Book Launch: Elephant by Gillian Shirreffs
Saturday 7 June, 2025 – 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Gillian Shirreffs in conversation with Elissa Soave
Waterstones, 153-157 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3EW
One in two of us will get cancer in our lifetime, yet it so often remains the elephant in the room. In this unprecedented book, talented novelist, Gillian Shirreffs, collects and curates her own emails, WhatsApp messages, tweets, short stories, photographs and other found texts to tell the story of 800 days.
Eight hundred days in which she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, had 22 infusions of chemotherapy, 2 surgeries, 15 sessions of radiotherapy, learned to live with the aftermath of treatment, and saw her debut novel, Brodie, published.
The material within Elephant was not written with a book in mind and that is its power. Unvarnished yet beautiful, Elephant is a book that doesn’t realise it is a book, providing a unique insight into a writer’s life disrupted by illness. It offers a gamut of emotions; you will laugh, cry, think.
Gillian Shirreffs’ technique for surviving the most difficult days was to get through them five minutes at a time; this powerful testament to life, friendship and kindness, is one to be read at your own pace.
Published by IntoBooks
This section: Books, Talks, Poetry and Creative Writing Events, What's On Glasgow West End: cinema, clubs, theatre, music, events, festivals, community and more
Filed under: Books, Talks, Poetry and Creative Writing Events, What's On Glasgow West End: cinema, clubs, theatre, music, events, festivals, community and more
Prevous page or post | Next page or post
Written by : Pat Byrne
Publisher of Pat's Guide to Glasgow West End; the community guide to the West End of Glasgow. Fiction and non-fiction writer.
Related Pages
- Westfest 2026 – Step into the Arlington Baths
- Creative Heritage Cafe – Dalmuir
- The Wizard of the Kremlin at GFT
- Children’s Walk for Gaza, Glasgow Green
- WestFest 2026: Full Programme Announced
- Everbody to Kenmure Street at GFT
- Connected Community Talk: Stolen Stories
- National Theatre Live: All My Sons
- Old Kilpatrick Graveyard, Walk and Talk
- Foraging Walk at The Saltings, Old Kilpatrick
- Writing Short Stories like Agnes Owens with Kirstin Innes
- Mayday: That Sinking Feeling, University of Glasgow – live performance
- Book Launch: The History of Working-Class Courtship, Marriage and Divorce in Scotland, 1855-1939
- Celebrating the Music of John Martyn
- Responding to Alasdair Gray’s ‘Lanark’ University of Glasgow
- The Scotland Channel presents Hillhead Hoolie
- Could you open your home and heart to a guide dog puppy, and help change a life?
- California Schemin at GFT
- Take 2: Where The Wild Things Are, GFT
- The Room plus Greg Sestero Q and A
