🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 31 Jan - 6 Feb 2024

Welcome to the 31st edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. It’s for paying subscribers only, so thank you for supporting this. Thanks to everyone who contributed! It really is a community effort and I just curate most of it. 

📚  February is a busy month of events at local bookshops so let’s start with a list of everything I could find. If I missed any, please add them to the comments and I’ll include them next week. 

  ⮑  The Portobello Bookshop: including Durre Shahwar, Nasia Sarwar-Skuse and Alycia Pirmohamed In conversation with Katie Goh. See the shop’s full listings here.

  ⮑  Lighthouse Bookshop: including Len Pennie, K Patrick and Lucy Debussy. See the shop’s full listings here. 
 ⮑  This evening (Wed 31 Jan from 7pm) Lighthouse hosts the launch of Origin Stories, a new collection of short stories and poems published by volunteer-run community arts charity The Forest.

 ⮑  It’s another bumper month at Topping & Co: including Louise Welsh, Sara Sheridan, Xinran, Jasper Fforde, former Fringe director Alistair Moffat, Jane Geddes, Hannah Kaner, Philip Ball and Hannah Ritchie (who’s also on Substack). See the shop’s full listings here. 

  ⮑  Typewronger Books: including Cé Simonis, Zinnie Harris, Cal Flyn and Serafina Crolla. See the month’s full listings here.

  ⮑  Argonaut Books: including fiction, horror, queer and wildcard bookclubs. See the shop’s full listings here.

  ⮑  The Edinburgh Bookshop: including Margaret Lillie, Kenneth Wilson and Caden Armstrong. See the shop’s full listings here.

  ⮑  Golden Hare Books: including Len Pennie in conversation with Kirsty Logan and the monthly book group. See the shop’s full listings here.

  ⮑  Pudding and Stories, Morningside: including storytime with Vivian French and Ross Mackay on Sunday 4 February. See the listings here.

   ⮑  Blackwell’s: including the book quiz on Monday 5 Feb, Lorraine Kelly on 11 Feb and Elizabeth May on 22 Feb in partnership with Cymera fest. See the month’s full listings here but be sure to search for ‘Edinburgh’ as the page has other locations too.

  ⮑  Waterstones West End: including Mayy Coyne, ‘One Day’ author David Nicolls, a ‘make a Valentines card’ workshop, Kate Foster and Gareth Brown. See the month’s full listings here.

  ⮑  Till’s Portobello: including the monthly Translation Table group. See the full listings here.

  ⮑  Rare Birds Stockbridge: including a Galentine’s Day party on 13 Feb. See their full listings here.

  ⮑  Edinburgh Community Bookshop: including the No Homework Book Club. See the month’s full listings here.

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📚  One more bit of local book news: Edinburgh-based author Briana Pegado has revealed details of her book: Make Good Trouble: A Practical Guide to The Energetics of Disruption will hit shelves on 9 April. - More details on Briana’s Instagram.

📚  I lied, there’s another bit of literary news: the latest issue of Books From Scotland features a few local authors, including Leslie Hills whose book ’10 Scotland Street’ charts the centuries-old history of her family home in the New Town. - Books From Scotland.

🎭  What's on Edinburgh's Stages this week?

Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre: 

“Good question. This week is all about the 17th annual Manipulate Festival of animation, puppetry and visual theatre. Indeed, The only two non-Manipulate offerings are at the Playhouse with 1974: the Abba Tribute Show (Saturday: tickets) and The Rock Orchestra by Candlelight (Sunday: tickets).

“Fortunately for our listings, there is plenty to see at Manipulate. We detail this weekend's shows at the Fruitmarket, Studio and Traverse here: and carry a full listing of all the Manipulate live performances - and a few words from CEO Dawn Taylor - here.”

🎨  A street art painting of Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda by Anna Dittmann has is on display at Quality Yard in Leith. Leith Street art facilitator David Organ shared a video of Anna’s process, along with a map comparing the size of Gaza with Edinburgh. David said: “If Gaza was overlaid over Edinburgh it would only cover the distance from Livingston in West Lothian, through the capital and out to Tranent in East Lothian. …since Anna Dittman's painting I have taken my head out of the sand and read more of the horrifying news from Gaza.” 

🎨  Dovecot Studios will host a guided tour of Andy Warhol: The Textiles, mixing cocktails, socialising and art appreciation. - Warhol After Hours will run once per month from 28 February to 15 May. - More details here.

🌈  A lunchtime guided tour of Talbot Rice Gallery’s current colourful and geological exhibition The Recent is on Friday from 12.30pm. Rachel Wood, palaeontologist, geologist and Chair of Carbonate Geoscience at the University of Edinburgh, will be on hand to take you around. - It’s free but register here in advance.

🎤  Susan Morrison hosts Portobello Comedy Night on Friday at Beach Lane Social Club. Also taking the mic: BBC Comedy Awards 2023 finalist Dean T Beirne. - Tickets are here.

🎶  The programme for the 43rd Edinburgh International Harp Festival has been published here.

🔊  It’s a big one at Summerhall on Friday: EHFM is hosting its first gig of the year for Independent Venue Week. Acts include Glasgow collective Azamiah and Edinburgh’s own Nikhita. - Tickets are here.

🎸  Sneaky Pete’s gigs for Independent Venue Week and weekend include Carla J Easton on Friday, Midnight Ambulance on Saturday and Conscious Pilot on Sunday. - Details are here.

🎺  On Saturday at Leith Depot: Tinderbox Collective and Granton Youth host performances by emerging local musicians and an informal panel event called NxNW: Support Your Scene on. The goal is: “Encouraging young people from across Edinburgh to join the conversation on what they need from the Edinburgh music scene”. It’s at Leith Depot, free entry, and more details are here. 

🎦  North Edinburgh Film Festival is on Saturday at the West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre from 12.30pm-5pm. It's a completely free event, and you're welcome to drop in throughout the day. - The line-up is here and the address is 19 West Pilton Grove, EH44BY. 

🎤  Documentary filmmaker John Dower, Scottish Tech Army’s Kirsty McIntosh and Cyrenians CEO Ewan Aitken are on the panel at this year’s ZAG Conference. It’s hosted by The Union at 18 Inverleith Terrace on Thursday 8 February. -  Learn more and register interest here. 

🎸  Singer and guitarist Cahalen Morrison will perform for this year’s first gig in the Soundhouse & Traverse One gig series on Thursday 15 February. He is from New Mexico but recently settled in Scotland and has ancestors on the Isle of Lewis, and you can hear influences of each place in his music. - More details, sounds and tickets are here.

🤝  Networking, jobs and funding opportunities: 

Here are the new opportunities, followed by the ‘still open’ list: