TW: Suicide
The limewash of cloud beyond each skylight blends into the white, vaulted ceiling. The panels might as well not be there. Well, except for the one where a seagull’s feet press themselves against the glass that is. There’s a hum amidst the bookshelves – Portobello Library, a community hub. It’s the fourth of October, five past twelve – a voice surfaces, welcoming us to the talk: On Lighthouses and Loss at the Portobello Book Festival.
Chaired by Shauna MacDonald, the talk begins: a conversation with Michael Pedersen and Xani Byrne about writing through grief after bereavement by suicide. All three grew up in Portobello, and their shared nostalgia weighs the anchor. Stories are told about various adolescent antics involving Porty High, the local sweet shop, a gorilla costume, and an attempt to float down Figgate Burn through a tunnel under the high street. The audience smiles. A shared sense of pride and belonging breezes through the room.
Helmed by MacDonald, the conversation pivots to Pedersen and his writings. Poet-turned-novelist and current Edinburgh Makar, Pedersen discusses his 2022 release, Boy Friends. He details the grief he faced after losing his friend, member of Scottish band Frightened Rabbit, Scott Hutchinson. Forced to contemplate the importance of male friendship, thoughts and writings from different times are knitted together, forming a work that ultimately became the final step in his grieving process.
We are then treated to a reading of Pedersen’s 2025 release Muckle Flugga. In a lighthouse on Out Stack, male connection is investigated through three isolated men. Machismo and dandyism clash, whilst knitwear becomes armour against the weather. Pedersen’s voice churns and spits, and for a moment it becomes the jagged, frothy sea, crashing unwaveringly against that lonely rock. Book, author, and audience become one. In the space of a few minutes, everyone was convinced to read it.
MacDonald steers now to Xani Byrne who anticipates his book’s 2027 release. It is an account of his experience tandem-cycling around the coastline of the UK with various people who have been bereaved by suicide. This comes after Byrne’s own loss of his sister, Alice; as of October 2026, his cycling fundraiser has raised over half of his £100,000 target for suicide prevention charities. Byrne reads, revealing a candid report of this cycling experience. He confides his internal monologue in us as he discusses his chafing bike seat, and an encounter with a barista who risked her own job to press free slices of unwanted cake into his hands, thanking him for his fundraising in the only way she could.
An audience member’s question about taboo permeates the concluding Q&A. How can we support those grieving? Why is bereavement by suicide still so shamed? This underscores how important this forum was. For people to come and sit silently, feeling held without having to ask or justify. Surrounded by books, children’s artwork, locals, with a large papier-mâché snake and gaffer tape robot peering over the stage, there is a power in being human, in being together.
A tandem bike is produced, seemingly from nowhere. Pedersen and Byrne mount, and ride down the aisle toward the door. Outside, the wind is chilled by the sea, gulls hover, eyeing-up chips. Taking a Sunday stroll along the seafront, you might just catch someone’s eye and share a smile.
by Jack Malcolm Curtis
Xani Byrne’s Fundraiser: https://www.justgiving.com/team/TandemAgainstSuicideUK
Photographs:
Webb, Richard. “Photograph of Portobello Library.” Geograph, 16 Aug. 2012, www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3084815.
“Photograph of (left to right) Xani Byrne, Shauna MacDonald, & Michael Pedersen.” Portobellobookfestival.Com, 8 Oct. 2026, portobellobookfestival.com/2026/10/#jp-carousel-4142.
