We’re excited to share news of the first Iona Community Festival of Writing and Storytelling, taking place on the Isle of Iona.
Featuring local and international authors, the festival is open to all who love to read, write and listen to stories. You’ll have the opportunity to workshop with writers from different backgrounds and genres. You will find out more about different creative processes, and help to find your own literary voice.
For the full festival experience from the 11th – 17th October, including staying in the iconic Iona Abbey, book your place on our Festival Event Page.
And we’re delighted to share that the following events are open to all in Iona Village Hall – free admission and booking not required:
Wednesday
11am-12:30pm BOOK LAUNCH Blue: A Lament for the Sea (Liz MacWhirter)
2pm-3:30pm WORKSHOP Iona Stories (Jan Sutch Pickard and Friends)
4pm-5:30pm BOOK LAUNCH When Prayer Doesn’t Work (Margaret Somerville)
Thursday
2pm-3:30pm BOOK LAUNCH Kaitlin Curtice Everything is a Story
4-5:30pm AUTHOR TALK Alistair MacIntosh Depths of Mentorship in Spiritual Writing
Festival Contributors
Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation, Kaitlin writes on the intersections of spirituality and identity and how that shifts throughout our lives. She also speaks on these topics to diverse audiences who are interested in truth-telling and healing. As an inter-spiritual advocate, Kaitlin participates in conversations on topics such as colonialism in faith communities, and she has spoken at many conferences on the importance of inter-faith relationships. Kaitlin leads workshops and retreats, as well as lectures and keynote presentations, ranging from panels at the Aspen Climate Conference to speaking at the Chautauqua Institution and at universities, private retreat centres, and churches around the world.
Alastair McIntosh is a human ecologist whose work connects the social and environmental problems of the world to a call for spiritual deepening. He lives in Govan from where George MacLeod founded the Iona Community. Alastair is a founding trustee of the GalGael Trust that builds community in hard-pressed social contexts, an honorary professor in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow and the author of a dozen books. The books most pertinent to this week are Parables of Northern Seed: Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power (Aurum 2001), Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition (Birinn 2008), Poacher’s Pilgrimage: a Journey Through Land and Soul (Birlinn 2016) and Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being (Birlinn 2020).
Liz MacWhirter is a writer, PhD researcher and affiliate lecturer at the University of Glasgow. ‘Blue: a lament for the sea’ (Stewed Rhubarb Press, 2025) explores ecological grief on Iona. ‘Black Snow Falling’ (Scotland Street Press, 2018) gained a Carnegie Medal nomination. Other poetry can be found at Lucy Writers, Yale GCRE, Theology in Scotland. Her essays and articles feature in peer-reviewed journals. “In haunting, melodic lyric, MacWhirter turns language itself into a ‘thin place’ of remembering, reckoning and renewal,” Prof Jenn Ashworth, author of Ghosted.
Rev. Dr. Margaret Somerville, founder of Interfaith Alignment, creates inclusive programmes that foster connection, reflection, and growth. An educator, minister, and author, she collaborates with the Iona Community to advance justice, peace, and interfaith dialogue.
Jan Sutch Pickard is a poet and storyteller who has lived on the Ross of Mull for 21 years, after spending six years on Iona as Deputy Warden and then Warden of the Abbey. After that she served as an Ecumenical Accompanier (Peace Monitor) in Palestine and Israel. Now she enjoys less responsibility: wandering on the shore watching oyster-catchers or on the common grazing listening to the larks. Work published by Wild Goose, the imprint of the Iona Community, includes ‘Between high and low water’ and ‘A pocket full of crumbs’.
USA North East