TBC
Wednesday 18 November 2026, 7.30pm. Balerno Parish Church, 2 Main Street, Balerno, EH14 7EH
Jenni is an award-winning novelist, poet, screenwriter and artist. Author of six fiction novels, one non-fiction memoir, eight poetry collections, and described as the Patron Saint of Literary Street Urchins.
Awards include: Winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2025; Granta Best of Young British Novelist; Scottish Author of the Year, alongside lists for The Women’s Prize; Desmond Elliott; Encore; James Tait Black; Sunday Times Short Story Award; BBC International Short Story Prize, and The Pushcart Prize.
Her play adaptation of The Panopticon saw a sell-out run with National Theatre of Scotland.
Her aria and script Narcissistic Fish became a groundbreaking short film for Scottish Opera.
She made her directorial debut for her short script Heart of Glass on BBC 4. Jenni is adapting The Panopticon as a potential feature film that she will write and direct; also writing the film script of her award-winning memoir Ootlin.
A Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow in Grez; Gavin Wallace Fellow as Poet in Residence at Summerhall; Lewisham Hospital poet in residence; also a University of Edinburgh Writer in Residence, she has worked with blind and visually impaired writers, people in prison or secure facilities, among other vulnerable groups. Jenni was a poetry lecturer at Strathclyde University, also teaching fiction at The University of Edinburgh.
Jenni concluded a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2020, is a member of Liberty, and was made a Royal Literary Fellow in 2023.
Pentlands Book Festival: Nov each year 