Tuesday 17th August

ScottishPower Studio Theatre

Throughout the 1960s, television viewers tuned into Dr Finlay's Casebook, the drama set in 1920s Scotland in the fictional town of Tannochbrae. The series, based on the stories by A J Cronin, was revived in 1993 with David Rintoul playing Dr Finlay. Now, to celebrate the re-edition of Cronin's short stories that inspired the television series, Rintoul returns to Edinburgh to read passages from the book, and to discuss one of his best loved roles in a distinguished television and acting career.

Writers' Retreat

Caroline Dunford, the creator of 1910 detective Euphemia Martins, looks at how to design a series. What is the difference between a novel and a series? How do you know if your characters have mileage? What is this mysterious thing called a 'story arc' and how do you build one?
In association with the Society of Authors.

ScottishPower Studio Theatre

Two stellar writers, two sons, two fathers. Legend of a Suicide depicts a boy's fraught relationship with his suicidal father, and many of its mysteries appear to be drawn from the real-life voyages of its author, David Vann. With its astonishing layering of different 'truths', Vann's book shows a story turned inside-out, experienced from both sides at once. John Burnside's two recent memoirs tell the haunted, mesmerizing story of his relationship with a difficult, alcoholic father, and its effect on his own personality and addictive behaviour. Chaired by Ruth Padel.

RBS Main Theatre

Artie Cohen, the detective at the heart of Reggie Nadelson's stories, is the kind of man whose history has been so well sketched out, it's impossible not to believe in him: the fine detail of Artie's flawed character is every bit as impressive as the gripping plots of each book. In this event Nadelson discusses Artie's latest assignment – tackling Russian criminals in London – with Edinburgh's own favourite crime writer, Ian Rankin.

Writers' Retreat

Two highly original writers come together in an event featuring islands at opposite ends of the world. Robert Alan Jamieson's novel Da Happie Laand is an epic, experimental novel which journeys between Shetland and New Zealand. Jón Kalman Stefánsson is one of Iceland's hottest literary talents and with Heaven and Hell he has knocked up a tale about literature and fishing which becomes a matter of life and death.

RBS Main Theatre

Until May he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and the second most powerful man in Britain. Now, as Alistair Darling comes to terms with life as a backbencher again, the Edinburgh South West MP can reflect on a distinguished ministerial career. In this lecture he talks about three eventful years in Number 11 Downing Street as well as discussing Scotland's role in post-devolution Britain, and his personal views on Britain's economic prospects.

RBS Main Theatre

Best known for his radical reinventions of crime fiction, Christopher Brookmyre has most recently been stirring up two altogether different genres: science fiction and horror. Pandaemonium, described by Patrick Ness as 'smart, funny, bighearted and blood-spattered,' brings a group of school children into a head-on collision with pointy-horned demons from another world. Always a favourite with audiences, Brookmyre returns to discuss his book.

Peppers Theatre

Former teen mag agony aunt Gillian Galbraith brings us No Sorrow to Die, the fourth Alice Rice mystery in which our detective probes the possibility that a serial killer is bumping off the terminally ill, while in Tony Black's Long Time Dead, the ritual slaughter of an Edinburgh Uni student drags Gus Drury away from his liquor. Who needs Rebus?