The summer season has begun in Great Britain and in Edinburgh, this means festivals galore.  Not only is Edinburgh the host city for the world famous annual military tattoo, but the city also orchestrates five incredible festivals throughout the summer months that bring thousands of visitors from around the globe.  It is nearly impossible to walk down the Royal Mile during the month of August without being bombarded with flyers for various comedy shows, musicals, cabarets and Shakespearean plays performed on bouncy castles.  From the month of June until September, Edinburgh takes New York’s title as the city that doesn’t sleep and overwhelms visitors and locals with the variety and diversity of the entertainment it provides on a twenty-four hour basis.

This is my second visit to Edinburgh and I love being here as much as I did on my last visit.  However, despite the carnival atmosphere and extravagance of the festivities, I have always felt that there is a desperate loneliness about Edinburgh that is never quite covered up by the bright lights and bagpipes.  A few nights ago, I was walking back to my residence halls by myself.  I had just been to see a terrifically un-funny comedy show and was on my way to meet some friends for dinner.  Night was just beginning to fall and a chilly fog was starting to creep its way through the streets.  All around me was silence apart from the occasional car speeding past and the sound of my own breath puffing in little clouds in front of my face.  If I had seen Sherlock Holmes or Dr Jekyll walking towards me right then, I would not have been so surprised.  I felt as though I had stepped into the pages of a nineteenth century Gothic novel and in those long moments before reaching the warmth of my residence hall, I understood why some of the greatest writing of our time has come out of the city of Edinburgh. 

Edinburgh is a city that is rich in literature and culture.  It has been the home of some of Britain’s most successful writers such as Robert Burns, Muriel Sparks, Robert Louis Stevenson and J.K. Rowling. Almost every well-known literary figure is connected with Edinburgh in some way, either having visited the city or have gained inspiration in their literary endeavours.  Parts of novels such as Frankenstein and The Pickwick Papers are set in Edinburgh, and there are hundreds of novels which were either written in the city or were inspired by it.

Not only is Edinburgh steeped in literary history but it is also a city that has a thriving writing community.  The city is presently hosting one of the world’s most prestigious book festivals and boasts an impressive array of international speakers such as Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Louis de Bernieres.  The writing opportunities in this city are tremendous and so are the publishing opportunities.  Blackwells is one of the most well-known and respected publishing companies in Scotland and publish books and journals on such a vast assortment of topics and subjects that there should definitely be something to suit any taste.  What is even better is that they are happy to accept new ideas for books and journals from unpublished authors so to find out some more information, go to http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/

Each city has its own unique personality and charm and the writing that is produced in that city should mirror this.   In order to get work published in Edinburgh, it’s important to study the types of writing that have emerged from the area.  A literary tour is a great way to study the writing of the region and Edinburgh has many tours to choose from.  For obvious reasons, the most popular is the Literary Pub Crawl.  The tour visits the favourite pubs and sites of Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J.M. Barrie and many others with plenty of drinking stops in between.  Another worthwhile tour is the Edinburgh Book Lover’s Tour.  Starting at the Edinburgh Writer’s Museum, this walking tour travels through five hundred years of literary history and offers glimpses of the lives of such a diverse range of writers that everybody’s tastes will be catered to.  More information about these tours can be found at http://www.edinburghbookloverstour.com/booklovers.htm