Northern Bibliosphere

You might recall today's guest's voice from our previous Nairn Book & Arts Festival preview, but today Sean Lusk is here talking to us about his wonderful debut novel The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley.

The book is an adventure through time and space - we travel between Britain and the Ottoman empire in the 18th century, explore the complex relationship between father and son, and very much this is an immersive story and emotional rollercoaster.

Today we have a special talk with one of our wonderful local publishers here in the Highlands: Inverness-based Pauline Mackay is an author and the founder of Ablekids Press, an independent publisher specialised in bilingual books for children.

Her stories, drawing from Scottish folklore - but also from myths and legends around the world - are translated in an impressive variety of languages and are a great connection for children (and adults) visiting Scotland to the local heritage.

So if you like some polyglot talk with a sprinkle of creativity, do tune in!

In this episode we connect with writer, teacher and journalist Iain Maloney, a Scotsman living his best life in Japan. His latest book The Japan Lights is very aptly, about a fellow Scotsman in Japan - but who lived there around 150 years ago, when it wasn't quite as easy to jump on a flight and you couldn't videocall your family.

The book tells of Iain's travel across the country following the tracks of Richard Henry Brunton, a Victorian civil engineer who is considered the father of Japanese lighthouses.

So if you like a travel memoir with a dip into history and a good dose of humor, this is the episode and book for you!

We met with the wonderful Shona Maclean in Inverness to talk about her book The Bookseller of Inverness.

A seaside Highland village, a Celtic legend and two women yearning for a different life. These are some of the elements you will find in Fiona Gillan Kerr's first novel, The Bone on The Beach.

We spoke to Fiona about life in the Highlands, myths and legends, strong female characters and a portal to the underworld.

I hope you love this interview - and the book - as I did!

We are back with a shiny brand new season! And because there are some excellent events ahead of us, we didn't want you to arrive unprepared to the cracking St Duthac Book & Arts Festival, which will run from next week (Monday 11) to to Monday 18.

There is a vast array of events and we delve into this year's programme as well as the birth of the festival with the lovely Coral Allan and Helen Sedgwick. ⁠

We are back with a shiny brand new season! Today we kick off with a chat with the wonderful Anita Sethi, who is the first ever writer in residence at the Nairn Book & Arts Festival (which is running until Sunday! Check the programme).

Anita hails from Manchester and is a writer and journalist - at the festival, she brings her book I Belong Here: a Journey Along the Backbone of Britain, in which she tells of her journey of reclamation through nature and place after being victim of a racist hate crime. We sat down with her after she chaired a talk with inspiring Scotland's Makar, Kathleen Jamie, and she told us about her first time in Nairn and her writing.

Summer's here and the time is right to get excited about all the wonderful book fests on the horizon!

One of them is the Nairn Book & Arts Festival which will run from August 30 to September 3.

We were invited to the launch party for their programme and we got to seat down with the festival's chair Sean Lusk fora sneak peek on their 20th anniversary programme.

Another day, another behind-the-scenes interview with some wonderful publishers from the North of Scotland!

Today we head to Caithness to talk to Dr Keith Whittles from Whittles publishing.

They specialize in academic and non-fiction books - the topics they cover range from geology to engineering, history and nature - and more!

In our very first itinerant interview, we visited Dornoch and some of the key locations on which The Last Witch of Scotland by Philip Paris is based. 

The author takes us from the cemetery and Cathedral to the stone marking the place where Janet Horne - the last person to be condemned for witchcraft in the UK - was executed. 

A moving story told through the eyes of Janet’s daughter, the book is full of characters you’ll soon become fond of, and an engaging and entertaining way to learn more about this part of Scotland’s past.

Some reading tips for today's episode! Find out some great reads which are yet to come!

Did yGiveaway: 

If you want to be in for a chance have this bundle of stories sent at home:

Our first interview of 2023 is with the wonderful John McLellan, author of The Faultline, a novel set in Wester Ross in the 70s which is very much a testament to the stunning and fascinating landscape of the region as well as a story of personal discovery and human relationships.

The Faultline is John's first novel and with him we spoke about embracing his new identity as an author, geology, authenticity and some incredible writers and their works.

A shout out to Ullapool Bookshop who have supported the book - a part of the proceeds sales of The Faultline in here go towards the North West Highlands Geopark as well as the Southmead Hospital Charity, where John has volunteered.

