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| After speaking to 350 children at Edinburgh International Book Festival |
It’s easy to get depressed in the worlds of children’s books: whether it’s the ongoing closure of public libraries, the fact that writers are earning less and less or the dismal statistic that over 1 in 4 British children don't own a single book. But, if you haven’t abandoned me already, there ARE bright spots. One of these positive trends is the amazing growth of literary festivals.
Big festivals are growing. Small festivals are mushrooming.
This summer I witnessed both ends of this spectrum, doing events at one of the newest festivals and one of the most long established.
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| Leeds Big Book End - Children's Programme |
The Leeds Big Bookend has been set up by a bunch of enthusiastic and dynamic people in the city where I live, Leeds, who felt that with virtually everywhere else around us boasting a festival – Ilkley, Harrogate, Morley, Wakefield (I could go on) Leeds should have one too. Entirely run by volunteers, it’s obviously been immensely hard work.
The children’s venue was rather tucked away above a health food shop…and yet inside the organizers had built a wonderful story-telling yurt, to which every child in the place immediately gravitated. It was lovely. And still small enough and intimate enough that I probably had chat with every child there.
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| Fellow author Kate Pankhurst in the yurt: Photo credit - Coronita Coronado |
Then, at the end of August, I was off to one of the biggest and most well-established of festivals – the EdinburghInternational Book Festival (EIBF), where I was taking part in the Schools Gala Day. The EIBF is a major event in the literary world, where probably the highlight of a packed children's programme this year was an appearance by Malala Yousafzai, introduced by JK Rowling.
Edinburgh is my original home town and I’ve been to the book festival there for years. I remember sitting in small tents, sometimes with a handful of people, listening to the speakers organized by Scottish Book Trust. Now the programme has grown hugely and the marquees in Charlotte Square are a hub bub of activity, with enormous queues, packed out events, famous faces passing in the crowd and a whole lot of people eating ice cream and sunning themselves on the grass (well, Edinburgh weather permitting).
Of course, I’ve heard critics say that this growth in festivals only affects a few people – the book-buying public, and the families who encourage their children to read anyway. In other words, festivals are the past-time of a literary elite.
Not so. My own first event was for an audience of around 350 children who had traveled to the Festival with their schools – seven different primaries from across Scotland. And in the afternoon, I did another school event in a local library – part of the Festival’s Outreach Programme, that takes writers and illustrators to meet children who most likely wouldn’t have the chance to come to the Festival. And this year Edinburgh also ran a Writer in Residence scheme – enabling a writer to go in and work with children in a school over an extended period, creating their own picture books. |
| Questions prepared by the children at my EIBF outreach event |
Edinburgh isn’t alone in this. Many literary festivals run programmes of school visits, bringing together teachers, children, writers and illustrators.
When I was growing up, I never met an author or illustrator. I was fascinated by books, but I never thought that writing them was something that living, breathing people did. (I knew Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl were dead…I reckoned the rest probably were too.)
Now, many children are meeting authors, and that has a lot to do with book festivals.
Did I inspire any of the children I met this year? I don’t know. I know they laughed a lot. I know they had lots of questions. And I know when a bunch of those 350 children came up onto the stage and acted out their own story about my character, Wild Thing (where she and her sister visited Edinburgh Castle and accidentally set off the One O’clock Gun) they certainly inspired me.
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Emma's new series for 8+
Wild Thing about the naughtiest little sister ever (and her bottom-biting ways) is out now from Scholastic.
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman
Wolfie is published by Strident.
Sometimes a Girl’s Best Friend is…a Wolf. "A real cracker of a book"
Armadillo "Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended"
Books for KeepsEmma's
WebsiteEmma’s
Facebook FanpageEmma on Twitter - @EmmaBarnesWrite
I’ve just returned from Edinburgh on a train packed to the gills with rucksacks, sleeping bags, and the odd piece of bin-bag wrapped set. Yes, it’s festival time and the returning festival-goers include, as they have for the last twenty-two years, me.
