Inverness Public Library, Sunday April 22, 2.15pm – 5.30pm

This event will provide an opportunity for a Jewish and wider audience to hear about modern Scottish Jewish writing, with four writers who will be talking about their work and taking part in a question and answer session on ‘life as a Jewish writer in Scotland’. It is also aimed at bringing local Jewish people together and hearing from them about the issues which concern them.

Children’s author Annemarie Allan won the 2007 Kelpies Prize and was shortlisted for the 2008 Scottish Children’s Book of the Year award. She will be working with young readers, talking about Scottish mythical monsters from her novel Ushig and reading the prologue to her forthcoming book, about a boy escaping from Danzig the morning after Kristallnacht.

Rodge Glass, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Strathclyde, won the Somerset Maughan award for his biography of Alasdair Gray. His latest novel, Bring me the Head of Ryan Giggs, (a ‘fine, bittersweet novel’ – The Independent) is out this month, published by Tindal Street Press.

J David Simons’ first novel The Credit Draper, about the Scottish-Jewish experience of a young Russian immigrant going off to become a travelling salesman in the Highlands, was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize. His second novel, The Liberation of Celia Kahn, also deals with the Scottish Jewish immigrant community in the early twentieth century. He won a Writers’ Bursary from Creative Scotland in 2009 and a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2011.

Sharon Mail’s book We Could Possibly Comment, Ian Richardson Remembered was described by John Sessions as ‘a glorious and heart-warming tribute to a superb and much-loved actor’. Sharon is the Scottish correspondent for the Jewish Telegraph, for whom she has been writing since 2006.

This event is part of the Being Jewish in Scotland project, a small scale inquiry funded by the Scottish Government and designed to find out issues of concern to Jewish people all over Scotland. Following a book signing session with all the authors, the Being Jewish in Scotland project worker Fiona Frank, will lead a discussion for local Jewish and other interested people and other interested people on the early findings of the inquiry

Elizabeth Parker, Senior Librarian at Inverness Library, said “We are very pleased that SCoJeC chose to bring this event to our library. Inverness Library sits right at the heart of a vibrant community and we are delighted to open our doors to be part of a Celebration of Jewish Writers in Scotland”.

Free event – all welcome. Refreshments will be provided.

Source: Fiona Frank