“Paisley is first-rate. She has reinvented the form and made it her own... her invention of Anne Farquharson is a triumph.”
Scottish Review of Books on White Rose Rebel

Chaired by Dorothy Macmillan

Janet Paisley, novelist, poet and playwright, read from and discussed her acclaimed novel White Rose Rebel. Set during the Jacobite era, its main character, Anne Farquharson, has been described by Glasgow University’s Dorothy McMillan as a ‘feisty, feminist heroine for today’ in a novel which ‘dramatises the anguish, loyalty, treachery and brutality of civil war, before affirming the unquenchable power of love and freedom’. It made the Scottish bestseller list, and was hailed as a ‘powerful historic page-turner’ (The Scotsman) and ‘inspirational’ (The Herald). Paisley is a hugely versatile writer as well as a supremely entertaining reader and conversationalist. From her poetry collection Reading the Bones to her short film Long Haul winning a Bafta nomination, she excels in a wide range of genres and has won numerous prizes. This was quite an event.

Thursday 25 October 2007
Board Room, National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

Janet Paisley's website