We are eager to add our 2025 authors to our growing list of guest authors!
This year's authors will each host a session focusing on a topic of interest or their latest publication. 

Below you'll also find a list of our guest authors from previous years' events!
Between them, these masters of storytelling have covered everything from history to crime fiction, intrigue to sportswriting.

 

2025 Authors

Denise Mina: Bestselling Author

Denise Mina is the bestselling author of the Garnethill trilogy, the Paddy Meehan series and the Alex Morrow series, as well as historical novels Rizzio, Three Fires and The Second Murderer, a Philip Marlowe novel for the Chandler estate. Her latest novel The Good Liar centres on a forensic expert responsible for a miscarriage of justice. She has won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice, the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year twice, the Gordon Burn Prize and was inducted into the Crime Writers’ Association Hall of Fame in 2014. Denise also writes graphic novels and plays, and presents on television and radio. She studied law at Glasgow University and dropped out of a PhD at Strathclyde Law School when Garnethill was first published. Thirty years later Strathclyde awarded her an honourary PhD.

 

Jen Stout: Award-winning Author

Jen Stout is an award-winning journalist and author from Scotland. She went to Moscow on the Alfa Fellowship in Moscow in 2021; the program was cut short by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and in March 2022 she went to report on the war in Ukraine for outlets such as BBC radio, London Review of Books, Prospect, and the Sunday Post. Her debut book Night Train to Odesa: Covering the human cost of Russia's War was published in 2024 and won First Book at the Saltire Society awards. It was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, and is shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize, and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Her work in Ukraine was shortlisted for prizes by Amnesty International, the Foreign Press Association and the Scottish Press Awards. In 2023 she won a Travelling Scholarship from the Society of Authors. 

 

Sally Magnusson: Sunday Times Bestselling Author

Sally Magnusson is a Scottish journalist, broadcaster and award-nominated author. Her debut novel The Sealwoman’s Gift (2018) was shortlisted for six literary prizes, and she has since published two further acclaimed historical novels, including Music in the Dark (2023), which was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. Her fourth novel, The Shapeshifter’s Daughter, inspired by Norse myth and set in Orkney, will be published by John Murray Press in November 2025. She is also the author of the Sunday Times bestselling memoir Where Memories Go.

James Runcie: Novelist and Film-maker

James Runcie is the author of The Grantchester Mysteries, the basis for the international hit TV series Grantchester, shown in over 120 countries, as well as five other novels and the memoir Tell Me Good Things: On Love, Death and Marriage. He is an award-winning film-maker, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and he lives in St. Monans. His book about the composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, The Great Passion, was one of The Times’s Books of the Year for Historical Fiction in 2023. 

 

Judy Murray: Bestselling Author

Judy Murray is a former Scottish international tennis player and has 64 national titles to her name. In 1995 she became the Scottish National Coach. Judy is a powerful voice in the battle for equality of opportunity for women in sport and was awarded an OBE for services to tennis, women in sport and charity. Alongside her tennis and coaching achievements, Judy was a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing in 2014, a Costa Book Award judge in 2021 and made her debut at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022. Her memoir Knowing the Score was a Sunday Times bestseller and nominated for Sports Book of the Year. The Wild Card, her first novel, was published in 2023.

 

2024 Authors

Sir Ian Rankin: Bestselling Author

Sir Ian Rankin is the multimillion-copy worldwide bestseller of over thirty novels and creator of John Rebus. His books have been translated into thirty-six languages and have been adapted for radio, the stage and the screen. In 2024, a new Rebus six-part TV series was broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Sir Ian Rankin is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards, including the Diamond Dagger, the UK's most prestigious award for crime fiction. In the United States, he has won the celebrated Edgar Award and been shortlisted for the Anthony Award. In Europe, he has won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the German Deutscher Krimipreis. In 2022, he received a knighthood for his services to Literature and Charities.

 

Jenny Colgan: Bestselling Author

Jenny Colgan is one of the most successful and prolific authors of feel-good fiction in the UK. Her numerous Sunday Times, New York Times and internationally bestselling books include almost fifty novels, novellas, short stories and children’s books. She has sold more than four million copies in the UK alone, and ten million copies worldwide. Her books have spent more than thirty weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller list. She has won various awards for her writing including the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award and the RNA Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year Award. Jenny is a long-time champion of romantic fiction, proudly speaking up in the media against the sidelining of genre fiction.

