John Grisham, Diana Gabaldon, Matt Haig, Maggie O’Farrell, Douglas Stuart, Lyse Doucet and David Olusoga among major names reaching audiences worldwide, as free library screenings bring Book Festival conversations to communities across Scotland.
Free library screenings bring Book Festival conversations to communities across Scotland through partnership with 22 libraries
John Grisham in a rare festival appearance reflecting on his extraordinary career and criminal justice reform
Maggie O’Farrell discussing her ambitious new novel Land
Diana Gabaldon celebrating 35 years of the global Outlander phenomenon
BBC’s Lyse Doucet on the frontline of global news, conflict and the human stories behind international events
Matt Haig discussing his highly anticipated new novel The Midnight Train
Douglas Stuart exploring his new, Booker Prize 2026 longlisted novel, John of John
David Olusoga reflecting on his remarkable career and the power of storytelling
Jimmy Wales and Cory Doctorow examining trust, technology and the future of the internet
Philippe Sands marking 10 years since East West Street
Family events featuring Julia Donaldson, Jacqueline Wilson and Katherine Rundell
The Edinburgh International Book Festival is making its 2026 programme more accessible than ever before, with nearly 90 events set to be livestreamed direct from Edinburgh, allowing audiences around the world to experience one of the world’s leading literary festivals wherever they are.
From bestselling novelists to leading thinkers, campaigners, historians, politicians, podcasters and children’s authors, the extensive livestreaming programme opens up the Book Festival to readers, writers and curious minds unable to attend in person – whether due to geography, cost, caring responsibilities, disability or health considerations.
Most streamed events will also remain available to watch on demand after broadcast, creating greater flexibility for audiences across different time zones and making it easier for viewers to enjoy events at a time that suits them.
The expanded programme builds on consistent and increasingly global demand for online access to the Book Festival. In 2025, online audiences joined events from 63 countries worldwide (including Vatican City), generating more than 20,000 online event views, demonstrating the global appetite for Edinburgh’s literary conversations, and the chance to hear from some of the world’s biggest literary stars.
Among the major names appearing as part of the livestreamed programme are legal thriller phenomenon John Grisham, Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart (longlisted once again for the prize in 2026 for John of John, the topic of his Book Festival event), Outlander creator Diana Gabaldon, alongside global literary stars Ann Patchett, Maggie O’Farrell, Elif Shafak, Colson Whitehead, Colm Tóibín, Matt Haig, Kae Tempest and many more.
The programme also features BBC Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet on global affairs, acclaimed political economist Ann Pettifor on the economic forces shaping our future, and bestselling psychotherapist Philippa Perry on relationships, wellbeing and modern life. Audiences can also enjoy conversations with influential public figures and leading commentators including Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, tech critic Cory Doctorow, New York Times diplomatic correspondent Edward Wong and Lewis Goodall of The News Agents, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga, philosopher A C Grayling, and historian Tom Holland.
Families and young readers can also enjoy a rich programme online, with events featuring beloved creators including Julia Donaldson, Jacqueline Wilson, Katherine Rundell, Liz Pichon, Harriet Muncaster, Catherine Rayner and Paul Linnet.
Alongside online access for audiences at home and overseas, 22 libraries across Scotland will host free screenings of selected events, helping bring Book Festival conversations to communities far beyond Edinburgh. Library streaming is emerging as one of the Book Festival’s strongest tools for democratising access, opening up opportunities for audiences across Scotland to take part collectively, locally and free of charge. The screenings build on the Book Festival’s wider work with libraries through initiatives including Paper Trails, and follow strong audience interest in shared viewing experiences, with more than 700 people attending library watch parties during previous Book Festival programmes.
The initiative reflects the Book Festival’s ongoing commitment to ensuring as many people as possible can take part in the conversations, ideas and stories that define each year’s programme.
Jenny Niven, Director of Edinburgh International Book Festival, said:“One of the wonderful things about the Book Festival is that our audiences have always extended far beyond Edinburgh. Every year we hear from readers around the UK and across the world who would love to be part of the Book Festival but aren’t able to travel here in person.
