It’s hard to believe that we’re already in May! IBF2025 is now less than four months away and the first brilliant authors for our 2025 festival have already been announced.
Len Pennie
Len Pennie is a poet who writes predominantly in the Scots language. She writes passionately about the promotion of minority languages, survivors of domestic abuse, and the destigmatisation of mental illness. Her debut collection, poyums, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller, won Scots Book O The Year 2024, was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Awards and the British Book Awards, and was the best-selling debut poetry title of 2024.
Peter Mackay
‘S ann à Leòdhas a tha Pàdraig MacAoidh, agus chaidh dà leabhar bàrdachd leis fhoillseachadh le Acair – Gu Leòr (2015) agus Nàdur De (2020) – agus pamflaid le Clutag Press, From another island (2010). Tha e ag obair mar òraidiche aig Oilthigh Chill Rìmhinn agus o 2024 tha e air a bhith Makar na h-Alba.
Peter Mackay is a poet, broadcaster, translator and lecturer. He has two collections with Acair – Galore (2015) and Some Kind of (2020) – and a pamphlet, From another island (2010), with Clutag Press. Originally from the Isle of Lewis, he lives in Edinburgh and works in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. In 2024 he was appointed Scottish Makar.
Jen Stout
Jen Stout is an award-winning journalist and author from Shetland. Her debut non-fiction book Night Train to Odesa (2024, Polygon) was named best first book by the Saltire Society and is longlisted for the Highland Book Prize. It was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.
Jen has lived in Moscow and Leipzig, and has worked all over Ukraine covering the impact of Russia’s war on ordinary people. Her reporting there was shortlisted for prizes by Amnesty International, the Foreign Press Association, and the Scottish Press Awards; in 2023 she won a Travelling Scholarship from the Society of Authors. She writes most often for the Sunday Post, Prospect magazine, and the London Review of Books.
Before going freelance Jen was a local newspaper reporter, and a BBC radio and TV journalist. She lives in Edinburgh.
We can’t wait to see you all there!