June E-Bulletin | 5 days til launch… eek!
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| Hi Bill,
Mark your diaries, look out your highlighters, tell your friends… because we’re announcing the full programme of the 2025 Edinburgh International Book Festival on Tuesday 10 June, ahead of tickets going on sale on Saturday 21 June*.
Discover the full line up of authors, artists, thinkers, creators, comedians, musicians, movers and shakers joining us this August at edbookfest.co.uk next Tuesday from 10am (BST). We can’t reveal much until then, but we can tell you that, with over 600 events in the programme this year, it’s going to be an inspiring, enriching, enlivening summer. Stay tuned! |
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(*Pssst – if you can’t wait until Saturday 21, did you know that – along with a whole host of perks – our Friends membership gives you an exclusive 48-hour access window to secure your Book Festival tickets? Friends Advance Booking takes place from Wednesday 18 to Thursday 19 June.)
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| In the meantime, here’s what you can enjoy in this week’s E-Bulletin:
Let’s go… |
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Reading list: Retellings and Reimaginings
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| Looking for something gripping to see you through June? Why not jump into a modern retelling of a classic tale. Drawing from works including Moby Dick, Madame Butterfly, and Don Quixote, the authors in this list have put their own unique and surprising spins on stories you think you know well… |
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| Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
In this inventive and ambitious twist on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Xiaolu Guo’s protagonist disguises herself as a cabin boy and – out at sea – discovers a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale. The result is a captivating, playful, cinematic novel that feels just as timeless as the original work. |
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| James by Percival Everett
Winner of 2025’s Pulitzer Prize, Percival Everett masterfully reimagines Mark Twain’s classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, shifting the focus from Huck to the enslaved Jim. ‘Funny and horrifying,’ says Ann Patchett of the novel, ‘brilliant and riveting’. |
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| Songs for Ghosts by Clara Kumagai
For younger readers (aged 12 and up), this hauntingly tender novel by Clara Kumagai retells Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, spinning a beautiful magical realism type tale of love, grief, and memory that will deeply resonate with modern readers. |
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| Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen OyeyemiHelen Oyeyemi’s ‘gloriously unsettling’ (New York Times) retelling of Snow White, set in 1950s America, delves into questions of race, identity, and perception as it explores the connection between three women. A bewitching and powerful modern fairy tale. |
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| Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
Booker Prize-winning literary giant Salman Rushdie has written so many memorable novels, but the Sunday Times called this one his best works when it came out in 2019. A deft retelling of Cervantes Don Quixote, it’s a surreal, satirical story of a TV-obsessed travelling salesman and his imaginary son on a quest around America. |
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| The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
And finally… poetry from the brilliant, sharp-witted Carol Ann Duffy, who takes key male figures from history, myth, and literature – men like Darwin, King Herod, King Midas, and Sisyphus – and gives voice to their wives. A feminist collection that is by turns hilarious, thought-provoking, poignant, and subversive. |
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Book Festival at The Alternative School
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| ‘Ultimately, I’m here to model and encourage writing stuff down, the benefits of which I hold as huge. I’m here to champion the young people’s creative impulses and validate them, showing them the value in work they might consider unimportant. My catchphrase has become, “See that? That thing you’ve just written? That’s a poem!”‘ |
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| The Alternative School (part of the Spartans Community Football Academy) supports young people who find it challenging to cope for five days a week in school and may be at risk of exclusion. 2025 marks the third year of our partnership with this amazing organisation via a Writer in Residence who helps bring the transformative power of the written word to young people aged between 14 and 16.
Since late 2024, award-winning writer, musician, and community worker Owen Sutcliffe has been working in this role and he’s written about the work he’s been doing there to engage young people through learning what stories they have to tell, what ideas of place and neighbourhood they may have, and supporting them to share these stories and ideas as they choose. |
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Behind the scenes at the Festival
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| What’s going on in (and out of) the office this month: |
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🌸 Weekly poetry sessions for people living with dementia
Poet and translator Ken Cockburn has been leading a series of weekly poetry sessions at the Corstorphine Dementia Project. With a focus on reminiscence and wellbeing, these beautiful sessions are part of our year-round Communities programme. Read more about this project here. |
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📖 The brochure is on its way
As we speak (…or type), 2025’s Book Festival brochure is being printed, bound, and packaged up ready to arrive through letterboxes, and into bookshops, galleries, libraries, and community hubs around Edinburgh. We can’t wait for you to see it. Remember that our full programme will also be available online so you can check out what’s happening next week via our website. |
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⭐ The Programme team are deep in event organising mode
Now the programme is locked in, the team have been working on things including: menu planning for our immersive food events, organising hotel rooms and travel arrangements for the hundreds of visiting authors, finalising production details for our all-singing-all-dancing performances, and squeezing into the diaries of some VICs (that’s Very Important Characters), including everyone’s favourite purple-prickled resident of the deep, dark wood… |
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Job opportunities at the Book Festival
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| We’re currently recruiting for two roles that would be ideal for anyone who is experienced in and passionate about working with children and young people:
Children’s Venue Facilitator
↪️ Full time, fixed term contract (4 August – 25 August)
⭐ £13.88 per hour (plus holiday pay)
⏰ Applications close Sunday 8 June (23:59). Interviews: w/c Monday 16 June
Creative Learning Manager (Maternity Cover)
↪️ Full time, fixed term contract (28 July 2025 – September 2026)
⭐ £31,000 – £34,000 per annum (dependent on experience) plus 3% pension contribution
⏰ Applications close Wednesday 11 June (12:00 noon). Interviews: Tuesday 17 June
Find full job descriptions and links to our online application portal via our website. |
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Get your Front List tickets now
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| Finally, just a little reminder that you can still get tickets for The Front List, a special series of events taking place in McEwan Hall during the Festival, announced before our official launch. The line-up features names including R F Kuang, Maggie O’Farrell, Mark Kermode, Ally McCoist, Ian McEwan, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. |
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| And that’s all….for now! But there’s plenty more exciting updates coming your way very, very soon.
Keep up with all the latest from the Book Festival on our social media channels (@edbookfest) and look out for our programme going live next week. And, as a recap, here are some key dates for your diary:
Programme Launch: 10 June
Tickets go on sale: 21 June
2025 Book Festival: 9 – 24 August |
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