Wrap up CoastWord 2019 with music supplied by two of Scotland’s most idiosyncratic talents. Last year, the long-time friends and collaborators teamed up to record Here Lies The Body, where Hubbert’s flamenco-punk guitar merged with Moffat’s battered vocals to powerful effect. If you like wry observations about crashing into middle age and lusty humour, you can’t miss this event.

Meet Moira, cleaner, single mother, the hardest woman in Falkirk and the star of Alan Bissett’s ‘one woman show’. Whether defending her dog from the local rottweiler, attempting to seduce a teacher, or belting out Diana Ross at karaoke, Moira is hilarious, frightening and heart-warming company. Based on the women in Bissett’s family, Moira leaves audiences weak with laughter.

In Denise Mina’s latest novel Conviction (Harvill Secker), a protagonist whose family life has fallen apart distracts herself with a true-crime podcast, only to discover the murder at the heart of the podcast has a personal connection. Mina comes to CoastWord to discuss Conviction and how Scotland, its characters, places and history, have inspired her writing. Chaired by Lorna Hill.

Richard and Karen have been singing together for more than ten years and they love to sing at Coastword! Their music brings together their interest in many song forms from folk to country, Americana, blues, jazz, and latin, with the emphasis always being on the unique combination of their vocals. Their latest release, “The Luckless Drave”, has been a labour of love for a number of years. The album is an atmospheric collage of sounds and songs evoking the landscape and history of Dunbar. The legends of Johnnie Faa, Black Agnes, and King Lot are re-imagined alongside tales of witch persecution and shipwrecks. The recording process became a celebration of their friends and the talent in their local community with contributions from poets, artists, and musicians. The end result is a fine homage to the place they have both chosen to call home.

A century after the Union of 1707, Scotland was prospering through its new relationship with England, ‎yet many of the country’s leading thinkers and writers feared this came at a cost: assimilation and the loss of an ancient identity. Scotland’s leading historian Sir Tom Devine will explore the basis of these fears, how they played out and why predictions of the ‘death of Scotland’ proved groundless.

CoastWord Haverings our monthly night of Spoken Word and Music is putting on a special breakfast event for the festival weekend, featuring The Battery Theatre performing an extract of their new play and local band, Nic Tate and the Sharks. We will also offer you a chance to be part of the open mic, so if you fancy a spot to share some of your writing you can send an email to info@coastword.co.uk .

Gutter is the magazine of new Scottish writing. Tonight, it showcases some of the freshest talent. Short story writer Chris McQueer, recently described as ‘like Charlie Brooker on Buckfast’, CoastWord poet-in-residence Marjorie Lotfi Gill alongside poets Nadine Aisha Jassat and JL Williams all hosted by Scottish Slam Champion Callum Rodger . Music is provided by Heir of the Cursed and Martha Ffion.

Award-winning writer and spoken word artist Kevin P. Gilday turns a caustic eye on patriotism while chronicling his own journey from Glaswegian-Irish roots to reading at a Scottish independence rally to the toxic present political debate. Taking the form of a consultation rep giving a presentation at a shadowy think tank who goes rogue, Suffering from Scottishness is a comedy about life in the ‘best small country in the world’.

Often belittled in the past, stories of women’s lives written by women have provided many of the past decade’s most powerful novels and memoirs. Galloway, Simpson and Lindsay, writers who have drawn on their lives, discuss the challenges of writing memoir: not only how to shape it, but finding the courage to expose their experience.

Coastword is thrilled to welcome Vic Galloway to speak about his books 'Songs in the Key of Fife' and “Rip It Up”. He will then be joined by Stephen Allen, the curator of the exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland with whom he collaborated for the the 'Rip It Up - The Story of Scottish Pop' exhibition at the NMS. They will discuss the whole project, the exhibition, the book and accompanying events.

The event will be closed with music by Callum Easter

Doug Johnstone comes to Coastword Festival 2019 to speak about his new novel Breakers, which comes out on 16 May, a pulsatingly tense psychological thriller. Breakers is also a breathtakingly brutal, beautiful and deeply moving story of a good kid in the wrong family, from one of Scotland’s finest crime writers.

Scotland has significant historical connections with British slavery in the West Indies. A recent Glasgow University report stated that it had received important funding from West Indian slavery and will, as a consequence, produce ‘reparative’ educational schemes. Sir Professor Geoff Palmer OBE will discuss Scotland’s history of slavery in an event chaired by Lisa Williams (Chair of Edinburgh Caribbean Association).

Buy Tickets

Breakfast, music and writing – what better way to kick off your CoastWord Saturday!  Ticket includes tea and coffee, bacon rolls and pasties.

Buy Tickets

The brainchild of poet-provocateurs Kevin Williamson and Michael Pedersen, Neu Reekie! has been electrifying audiences in Edinburgh (and beyond) with its mix of spoken word, music and short films. For CoastWord, Neu! Reekie! has pulled together an unmissable bill featuring folk musician Rachel Sermanni, singer-songwriter Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow), and CoastWord poet-in-residence Jenny Lindsay.

The new Dunbar based press Black Agnes launch their first pamphlet of poetry at CoastWord. Come raise a glass to this new venture and hear readings from much loved local poets, Ruth Gilchrist and Jo Gibson.