We are absolutely delighted to welcome Alycia Pirmohamed back to the bookshop for a celebration of her latest book, Shorelines: Memory, migration and the selves we become. Thrumming with poetic vitality and questions about the legacies of migration, Shorelines is Pirmohamed's Nan Shepherd Prize-winning non-fiction debut.
This very special Edinburgh launch will take place two weeks before the book is published, so attendees will have the unique chance to hear about it and get their hands on a copy before anyone else!
Pirmohamed will be in conversation with fellow writer Andrés N. Ordorica. Join us in the shop for a discussion, where you'll have the chance to ask Alycia a question, and get your book signed and personalised.
About Shorelines:
As a young Muslim woman Alycia Pirmohamed grew up with her body as racialised and her faith as seemingly dangerous Her affinity to the natural world - the mountains, elk and pines of her childhood - conflicted with feelings that she was unwelcome in these landscapes. By contrast, the stories of her parents' homeland - the monsoon winds, red clay roads and abundant korosho trees - felt painfully distant.
Across interrelated pieces that move from Midwestern Canada to East Africa, the Pacific Northwest to the British Isles, the award-winning poet traces the legacies of migration and memory on her life, examining the idea of homeland and the mythmaking it demands. She creatively resists the expectations of nature writing and memoir, at times choosing to withhold as much as she reveals.
Shorelines moves from lavender skies to lighthouses, from surefooted ideas to liminal spaces. It asks what it means to carry hidden histories across borders and generations - and how losing family can mean losing the place they are from too. Above all, it explores how place and identity intertwine, and how our choices, our actions and the ways we build community shape us into who we become.
Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants:
Alycia Pirmohamed Author
Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of the poetry collection Another Way to Split Water, and a part of the nature writing project, Field Notes Collective. Her nonfiction debut A Beautiful and Vital Place won the 2023 Nan Shepherd Prize and is forthcoming with Canongate in 2026. Alycia currently teaches on the Creative Writing master’s at the University of Cambridge.
Andrés N. Ordorica Chair
Andrés N. Ordorica is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. His writing seeks to illuminate love and loss. He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know and Holy Boys and the novel How We Named the Stars. He has been shortlisted for the Kavya Prize, Morley Lit Prize, Mo Siewcharran Prize, Jhalak Poetry Prize and Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. In 2024, he was selected as one of The Observer’s 10 Best Debut Novelists. The following year he was named by The Skinny as one of 12 of Scotland’s Next Generation of Writers.