Our commitment to accessibility

The Book Festival is moving to a new site, but accessibility remains a key priority for the Festival in 2021 and in the future....

Reflecting on 2020: Community, Covid, and Courage

Our Communities Programme Director, Noëlle Cobden, reflects on her first 12 months leading our year-round work in Edinburgh, the Lothians and beyond. Read on for her highlights of a strange year, how we pivoted our communtiy work to...

Citizen Winter Warmer activities still available online

Catch up with all the fun from our Citizen Winter Warmer, follow the links to DrawAlongs, workshops, performances and tutorials from the weekend's activities....

Citizen Winter Warmer

On Saturday 12 December Edinburgh International Book Festival will be holding a day of online activities with authors, illustrators and talented local writers for our Citizen Winter Warmer....

Citizen Goes Online

Last week we launched The Citizen Collective, an online creative writing initiative for young people across four local high schools. We're also starting an online writing group for adults in North Edinburgh and Musselburgh...

Looking back: Spotlight on Citizen Events

In this blog, we highlight three Citizen events from the August 2020 Book Festival Online which examine what 'community' means in a time of crisis...

Precious objects inspire Citizen writers

Listen to the work of two of our Brunton Citizen writers, where they take precious objects as a starting point for a piece of reflective writing....

Where Dandelions Go: the film

Here we're sharing in full the story written by children and families from North Edinburgh, in collaboration with Craigroyston Primary School, North Edinburgh Arts, and our Communities Writer in Residence, Eleanor Thom....

“A citizen is…” – your responses in poetry

Discover a new poem, Citizen, created with ideas from our Stories & Scran participants, put together by Leyla Josephine...

Creative challenge: turning fridge magnets into poetry

We challenged our Citizen collaborators to create some poetry using 30 randomly-allocated fridge magnet words. Here we share Karen's response to the challenge and tell you how you can give it a go at home....

Stories & Scran: A Special Citizen Event

Enjoy Edinburgh International Book Festival from your own home

A spotlight on three Citizen events from our August 2020 programme, which aim to help us understand the meaning of community in the time of Covid-19....

Musselburgh’s Hidden Treasures – Making Stories from Stones

Discover a collection of stories in film, inspired by a game where families in Musselburgh hid and found 'Story Stones'. Created by Eleanor Thom....

Teaching Children to Fail

In this Guest Blog, Leyla Josephine reflects on her time as Schools Writer in Residence for Citizen....

Book Bags for Citizen

This week we have been packing and distributing book and activity packs to children and adults in Musselburgh and North Edinburgh....

The Keys to Our Lives – a Citizen Podcast

In this podcast, two Musselburgh-based groups join together through poetry and discussion. We invite you to be part of the conversation by submitting your poems, songs and pictures exploring what the theme means to you....

Announcing Story Nation

Find out about Story Nation, part of our Communities Programme which engages long-term with Prisons, Hospitals and Care Homes....

Musselburgh: Write Where You Belong!

Our Citizen Communities Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom is leading a series of 5 workshops involving writing, stories and crafts in The Brunton Theatre in Musselburgh over the next few months! We want to know about residents'...

Shelf Life

Citizen Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom reflects on the sharing shelf at North Edinburgh Arts - a community resource helping people in need access food and other essential items - as Christmas and a momentous General Election approach....

Muirhouse: Where Dandelions Go

Leyla Josephine: Our New Schools Writer in Residence

Five Moments from Citizen: Year One

Eleanor Thom, our fantastic Citizen Community Writer in Residence, reflects on a year working in and with Edinburgh communities. Leading our creative programme of conversations, writing and more, she's seen and heard stories from the...

The Citizens of the Future

‘A Place Where Reading and Writing Became Not Just Pastimes but Lifelines’

Our Project Manager Jess Orr shares her experiences taking Book Festival authors and events into some of Scotland's prisons this August, with sessions for male and female prisoners as well as special events enabling parents and their...

Citizen comes to the Book Festival

After a hugely successful event at North Edinburgh Arts in May, we're excited to bring the discussions, ideas, stories and passion of those who have been involved so far to the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival - the biggest...