Publishing Scotland are hosting a Scottish Christmas Book Fair alongside Waterstones booksellers on Fri 20 and Sat 21 November 2026 between 10am – 4pm. Scotland’s publishers will be there to help you browse and buy from a massive selection of wonderful books. It's free entry to the Scottish Christmas Book Fair, but as part of the fair, we are programming a series of paid, ticketed author events on Saturday 21 November.
Scotland’s Poetry Showcase
With Alan Spence, Andres N. Ordorica, Ceitidh Chaimbeul, Nadine Aisha Jassat and Sarah Stewart
Saturday 21 November, 2.30pm – 3.30pm
Scotland’s poetry scene is as robust and as exciting as ever with a huge variety of poets writing and performing across all of Scotland’s languages. At this showcase you’ll enjoy a variety of form, language and preoccupation and all by poets at the top of their game.
Ticket Price
£5
More about Alan Spence
Alan Spence is an award-winning Scottish poet, novelist, playwright and short story writer, known for his haiku and reflective works rooted in Zen and everyday life. Born in Glasgow in 1947, he is Professor Emeritus in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen and was Edinburgh Makar from 2017 to 2021. He and his wife run the Sri Chinmoy Meditation Centre in Edinburgh. Alan has also spent a lot of time in Japan, gathering materials to enhance his writing.
More about Andres N. Ordorica
Andrés N. Ordorica (He/him) is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. Drawing on his family’s immigrant history and third culture upbringing, his writing maps the journey of diaspora and unpacks what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither here, nor there). He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know and novel How We Named the Stars. He has been shortlisted for the Morley Lit Prize, the Mo Siewcharran Prize and the Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. In 2024, he was selected as one of the Observer’s 10 Best Debut Novelists.
More about Ceitidh Chaimbeul
Ceitidh Chaimbeul is a bilingual poet with connections to Raasay, Lochalsh, Inverness and Penicuik. She started writing songs and poems whilst at the School of Scottish Studies. In 2018 she won the Gold Medal for solo singing at the Royal National Mòd and performs both traditional songs and her own compositions. She was the Scottish Poetry Library’s first Gaelic poetry ambassador. She produces original poetry in Gaelic with English-language glosses.
More about Nadine Aisha Jassat
Nadine Aisha Jassat was raised on the magic and power of stories. An award-winning writer, she is the author of poetry collection Let Me Tell You This (‘beautifully written, immense, and full of passion,’ – Nikita Gill), as well as three middle-grade novels: The Stories Grandma Forgot (And How I Found Them) (‘one of those books that truly makes the world a better place’ – Sophie Anderson), The Hidden Story of Estie Noor, nominated for a Carnegie Medal and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize, and The House at The Edge of the World (‘a glorious magical mystery’ - The Guardian). Her work has taken her around the world: from book tours in South Africa, to stage lights in Lagos, to her own local community library, and her poetry features on Scotland’s SQA secondary school syllabus.
More about Sarah Stewart
Sarah Stewart was born in Aberdeen and worked as a magazine journalist before moving into book publishing as a fiction editor. She has written for Time Out, The Herald, The Big Issue and The Guardian, among others. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Keats-Shelley Prize and the Wigtown Pamphlet Prize, highly commended in the Bloodaxe/Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Prize and longlisted for the Brotherton Prize. Her pamphlet Glisk (Tapsalteerie) won the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. Sarah also writes fiction as Sarah Forbes Stewart. Her novel Aren’t We Lucky was released as an Audible Original in 2025, narrated by Nicola Coughlan.