Rathlin, A Wild Life with Ruby Free

Wayward: Rathlin, A Wild Life: Island Living, Seabirds and Extraordinary Gifts from Nature with Ruby Free

Join us in welcoming conservation biologist Ruby Free to Falmouth to kick off Wayward Book Festival 2025! Ruby will be discussing the importance of community and creativity for personal and planetary health, shining a light on key messages from her work and the stories behind the pages.

Rathlin, A Wild Life

In 2021, Ruby Free, 21, got her dream job working on an RSPB reserve. But this position wasn’t for the faint hearted – it meant moving to live on Rathlin Island, off the County Antrim coast. One of the wildest and most biodiverse corners of the UK and Ireland, to Ruby, who had grown up in the south-west of England, it felt both thrilling and very far from home.

Ruby thought she knew what wildness was but arriving on the island alongside a quarter of a million seabirds, her perception of it changed forever. From swimming with seals and late-night trips to hear the call of the corncrake, to spotting dolphins from her front door and getting to know some very special seabirds, this is the story of Ruby’s time on Rathlin. It’s also the story of what happened next – how Ruby took everything she’d learned through living on the island to the following stage of her life.

Heartfelt, impassioned and full of joy, Rathlin, A Wild Life is a love letter to the island and the wildlife Ruby finds there, but it’s also a call to action; a reminder of everything we stand to lose if we don’t change.

About Ruby

Ruby Free is an award-winning campaigner, writer and conservation biologist based in County Antrim. Her first book, Rathlin, A Wild Life has just been published. Passionate about saving nature and reconnecting people to it, she’s worked and volunteered in the environmental conservation sector since she was 16 and has been named one of the 100 most influential Environmental Professionals in the UK on the ENDS Power List.

Books will be available at the event or at Falmouth Bookseller

For more information about Wayward Book Festival head to Wayward Book Festival – Falmouth's celebration of wild and wilful stories

Rathlin, A Wild Life with Ruby Free

Monday 28th April, 6:30pm

The Poly, Falmouth

Tickets: £8

A £1 Poly Fund payment is added to each ticket sold. A 50p booking fee is also applied per ticket for online and telephone transactions.

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