Reading: Ron Butlin, Giles Foden, Eric Laurrent, Tessa McWatt, Michael Turner

Ron Butlin (Scotland/UK) is the current Edinburgh Poet Laureate, and was earlier this year made the first Honorary Writing Fellow by the University of Edinburgh, together with Ian Rankin. Butlin’s works include the novels The Sound of My Voice, Night Visits and, most recently, Belonging; two previous collections of stories, The Tilting Room and Vivaldi and the Number 3; as well as six books of poetry and several opera libretti. Butlin presents his short story collection No More Angels – a dramatic follow-up to his acclaimed novel Belonging – a captivating celebration of human frailty.

Ron Butlin appears at IFOA as part of Writing Scotland.

Giles Foden was previously an assistant editor of the Times Literary Supplement and is currently on the staff of the Guardian. He is the author of four previous novels including the Whitbread First Novel Award-winning The Last King of Scotland and the widely acclaimed Ladysmith. Foden presents his latest novel, Turbulence, about a team of Allied scientists assigned with agreeing on an accurate forecast five days in advance of the historical D-day landings; 3000 landing craft and the entire future of Europe dependent on the right weather conditions on the English Channel on a single day.

Stacey May Fowles is Director of Circulation and Marketing at The Walrus. She is also the author of two novels and is currently working on a third.

Eric Laurrent was born in 1966 in Clermont-Ferrand, and later moved to Paris after finishing his literature studies. He is the author of eight previous novels, including Clara Stern, which Paris's Lire Magazine called "the most seducing [book] of the year." Laurrent presents his English-language debut, Do Not Touch – translated from the French by Jeanine Herman – a novel that combines the adventure of pulp fiction (and in this case, a plot straight out of Pulp Fiction) with a love of parody and literary play.

Tessa McWatt was born in Georgetown, Guyana and grew up in Toronto. She is the author of five novels, including a Governor General’s Literary Award and Toronto Book Award-nominated Dragons Cry. She developed and leads the MA Writing: Imaginative Practice Programme at the University of East London, and is currently working with the British novelist, art historian and painter John Berger to develop a film based on his novel To the Wedding. McWatt’s latest novel, Vital Signs, takes readers deep inside a marriage at the edge of an emotional abyss.

Michael Turner is the author Company Town (poetry), American Whiskey Bar (a screenplay-cum-novel), and Hard Core Logo and The Pornographer’s Poem (novels). He lives in Vancouver. In 8 x 10, Turner challenges traditional narrative structure and characterization to delve into issues gnawing at today’s society. Devoid of proper nouns ethnic characteristics or a concrete sense of time or place, the novel moves through a series of probably connected snapshots linked by an 8 x 10 grid.