Events Archive - Saraband

In collaboration with the Hebden Bridge Picture House, we are proud to present Queer Reflections on Horror: The Birds + Q&A with Laura Maw.

Get your tickets via the Hebden Bridge Picture House website here.

Join Saraband at Hebden Bridge Picture House on June 24th to celebrate all things queer and all things horror as we launch new essay anthology It Came From the Closet: Queer reflections on horror. The event will feature a screening of The Birds followed by a Q&A with contributing author Laura Maw.

The relationship between horror films and the LGBTQ+ community? It’s complicated. Haunted houses, forbidden desires and the monstrous can have striking resonance for those who’ve been marginalised. But the genre’s murky history of an alarmingly heterosexual male gaze, queer-coded villains and sometimes blatant homophobia, is impossible to overlook. There is tension here, and there are as many queer readings of horror films as there are queer people.

Edited by Joe Vallese, and with contributions by writers including Kirsty Logan and Carmen Maria Machado, the essays in It Came from the Closet bring the particulars of the writers’ own experiences, whether in relation to gender, sexuality, or both, to their unique interpretations.

Recently reclaimed as a feminist, queer cult classic, Jennifer’s Body is a ridiculously fun, satirical horror with a whip-smart script. ‘Babe’ Jennifer and her ‘dork’ best-friend Needy have a difficult friendship that’s further disrupted when a demon takes possession of Jennifer, and she starts killing the boys at their school.

Read more and get your tickets via the Hebden Bridge Picture House website.

To mark the launch of the audio version of How to Survive Everything, author Ewan Morrison chatted to the audiobook’s narrator, Olivia Caw.

You can catch up on the launch here.

Check out the audiobook here.

About the book

Longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize 2021

Shortlisted for the Bookmark Festival Book of the Year 2021

“I wasn’t sure there could be a great pandemic novel. Here it is.” Ian Rankin

My dad taught us to be prepared for whatever was coming.

He said we should know the facts about how long we could survive without food, water or fresh air, and to remember that we couldn’t live at all without hope. It was better, he said, to be ahead of the game.

Better to be ten years too early than one minute too late. That’s why he did what he did, on that morning …

Inspired by her father’s advance planning and her own ingenuity and courage, this is one teenage girl’s survival guide for navigating life under a new, even more deadly pandemic from the confines of a prepper compound. Will she ride out the collapse of everything she knows, and how can she save her family – and sanity?

About Ewan Morrison

Ewan Morrison is a multi-award-winning novelist, screenwriter and essayist. His 2021 novel, How to Survive Everything, received critical acclaim in the UK, is in development for a TV series and will be published in the US in 2022, while his 2019 novel, Nina X, won the Saltire Society Scottish Fiction Book of the Year and is currently being developed as a feature film with a multi-award-winning director. He has previously won the Scottish Book of the Year Fiction Prize (2013) and the Glenfiddich Scottish Writer of the Year (2012). His first feature film, an adaptation, was released in five territories in 2016, and was a finalist for four international film awards. American Blackout, a feature length docudrama co-written by Morrison, reached an estimated audience of 30 million viewers. Morrison has also been nominated for three Scottish BAFTAs.

About Olivia Caw

Olivia Caw is an actor from Glasgow, Scotland. She is managed by Mary Liz Management.

‘OFFIE’ NOMINEE 2022
“Olivia Caw… is exceptional… Her energy is like nothing we’ve seen before.”- West End Best friend, Trainspotting Live 2022.
“Olivia Caw portrayed every female character with such energy, passion, and conviction that you were left marveling at how she had the emotional energy to finish the show” – Eyes on Stage, Trainspotting Live 2022.
“Narrated by a star in the making, Olivia Caw. Thrilling, dark, funny” – Saraband Books, ‘How to Survive Everything’ 2023.

In collaboration with the GFT in Glasgow, we are proud to present Queer Reflections on Horror: Jennifer’s Body + Q&A with Kirsty Logan.

Get your tickets via the GFT website here.

Join Saraband at the GFT on June 3rd to celebrate all things queer and all things horror as we launch new essay anthology It Came From the Closet: Queer reflections on horror. The event will feature a screening of Jennifer’s Body followed by a Q&A with contributing author Kirsty Logan.

Read more and get your tickets via the GFT website.

Debut author Andrew Millham is launching his book Singing Like Larks at The Blue Boar, Maldon in association with Maldon Books on April 20th. Join Andrew as he celebrates his book, discussing his exploration of why birds appear in so many folk songs. Andrew will also be playing music and signing books.

Book your free tickets here.

This event will take place upstairs at 7pm in The Blue Boar’s function room, The Long Room. This event is free to attend but you are welcome to preorder a copy of Andrew’s book with your ticket that will be signed on the night. There will be more books to purchase at the event too.

