TWO authors who have never met before will come together for the first time at a special event in their home town this weekend.

Both Philippa East and Susi Holliday grew up in Haddington before their careers took them away from East Lothian.

Philippa, who wrote Little White Lies and Safe And Sound, was due to be at Haddstock last year before it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now she is getting ready to share the billing with her fellow writer at Falko at 5pm on Saturday.

She said: “The organisers asked if I had any other writing friends. I have never met Susi but ‘met’ her online and I am a huge fan of her books.

“I knew she was from Haddington and on the off chance I sent her a message on Twitter asking if she was interested in doing Haddstock.”

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Philippa, 40, grew up on the town’s St Martins Close with mum and dad Claire and Brian before going to study at the University of Oxford.

The clinical psychologist and therapist, who lives in Lincolnshire with her spouse Elliot, was looking forward to returning home for the event.

She said: “Writing is quite an isolated job. When I am writing a book, I’m not really sharing that with anybody and when people are reading it I don’t know what they are thinking.

“As a writer, unless you do events like these you don’t meet the readers.”

Both writers are also working on new material, with Philippa’s latest book, I Will Never Tell, due to be released early next year.

Meanwhile, Susi will release The Hike – a tale about two couples who go hiking in the Swiss Alps and yet only two people return – later this summer, with work to transform a previous book, Violet, into a film also planned for later this year.

'Good to get back'

Susi said: “Over the last couple of years, all the events have not been happening.

“It is good to get back to live events and talking to readers.”

The 47-year-old, who grew up on Haddington’s West Road and Somnerfield Crescent, splits her time between London, where she works in the pharmaceutical industry, and Longniddry, where mum and dad Alison and Allan live, having previously run Inglis Newsagent and The Plough Tavern in Haddington.

Her debut, Banktoun Trilogy, was loosely based on her home town and she was looking forward to returning.

She said: “A lot of writers get to know each other on Twitter and I had been tweeting someone else about Haddington.

“Philippa noticed and said she was from Haddington and we got chatting.

“She asked if I wanted to do Haddstock and I thought it would be a great idea.”