Programme
Welcome to our programme for CoastWord 2019.
You can purchase Individual tickets, Weekend Passes, Daily Passes and Night Passes here. You can also find out more information about events by following the more info.
Friday
18:00 - 18:30
Black Agnes Press: The Weather Looks Promising
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.
19:30 - 22:30
Neu! Reekie!
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), Liz Lochhead and CoastWord poet-in-residence Jenny Lindsay.
Saturday
10:15 - 11:30
Dunbar Sings Breakfast with Dunbar Sings and Writing Mums & Karen Dietz
Breakfast, music and writing – what better way to kick off your CoastWord Saturday! Dunbar Sings and Writing collective Writing Mums will explore home, belonging and Scotland in song and writing. Includes tea and coffee, bacon rolls and pastries.
12:00 - 13:00
Scottish links with Slavery and the Slave Trade, with Professor Geoff Palmer OBE
Scotland has significant historical connections with British slavery in the West Indies. Professor Geoff Palmer OBE will discuss Scotland’s history of slavery in an event chaired by Lisa Williams (Chair of Edinburgh Caribbean Association).
13:30 - 14:30
Scotland Prime Suspect
Doug Johnstone comes to Coastword 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.
15:00 - 16:00
Rip it Up!
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 '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
16:30 - 17:30
Ain’t that the truth: Janice Galloway, Catherine Simpson and Jenny Lindsay
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.
18:00 - 19:00
Kevin P. Gilday’s Suffering from Scottishness
Award-winning writer and spoken word artist Kevin P. Gilday turns a caustic eye on patriotism. Suffering from Scottishness is a comedy about life in the ‘best small country in the world’.
20:30 - 23:00
Gutter Magazine’s CoastWord Takeover!
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’, Nadine Aisha Jassat, JL Willams, and CoastWord poet-in-residence Marjorie Lotfi Gill. Music is provided by Heir of the Cursed and Martha Ffion. Hosted by Scottish Slam Champion 2019, Calum Rodger and Laura Waddell.
Sunday
11:00 - 12:00
CoastWord Haverings Breakfast Special with Battery Theatre Company and Nic Tate and the Sharks
CoastWord Haverings, our monthly night of Spoken Word and Music, is putting on a special breakfast event for the festival weekend, featuring Battery Theatre Company performing an extract of their new play, music from Nic Tate and the Sharks and an Open Mic. Includes tea and coffee, bacon rolls and pastries.
12:45 - 13:45
Sir Tom Devine: The ‘Death’ and Reinvention of Scotland
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.
14:30 - 15:30
The Luckless Drave
Richard and Karen have been singing together for more than ten years and they love to sing at Coastword! 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.
16:30 - 17:30
Scotland Prime Suspect: Denise Mina in Conversation
Denise Mina comes to CoastWord to discuss her new novel Conviction and how Scotland, its characters, places and history, have inspired her writing. Chaired by Lorna Hill.
18:00 - 19:00
Alan Bissett’s Moria Monologues
Meet Moira, cleaner, single mother, the hardest woman in Falkirk and the star of Alan Bissett’s ‘one woman show’. Moira is hilarious, frightening and heart-warming company. Based on the women in Bissett’s family, Moira leaves audiences weak with laughter.
20:00 - 21:00
Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert
Wrap up CoastWord 2019 with music supplied by two of Scotland’s most idiosyncratic talents. If you like wry observations about crashing into middle age and lusty humour, you can’t miss this event.