You can also find Andrew at a number of events over the next few weeks – details below.

North Country (ed. Karen Lloyd) will be launched at The Portico Library, Manchester on April 26th.

Book your ticket here.

Nature writer Karen Lloyd launches a collection of nature and place writing on the North of England by writers from the past and present, including emerging voices, published by Saraband. She will introduce readings from Anita Sethi and other authors. Hosted by Dr David Cooper.

The North of England abounds with beauty, from unspoiled Northumbrian beaches and green Yorkshire Dales to the dramatic Lakeland Fells, for so long celebrated by writers and artists. Wide estuaries, winding rivers, sheer cliffs, rushing waterfalls, ancient woodland, limestone pavements, and miles of hedgerows and drystone walls sustainably built and rebuilt over centuries – all form part of its rich heritage.

But these are, too, contested and depleted landscapes. Today the curlew’s call is isolated, habitat is pressured and diminishing, and many species are in decline. Industry, urban sprawl and climate chaos threaten our environment on a previously unimagined scale. And while stereotypes persist – of dark satanic mills or “bleak” moorland – the imperative of conservation is all too often overlooked for short-term economic interests.

This essential volume reminds us how and why Northern people have risen to the challenge of defending their open spaces, demanding action on pollution and habitat loss. Contemporary writers including Sarah Hall, Lee Schofield, Benjamin Myers and Lemn Sissay take their place alongside those who wrote in previous centuries. Together, the voices in this one-of-a-kind anthology testify that North Country is a place apart.

Karen Lloyd is an award-winning writer of non-fiction and poetry based in Kendal, Cumbria. Her most recent book, Abundance, was longlisted for the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing in 2022. Both her debut, The Gathering Tide, which explores the edgelands of Morecambe Bay, and her second book, The Blackbird Diaries, won Lakeland Book Awards and were selected as books of the year, in the Observer and the Birdwatcher’s Handbook. She has contributed to the Guardian Country Diary, Royal Geographical Society magazine, BBC Wildlife and Countryfile, and she edited and produced Curlew Calling Anthology to raise awareness of curlew restoration. Karen gained her PhD from Lancaster University, where she now teaches part time on the Creative Writing MA and is writer in residence at the Future Places Centre.

Anita Sethi was born in Manchester, UK where her love of nature first flourished in childhood, in wild urban spaces. She has contributed to anthologies including Seasons, Common People, and Women on Nature, has written for the Guardian, Observer, i, Sunday Times, Telegraph, Vogue, BBC Wildlife, New Statesman and Times Literary Supplement, and appeared on various BBC Radio programmes. She has been shortlisted for Northern Writer of the Year at the Northern Soul Awards and Journalist of the Year at the Asian Media Awards, and has judged the British Book Awards and Society of Author Awards. She has lived around the world including being an International Writer in Residence in Melbourne. Her career highlights include going birdwatching with Margaret Atwood in the UK’s oldest nature reserve.

Dr David Cooper is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University where he is also the founding Co-Director of the Centre for Place Writing. His critical and creative research focuses on the relationship between literature and geography with a particular focus on the landscapes of North-West England. Before doctoral study at Lancaster University, David’s career in arts development included roles as Arts Officer at the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere and Literature Development Officer for the City of York.

In collaboration with London’s Rio cinema, we are proud to present Queer Reflections on Horror: Jennifer’s Body + Q&A with Joe Vallese and Kirsty Logan.

Get your tickets via the Rio website here.

Join Saraband at the Rio on June 8th to celebrate all things queer and all things horror as we launch new essay anthology It Came From the Closet: Queer reflections on horror. The event will feature a screening of Jennifer’s Body followed by a Q&A and book signing with editor Joe Vallese who will be visiting from New York, and contributing author Kirsty Logan.

Read more and get your tickets via the Rio website here.

Case Study author Graeme Macrae Burnet was a guest on last week’s episode of The Big Scottish Book Club. Talking to Damian Barr, Graeme was joined by Denise Mina and Stuart Cosgrove to discuss their books.

You can catch up on the episode on BBC iPlayer here.

About Case Study

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2022

“A page-turning blast, funny, sinister and perfectly plotted … Rarely has being constantly wrong-footed been so much fun.” James Walton, The Times

“Very funny … engrossing.” Guardian

“Brilliant, bamboozling … burstingly alive and engaging.” Telegraph

“Compelling … I was hooked like a fish.” Spectator

‘I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger.’

London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character.

In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling – and often wickedly humorous – meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.