Plus, we'll have our very first recommendation from the public!

We are back! Happy 2023 and happy Burns Night to everyone celebrating it, we hope you will enjoy all the whisky, poems and haggis (regular and veg) you can. 

To kick things off, we bring you a selection of best books to read suggested by four incredible indie bookshops: The Ullapool Bookshop, Picaresque Books, The Bookmark and The Nairn Bookshop. 

What if a festival was to last for months? John O' Groats Book Festival kicked off in March and will be running until the Festival Weekend at the end of October. 

Today former librarian and festival coordinator Ian Leith is our guest to tell us more about the festival and the coming guests!

Are you ready to go wild? In her latest book, Hindsight, the award-winning theatre maker Jenna Watt takes us on her personal journey researching and taking a plunge into the various facets of the conservation movement.

The book is a wonderful way into the conversations happening around land management, deer culling, rewilding, ecological grief and ecofeminism across different areas in the Highlands and Scotland.

A dive into one of the oldest Book Festivals in the North: Nairn Book & Arts Festival is back as from today (August 27) to celebrate Scotland's Year of Stories.

Creative Coordinator Tanera Bryden takes us through the story of the festival and some highlights that this year will offer. 

From book talks to workshops and more, the festival will run until September 4 and it will turn the seaside town up. 

In this episode we hear from body therapist and author Olukemi Ogunyemi about her first book Brown Girl in The Ring, a memoir of her upbringing in Scotland as a mixed-race child. 

Based in the north of Scotland after living in the Central Belt, Olukemi brings her own experience alive to spark a conversation about racism in Scotland, whether that is from the institutions or from people on the street. 

We have a fascinating conversation about trauma, the need for representation and to raise awareness about the ongoing issues and hope for the future generations. 

2022 marks Scotland's Year of Stories and we couldn't do without a dip into how the North of Scotland will be celebrating its incredible storytelling traditions.

In this new episode dedicated to the themed year, we explore the tradition and history of storytelling in Caithness. We meet local playwright and poet in residence at Lyth Arts Centre, George Gunn and Charlotte Mountford, Co-Director at LAC who will tell us more about the Northern Stories Festival. 

From October 7 to 16, LAC will be organising this event which will be all about storytelling and connections to Scandinavia and Canada. 

In this episode we dig deeper into storytelling and the community of creatives inspired by the reach landscape of myths and legends of the Highlands. 

Our guests are Virginia Crow, author of Haunting Whispers of Highland Waters - a book created from stories submitted for the Spirit: 360 project. 

The initiative reached out to people of the Highlands in order to collect stories that reflect and encapsulate its rich storytelling tradition. 

Virginia's book drew from several of these stories to create a special journey into the heart of stories and landscapes of the Highlands. Joining us today is also Bryan Beattie, Creative director at Spirit: 360. 

More about Virginia's work can be found at www.crowvus.com/author-virginia

Find out more about Spirit of The Highlands and Spirit: 360 here: www.spiritofthehighlands.com

Find out more about Scotland's Year of Stories' events and rescources here: www.visitscotland.com/about/themed-years/stories

2022 marks Scotland's Year of Stories and we couldn't do without a dip into how the North of Scotland will be celebrating its incredible storytelling traditions.

To start off, we hear from Elaine Downs, who is on the committee for Ness Book Fest, a literary festival in Inverness which will (finally!) be returning from 6th October until 8th October 2022. 

Find out more about the festival here: nessbookfest.com or at facebook.com/NessBookFest

Find out more about Scotland's Year of Stories' events and rescources here: www.visitscotland.com/about/themed-years/stories

To end our mini-series in conversation with the finalists of the Highland Book Prize 2021, we bring you a dive into the past and present of the award with Moniack Mhor center director Rachel Humphries.

You can follow the Awards Ceremony from Zoom and book your place at: https://www.moniackmhor.org.uk/courses/2021-highland-book-prize-award-ceremony/

Or if you are interested in becoming a volunteer for the Reading Panel this year, more information on how to get involved is available at https://www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/call-for-readers/

A mini-series in conversation with the finalists of the Highland Book Prize 2021 ahead of the awards ceremony on May 26.

