There are a few months to go until August's Edinburgh International Book Festival, but that's not stopped its organisers from keeping authors busy.
They challenged 50 leading writers to approach the word 'elsewhere' as the basis for specially commissioned pieces.
Some of the authors working on the Elsewhere concept can be heard talking in audio clips on the Edbookfest blog. Among them is Joan Lingard, who hasn't forgotten many details of her visit to the Soviet Union in 1989, so used that as the basis of her Elsewhere-themed story.
As a finale to the Elsewhere Stories series, Marcus Sedgwick will be taking part in a Twitter question and answer session this Saturday from noon.
You can download his contribution, Archipelago, for free here. It's about an island between North Uist and Harris where a teenage boy went missing.
To ask Sedgwick a question, just post it on Twitter with the #askmarcus hashtag. As an incentive, the book festival are giving away five signed copies of his most recent book White Crow for the five best questions.
Thanks to Colin Fraser for letting us know about the event.