About Graeme Macrae Burnet

Born in Kilmarnock, Graeme Macrae Burnet is among the UK’s leading contemporary novelists, having achieved both critical acclaim and best-selling status around the world. He lives in Glasgow, where he studied film and English literature. After teaching English overseas and working as a researcher in the television industry, he won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2013 and now writes full-time. He is best known for his dazzling Booker-shortlisted second novel, His Bloody Project. Graeme is also the author of two French-set detective novels: The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau (2014) and The Accident on the A35 (2017). Case Study is his fourth novel and was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.

Last week marked the official launch of Cold Fish Soup, by Adam Farrer. The event was hosted by our friends at Blackwell’s in Manchester and was chaired by Adam’s friend and mentor, Jenn Ashworth – herself a widely published author and Professor of Writing at Lancaster University.

About the Cold Fish Soup launch

Joined by an enthusiastic crowd which included Adam’s friends and family, the event was a total success. Anyone who knows Adam knows how funny and quick-witted he is, but he also allowed himself to be completely vulnerable and opened up to the audience about some of the darker topics discussed in his book.

Adam read passages from two of his essays, including anecdotes about his teenage quest to become Steven Tyler, and a fond remembrance of his late brother, Robert. The extracts he chose perfectly encapsulate the essence and range of the book, with the first making the entire audience laugh out loud and the second leaving Adam emotional and the crowd thoughtful as he paid tribute to Robert.

After Jenn had finished interviewing Adam, she opened the evening to questions from the audience. There were plenty of raised hands. During the Q&A Adam revealed aspects of his writing process and how it felt to write about his family.

When Wendy, a former colleague of Adam’s from a magazine they had both worked for in the late ’90s, asked a question, Adam answered – and was reminded of a pivotal moment for him. She asked when he first realised he was a writer, to which he replied that it was in fact Wendy herself who had given him the confidence to pursue writing as a career, when she had praised his work.

Another audience member described Adam as a ‘literary rock star’ – which certainly felt apt after the event, when the book signing queue ran the length of the entire shop floor.

We had the best time celebrating Cold Fish Soup with Adam and everyone who attended. We can’t thank the team at Blackwell’s and Jenn Ashworth enough for making the evening so brilliant, and of course Adam himself, for being on top form!

Cold Fish Soup

About Cold Fish Soup

WINNER OF THE 2021 NORTHBOUND BOOK AWARD

“Witty and introspective … moving … vivid evocations of the landscape … Echoing the canny writing of David Sedaris, Farrer has a knack for wringing hilarity from life’s grim moments … this meditation on the beauty of impermanence charms.” Publishers Weekly

Before Adam Farrer’s family relocated to Withernsea in 1992, he’d never heard of the Holderness coast. The move represented one thing to Adam: a chance to leave the insecurities of early adolescence behind. And he could do that anywhere. What he didn’t know was how much he’d grow to love the quirks and people of this faded Yorkshire resort, in spite of its dilapidated attractions and retreating clifftops.

While Adam documents the minutiae of small-town life, he lays bare experiences that are universal. His insights on family, friendship, male mental health and suicide are revealed in stories of reinvention, rapacious seagulls, interdimensional werewolves, burlesque dancing pensioners, and his compulsion towards the sea.

Cold Fish Soup is an affectionate look at a place and its inhabitants, and the ways in which they can shape and influence someone, especially of an impressionable age. Adam’s account explores what it means to love and be shaped by a place that is under threat, and the hope – and hilarity – that can be found in community.

About Adam Farrer

Adam Farrer is a writer and editor who has performed at festivals and events including Manchester Literature Festival and the Northern Lights Writers Conference. His work has been published in the anthology Test Signal and he edits the creative non-fiction journal The Real Story, as well as teaching writing workshops. Cold Fish Soup is his first book.

We’ve had a jam-packed few weeks celebrating the return of the full, glorious, in-person Edinburgh International Book Festival, and we loved it! Our ever-brilliant Saraband authors joined forces with a range of interesting panellists and chairs, pulling in audiences both in-person and online to hear more about their books and ideas at Edinburgh’s iconic festival.

If you missed out on visiting EIBF this year, here’s Saraband’s highlights reel from the festival, with a few behind-the-scenes images at the end… Keep scrolling!

Starting with our Booker-longlist star Graeme Macrae Burnet, in conversation with Jenny Niven

Reading an extract at the beginning of the event

Graeme entertained a packed audience in the Baillie Gifford Sculpture Court with tales of studying women’s magazines from the ’60s to get into the head of his narrator, and whether his novels are modern, postmodern, or neither. Full of Graeme’s signature wit, this was an event not to be missed.

It is available to watch until September 30th, 2022. You can watch it here.

You can read more about Graeme’s event in The Scotsman here.