“Last year audiences joined us online from 63 countries around the world, demonstrating the global appetite for the conversations that take place here in Edinburgh. This year’s expanded livestreaming programme means even more people will be able to experience the Book Festival as it happens, wherever they are.”
“We’re also delighted that audiences will be able to access events through 22 partner libraries across Scotland. Combined with on-demand viewing for most events, we’re creating more ways than ever before for people to engage with the Book Festival, regardless of where they live or what their circumstances may be.”
Many of the livestreamed events connect with the Book Festival’s 2026 theme, Changing Your Mind, bringing together writers, thinkers and public figures from across continents and disciplines to explore how stories, ideas and conversation can challenge assumptions and broaden perspectives.
Online tickets are available now. The majority of livestreamed events will also be available on demand following the live broadcast, enabling audiences across the world to enjoy the Book Festival regardless of time zone.
A small number of events, including the John Grisham event, are livestream only. Additional events will be added to the on-demand offering throughout the autumn, extending access to Festival conversations beyond August.
In 2026, the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA), one of the oldest and most prestigious cultural institutions in Scotland, will be 200 years old. An independent artist-led organisation with links to every part of Scotland and beyond, the Royal Scottish Academy is planning a unique celebration involving hundreds of artists, partners, galleries and institutions.
The full programme is revealed today, with events taking place across Edinburgh and the Lothians in 2026.
Set to be the widest reaching project ever of its type in Scotland, Celebrating Together features over 100 cultural partners coming together to mark the occasion with their own tailored events, exhibitions, performances, talks and collection rehangs across multiple venues.
A series of major exhibitions will also take place at the RSA in Edinburgh, from new solo shows to group exhibitions that showcase the RSA and its Members (Academicians) and New Contemporaries then and now in a series of new and enlightening ways.
Throughout the year, the RSA will also open up its Collections to partners across the network, with 100 artworks on loan to over 30 galleries, museums and cultural venues. Celebrating Together is supported by Museums Galleries Scotland.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Jessica Harrison RSA, Jasperware vase and cover with Pegasus finial and with reliefs of Apollo and the Muses, made at the factory of Josiah Wedgewood, Etruria, Staffordshire, ca.1790, 2015. On display in Origin Stories.
At the RSA in Edinburgh, the year opens with a number of exhibitions which look towards the legacy and impact of the institution. Origin Stories (24 January – 8 March) focuses on art tutors and teachers, and the web of artistic relationships that have evolved over the last two hundred years, tracing lines of influence from the nineteenth century to the present day.
Generation (24 January – 8 March) will trace the connections and routes of sixteen architects who formerly worked at the practice of Richard Murphy RSA, and have since gone on to establish their own practice. The Scottish Society of Artists (SSA) will highlight historical links between the society and the RSA within their 127th Annual Exhibition (11 January – 8 March).
Michael Agnew RSA, Three Scottish Owls for Megan Boyd, c. 2017.
Courtesy of the artist. Showing in A Real kind of Fiction at Linlithgow Burgh Halls.
Linlithgow Burgh Halls celebrates with two solo exhibitions, starting with Species Morphology – A Living Archive (23 January – 17 May).
Coming from a family of landworkers and game keepers, Stuart Mackenzie RSA’s exhibition explores the characteristics of nature and species, embedded in painting, drawing and printmaking. A Real kind of Fiction by Michael Agnew RSA (18 September – 24 January 2027) rounds off the programme.
Combining recent and retrospective work, Agnew captures the ‘Anina Mundi’ reflected in the owl as an archetype, alongside subtle and overt critiques of the contemporary world of ‘fast media.’ The programme will also include Homecoming by Leo du Feu ( 22 May – 13 September).
In February, the Scottish Society for Art History and the Royal Scottish Academy present a two day conference in Edinburgh – Scottish Art and the Academy (5 – 6 February 2026).
The conference aims to celebrate, explore and interrogate the RSA’s history and showcase new research on artists connected to it. It also aims to cast an enquiring eye over the idea of the Academy and its ‘official’ status, looking at those who may have been excluded from it or reacted against it at different times.
Ilana Halperin RSA, From Coral to Marble, 2014. RSA Diploma Collection.
