Citizen: A hearty helping of Stories and Scran at the Book Festival

I was delighted to be part of Edinburgh International Book Festival’s ‘Stories and Scran’ event on Tuesday evening.

The event was a celebration of the book festival’s Citizen programme.

Over the last 12 months, Citizen Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom and poet Leyla Josephine have been working with local groups to discuss and respond creatively to themes such as home, identity and belonging.

The evening – a lively mix of live readings, stories and short films – showcased impressive work by participants from Spartans Alternative School, the Citizen Collective (some brilliant young writers aged 16-18) (above), the Citizen adult writing group, the Saheliya Champions and more. And all in front of a live audience, too!

The event was preceded by a delicious community meal prepared and served up by by a team from North Edinburgh’s very own Scran Academy. 

Congratulations to the organisers – coronavirus restrictions must have made this a very difficult event to plan and stage, but it really couldn’t have gone better.

Stories and Scran was live streamed and you can view it here:

 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/stories-scran-1/player