Programme / Prògram

9:30am

Mollie Hughes’ stunningly illustrated book Blue Scotland inevitably makes you want to jump in the sea, so we thought we’d help by offering a morning dip with the author in one of the island’s inviting bays. The invigorating experience will be followed by a chat with Mollie about her book over a cuppa, and a book signing of course. Meet at the White Hart Beach across from Little Charlotte’s Café, and don’t forget to bring a warm jumper for after the short swim. A session for the adventurous at heart!

Mollie Hughes is a world record-breaking sports adventurer, mountaineer, polar explorer and international motivational speaker. In 2017 Mollie broke the world record for becoming the youngest woman to climb both sides of Mount Everest and in 2020 became the youngest woman to ski solo to the South Pole. In December 2020 she was the first woman to become president of Scouts Scotland.

Tickets: £10 (includes a hot drink; cakes will also be available for purchase)

Over-18s only. Places are limited; advance booking is essential.

Please note this event is not included in the multi-session pass.

Do get in touch if you have additional needs or mobility issues we could assist with.

11:30am

Between Mull and Lismore, there is a skerry topped by a navigation beacon called Lady’s Rock. It is this unassuming skerry, and the story associated with it, that gives its name to Sue Lawrence’s latest historical novel. The story goes that in 1547, Lachlan Maclean of Duart decided to kill his wife, Lady Catherine Campbell, sister of the 4th Earl of Argyll. At low tide, Lachlan rowed Catherine out to a rock that would be completely submerged by high tide… Come to this event to hear more about the story that inspired this wonderfully gripping novel, full of intrigue and twists and turns, that even has a few chapters set on Islay!

Sue Lawrence is the author of absorbing, popular historical thrillers that cast fascinating light on the perils and injustice that characterised women’s lives in Scotland through centuries past: The Green Lady, The Unreliable Death of Lady Grange, Down to the Sea, The Night He Left and Fields of Blue Flax – and her latest novel Lady’s Rock. She is also one of the UK’s leading cookery writers and broadcasters. Having studied French at Dundee University, she then trained as a journalist.

After winning BBC’s MasterChef in 1991, Sue wrote regular columns in The Sunday Times, Scotland on Sunday and many leading magazines. She also appeared on tv and as a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Kitchen Cabinet. She has written 20 cookery books, the latest of which is New Scottish Baking. She has won two Guild of Food Writers Awards and a Glenfiddich Food and Drink Award. Born in Dundee, Sue has lived in many countries – France, Finland, Germany and Australia – and now lives in Edinburgh.

Tickets: £5 

2:00pm

When you live in the Hebrides, it can be easy to take access to nature and outdoor adventures for granted. But we are far from being all equal when it comes to our relationship with the great outdoors. Until recently, this was reflected in the literary genre of nature writing, long dominated by middle-class white men. Mollie Hughes, Victoria Bennett and Alycia Pirmohamed all debunk this stereotype in their own way: the first one by being a female mountaineer, adventurer and writer, the second by being a disabled nature writer as well as carer, and the third by being a young nature writer of colour. Come discover their truly inspiring work and life journeys.

Mollie Hughes is a world record-breaking sports adventurer, mountaineer, polar explorer and international motivational speaker. In 2017 Mollie broke the world record for becoming the youngest woman to climb both sides of Mount Everest and in 2020 became the youngest woman to ski solo to the South Pole. In December 2020 she was the first woman to become president of Scouts Scotland.

Victoria Bennett is a disabled writer, carer and mother. Her writing spans both poetry and non-fiction, and has received several awards, including the Northern Debut Award. The founder of Wild Women Press, she is a firm believer in everyone’s right to write their own story, and has dedicated much of her working life to nurturing spaces where people can do just that. Her debut memoir, All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss and an Apothecary Garden, is published by Two Roads (2023), and was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize. She lives in Orkney with her husband and son. When not juggling writing, care and chronic illness, she can be found where the wild things grow, tending her apothecary garden.

Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of the poetry collection Another Way to Split Water (Polygon Books). Her nonfiction debut A Beautiful and Vital Place won the 2023 Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing and is forthcoming with Canongate. Alycia currently teaches on the Creative Writing Master’s Degree at the University of Cambridge. She is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics, and the recipient of several awards including a Pushcart Prize, the CBC Poetry Prize, and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.

