Edinburgh Summerhall Writing Group

The Edinburgh Summerhall Writing Group meets at MF Coffee Shop on Tuesday 27 October, starting at 6:00 PM. It's a peer-support group open to anyone working on a poem, a novel, an article or an essay, and all writers are welcome. If you've been chipping away at something in private and could use a bit of company to keep you going, this is exactly that sort of thing.

The session runs on the Pomodoro Technique, which is a simple way of working: you alternate 25 minutes of focused writing with a five-minute break. It keeps the momentum up without letting you burn out, and it means you're not just staring at a blank page on your own. The whole thing is run by Stephen McBurney, and the group has drawn over 600 ratings, so it's a well-established regular on the city's writing scene.

As for the venue, MF Coffee Shop is at Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Place, just by the Meadows. It's a spacious, sunny room with a good range of hot drinks and snacks, and the group has the entire cafe to itself for the session. It's a comfortable spot to settle in for the evening, and being right by the Meadows makes it an easy one to get to from across town.

This isn't a one-off, either. The group meets on Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, with upcoming sessions on 27 October, 3 November, 10 November and 17 November 2026. If you can't make this Tuesday, there are three more lined up over the following weeks.