 

Polly Pullar: Naturalist and Writer

Polly Pullar is a naturalist, writer and photographer specialising in wildlife and countryside matters. She is also a wildlife rehabilitator specialising in red squirrels and birds of prey. She contributes to numerous magazines and her books include – Fauna Scotica, Animals and People in Scotland; A Richness of Martens – Wildlife Tales from the Highlands; The Red Squirrel – A Future in the Forest; A Scurry of Squirrels – Nurturing the Wild; A Drop in the Ocean – Lawrence MacEwen and the Island of Muck; and The Horizontal Oak – A Life in Nature. Polly is director of A Write Highland Hoolie –Mallaig Book Festival.

 

Michael Crumplin: Historical Writer

Michael Crumplin is a retired consultant surgeon, educated at Wellington College and the Middlesex Hospital. During his career, he was Chairman of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, served on the council of the College and was elected an honorary fellow of the Edinburgh College and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Historical Association. A student of the history of surgery for over 40 years, he devotes time to writing, lecturing and supporting students, research workers and the media. His principal purpose is to promote interest in the human cost of war. 

 

2023 Authors

Chris Brookmyre: Award-Winning Crime Author

Chris Brookmyre is the author of twenty-seven crime and SF novels, including Black Widow, which won the 2016 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and was named the 2017 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Under the pseudonym Ambrose Parry, he has collaborated with his wife, Marisa Haetzman, to produce the historical crime novels The Way of All Flesh, The Art of Dying and A Corruption of Blood. His work has been adapted for stage, television, radio and even a video game. His latest novel is The Cliff House.

 

Mike Dickson: : Author and Sportswriter

Mike Dickson is a sportswriter with the Daily Mail, where he has held the position of Cricket Correspondent and Tennis Correspondent. Originally from the Wirral, Mike and his family live in Wimbledon. The books to which he has contributed include the Sunday Times bestseller Bob Willis: A Cricketer and a Gentleman. He is the author of the 2022 biography Emma Raducanu: When Tennis Came Home.

 

Elizabeth Macneal: Sunday Times Bestselling Author

Elizabeth Macneal is a writer and potter. She was born in Scotland and now lives in London with her family. The Doll Factory, Elizabeth’s debut novel, was a Sunday Times bestseller, has been translated into twenty-nine languages and is being turned into a major televisions series. Circus of Wonders, her second novel, was also a Sunday Times bestseller.

 

Neil Oliver: Historian and TV Presenter

Neil Oliver was born in Renfrew in Scotland. He studied archaeology at the University of Glasgow and worked as an archaeologist before training as a journalist. He has presented various TV series, including Coast, A History of Ancient Britain, Vikings, and Sacred Wonders of Britain. He is the author of several non-fiction books and one novel. More recently he has been known as a host on GB News and for the podcasts “Neil Oliver’s Love Letter to the British Isles” and “Neil Oliver’s Love Letter to the World.”

 

2022 Authors

Ambrose Parry: Award-Winning Author Duo

Ambrose Parry is the pen name of former consultant anaesthetist Marisa Haetzman and award-winning crime novelist Chris Brookmyre. Together they have written three novels set against the backdrop of Edinburgh medicine in the Nineteenth Century, and specifically the household of James Young Simpson. Their books The Way of All Flesh and The Art of Dying were both finalists for the McIlvanney Prize, and A Corruption of Blood was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger.

 

Tom Pow: Award-Winning Poet

Tom Pow was born in Edinburgh in 1950. He has published many collections, including In The Becoming, New and Selected Poems (Polygon, 2009). Dear Alice – Narratives of Madness (Salt) won the 2009 SMIT Poetry Book of the Year. His latest publications are the collection Naranjas (Galileo, 2021) and the pamphlet Svetlana’s Dance (Mariscat, 2022). He has also written two travel books and several books for children. He was Creative Director of A Year of Conversation in 2019. The Village and The Road (Tom Pow and The Galloway Agreement), based on his book, In Another World – Among Europe’s Dying Villages (Polygon, 2012), was part of the Made in Scotland programme at the Fringe in 2022.

 

Sara Sheridan: Award-Winning Author

Sara Sheridan has a fascination for uncovering forgotten stories. In 2018 she remapped Scotland according to women’s history to memorialize our forgotten foremothers in her David Hume Award winning book Where are the Women? She has written more than 20 novels. Her 1950s murder mystery series was longlisted this year for the CWA’s prestigious Dagger in the Library Award in 2022. Her latest, The Fair Botanists, is set in Edinburgh in 1822 and is currently Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year.