15 August - Friday

Gordon Bruce is a musician, magician and key holder of Scotland’s Magic History Archive, a collection of thousands of magic books that he has accumulated over the last forty years. Aged, obscure, amusing, just plain strange: Gordon will guide his audience through the highlights of this astonishing archive.

James James is a local lad who has travelled around the world doing the oldest trick in the world for the last five years. He’s back at the Edinburgh Festival to ply his trade, make money and make people smile. After the page-turning pleasures of books, sit back, relax and be thrilled by the quick flick of fingers and the murmur of magic in the air.

Inverness-born Ali Smith learned to read aged three from the labels on her elder sibling’s singles collections. Alternating between the short story and the novel, she has drawn in many literary awards and much critical acclaim. Her latest book is a re-telling of the myth of Iphis, Girl meets boy. She will be talking about Carson McCullers.

Susan Griffith is a travel writer and editor who writes books and articles for adventurous working travellers. Starting with the acknowledged classic titles, Work Your Way Around the World (personally updated by her over its twelve editions) and Teaching English Abroad, she has recently turned her attention to gap years for the young and the not- so-young. Now that her twin sons have hit 18, she is all the more convinced that a spell of independent travel in wild and woolly places is a good and necessary thing. Anyone with itchy feet and nebulous travel plans is welcome to drop by and see if Susan can advise.

Sorley MacLean was a poet of international reputation whose worldview drank in a very European sensibility and whose mode of expression was the fragile yet beautiful language of the Scottish Highlands, his native Gaelic. A literary giant of the Scottish scene, MacLean’s poetry has been recognised as incredibly significant in modern Gaelic poetry. Emma Dymock will illuminate through readings from Dain do Eimhir and ‘An Cuilithionn’. Prepare yourselves for a feast for the ears.

Professional bookbinder and co-founder of the Owl & Lion Gallery, Isabelle Ting, will be teaching a lucky few to make their own beautiful book using a Japanese binding technique. Please bring interesting papers or fabric to use as book covers.

Shetland-born Robert Alan Jamieson’s most recent work, Nort Atlantik Drift, a combination of stark black and white photography and Shetlandic poems, reveals his many interests in the visual arts and poetry. A creative writing fellow at Edinburgh University, he has written a number of novels and a libretto.

Sideburn sporting Dean Parkin is a poet whose masterful eye editorially shuffles comedy and observation into a unique melange of ‘Rumblegumption.’ With slots on BBC Norfolk, the man is a poet like few others. Least, his mother finally believes so. Step into Parkin’s Sound Shop for summink a little bit different.