We end on a high with the fantastic work of journalist and writer Cal Flynn. Her latest work, Islands of Abandonment, explores the past, present and becoming of places where mankind has left its print and then gone away, and the mesmerizing changes that nature can go through in absence of humans. Going around the world, this is a fascinating and hope-instilling work. 

Time has come for us to close up with our mini-series. In this last glimpse into the amazing experience that was the Ullapool Book Festival, we talk to the powerhouse behind the festival. 

Last but not least, this episode of our Dispatches From Ullapool features the fantastic Joan Michael, who has been running the event since it first started 18 years ago.

We talk to her about the very start of the festival from an epiphany inspired by the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and how it then grew, starting from its first home at The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool before moving to the bigger venue of the village hall.

Our second last episode of these Dispatches From Ullapool brings you a conversation with acclaimed novelist James Robertson, whose latest novel, News of The Dead, is longlisted for this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. 

A former honorary president at the Ullapool Book Festival, he talks about the beauty of this event and his love for research and history. 

Right everyone, we are only three episodes away from the end of this Ullapool Book Festival special reel of sneak peeks, but we have some amazing voices still left to be heard. 

Next on is the multi-talented and newly appointed Edinburgh Makar, poet and playwright Hannah Lavery. She was at the festival presenting her latest collection of poems, Blood Salt Spring. We spoke to her about her work as a writer, social justice, as well as her acclaimed lyrical play, Lament for Sheku Bayoh. 

Welcome back to you all dearest bibliophiles. We are back with some more juicy snippets from the latest amazing edition of the Ullapool Book Festival. 

This time we sit down with the energetic Canadian writer and Giller Prize winner Ian Williams. He was at the festival presenting his latest poetry collection, Word Problems, as well as a collection of essays called Disorientation and his novel Reproduction. We hear about his style and talk about the different ways in which racism permeates different societies in the world. 

A mini-series in conversation with the finalists of the Highland Book Prize 2021 ahead of the awards ceremony on May 26.

We are taken back to the 50s by Lewis-born poet and writer Donald S. Murray, and talk about the potential tragedy that was Operation Cauldron, which sets the background for the novel we will be talking about this week.

Inside In A Veil of Mist, he explores the daily lives of residents of the Outer Hebrides and how they overlap with the landscape of history. 

You can find out more about In a Veil of Mist and read an extract at https://www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/2021-shortlist/in-a-veil-of-mist-by-donald-s-murray/

(They are available for all the 2021 shortlisted books!)

We went to the wonderful Ullapool Book Festival this year and we wanted to bring you a souvenir from it. So, here are seven special episodes all from the latest edition of the festival.

In this episode we bring you a fascinating conversation with writer Jan Carson (@JanCarson7280) about her latest novel The Raptures and the state of things in Northern Ireland. 

We went to the wonderful Ullapool Book Festival this year and we wanted to bring you a souvenir from it. So, here are seven special episodes all from the latest edition of the festival.

We went to the wonderful Ullapool Book Festival this year and we wanted to bring you a souvenir from it. So, here are seven special episodes all from the latest edition of the festival. 

First on is honorary president Chris Dolan, on what makes Ullapool Book Festival so special. 

A mini-series in conversation with the finalists of the Highland Book Prize 2021 ahead of the awards ceremony on May 26.

This week we have the pleasure to sit down with Jen Hadfield and talk about her poetry in her latest collection The Stone Age, in which she explores the wild landscape of Shetland and most importantly the consciousness of all things (living and not). 

You can find out more about The Stone Age and read an extract at highlandbookprize.org.uk/2021-shortlist/the-stone-age-by-jen-hadfield

(They are available for all the 2021 shortlisted books!) 

A mini-series in conversation with the finalists of the Highland Book Prize 2021 ahead of the awards ceremony on May 26.

In this first episode we speak to David Alston, author of Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean. His work explores the links to the slave-trade in the region and how this part of history plays into modern Scotland and the Highlands.

Hello Bibliophiles of the North! Today's guest is the wonderful Merryn Glover, writer in residence in the Cairngorms with a past as a globe trotter! 

We talk about her work and about latest novel, Of Stone and Sky, which was longlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2021 and is the story of a disappearance but most importantly of a community and its members throughout the decades. 

