The first wife of Dr Stephen Hawking, Irvine Welsh and eight other writers will be among the literary names at this year's Glasgow book festival.
Aye Write! is now in its 10th edition and will take place at Glasgow's Mitchell Library from April 17-25.
The new programmer for the event, Bob McDevitt has unveiled the first ten names ahead of the full programme, which will be revealed in March.
Welsh will be in Glasgow to talk about his new novel, A Decent Ride.
The book, about a bawdy Edinburgh taxi driver, has been described as "funniest, filthiest book yet".
He said: "Glaswegians; they are some of the funniest, most generous people you could ever wish to meet.
"I'm looking forward to reading from my latest novel A Decent Ride in Glasgow and seeing what they make of Juice Terry [its central character]."
Jane Hawking, author of the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, will also be at the festival.
She is portrayed on film by Felicity Jones in the acclaimed film The Theory of Everything.
Omid Djalili will return to the festival with his autobiography Hopeful.
Fellow comedian Helen Lederer will make her Aye Write! debut with her debut novel Losing It, "a dry and merciless observation of a woman's struggling to be fabulous."
Alexander McCall Smith will return to the festival with his latest book, Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party.
Aye Write! will also celebrate Glaswegian writer Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers.
Actor Alex Norton will also be a guest of the festival, charting his journey through six decades in showbusiness.
Known to many television viewers as DCI Matt Burke in Taggart, his book There's Been a Life is "an irreverent look behind the scenes of a showbiz life very well lived."
Aye Write's list of writers also includes Everything But The Girl singer Tracey Thorn, Patrick Gale and host of the BBC's Beechgrove Potting Shed, Theresa Talbot.
Mr McDevitt, said: "This top ten is just a taste of some of the big names I am excited about bringing to Glasgow.
"Over the past ten years the quality of the festival has continued to grow, meaning we can attract celebrated authors and speakers to the city to entertain a wide audience."
The success of Wee Write!, the seperate event for children, which attracted over 17,000 children and their parents to over 100 events in 2014, has ensured its return this year.
Wee Write! will take place from March 2-7, again hosting The Biggest Book Show on Earth as part of World Book Day celebrations.
The full Aye Write! programme will be announced in March 2015 when tickets will also go on sale.
All Aye Write! events will take place in the Mitchell Library.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article