Category Archives: Talks and Events

All posts relating to talks and events

In which the author bloodies up Blackwell’s Bookshop in Edinburgh…

 

Battles. Massacres. Murders and assassinations. Beheadings and hangings. Fire and plague. Religious strife and clan enmities. Urban warfare and suicide squads. Pirates and riots. Bodysnatching and heads on spikes. Gunpowder plots. Sea battles inside Leith harbour. Witchcraft burnings on Castlehill. Breaking on the wheel. Drowning alive in a coffin in the Nor’ Loch.

 

Edinburgh hasn’t always been the Light in the North. Its past is a blood-splattered horrorshow of dark deeds, and on Tuesday 6 November I’ll be launching my new book The Bloody History of Scotland: Edinburgh with an illustrated talk at the famous Blackwells Bookshop on South Bridge, Edinburgh. This saunter through the sanguinary excesses of the city’s unsavoury history will cover everything from brothel creepers to the location of a cannibal’s oven – not to mention a mysterious medieval knight who turned out to be a woman.

 
 
 

In which the Author talks about Haunted St Andrews on Halloween…

 

 

Poltergeists. Secret mummified corpses in the Haunted Tower. Apparitions of the White Lady and other distaff spectres. Death warnings. Doppelgangers. Vortices of invisible evil.

 

All these subjects will be present and correct on Halloween night when I’m the guest of Abertay Historical Society at the St Andrews Preservation Trust Museum, 12 North Street, St Andrews, KY16 9PW.

 

The illustrated talk starts at 7.30pm and a small charge is made for non-members. Places are limited – it’s a small museum – so book a place at 01334 477629, or email curator@standrewspreservationtrust.org. Copies of Haunted St Andrews will be available for sale on the night.

 
 

In which the Author turns up at the Whitefield Halloween Festival…

 

The Whitefield Halloween Festival in Bury, Greater Manchester, lasts for more than a week, with an impressive range of activities and events. On Wednesday 24th October I’m taking part in what is billed as a “Horror Writers Q & A”, a three-way event with fantasy novelist Ian Graham and Scott Stanford author of The Darker Side of Oz and Abaddon Rising.

 

The event is at the Welcome Inn (61 Bury Old Road, Whitefield, M45 6TA), starting at 7pm, and there will be ample opportunity for the audience to quiz the three of us – aspiring writers welcome. And if you turn up early at 5pm, you’ll catch bearded-weirdie cryptozoologist Richard Freeman talking about his adventures “In Search of Real Monsters” – definitely worth catching. See www.halloweenfest.org.uk/ for full details, follow on Facebook and check out the launch party video on that there YouTube.

 

In which the Author talks bodysnatching at Bellshill…

 

On Thursday 25th October I’ll be lurking with intent at the Bellshill Cultural Centre, talking about the history of Scottish bodysnatching, possibly with an element of audience participation.

 

The event starts at 7pm and is free, Booking not essential but advisable, on 01698 346770. The illustrated talk is part of the North Lanarkshire Cultural Festival, Encounters.

 

Is that graveyard dirt on your hands, sir…?

In which the Author heads off for Haddo House and the Unsolved Festival…

 

A quick reminder that on Saturday 20th October I’m appearing at ‘Unsolved’, Aberdeenshire’s Crime & Mystery Festival, which is taking place at the stately home of Haddo House near Methlick. Amidst the murders and crime writing, the films, and CSI tours of the house and gardens, at 4pm you can find me in the grand library (sadly without Colonel Mustard and a candlestick) talking about ‘Sex, Lies and Poltergeists’.

 

Aberdeenshire has the second oldest poltergeist case in Scotland, and I’ll be giving details of episodes from the 17th century to the present day, drawn from Haunted Aberdeen, The Guide to Mysterious Aberdeen, The Guide to Mysterious Aberdeenshire (all for sale on the day) and the forthcoming Poltergeist Over Scotland. Expect rains of stones, inundations, apports, wall-shaking noises, flying furniture and other inexplicable terrors, plus a fair dose of poltergeist hoaxing and fraud, as well as sexual shenanigans.

 

Tickets are £6 (£4 for concessions) and can be secured via the National Trust for Scotland website www.nts.org.uk/unsolved, or by phoning 0844 4932179. #

 

Programme for the weekend – Unsolvedleaflet2012

 
 

In which the Author has another book published…

 

The latter part of October sees the publication of my latest attempt at world literary domination, The Bloody History of Scotland: Edinburgh. The book is a speedy and sanguinary sprint through the city’s dark past, taking in everything from massacres and murders to witchcraft, torture and executions.

 

Events commence in the Dark Ages with the annihilation of the Goddodin warrior tribe, and continue through medieval wars and sieges onto dastardly deeds surrounding Mary, Queen of Scots, and a veritable rogues’ gallery of assassins, rioters, pirates, hangmen and cannibals. Bodysnatchers, serial killers, poisoners and Zeppelins bring up the rear, and, for light relief, there is also a diversion into Edinburgh’s nineteenth-century brothels and houses of pleasure, with their associated crimes, court cases and general depravity.

 

  1. “And There Was Slaughter”
  2. A Barricade of Dead Horses!
  3. Tortured to Death over Three Days – For Killing the King!
  4. Murdered at the Sign of the Black Bull!
  5. Slaughter on the Streets!
  6. “Burn Edinburgh to the Ground!”
  7. A Tapestry of Naked Corpses!
  8. Stabbed To Death – In Front of the Queen!
  9. Death of a King: Blown Up and Strangled
  10. Siege!
  11. Death and the Maiden
  12. A Sea Battle – Inside the Harbour
  13. Drowned Alive in the Loch!
  14. Burn the Witch!
  15. Plague
  16. A Concentration Camp – in the middle of Edinburgh
  17. The Dismembered Marquis!
  18. The Wizard of West Bow
  19. The Hangman was a Murderer
  20. He Roasted the Servant on a Spit – and then ate him!
  21. He Fired into the Crowd – and was Lynched by the Mob!
  22. Jacobite Conflicts and the War of the Chamber Pots
  23. Riot!
  24. Piracy and Murder of the High Seas!
  25. Duel!
  26. Fire!
  27. Burke and Hare – Serial Killers!
  28. Poison!
  29. Hanged By The Neck Until Ye Be Dead
  30. The Night of the Zeppelins
  31. Sex and Death

 

You can find more about the book through Facebook and from the website of the publishers, The History Press. Upcoming media coverage includes features in The Edinburgh Evening News and The Scottish Daily Mail. There’s also a free illustrated talk on the book taking place at the splendid Blackwells Bookshop on South Bridge in Edinburgh on Tuesday 6 November. The humble author will be waving his arms about and bellowing on about grisly deeds and ghastly anecdotes from 6.30pm, and signing books after the talk as well.

 

There shall be blood!