Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival

Friday 26 & Saturday 27 September 2025

Full panel and workshop details will be released throughout June. Watch this space!

Buy Festival Tickets

Sign up for our newsletter

Meet Our Authors

(Check this page frequently for new additions!)

  • Emma Cowing

    Emma is an award-winning journalist and writer.

    She holds an Ochberg Fellowship in Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School in New York, for her work covering the war in Afghanistan, and its aftermath. Emma was shortlisted for the 2023 Cheshire Novel Prize, and longlisted for the 2023 Bath Novel Award and Blue Pencil First Novel Award. The Show Woman is her first novel.

  • Lotte Jeffs

    Lotte has spent her career writing columns, profiles and think pieces for the British press.

    She has worked as an editor for ELLE and ES Magazine, and is the author of How to be a Gentlewoman: The Art of Soft Power in Hard Times, co-author of The Queer Parent and the children’s picture book My Magic Family. She co-hosts the podcast From Gay To Ze, about LGBTQ parenting and pop culture. Lotte has won the PPA Writer of The Year Award and The Great British Podcast Award.

  • Emma Steele

    Emma writes women’s fiction.

    Having previously worked as a commercial solicitor in Edinburgh, Emma now writes speculative love stories for Mountain Leopard Press (an imprint of Headline). Her debut novel, The Echoes of Us, was published in June 2024 in the UK and has been translated internationally. The book has also been optioned for an Amazon movie.

  • Lucy Vine

    Lucy is the bestselling author of novels Hot Mess, What Fresh Hell, Are We Nearly There Yet?, Bad Choices, Seven Exes, Date with Destiny and Book Boyfriend. Her novels have been published in seventeen territories, with Hot Mess optioned for a TV series in America. In a previous life, Lucy was a journalist, writing for publications including Grazia, Stylist, Heat, Fabulous, Marie Claire, Sugar and Cosmopolitan. You can find her on Instagram @lucyvineauthor and TikTok @lucyvineauthor. Her website is www.lucyvine.co.uk.

Writer? Check out our Masterclasses.

  • "It’s vital that we celebrate the books that are often overlooked, or dismissed as 'mere entertainment' because they are stories about women, by women."

    Claire Daverley, author of Talking At Night

  • "40% more women’s fiction novels were bought by readers [in 2022], making the genre the biggest seller overall in the UK."

    Sara-Jade Virtue, Brand Development Director, Fiction, Simon & Schuster

  • "The Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival will shine a light on the genre, enabling writers to meet each other, encourage emerging writers in the genre, and to introduce their work to new readers."

    Jenny Brown, Literary Agent

  • “An inspiring celebration of stories and voices, Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival brings writers and readers together in a truly inclusive environment. I love its independent, egalitarian spirit—it offers everyone the chance to connect, create, and feel part of something special.”

    Angela Jackson, author of The Darlings