The Emerald Bookshelf – pop-up at The Falkirk Storytelling Festival

The Emerald Bookshelf – space for readers and writers to connect.

The shelf will pop up during The Raging Godesses event at the Falkirk Storytelling Festival on the 6th October 2018 at the Falkirk Trinity Church, Manse Place, FK1 1JN Falkirk

Come along from 3pm, browse the bookshelf, grab a drink and listen to the jam packed program of poetry and prose, and take home a new book.

The Raging Goddesses will feature an all-female line up.

Prepare to be empowered by Adele Gavin, Ailie Wallace, Carol Alan, Carolyn Paterson and Suzanne Egerton.

On the shelf – guest curated by Ailie Walace — you will find: The Rooftop Writers Anthology, Suzanne Egerton, Max Scratchman, Carol Allan, Ailie Wallace, Waymaking – a new anthology of Women’s adventure writing and more.

Author Suzanne Egerton, image courtesy of Eddie McEleney

The Goddess Collection, Ailie Walace

Take a glimpse at some of our featured books below:

Suzanne Egerton – I Really Did Love Her

Scottish-based writer Suzanne Egerton has put together an assortment of stories and short pieces which explore the female experience, often in unexpected ways. From a young woman’s concern for her husband’s mistress, to the trans man haunted by a long-ago rape; from the début lesbian author stranded in a hotel of ill repute, to the unexpected benefits of a sex chat line; there is lust, love, lost love, and plenty more. And who would think to wonder: earrings or not, is God really gender-neutral?

Suzanne Egerton, a regular at spoken word events has performed at various literary festivals, including Edinburgh. Her first novel, ‘Out Late with Friends and Regrets’, was published in 2013.

Carol Allan – RAGE!

Carol Allan began to write poetry after two divorces and the suicide of her father when she was twenty seven. As well as being deaf she suffers from dyslexia and dyspraxia but has found her membership of Rooftop Writers to be an enormous help in her own development as a poet and short story writer.

Waymaking – ed. Helen Mort, Claire Carter, Heather Dawe and Camilla Barnard

An anthology of prose, poetry and artwork by women who are inspired by wild places, adventure and landscape. With contributions from adventurers including Alpinist magazine editor Katie Ives, multi-award-winning author Bernadette McDonald, adventurers Sarah Outen and Anna McNuff, renowned filmmaker Jen Randall and many more, Waymaking – published by Vertebrate Publishing is inspiring and pivotal work in an era when wilderness conservation and gender equality are at the fore.

Ailie Wallace – The Goddess Collection

Created in the wake of the #MeToo movements and the women’s rights movement of 2017 the poems in this collection discuss what it means to be a 21st Century woman, and some of the challenges we may face and shares personal reflections on the writers own struggles through the teenage years and into adulthood.

Ailie Wallace is a creative writer from Falkirk. Her writing has appeared in the Scottish Book Trust Anthology 2016, as well as The Write Angle and Razur Cuts pamphlets. A poem from The Goddess Collection will also feature in the upcoming Persephone Project, which shares women’s #MeToo stories.

Aside from writing poetry, Ailie writes blogs and is a senior editor at a local magazine. She is currently working on a novel, and also runs a writing group in Falkirk, hosting monthly meetings and regular performance events. She is a full-time Mum to an 18-month old daughter, and on the rare occasion that she finds some free time, she enjoys yoga, reading and the outdoors.

Max Scratchman – The Last Burrah Sahibs

A warm and witty look at the unofficial last years of British Colonial Life as seen through the eyes of a small boy growing up out East in the dissolving remnants of the British Raj…

After being compulsorily retired from an Indian jute mill and returning to Dundee in the mid 1960s, Max Scratchmann’s family cannot settle down to life in Scotland. So, when the chance of a three-year contract in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) is offered, they promptly fly off to live the colonial life one last time.

“Funny, personal and moving – it’s an elegy to a lost past…” The Courier

Max Scratchman – Scotland for Beginners

Scratchmann was born the son of a Dundee jute wallah and spent the first six years of his life in India before being taken “home” to Scotland in the bitter winter of 1963.

In Scotland for Beginners he tells the often painful, but very funny, story of growing up in the bleak grey-harled bungalows of Dundee’s newly-built suburbs and learning to adapt to his native land in an era when the very fabric of the nation was changing.

Rooftop Writers – Breaking Your Silence

Falkirk’s Rooftop Writers aim to be so much more than just a writing group. As well as monthly meetings, they also have an extended Facebook community and host regular workshop and performance events to support local writing talent from Falkirk and beyond. They believe that everyone should have the opportunity to have their voices heard. Their first anthology, Breaking Your Silence will l launch as part of Falkirk Storytelling Festival on 4th October 2018, and all funds raised will go back into the Rooftop Writers’ fund to help keep supporting local writers.