EIBF Events on Monday 20th August

• Wake Up To Words - Highland Park Spiegeltent

Historical novels of great accomplishment. Allan Massie’s prolific output as a leading Scottish literary figure is now added to by Charlemagne and Roland, bringing those great early emperors and warriors to vivid life. Michael Cox’s epic The Meaning of Night recreates Victorian London, based on thirty years of planning and research.

• The Baillie Gifford Series - Peppers Theatre

Two riveting accounts of the Darien scheme – the disastrous Scottish failed colony, which led to national bankruptcy and the Union with England. Nat Edwards travelled to the mosquito-infested swamps in search of graves and answers; Douglas Watt unravels the economic and political background to the catastrophe.

• The Publishing Scotland Event - ScottishPower Studio Theatre

Let’s get digital. In this age of YouTube and online blogs is the writer better to skip the publisher and agent and go direct to the reader? Leading Scottish publishers debate the future and give key tips on getting published. Hosted by Jenny Brown, literary agent, with Lorraine Fannin, Publishing Scotland, Hugh Andrew, Birlinn Publishing, and Jenny Todd, Canongate Books.

• First Fiction - Writers' Retreat

Two wonderful debut novels about secrets and hidden lives. Anna Ralph is the daughter of Pat Barker; her haunting The Floating Island is a riveting psychological tale of loss and betrayal, as a boy in a wheelchair confronts what happened the day his brother died. Scottish writer Ruth Thomas beautifully evokes two school friends whose adult lives have diverged in Things to Make and Mend.

• Fine Fiction - ScottishPower Studio Theatre

Linguistic brilliance and an astonishing reach of imaginative empathy have made A L Kennedy into one of the most remarkable writers of her generation. Her latest novel Day is perhaps her finest yet and enters new territory: a moving, profound, beautifully realised story of a bomber pilot in the Second World War.