Clare Hunter – Embroidering Her Truth

We're excited to be welcoming Clare Hunter to the bookshop for an event to celebrate the paperback publication of her book, Embroidering Her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power. Clare will tell us about her work as a banner-maker, community textile artist and textile curator, and there will be the opportunity for audience questions at the end.

This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.

In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of Embroidering Her Truth– we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on the website against a single copy of Embroidering Her Truth. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book.

About Embroidering Her Truth:

At her execution Mary, Queen of Scots wore red. Widely known as the colour of strength and passion, it was in fact worn by Mary as the Catholic symbol of martyrdom. In sixteenth-century Europe women's voices were suppressed and silenced. Even for a queen like Mary, her prime duty was to bear sons. In an age when textiles expressed power, Mary exploited them to emphasise her female agency.

From her lavishly embroidered gowns as the prospective wife of the French Dauphin to the fashion dolls she used to encourage a Marian style at the Scottish court and the subversive messages she embroidered in captivity for her supporters, Mary used textiles to advance her political agenda, affirm her royal lineage and tell her own story. In this eloquent cultural biography, Clare Hunter exquisitely blends history, politics and memoir to tell the story of a queen in her own voice.

Clare Hunter has been a banner-maker, community textile artist and textile curator for over twenty years and established the community enterprise NeedleWorks in Glasgow. Her first book, Threads of Life, won the Saltire First Book Award, was a Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month and a Radio 4 Book of the Week.