In conversation with Alan Cumming

Edinburgh’s new Poet Laureate in conversation with Alan Cumming with a world-exclusive reading from his new novel, Muckle Flugga.

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author, the Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate).

His prose debut, Boy Friends, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 to rave reviews and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice. He’s published three acclaimed collections of poetry, his most recent, The Cat Prince, won Best Poetry 2023 at the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards. Pedersen has been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes Poetry and the Saltire Scottish National Book Awards and has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. His work has attracted praise from the likes of: Stephen Fry, Kae Tempest, Irvine Welsh, Shirley Manson, Nicola Sturgeon, Jackie Kay, Alan Cumming and many more.

His ‘hotly contested’ debut fiction novel, Muckle Flugga, will come out with Faber & Faber in May 2025.