DBF 2026: An Evening With Hollie McNish And Michael Pederson

Join award-winning poet Hollie McNish for a hilarious and heartfelt evening of poetry, reading from her latest collection, Virgin, and unpicking the meaning of the word with her trademark feminist wit, fury, and compassion.Hollie will be joined by Edinburgh Makar, award-winning author and poet, Michael Pedersen.Hollie McNish was the first poet to record at Abbey Road Studios, London, and won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her poetic parenting memoir, Nobody Told Me.

She has published five further collections of poetry: Papers, Cherry Pie, Plum, and Slug and Lobster.Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish author and Edinburgh’s Makar/Poet Laureate.

He writes across fiction (Muckle Flugga), non-fiction (Boy Friends), and poetry (The Cat Prince).

Pedersen has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship and the Books Are My Bag Readers Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prizes and the Saltire National Book Awards.