An Evening with Evelyn Clarke
The Ending Writes Itself
WithEvelyn Clarke
In conversation withVal McDermid
On:19th April 2026, 7:30pm - 8:45pm
We are absolutely thrilled to be welcoming Evelyn Clarke – AKA V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke – to Portobello Town Hall to celebrate the publication of The Ending Writes Itself with an evening of conversation! Schwab and Clarke will be in conversation with legendary Scottish crime writer Val McDermid.
Schwab and Clarke have become great friends to us here in the bookshop over the years and we are so excited to be hosting their Edinburgh launch here in Portobello. Don't miss out on your chance to hear all about the buzzy locked room mystery crime thriller that everyone will be talking about this year.
Doors due to open at 7pm.
Please note that The Ending Writes Itself will be published on 9th April, therefore books for the Book & Ticket options will be posted out to you or made available to collect from the bookshop between then and the event on Sunday 19th April. You can choose whether you would prefer collection or postage in the checkout options.
This event will take place at Portobello Town Hall, 147-149 Portobello High Street, Edinburgh. There won't be a public book signing on the night.
About The Ending Writes Itself:
It’s the perfect plot. All it needs is a killer ending.
Six authors.
One private island.
Seventy-two hours to write the ending.
World-famous author Arthur Fletch is dead. His final novel, the most anticipated book in history, remains unfinished. But the ending won’t write itself.
When six struggling authors are invited to Fletch's private Scottish island and presented with the opportunity of a lifetime, the plot thickens: whoever writes a worthy ending will receive a game-changing book deal and two million dollars.
Why have they been chosen to attend? Who is behind the invitation? And just how far would they go to secure a place on the bestseller list?
They have just seventy-two hours, a typewriter and a blank page. All they have to do is write…
Starting is often the hardest part. But getting to the end could be murder.
Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants:
Evelyn Clarke Author
It was a dark and stormy night (well, it was actually an unusually warm evening in Edinburgh, Scotland) when Number One Sunday Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab proposed an absurd idea to longtime friend and screenwriter Cat Clarke: that they should write a book together. V had made quite a name for herself, with more than twenty books, including the Shades of Magic series, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, but had sworn she'd never co-write a novel, let alone one without fantasy. While Cat, following a tumultuous career as an editor and the author of several YA novels, including Girlhood and Entangled, had fled the publishing industry to work in the even more tumultuous film industry, swearing she'd never return to books. And yet, fate – and an irresistible idea – made liars of them both. That night, as they switched from tea to something stronger, Evelyn Clarke was born.
Val McDermid Chair
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into forty languages, and have sold over nineteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011. In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and in 2017 received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime, and was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val has served as a judge for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, and was Chair of the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford and a Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She writes full time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.
The venue
Portobello Town Hall
147-149 Portobello High St
Telephone: 07725 834968
Website: www.portobellocentral.org/
There is an accessible ramp on the East of the building and an accessible WC.
For accessible seating on ground floor level, please choose Stalls options.
Balcony seating is on the first floor of the building and is only accessible via stairs.