Tickets: £5 

3:30pm

Còisir Ghàidhlig Ìle (Islay Gaelic Choir) will perform a few songs in introduction to this conversation between two hugely talented poets. Niall O’Gallagher was crowned Bàrd a’ Chomuinn Ghàidhealaich in Paisley last year and, as well as writing his own poetry, he translates from Gaelic, Irish and Catalan into English and Scots. He will talk about his latest book Fuaimean Gràidh / The Sounds of Love, a bilingual selection of his Gaelic poems. Taylor Strickland won the 2023 Saltire Society Award for Scottish Poetry Book of the Year for Dastram/Delirium, his free translation of selected poems by Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. Much admired in the Gaelic world, Alasdair’s poetry has been otherwise neglected, and Taylor’s translation is the first full-length collection of Alasdair to appear in English in over a century. 

Niall O’Gallagher is the author of three collections of poetry in Gaelic, Beatha Ùr (2013), Suain nan Trì Latha (2016) and Fo Bhlàth (2020), and of Fuaimean Gràidh / The Sounds of Love: Selected Poems (2023). He lives on the Ayrshire coast with his wife and their two children.

Taylor Strickland is the author of Dastram/Delirium, a PBS Translation Choice as well as winner of a 2023 Saltire Award. His work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Poetry Northwest, New Statesman, the TLS, Poetry Review, Dark Horse, and elsewhere. He lives in Glasgow with his wife, Lauren, and daughter, Eimhir.

Tickets: £5

6:00pm

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of 1984, so we could not hold a book festival without a special event celebrating George Orwell’s work. Richard Blair, the great novelist’s son and Patron of the Orwell Society, will do us the honour of chairing this conversation featuring Les Wilson, author of Orwell’s Island: George, Jura and 1984, and Gary Younge, recipient of the 2023 Orwell Prize for Journalism. Les will explain about the circumstances in which the classic novel came to be written at Barnhill, an isolated farmhouse on the north end of Jura, while Gary will talk about what receiving the Orwell Prize has meant to him, and about the influence Orwell had on his own groundbreaking journalistic and academic work. Quentin Kopp, Chair of the Orwell Society and son of Georges Kopp – Orwell’s brigade commander in Spain – kindly helped us organise this event and will also be present.

Gary Younge is an award-winning author, broadcaster and a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester. Formerly a columnist at The Guardian he is an editorial board member of the Nation magazine, the Alfred Knobler Fellow for Type Media and winner of the 2023 Orwell Prize for Journalism. He has written six books: Dispatches From the Diaspora, From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter; Another Day in the Death of America, A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives; The Speech, The Story Behind Martin Luther King’s Dream; Who Are We?, And Should it Matter in the 21st century; Stranger in a Strange Land, Travels in the Disunited States; and No Place Like Home, A Black Briton’s Journey Through the Deep South. He has also written for The New York Review of Books, Granta, GQ, The Financial Times and The New Statesman and made several radio and television documentaries on subjects ranging from gay marriage to Brexit.

A former political journalist, Les Wilson is Creative Director of Caledonia TV, directing and executive producing documentaries on Scottish history, the British monarchy (Scotland’s War, The Enchanted Glass), and many programmes in the Scottish Gaelic language on literature and arts. He is co-author (with Seona Robertson) of Scotland’s War and has a novel and several history books to his name: Islay Voices, The Drowned and the Saved: How War Came to the Hebrides (winner of Scotland’s National Book Awards, history) and Putting the Tea in Britain: How Scots Invented our National Drink.

Tickets: £10

Sponsored by Lussa Gin

10:00am

When Ronald Black last appeared at our festival in 2019, he mentioned the Dewar project, which consisted of transcribing, organising and publishing the manuscripts of Gaelic tales collector John Dewar. We’re delighted to see Ronnie return to launch the first book in the series, John Dewar’s Islay, Jura and Colonsay. He will be in conversation with the author of another book of huge local interest, David Caldwell, who will present his newly-released The Archeology of Finlaggan, Islay: Excavations at the Centre of the Lordship of the Isles, 1989-1998.

Ronald Black was a lecturer in the Department of Celtic Studies, Edinburgh University, from 1979 to 2001. He is the author of The Campbells of the Ark (John Donald, 2017) and is now director of the Dewar Project, whose first volume, John Dewar’s Islay, Jura and Colonsay (John Dewar Publishers, co-edited with Christopher Dracup) is scheduled for publication in July 2024.

David Caldwell was brought up in Ayrshire and studied archaeology and Scottish history at Edinburgh University. He was employed from 1973 to 2012 by the National Museums of Scotland in a curatorial role, latterly as Keeper of Archaeology and Keeper of Scotland & Europe. In the 1990s he directed excavations at Finlaggan. He has published widely on Scottish history and archaeology and has also served as President of the Post-Medieval Archaeology Society, President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Chair of Fife Cultural Trust and as a member of the board of the National Trust for Scotland.

