collaboration 12
20th December 2022In a series of posts, we are delighted to share the artworks that third year Edinburgh College of Art illustration students created in response to texts by our Citizen Writing Group...
Illustration Collaboration 11
18th December 2022In a series of posts, we are delighted to share the artworks that third year Edinburgh College of Art illustration students created in response to texts by our Citizen Writing Group...
Illustration Collaboration 10
16th December 2022In a series of posts, we are delighted to share the artworks that third year Edinburgh College of Art illustration students created in response to texts by our Citizen Writing Group...