Showing as part of What is Us and what is Earth at Fruitmarket.
Edinburgh’s Fruitmarketwill mount a major solo exhibition by Ilana Halperin RSA, titledWhat is Us and what is Earth (27 February –17 May). Halperin’s artwork explores the relationship between geology and daily life via media, writing, performance, printmaking, sculpture, drawing, and film.
At Dovecot, a show highlighting the work of Dame Elizabeth Blackadder RSA opens in time for Summer (opens 20 June). Blackadder was the first woman elected to both the Royal Scottish Academy (1972) and the Royal Academy of Arts (1976).
The breadth of her work in oil, watercolour, and printmaking techniques has long been celebrated for its new perspectives in contemporary art.
Blackadder collaborated with Dovecot across five decades to create over 30 tapestries and hand-tufted rugs. This exhibition will not only shed light on her illustrious career but also showcase her work in the context of the world-famous Studios.
Arthur Melville RSA, Homeward, 1880. Museums & Galleries Edinburgh.
Showing as part of Jean F. Watson: An Artistic Legacy at the City Art Centre.
Work that is gifted through a bequest (after someone’s death) is important to the story of Scottish art. There are many links to the RSA through these collections at institutions around the country that will be celebrated in 2026.
At the City Art Centre, Jean F. Watson: An Artistic Legacy runs across Spring and Summer (16 May – 4 October). Jean Fletcher Watson (1877-1974) was an Edinburgh resident who had a significant impact on the city’s cultural heritage.
During the 1960s and 1970s she presented a series of financial donations to the City of Edinburgh to develop a collection of Scottish art. Since then, the Jean F. Watson Bequest Fund has enabled the acquisition of more than 1,000 artworks.
Among the artists represented are many with links to the Royal Scottish Academy, including Anne Redpath RSA, Joan Eardley RSA, Leena Nammari RSA, and Alison Watt RSA.
Hill and Adamson, Ramsay and Rutherford from The Fishermen and Women of the Firth of Forth Portfolio, 1843-1847. The work will be displayed in an exhibition on Hill and Adamson at Studies in Photography, Edinburgh.
In May, an exhibition on Hill and Adamson will open at Studies in Photography, who will also host a seminar and book launch to coincide with the exhibition. As Secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy from 1836 to 1869, photographer David Octavius Hill shaped the institution’s identity and legacy. His partnership and work with fellow photographer Robert Adamson was a defining moment in the development of the photographic portrait.
Their work will be celebrated in the new book Hill and Adamson: The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth, by Sara Stevenson.
This volume offers a fresh perspective on the pioneering work of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, whose remarkable collaboration between 1843 and 1847 produced some of the most enduring images in the history of photography.
Their portraits of the fisherfolk of the Firth of Forth capture both the dignity and hardship of 19th-century coastal life.
Wendy McMurdo RSA, Avatar, 2008, City Art Centre, City of Edinburgh Council.
Wendy McMurdo: The Digital Mirror at National Galleries Scotland: Portrait (30 May – 25 October) charts 20 years of ground-breaking work of the pioneering photographer and Academician.
At a time where the digital landscape is changing faster than ever before, McMurdo’s work reflects on childhood, the online world, learning and make-believe in her largest exhibition to date.
Scottish Art Specialists Alice Strang and Chantal de Prez viewing the forthcoming auction. Image by Stewart Attwood.
Auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull also mark their 200th anniversary in 2026, and will host a preview of Scottish Paintings and Sculpture auction (31 May – 4 June).
With some 200 works of Scottish art on display, works by Academicians will be highlighted in the preview.
Dame Barbara Rae RSA, Antarctic Memory, 2024.
Presented in Barbara Rae: Charting South at the RSA.
The RSA in Edinburgh will host two exhibitions of important contemporary Academicians. Joyce W. Cairns: A Personal Odyssey (1 August – 2 September 2026) celebrates an important voice in Scottish art, as the first woman to be elected President of the RSA and an influential education to generations of Scottish artists.
Barbara Rae: Charting South (21 November 2026 – 24 January 2027) follows the hugely popular exhibition Barbara Rae: The Northwest Passage (2018).
