About this Event
Join us on Wednesday 18th September when we will be joined by Rodge Glass to celebrate the release of his memoir Joshua in the Sky.
Joshua dies on his birthday.
Joshua dies the day he is born.
Joshua lives for three hours.
Joshua is alive.
Rodge Glass's nephew Joshua died the same day he was born, from a blood condition they both share.
This book charts the five years around Joshua's life and death to tell the story of Rodge's attempts to make sense of this loss. Having spent a lifetime using reading and writing to both hide from and face the world, Joshua in the Sky serves as a kind of reckoning, asking the questions: whose life deserves to be remembered? And how?
A work of great tenderness and originality' - Malachy Tallack
It found me in pieces then gently wove me back together again' - Helen Sedgwick
A truly remarkable piece of writing - Gavin Esler
Rodge Glass is the author of the novels No Fireworks (Faber, 2005), Hope for Newborns (Faber, 2008) and Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs (Serpent's Tail, 2012) as well as a graphic novel, Dougie's War (Freight, 2010, written with Dave Turbitt), LoveSexTravelMusik: Stories for the EasyJet Generation (Freight, 2013) and Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography (Bloomsbury, 2008). His latest book is Michel Faber: The Writer & His Work, published by Liverpool University Press, in August 2023. The creative nonfiction memoir Joshua in the Sky is due to be published in Summer 2024 by Taproot Press. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde, where he is Convener of the MLitt in Creative Writing.
Rodge will be in conversation with Esa Aldegheri, a multilingual writer, educator and researcher with a PhD in community education and migration studies. She works at the University of Glasgow. Her non-fiction debut Free to Go (John Murray Press, 2022) moves beyond the parameters of a simple travel narrative to explore different aspects of freedom and borders, both geopolitical and personal. It is a story about travelling from Orkney to New Zealand on a motorbike shared with a willing companion, interwoven with a parallel tale of diminished liberties linked to the author’s experiences of motherhood, Brexit and pandemic restrictions.
Esa’s non-fiction writing has also been published by Granta, Gutter Press, the Dangerous Women Project and others. Her poetry has been read on Radio 4 and Radio Scotland and features in several anthologies. She is from Scotland and Italy, and lives with her husband and children by the sea near Edinburgh.
This is sure to be a great evening, followed by a Q&A and a signing, so if you'd like to join us grab your tickets now!
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Waterstones, 128 Princes Street, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
GBP 5.00 to GBP 18.00