In it, she explores the bonds between communities and the land where they live in, the history and the humanity of its characters. 

As a plus, the book is set in the beautiful landscape of the Cairngorms and Strathspey. 

Today’s guest is an engineer by trade and an author by passion: we were delighted to have Paul A. Lynn talking about creativity, engineering and history which all feature in his latest book: A Scotsman Returns: Thomas Telford in the Highlands and Islands.

In his work, Lynn retraces a journey across the North of Scotland that Telford one of the most celebrated civil engineers of all time took together with poet Laureate Robert Southey in 1819. Telford’s personal story is retraced in this travelogue that revisits places in the Highlands where he worked over a period of 20 years, taking a fascinating look at the impact his work had on the region.

Calling out to all of you passionate about one of the most fascinating periods of Scottish history (and, well, Outlander fans too) as we sit down and chat to Aberdeenshire-based writer and history enthusiast Maggie Craig, the author behind Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ’45. The book is celebrating its 25th anniversary and, together with its companion work, Bare Arsed Banditti: The Men of the ’45, it has just been released in a revamped edition with a brand new cover and a complete reference section. 

Her works include historical novels such as Edinburgh-based Gathering Storm and One Sweet Moment and the Glasgow and Clydebank sagas including The River Flows On and When the Lights Come On Again. Her latest non-fiction work is One Week in April: The Scottish Radical Rising of 1820.

Hi everyone and Happy World Book Day!

Welcome to this very special episode of Northern Bibliosphere, which is all about World Book Day! This year marks the 25th anniversary of the initiative and we wanted to explore what's happening in the North of Scotland through the eyes of the people advocating for and sharing the passion for books: our schools, libraries and independent bookshops. 

We spoke to some very inspiring people for this occasion: you'll hear more from Shelagh Toonen, Librarian at Elgin Academy, on how schools can turn World Book Day into an engaging day; we met Senior Network Librarian for High Life Highland, Elizabeth Parker and talked about the vital role that libraries have within their communities and finally we dive with Katharine Douglas, manager at Ullapool Bookshop, on the importance of local independent bookshops. 

You'll find out more about World Book Day on their website at worldbookday.com - it's full of ideas and resources to help promote reading for pleasure among children, as well as insights and research on the topic. 

To find your closest bookshop celebrating World Book Day, visit: https://www.booksaremybag.com/ 

Find out more on the High Life Highland Libraries programme across the Highlands on your local library's Facebook Page or here: https://www.highlifehighland.com/libraries/ 

And more on what's happening across Moray Libraries here: https://www.facebook.com/moraylibraries/

Finally, you can find out more about Ullapool Bookshop here:www.ullapoolbookshop.co.uk

Welcome to the second episode of Northern Bibliosphere!

Today our guest is former policeman and crime writer Neil Lancaster. 

Neil moved to the Black Isle from England a few years ago after a career as a military policeman and as a detective for the Metropolitan Police, investigating serious crimes in the capital and beyond. In less than four years he has published three crime fiction works following the investigations of DS Tom Novak, and lately started a new, Scottish-based series starting with Dead Man’s Grave. This book was also longlisted for the 2021 William McIlvanney Prize for Best Scottish Crime Book of the Year.

Now, he is launching the second book of the Max Craigie series, The Blood Tide, which has just been released as an audiobook and ebook and will be available in Hardback at the end of March.

Welcome to the very first episode of Northern Bibliosphere! 

To start with a bang, our first guest is writer, drama and English teacher -  and puppetry enthusiast! - Barbara Henderson.

She is the author of Scottish historical fiction and eco-fiction for children such as Fir For Luck, Punch, Wilderness Wars and The Siege of Caerlaverock as well as her first non-fiction book, Scottish by Inclination.

You can find out more about her work here: http://www.barbarahenderson.co.uk/ and on Twitter at @scattyscribbler.

More about Time Tunnellers here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY7LQZiq-eVaIg4AINuLpKg/about

COMING SOON! A literary journey across the North of Scotland.

Highland News and Media reporter and bookworm Federica 'Freddie' Stefani explores the literary culture of the region by chatting to authors, visiting bookshops and showcasing literary events and projects.

Got an author, book or literary project that you would like to hear from on our podcast? Drop us an email at northernbibliospherepod@gmail.com or get in touch on our social channels: