The Mallaig Book Festival
A Write Highland Hoolie!
8 - 10  November 2024 

Graeme Macrae Burnet is the author of five novels: His Bloody Project, Case Study and the French-set Georges Gorski trilogy, the final part of which, A Case   Of Matricide, will be published in October 2024. His Bloody Project was shortlisted for the 2016 Booker prize, the LA Times Mystery Book of the Year and the European Crime Fiction prize and won the Saltire Prize for Fiction. It was variously described as ‘astonishing’, ‘fiendishly readable’ and ‘spellbinding’. Case Study was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and included in The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2022. Hannah Kent called it, ‘a novel of mind-bending brilliance.’ Graeme was born in Kilmarnock and now lives in Glasgow.  His work has been translated into over twenty languages and he has appeared at festivals all over the world.

​Linda Cracknell is inspired first and foremost by place. She writes narrative non-fiction on the natural world, as well as fiction and radio scripts, and is a teacher of creative writing. Her first story collection was nominated for a Saltire Award and the Robin Jenkins Award for environmental writing. Doubling Back: Ten Paths Trodden in Memory was serialised as a BBC Radio Book of the Week. It traces the contours of history across Norway, Kenya, Skye and Lindisfarne as Linda sets out on paths long mythologised by writers and relatives gone before, charting how places immortalised in writing and memory create portals through time and geography, allowing us to walk in the footsteps of others. The new revised edition includes a journey through the Flow Country as Linda reflects on humanity’s future on this fragile earth.

Suzie Edge trained as a molecular biologist before going on to work as a junior doctor in a variety of medical specialities. She then completed an MLitt in Modern History to feed her fascination for the history of medicine and the human body. She loves telling stories of how we have treated the human body in life and death and is always on the lookout for gory historical details. In Mortal Monarchs, Suzie examines 1,000 years of royal deaths to uncover the plots, accusations, rivalries and ever-present threat of poison faced by the kings and queens of old. 

Vital Organs tells the remarkable stories of the world’s most famous body parts, from how Louis XIV’s rear end inspired the British National Anthem to the link between Queen Victoria’s armpit and the development of antiseptics. Expect a session that informs, captivates, shocks, and intrigues.

In 2018, amateur cyclist Jenny Graham became the fastest woman to circumnavigate the world by bicycle, completing the 18,000-mile journey in just 124 days while travelling solo and self-supported. Fixing her bike on the go, sleeping by the roadside and cycling through the night, she never lost sight of her goal, and when she crossed the finish line four months later, she smashed the previous world record held by a woman by nearly three weeks.

In her book Coffee First Then the World, Jenny shares her stories with humility, wit and honesty as she battles the physical and mental challenges of her journey while racing against the clock. From terrifying near-collisions in Russia to weather extremes in Australia and astonishing wildlife encounters in North America, Jenny takes her readers on the ride of a lifetime, making numerous memorable connections and new friends along the way.

Writer and theatre director David Greig was born in Edinburgh in 1969. His plays, adaptations and musical scripts have been performed widely in the UK and around the world, and in 2016 he became the Artistic Director of Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre. Columba’s Bones, his first novel, is a thrilling read rooted in the history of Iona and its early monks. Following a night of rampage on the island in 825, a Viking wakes up to find himself alone, hungover and abandoned by his crew mates. There are no boats, and the only surviving monk on the island has taken his sword. Against these odds, he must try to find the sacred relics of St Columba that brought him there and rejoin his Viking comrades. Described as “As violent as a Tarantino movie . . . with some fine  poetic touches,” this impressive debut is a real page-turner.

A former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Director of Programmes at Scottish Television and founder of the Borders Book Festival, Alistair is the author of numerous highly acclaimed books. From 2011 he was Rector of the University of St Andrews. He has written more than thirty books on Scottish history and lives in the Scottish Borders. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland brings to life the events and people who have shaped Highland history. This is history as it has never been told before, from the formation of the landscape millions of years ago to the twenty-first century. It mines a wide range of sources from medieval manuscripts to poetry and popular culture. Alistair also explores the experience of ordinary Highlanders and Islanders over thousands of years.

Don Paterson is the author of numerous works of poetry and non-fiction and has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Costa Poetry Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize on two occasions. He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009 and is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at the University of

St Andrews. He is also a jazz musician and composer. Born in Dundee in 1963, he grew up on a council estate and spent his time dodging games of toy fights, working with his musician dad, developing a sugar addiction, playing his guitar and obsessing over God, origami and the Osmonds. Those first 20 years, before he packed his guitar and headed for London, shaped who he would become – for better or for worse. Thought-provoking, sardonic and at times laugh-out-loud hilarious, this searingly honest memoir is already being hailed as a future classic.

Wordsmith Tom O. Keenan’s writing, which encompasses novels, poems, songs, short stories and plays, is informed by the thirty years he spent as a social worker in mental health care. He claims that the experience was his apprenticeship in understanding people and the dynamics that occur between them. He lives in Morar, in an old farm close to Arisaig’s famous Camusdarach Beach. His books include the Sean Rooney Psycho-sleuth Series, centred around a forensic profiler, and have been described as dark and gothic, with an increasing element of the supernatural and ghostly. The Father, which was set in Glasgow, was shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Debut Dagger Award in 2015, and since then he has published five books. Tom is currently working on The Ghost, the last in the Sean Rooney Psycho-sleuth Series.

In 2014, marine biologist Dr Natalie Sanders joined the crew of the research vessel Silurian to study Britain’s West Coast community of orca before they are lost forever. Relatively little is known about this pod of orca, but what is abundantly clear is that, like so much of our marine wildlife, they face major challenges due to the impact of pollution, entanglement, military sonar and climate change. This poignant yet captivating book takes the reader from the Western Isles of Scotland to Vancouver Island and more as it delves deep into the history of our relationship with these beautiful creatures to explain what their loss means and how we can avoid similar tragedies in future. Natalie Sanders now works as a marine consultant and has collaborated with the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust and charities in British Columbia. She lives in Bristol with her husband and two children.

Writer, storyteller and performer Dougie Strang lives in Argyll, where he and his wife help run a small farm. Much of his work, whether written or performed, is inspired by the nature and culture of the Scottish Highlands. He is a core member of the Dark Mountain Project, a network of writers, artists and thinkers whose work addresses the current social and environmental crisis. The Bone Cave takes the reader on a journey deep into the Highlands, tracing a series of folktales and myths to the locations in which they’re set. Heading out in October against the backdrop of the red deer rut, Dougie travels mainly on foot, often camping enroute. He brings a unique perspective to the places he passes through, exploring history, culture, land ownership and ecological stewardship alongside the living landscape of the present.