Tickets: £5

10:00am

Nature is at the centre of Alycia Pirmohamed’s writing, so what could be better than listening to her reading from her poetry while immersing yourself in our island’s beautiful natural landscape? This is what we are offering with this event in collaboration with the Islay Natural History Trust. Alycia will read poems from her collection Another Way to Split Water, while a member of the Trust’s staff will highlight the flora and fauna encountered during this gentle 1-hour walk. Cakes and drinks will be available to purchase from the Burnside Lodge cake cupboard in Port Wemyss at the end of the walk!

Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of the poetry collection Another Way to Split Water (Polygon Books). Her nonfiction debut A Beautiful and Vital Place won the 2023 Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing and is forthcoming with Canongate. Alycia currently teaches on the Creative Writing Master’s Degree at the University of Cambridge. She is the co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics, and the recipient of several awards including a Pushcart Prize, the CBC Poetry Prize, and the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.

Tickets: £10 (includes a £5 donation to INHT)

Places are limited; advance booking is essential.

Please note this event is not included in the multi-session pass.

Do get in touch if you have additional needs or mobility issues we could assist with.

11:30am

In her memoir, All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss and an Apothecary Garden, Victoria Bennett writes in very moving terms about grieving for her older sister while she was pregnant, and how plants helped her overcome her sorrow in the years that followed. Tracey Hunter lost her first daughter Cora to a tragic accident in 1987, and imagined a story for Cora’s two siblings which eventually became a lovely picture book, The Light Shining in Our Hearts. Both Victoria and Tracey write about the solace they found in nature, and their books are ultimately a celebration of life in their own beautiful way. Come and listen to their stories of resilience, rediscovery, and love.

Victoria Bennett is a disabled writer, carer and mother. Her writing spans both poetry and non-fiction, and has received several awards, including the Northern Debut Award. The founder of Wild Women Press, she is a firm believer in everyone’s right to write their own story, and has dedicated much of her working life to nurturing spaces where people can do just that. Her debut memoir, All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, Loss and an Apothecary Garden, is published by Two Roads (2023), and was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize. She lives in Orkney with her husband and son. When not juggling writing, care and chronic illness, she can be found where the wild things grow, tending her apothecary garden.

In a career spanning over forty-five years, Tracey Hunter has worked with children, young adults and older people in Glasgow, the Scottish Borders, Bradford and the Southern Hebrides, first training as a social worker in 1981. Her first daughter, Cora, died in a tragic accident in 1987 when fourteen months old. The Light Shining in Our Hearts was first written in 1991 for Cora’s two siblings. It gently depicts the presence of a deceased child in a family’s life, encouraging children to remember and honour the loss of a child during the grieving process, and replacing the negative thoughts and feelings associated with death and grief with a beautiful hope and a focus on magical remembrance. Since the death of Cora, a large part of her life has been to encourage discussions about death, loss and separation. She supported bereaved parents in Glasgow in the 1990s as a member of the peer support group The Compassionate Friends. It was through this work that she came to realise no one is ever truly alone in their bereavement. Ever since, she has made it her mission to support others to find a path of light through the darkness – even in the depths of grief.

Tickets: £5 

1:00pm

You truly have to be a special island like Islay to entice someone as busy as Clive Myrie to a quick weekend visit! We are over the moon that this hugely talented journalist, documentary maker and TV presenter has accepted to come and tell us all about his memoir, Everything is Everything, out in paperback this year. His story of a Bolton teenager with a paper round who ended up with a 30+-year career in reporting from around the world is a moving, engaging and fascinating read, and we have no doubt this event is going to be equally stimulating. Come give a warm Islay welcome to ‘one of the best-known faces on British television’!

Clive Myrie is a journalist, documentary maker and author. He works for the BBC in news and current affairs and is also the presenter of Mastermind. He began his career in local radio and TV, becoming a BBC foreign correspondent in 1996 and being posted all over the world. For the next 15 years he covered major stories including the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the elections in America of Clinton, Bush and Obama. In 2022 he travelled to Ukraine to anchor the BBC’s coverage of the Russian invasion. He’s won four Royal Television Awards including twice for Network Presenter of the Year and once for Journalist of the Year.

His other accolades include a Peabody Award in America, the broadcasting equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize, for reports on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. Clive presents the Proms on BBC 2 and BBC 4 every year, and jazz programmes on Radio 3. He’s also made travel documentaries, most recently around Italy. Clive was born and grew up in Bolton in Lancashire and is the Pro Chancellor of Bolton University. He studied law at the University of Sussex before joining the BBC as a trainee reporter in 1987. His memoir, Everything is Everything, is a Sunday Times bestseller.

Tickets: £10