This 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 were on a scale never seen before at the August Book Festival. Alongside special showcase events, a series of Words from the Wards events and two installations, we also welcomed several community groups to the site. Read on to find out more about who we worked with and their experiences of the Book Festival! 

 

Words from the Wards 

Throughout the year we collected stories, memories and photographs in Words from the Wards, a project celebrating our new home at Edinburgh Futures Institute and honouring the building’s incredible legacy as the city’s former Royal Infirmary. The stories and memories ranged from new births and mourned passings to the careers of the doctors and nurses who worked there. During the festival we invited the writers to share them in one of the former wards in eight special events; including new contributions from leading writers: Dr Gavin Francis, Michael Pederson, Hannah Lavery, Sara Sheridan, Lisa Williams, Kirstin Innes and Jennifer Williams as well as architect Rabs Bennett.  

“I did enjoy participating in and listening to other contributions to Words from the Wards. All the contributions were very personal and often emotional. A terrific project to enable memories to be shared and to be gathered for the future.” Words from the Wards participant 

Alongside the events we also created an installation which featured the stories and images gathered as well as providing a place for Festival visitors to add their own memories of the old hospital. You can read all of the Words from the Wards stories and memories here.  

 

Stories and Scran 

Stories and Scran returned to the August Festival for its fifth year, and we were delighted to welcome back Scran Academy to cater our community meal. Scran Academy is a social enterprise that works with young people to teach them catering skills. The Scran team cooked up a three-course feast which our Communities participants, special guests and Book Festival staff enjoyed together. 

 

Afterwards, our Citizen writers presented a jam-packed programme of readings, sharing their creative work from the last year. We heard a huge range of exciting new writing, with poetry and short stories by The Citizen Collective, Audio memories from Project Esperanza and several thought-provoking reflections from our online Writers’ Group. 

 

Scotland 2049 

If you imagine the future in 2049, what does it look like? To celebrate the 25th anniversaries of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Youth Parliament, poet Ryan Van Winkle and our trainee writer in residence Lintong Zhang asked young people from Tynecastle High School and further afield what Scotland will look like in 25 years. Through a series of creative provocations they considered, debated and imagined the country of their futures. From these discussions and in collaboration with a team of professional artists, Scotland 2049 emerged, an imaginative Scotland complete with a reimagined electoral system, youth parliamentarians’ manifestos and a digital future capitalist hellscape.  

We are really grateful to visual artists Theo Cleary, Joel Davidson, Natalie Doyle, Frieda Ford, Antony Lucchesi, Emma Macleod, Emily Randall and production manager Stephen Paterson for bringing the young people’s writing and ideas to life in such a mind-blowing way. 

In tandem with the Scotland 2049 installation at the Festival, video poetry created by our Citizen Collective Writers featured on screens in the Scottish Parliament, as part of the Festival of Politics 

 

If the World Was Mine 

As part of our long-term partnership with The Alternative School at the Spartans Community Foundation (SCF), this year we held If the World Was Mine –  showcasing the incredible creative work of the young people from the school. Our writer-in-residence Chris Barkley (who has been working at Spartans since August 2022) hosted a special evening of film, poetry and music. The young people, their families, and representatives from SCF, alongside the wider Book Festival audiences, came together to celebrate the young people and what they have achieved.  

The event included and opening DJ set and the premiere of a brand-new documentary film, If the World Was Mine created by the young people with support from Chris and documentary-maker Sophie Van Bree. Illustrator Katie Quinn and the Alternative School Manager Emma Easton also joined Chris on stage to talk about different aspects of the project. Thanks to a generous grant from the Weir Trust, we will continue our work at The Alternative School for another year. Keep your eyes posted for more updates as the year progresses. 

 

Community Groups visiting the Book Festival 

It was fantastic to be able to welcome several groups and community partners to our new Festival site for a host of different events. Open Book enjoyed a full day of activities with different groups. Our own young writers’ group, The Citizen Collective got to meet superstar YA writers Juno Dawson and David Levitan while the Link Up Book Group from North Edinburgh Arts attended events with Marian Keyes and Sarah Marsh. As part of our ongoing programme of activity with them, the Ripple’s Friday Club joined us for Leslie Hills and Liz Lochhead’s events plus the creative writing group at Access to Industry came to here Roger McGough be interviewed by Hollie McNish about his 65year long poetry career.  

“Both of the events we went to were very popular with the groups that I brought. A lot of the feedback I got was it was great to be able to see and hear these authors talk about their work and writing process. I think it is such a great way to bring another layer of depth to their works as well being able to ask questions directly to the authors. Once again another amazing experience for myself and my groups at the book festival!” Todd Bioletti, Older People’s Service Manager, The Ripple 

 

 

 

Citizen is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery and through the PLACE Programme (funded by the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council, and the Edinburgh Festivals, and supported and administered by Creative Scotland).