This new body of work charts the landscapes and locations of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-17).
Dalkeith Palace. Courtesy of Dalkeith Palace and Country Park. Home of PhotoDalkeith 2026.
Celebrations in Midlothian and Glasgow will put photography into focus. Entering its second year, PhotoDalkeith 2026 returns to Dalkeith Palace, Dalkeith Country Park (September – October). Studies in Photography curator Julie Lawson and artist Calum Colvin RSA will co-curate on the theme of photography and the Royal Scottish Academy..
Summerhall Arts will host the RSA Moving Image Programme 2026. Painter and filmmaker Ronald Forbes RSA has curated a programme of moving image work by Academicians and RSA award winners. The programme includes a wide variety of work reflecting artists’ moving image practice in Scotland from the past and present. It includes work from the RSA Collection and work being made today.
As part of the year’s programme, Tonic Arts (NHS Lothian) teams up with Scottish NHS Arts programme partners to bring together a nationally touring exhibition of visual artworks created by Academicians, New Contemporaries, Award Winners and Exhibitors from regional health board and national art-in-health collections. The work will be showcased in care settings, creating uplifting and healing clinical environments for patients, visitors and NHS staff.
Further details of the programme across Edinburgh and the Lothians will be announced soon. This includes an exhibition of paintings by John Bellany HRSA at the John Gray Centre Museum in Haddington, and exhibitions at Edinburgh Printmakers and Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh.
In the Royal Scottish Academy building, a series of major exhibitions will also take place – from new solo shows to group exhibitions that aim to showcase the RSA’s vibrant and formative past, the pertinent present and a glimpse of a promising future ahead.
Their flagship Annual Exhibition (9 May – 14 June 2026) will have a special feel and New Contemporaries 2026 (28 March – 22 April 2026) will be a unique opportunity to Celebrate Together with Scotland’s schools of art and architecture.
The RSA’s website will be the main hub for the project, and will feature an interactive map and partners pages, which will enable audiences to discover everything that is happening in Celebrating Together across 2026.
Colin Greenslade, Director of the RSA, says:‘This ambitious anniversary celebration will bring partners and communities together to celebrate the cultural history and present influence and connections of the Royal Scottish Academy across Scotland and beyond.
“The RSA has long supported art and architecture in Scotland and, in its 200th year, is a dynamic institution run by artists, for artists.
“This bicentenary celebration offers a fantastic opportunity to spotlight our unique independent heritage, our connections to (and support of) Scotland’s contemporary artists and architects; and to pave the way for the future prosperity of the visual arts in Scotland.’
Sandy Wood, Head of Collections at the RSA, says: ‘2026 will be a joyful celebration that honours the history of the Royal Scottish Academy and looks forward to a promising future.
“The year-long celebration will help connect and celebrate RSA artists and architects, as well as established and emerging artists who have been part of the RSA family over the last 200 years.
“We’re delighted that so many cultural organisations across Scotland are joining the party and we’re looking forward to celebrating together in 2026. There’s still plenty of time to join in and we welcome contact with organisations and projects who’d like to be part of this special year.’
The Royal Scottish Academy was founded in 1826 to support artists and architects and promote art and architecture in Scotland.
They are an independent, non-governmental charitable institution led by Academicians. Royal Scottish Academicians are prominent artists and architects elected by their peers who govern the RSA on a democratic basis.
The RSA run a year-round programme of exhibitions, artist opportunities and events from their base at The Mound in Edinburgh. The RSA holds an historic collection recognised as being of National Significance to Scotland.
RSA x Art UK
A partnership with Art UK will act as a hub to draw together strands across Scotland and UK-wide and will also feature stories, curations and artist features that highlight RSA connections.
RSA x The Skinny
RSA are teaming up with The Skinny to deliver a series of bespoke advertising and editorial bicentennial showcases across print and digital platforms.
RSA x Jack Arts
Art will come to life across cities in Scotland withreimaginedRSA art works on creative billboards in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Perth.
The full celebrations will kick-off in January 2026. It’s a birthday party not to be missed.