I’ve also been a participant this year – talking at the Edinburgh Book Festival, just one of seven festivals that completely take over the Scottish capital every August. At the same time as I was talking to 80 children about The Dark Wild yesterday, Alex Salmond was discussing the referendum next door, and had you struck out in almost any direction from Charlotte Square in search of alternative fare, I guarantee you could have found some event to suit your palate.
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| My audience at the Edinburgh Book Festival 2014 |
I wasn’t with my partner on this occasion, who was giving a talk on a forgotten Elizabethan play…at another festival, Wilderness, in Oxfordshire. Wilderness is part of a new crop of ‘boutique’ festivals offering a midsummer’s assortment of revels from hip bands to literary events to Madhatter’s Teaparties. The lakes and Arcadian lawns of Wilderness are a far cry from the cobbles and closes of Edinburgh, although this weekend they shared the same weather.
Earlier this summer we
didgo to the same festival, to the brand new
Curious Arts – a kind of Voewood-on-Sea, in the charming grounds of Pylewell Park, a Regency mansion with a view
from the terrace straight down to the Isle of Wight. You could dance to Ed Harcourt in the evening, listen to Lady Antonia Fraser on the Great Reform Act after breakfast, hunt a Jabberwocky in the Aboretum all afternoon, and finish the day with a gin cocktail leaning over a crumbling balustrade watching ships pass on the Solent.
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| Pylewell Park, the setting for the Curious Arts Festival |
All very charming and civilised. But as I returned for the umpteenth time from the granddaddy of all festivals last night – I found myself meditating on the true attraction of such gatherings. What’s the point of a festival?
Let me first declare an interest in this British summer sport. I began my career programming a large theatre on the Edinburgh Fringe,
the Pleasance (of which I am now a Trustee). Each year we have enough shows in enough different rooms to momentarily make us one of the largest arts venues in Europe.
I’ve sat in the sun at Hay and waded through the mud at Latitude. I’ve spoken at a tiny theatre festival that just takes over three floors of one building in Suffolk and a new book festival in Devon which was just a room in a library.
Later this year I’ll be leading a wildlife walk at
Bath Festival and then dashing off to sit on a panel at Cheltenham. You can festival it up from Port Elliot
to Adelaide to Dubai, if you want to.
It would seem that we are at peak Festival, with over 700 events taking place this year classified as one, about 300 of them literary.
As a writer, you will be told many things about festivals, as I know theatre companies, musicians and comedians are told about theirs. You will be told they are essential for profile, that ‘festivals are the new bookshops’ and a great way for connecting with readers.
I don’t wholly dispute those things. Being in a Festival programme, especially an established one, does lift perception of you and your titles. Sales wise I’m less sure – I had a sold out talk at Edinburgh yesterday, in a 75 seat room, and probably sold 20 odd books, which is great - but it’s not the sole reason I went.
You certainly don’t go for the money. Some Festivals, like Bath and Edinburgh offer a token fee, and some like Hay, offer a case of wine and a flower. And as someone involved with the running of a festival venue, I can report that the ever increasing rental, accommodation, promotional, regulatory and staff costs associated with mounting one of these temporary gatherings mean profits are only ever normally found behind the bar rather than the box office.
It’s not cheap for audience members either. Individual events may carry an average ticket price of £8-10 but the travel, accommodation, taxi and food/drink bill means the minimum festival tab comes close to the £100 prices offered by the all inclusive weekend events like Curious Arts, and can be often more - if you visited Edinburgh all week, for example.
Why do we all go and what do we take away?
A dull critic of this pastime might argue that at best audience members take away an empty wallet and often a hangover, and we take away some book sales and inclusion in a programme mailing list.
Of course, all of us are in search of something much more profound.
