Featured Events in Robertson in November, 2025 (May Updated)

Lin Anderson is best known as the creator of the best selling forensic scientist Dr Rhona MacLeod series of forensic thrillers, beginning in 2003 with Driftnet; number 19 in the series, The Dead and the Dying, is released in Aug 2025. How did she begin and where is she going? Lin Anderson explores these questions in Forensic Fact Meets Fiction. Lin has a second mystery thriller series featuring private investigator Patrick de Courvoisier, set in glamorous Cannes (think The Rockford Files meets James Bond), and is described as a Tartan Noir crime novelist and screenwriter. Lin regularly chairs events at literary and science festivals and conferences, and gives talks on Forensic Fact Meets Forensic Fiction entertaining audiences with amazing true-crime anecdotes, and giving unique insights into her world of story-telling. Lin was born in Greenock to Scottish and Irish parents. A graduate of both Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, she taught computing in secondary schools before deciding to write full-time. She is a former Chair of The Society of Authors in Scotland and, alongside Alex Gray, is a founder of Bloody Scotland, the Stirling-based crime writing festival. Her work has been translated into multiple languages. Lin is also an accomplished scriptwriter. The screenplay of her first film, Small Love (broadcast on Scottish Television in 2001 and 2002), earned her a TAPS Writer of the Year Award 2001 nomination, and the second, River Child, won both a Scottish BAFTA for Best Fiction and the Celtic Film Festival’s Best Drama prize. She professes herself to be a huge fan of the film Braveheart, even going so far as to write a book, Braveheart: From Hollywood to Holyrood (2004), about the making of it. Check out the A Blether O' Books 2025 Collection for other events in this series. Refunds will only be given in the event of cancellation by organisers. Information Source: Robert Burns Birthplace Museum | eventbrite

Lesley Riddoch brings a PhD comparing Scotland and Norway, 7 years (and a book) renting an Aberdeenshire Hut and a lifetime campaigning for land reform to the overlooked subject of how we spend our leisure time, and what that does to us and our indoor kids. One of Scotland’s best-known commentators and broadcasters, Lesley was born in Wolverhampton to a mother from Wick and a dad from Banffshire. She grew up in Belfast, moved to Glasgow at the age of 13, went to Oxford University (where she was the first non-Tory President of the Student's Union), did a postgraduate journalism course at Cardiff University and completed a PhD at Strathclyde University in 2020. She is best known for broadcasting with programmes on BBC2, Channel 4, Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland, for which she won two Sony speech broadcaster awards but was also Assistant Editor of the Scotsman and edited the paper when it became the Scotswoman on International Women’s Day 1995, and was part of the start-up team for the Sunday Herald. She’s written weekly columns for the National since its inception in 2014 and used to write for the Herald, Scotsman & Guardian. Lesley was a member of the trust that helped the people of Eigg buy their own island in 1997 and founded Africawoman, a charity that trained female journalists across the continent. In 2020 she won the Saltire Society Fletcher of Saltoun Award for her contribution to public life. Lesley has co-presented a weekly podcast for more than a decade. She has written five books - Huts: A Place Beyond, McSmorgasbord, Riddoch On The Outer Hebrides, Blossom: What Scotland Needs To Flourish, Thrive: The Freedom To Flourish and co-produced/presented six films (the latest about Denmark was being screened in early 2024). The latest film, plus others about Norway, Faroes, Iceland, Estonia and the Declaration of Arbroath, are available online. Lesley is co-founder and director of the Scottish think tank Nordic Horizons which has brought dozens of Nordic specialists over to Scotland to speak with (and hopefully inspire) MSPs, civil servants and the Scottish public since 2011. Check out the A Blether O' Books 2025 Collection for other events in this series. Refunds will only be given in the event of cancellation by organisers. Information Source: Robert Burns Birthplace Museum | eventbrite

Multi-talented Gerda Stevenson presents her wide-ranging work in Consider the Quines, including her celebrated book QUINES: Poems in tribute to Women of Scotland, as well as songs associated with these remarkable quines. Gerda Stevenson is an award-winning writer/actor/director/singer-songwriter, working in theatre, tv, opera, radio and film. She has presented her poetry and prose at literary festivals throughout the UK and across Europe. Her play, Federer Versus Murray, toured to New York, sponsored by the Scottish Government, and her first two poetry collections, If This Were Real, and Quines: Poems in Tribute to Women of Scotland, have also been published in Rome in Italian translations. Other publications include a book of short stories, Letting Go: a Timeline of Tales, and a third poetry collection, Tomorrow’s Feast. Nominations include: for the Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award (New York), for the Trad Awards as Scots Singer of the Year for an album of her own songs, Night Touches Day, and three times for the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland. The founder of Scotland’s leading women’s theatre company, Stellar Quines, she has directed and appeared in many theatre productions and films, including Braveheart, winning a BAFTA for her performance in Margaret Tait’s feature film Blue Black Permanent. Gerda has also directed several films, including The Storm Watchers, a play by George Mackay Brown, commissioned by the St Magnus International Festival, and, most recently, Paper Portraits, a film about the paper makers of Penicuik, once the biggest papermaking town in the UK. Check out the A Blether O' Books 2025 Collection for other events in this series. Refunds will only be given in the event of cancellation by organisers. Information Source: Robert Burns Birthplace Museum | eventbrite

What was happening elsewhere in the world when Robert the Bruce was outlawed and Mary Queen of Scots lost her head? When Genghis Khan was on the warpath and Ivan the Terrible was the Russian czar, what was happening in Scotland? Connecting Two Millenia of Scotland's History places events in Scotland in relation to those elsewhere. This talk will explore how this comparative timeline shows us what is distinctive about Scotland’s historical experiences whilst also seeing how some were part of wider cultural or political change in Europe and beyond. John Knox’s fiery sermons of the 1560s were connected into a wider Protestant Reformation, but they also represented a singularly Scottish version of a European phenomenon. It will also explore how Connecting Scotland’s histories gives us a history of ‘many Scotlands’, to consider the hybrid nature of a country where multiple peoples have come together in a distinctively Scottish mixture. From the Gaels, Picts and Norse people to more recent influxes from England, Ireland, continental Europe and beyond, Scotland’s history tells us of internal connections as well as connections between Scotland and the wider world. Dr Anna Groundwater is a cultural and social historian of early modern Scotland, currently Principal Curator of Renaissance and Early Modern History at National Museums Scotland. She is the author of Connecting Scotland's History: a Scottish history timeline within 2,000 years of world history (Luath Press, 2025). Check out the A Blether O' Books 2025 Collection for other events in this series. Refunds will only be given in the event of cancellation by organisers. Information Source: Robert Burns Birthplace Museum | eventbrite