East Lothian Library Services have a really exciting week of events planned this year
Book Week Scotland is an annual celebration of books and reading that takes across the country and this year – its 10th Anniversary - it starts on Monday 15 November.
East Lothian Library Services have a really exciting week of events planned which people can attend in person, but don’t forget there are plenty of online events too. See here for details: https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-week-scotland/events
Each year there is a national theme by which libraries have to plan their events around and this year’s theme is Celebration. We wanted to embrace the history and stories of our wonderful East Lothian so have developed celebrating BWS with the theme of “Bewitching East Lothian – Celebrating our Heritage”
Among our many events is the Launch event which is taking place in Musselburgh Library on Monday 15 November at 6pm with an introduction from the Provost and then a talk by Dr Ciaran Jones. Dr Jones teaches a summer school undergraduate course on ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland’ and is currently working with the National Trust for Scotland to research their properties for connections to the Scottish witch trials. At the launch event Ciaran is going to share his knowledge on the history of witches and focus especially on some of the local stories that took place in East Lothian.
On Tuesday 16 November at the old St Andrews Kirk, North Berwick, local stories will be brought to life with a retelling of stories from the early days of the witchcraft trials in Scotland. Provost. John McMillan takes us back to 1590, sharing the news and stories of the time. Inspiration for this event comes from the chilling 1591 pamphlet Newes from Scotland
A real highlight will be our Shoosh! Podcast special. This goes into the connection of witchcraft and folklore in our BWS podcast Herblore and History with Dr Nicola Ring from Napier University and local herbalist Wendy Kelly. It’s a really interesting discussion about historical and modern folk medicine and it’ll be available from 15 November.
And let’s not forget our author events –
- Sara Sheridan will be in Haddington at the John Gray Centre on Monday 15 November chatting about her latest book The Fair Botanists set in 1800s Edinburgh
- Sandra Ireland joins us on Wednesday 17 November at Longniddry Library to talk about her novel Sight Unseen which weaves a contemporary woman’s story with the Scottish witch trials.
- And Evie Wyld returns to East Lothian on Thursday 18 November at Dunbar Library to discuss her bestseller The Bass Rock.
We haven’t forgotten our younger population though as we have created a special series of events for our Family Friday which is on 19 November. There will be competitions, story telling sessions and activities with fantastic local authors.
The full programme and booking information will be live on our website from Monday (18 October)