This month:
Writing progress, visit to Murrayfield Stadium archives, and a 5000 year old tree with a surprising legend.
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florajohnston.substack.com/p/april-2026...
You love books. Your house is full of them and you would *never* shelve them in that back-to-front way that is periodically fashionable but never forgiveable. Allow me to direct you to the UK's *only* books TV show:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
#booksky
🚨By-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party - lets get this to the 100,000 signatures needed
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...
Welcome to my January newsletter!
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Set 1918-1920 this focuses on two sisters and the parts they play in what comes after the War. Stella goes to Paris as a typist at the peace conference; Corran joins the YMCA School of Education to teach soldiers about to be demobbed. Loved it @florajowriter.bsky.social @allisonandbusby.bsky.social
Thank you so much, glad you enjoyed it!
See you there! Looking forward to it.
Sgt Peppers album cover consisting of things that only made it because of immigration in to the UK, either immigrants themselves, the children of or as a result of someone else coming here.
Farage wanting to kick people out of the country because they migrated here made me angry and made me think about which best of British people and things wouldn't have happened were it not for the brilliance of immigration to the UK.
The programme for this year's Bookmark book festival in Blairgowrie, 4-5 October. Tickets www.bookmarkblair.com
The programme for this year's Bookmark Blairgowrie book festival. A really excellent, high quality book festival in the heart of Perthshire. This year feat. @seanluskauthor.bsky.social @linanderson.bsky.social @billykayscot.bsky.social @florajowriter.bsky.social and many others. Well worth a visit.
The 2025 Portobello Book Festival Programme is now available!
Portobello Book Festival: 3rd – 5th October 2025Tickets for all events are free and available from Portobello Library The programme for this year’s festival was officially launched at the library last night. Copies are now available to…
Congratulations to Flora Johnston on the paperback launch of 'The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay' The compelling historical novel inspired by the pioneering Scottish aviator www.amazon.co.uk/Endeavour-El... @florajowriter.bsky.social
#HistoricalFiction #Booklaunch #Booksky 💙📚
Thank you!
Coming up in the second hour of the #TREBookshow, with Hannah Murray from 21.00CET - Ed Needham, editor of Strong Words Magazine , @ragriggsauthor.bsky.social , and @florajowriter.bsky.social #TuneIn on https://tre.radio or TRE Radio App
Coming soon: the third Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival. Tickets for all events available now! @EdWomensFicFest
The third Edinburgh Women's Fiction Festival will be taking place on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th September and I'm delighted to be part of the blogging team once again. Over the next…
Paperback copies of the novel The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay on a garden table
Look who's arrived in paperback! Well hello there, Elsie!
#TheEndeavourofElsieMackay
This is so niche I can't believe I am asking, but does anyone know anyone who might be an expert in Protestantism in Italy during the Reformation? (Stranger things have happened). RTs welcome.
Link isn't working for me, Rob.
Extract from a review of The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay
Thrilled to read this review of #TheEndeavourofElsieMackay in @writing.ie
'... a beautifully written historical fiction novel set against the bustling shipyards of the Clyde in Glasgow between 1927 and 1928 amid the burgeoning beginning of the golden age of aviation.'
www.writing.ie/readers/the-...
George Square by Jackie Kay My seventy-seven-year-old father put his reading glasses on to help my mother do the buttons on the back of her dress. ‘What a pair the two of us are!’ my mother said, ‘Me with my sore wrist, you with your bad eyes, your soft thumbs!’ And off they went, my two parents to march against the war in Iraq, him with his plastic hips, her with her arthritis to congregate at George Square where the banners waved at each other like old friends, flapping, where they’d met for so many marches over their years, for peace on earth, for pity’s sake, for peace, for peace.
My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress…
—“George Square”, by Jackie Kay
LIFE MASK, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 2005
Hear Jackie Kay read this poem on the @thepoetryarchive.bsky.social:
poetryarchive.org/poem/george-...
It's rainy but what a view. Hi Dundee Book Festival 👋 If you're in Dundee come in out of the wet at 4.30 to hear @florajowriter.bsky.social and I with all the histfic chat. tix: dundeebookfestival.com/product/sara-s…
A sonnet for St. Columba's day
You called me and I came to Colmcille
To learn at last the meaning of my name
Though you yourself were called, and not the caller,
He called through you and when He called I came
malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2025/06/09/c....
Lovely evening celebrating the publication of #WhispersintheGlen by Sue Lawrence at Edinburgh Blackwell's. A trip to Glen Clova is now a must do for this summer!
@jennybrownagency.bsky.social @saraband-books.bsky.social
We're thrilled to welcome back Susan Elsley with her #shortstory Sheepskin, out tomorrow @susanelsley.bsky.social
Top Ten Tuesday 6th May 2025: Authors Who Live In My Country #Scotland | #TopTenTuesday #amreading #bookrecommendations #TuesdayBookBlog
This week's topic: Authors Who Live In My Country Today's topic was submitted by Jennifer @ Funk-N-Fiction and we've to come up with ten authors who live in our…
Wow, thank you, Joanne!
So pleased to see Elsie included in Scottish Field's feature on 50 Greatest Scotswomen, accompanied by this haunting sketch of her by Sandy Morrison @sandysdrawingsroom.
#gettingtheexposureshedeserves
#TheEndeavourofElsieMackay