Catherine Simpson: Our Bodies, Ourselves, with Tanya Shadrick and Maddie Mortimer

One Body author Catherine Simpson was joined by another of this year’s Booker-longlisted authors, Maddie Mortimer (Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies) and Tanya Shadrick, author of The Cure for Sleep, in the Northside Theatre. Chaired by Casi Dylan, this was a deep dive into women’s health, shame, fear and how the authors’ own experiences infused their writing. Of the event, The Scotsman said, “You can never predict when a conversation between writers will catch fire, but this one emphatically did. I only wish more people could have seen it.”

You can read more about the event in The Scotsman’s article here and on the Portobello Book Blog here.

Olga Wojtas in conversation with Jenny Brown: Murder, Martial Arts and Macbeth

In the Wee Red Bar Olga’s sold-out conversation with Jenny covered the adventures of Olga’s indomitable Shona McMonagle, aka Miss Blaine’s Prefect. Olga explained how Shakespeare had completely misrepresented the history of the real Macbeth, which she has ‘corrected’ in Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Weird Sisters. Pure festival gold!

You can read more about Olga’s event on the Portobello Book Blog here.

Adam Farrer & Jon Ransom: Washed Up on the East Coast

With an audience filling Baillie Gifford West Court, and viewers tuning in online, Adam Farrer’s debut at EIBF was a smash success. During this event with fellow debut author Jon Ransom, chair Lewis Camley discussed the influence of the east coast on Adam and Jon’s writing in Cold Fish Soup and The Whale Tattoo. The talk was a deeply personal introspect on the writing process of each book, and is definitely worth a watch.

Adam’s event is available to watch online now.

Ewan Morrison with C.A. Fletcher: Great Pandemic Novels

Back in the Wee Red Bar, How to Survive Everything author Ewan Morrison and C A Fletcher (Dead Water) discussed themes around pandemics, prepping for survival, and the impact of Covid-19, with chair Zoe Venditozzi. They covered what it was like to write in isolation during the height of the pandemic and how people have responded to their novels, as well as answering all kinds of pandemic-related questions.

Rosemary Goring, Andrew Greig & Sue Lawrence: Mary, Quite Contrary

On the festival’s final day, Sue Lawrence was joined by fellow historical novelists Rosemary Goring and Andrew Greig to talk all about Scotland under the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, when Sue’s The Green Lady is set. Chair Lisa Highton posed an interesting question: what do you wish Mary Queen of Scots hadn’t done?

This is available to watch online until September 30th, 2022. You can watch it here.

You can read more about the event, and the answers to Lisa’s question, on the Portobello Book Blog here.

And now for those behind-the-scenes images! First, Graeme outside the festival entrance on a glorious sunny morning.

Critic and podcaster Alistair Braidwood of Scots Wha Hae with Olga Wojtas and Gail Wylie, of Bookmark Festival, Blairgowrie:

And Graeme comparing notes on the Booker longlist, Class of 2022, with Maddie Mortimer.

See you there next year! It’s been fantastic.

Slainte!

Last week we were at Waterstones Edinburgh West End for the launch of One Body, the latest memoir by Catherine Simpson.

One Body launch

Chaired by Mary Paulson-Ellis, on Thursday evening we celebrated with Catherine in an evening of fun. Kindly hosted by Waterstones Edinburgh West End, the launch included a Q&A, a reading by Catherine and a chance to have your copy of One Body signed.

: Image by Waterstones

: Image by David Bishop

: Image by Menna Rowlands

In One Body, after her diagnosis Catherine discusses the support she has from her family, husband, Cello, and daughters, Nina and Lara. It was great to see some of our Saraband family at the event too, including Case Study author Graeme Macrae Burnet.

Image by Kristin Pedroja

About One Body

By the time she reached her fifties, Catherine Simpson and her body had gone through a lot together – from period pain, an abortion and early menopause to shaming and harassment. But there had been success, joy, love and laughter too: far more freedoms than her mother had, a fulfilling family life and career, and the promise of more gains for her daughters.

So when a cancer diagnosis upends her life, Catherine is forced to reflect on her body, then and now. From having been brought up on a farm where vets were more common than doctors, and where illness was ‘a nuisance’, she finds herself faced with the nuisance of a lifetime.

One Body is the candid, searing and often darkly funny story of how Catherine navigates her treatment and takes stock of the emotions and reflections it provokes, until her cancer is in remission. And how she comes to appreciate the skin she is in – to be grateful for her body and all that it does and is.

About Catherine Simpson

Catherine Simpson is a novelist, journalist, poet and short story writer based in Edinburgh. Her memoir When I Had a Little Sister was published by 4th Estate in February 2019 to great acclaim, and her debut novel Truestory was published in 2015. In 2013 she received a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. Her work has been published in various anthologies and magazines, published online and broadcast on BBC Radio. Born on a Lancashire dairy farm, she is now based in Edinburgh.

Were you at the One Body launch?

If you were in attendance on the night, please tag us in your photos of the event on social media (@sarabandbooks)!