Festivals may be promoted effectively but I would not place them under the heading of ‘Effective Promotion’ for any artist. There are numerous more sober and less fun ways to do that – just speak to your publisher’s sales and marketing department. But festivals are also fun for them to attend too.
Festivals, especially the summer ones, satisfy a much deeper urge in us to ‘gather.’ Writing, as we all know, can be a damnably lonely business, just you, your ideas and a cold screen all day long. School visits are often hectic and at best your longest conversation with an adult might be five minutes on logistics over a coffee in the staff room.
I think all of us, from writers to actors to comedians to singers to audience members, go to festivals primarily to talk, and to connect. We need our events, sure, we need a reason to gather, our cover story; but the real business of a Festival takes place in the green room, the author’s yurt, the performer’s bar and the pop-up café franchise.
The classic image of a festival is a big tent, and that is the heart of their appeal. Where else can one talk to Archbishop Emeritus Rowan Williams, the Gruffalo and First Minister Salmond all in one room? Even if I chose not to. They are harvest festivals without the back breaking labour (unless perhaps you’re in an acrobatic troupe), weddings for all, and the very best are always tinged with midsummer madness.
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| The Gruffalo loses his head at all the excitement in the Edinburgh Author's Yurt |
We gather, we discover, share ideas, news, worries and gossip like crazy. Twitter handles become three dimensional, books expand to reveal the lives behind them, and readers are no longer scary anonymous Amazon commenters.
We might sell the odd book or register with a bookseller who didn’t know us before. All of which is great and worthwhile. But next time your publisher invites you to a festival, don’t worry too much about the fee or whether the sales will be worth it, just gather in the tent (ideally under a super moon) and enjoy the craic.
Piers Torday
@PiersTorday
www.pierstorday.co.uk
If anyone has any memorable Festival experiences, good or bad, do share them below!
One of the most wonderful but most troubling things about being a writer is that books become work.
Not just writing books, but reading them too.
This can be wonderful, when I tell myself that wasting (spending, investing) a whole day reading a novel that I’m desperate to finish, is in fact legitimate work. But it can also be troubling, when I realise that something I used to love is now something I HAVE TO DO.
This changes my relationship with books. Having to read books, having to think about and talk about books, not because I want to, not because that’s the book I want to spend time with, but because I’ve committed myself to an event or an article or a blog post which makes reading that particular book right now a necessity.
I live in Edinburgh, and I’m doing various events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival next month, mostly in the children’s and schools programme. But I’m also leading a reading workshop on Diana Wynne Jones, a writer whose books inspired me as a child, whose books still inspire me now, whose books I love to read.
But this summer, I have HAD to read them. I have had to reread the ones I am committed to discussing. (Books that, to be fair, I suggested and wanted to discuss, but even so…)
And suddenly I found myself resisting rereading them. I love rereading my favourite books. Mostly because I enjoy them, and am happy to reenter their worlds. And partly because, especially with books by Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman and others who are inspired by tales of old magic, I recognise more references every time I read them. But that’s when I choose to reread. When a book calls to me and says, come on over here and visit me again…
This summer, there’s been a pile of DWJ books on my study floor, which I knew I had to reread, but which I kept stepping round. Even though The Power of Three is my favourite ever children’s book, and Howl’s Moving Castle is in the top five, and Fire And Hemlock radically changed my relationship with my favourite Scottish fairy tale, and Chrestmanci is the most perfect wizardly wizard ever created… I’ve been resisting. Because I felt that I had to read them, that it was my job, that it was homework.
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| a small fraction of the DWJ pile! |
And this has made me consider how, to some extent, every book I read is work. That everything I read leaves something behind, like a wave on a beach, which changes and inspires and shapes everything I will subsequently write. That I learn from every book, whether I love it or not. That the reader I am creates the writer I am.
But I also know that if I am conscious of what I’m learning from a book, then I haven’t truly lost myself in it. And the books that I just thoroughly enjoy, that I don’t read as a writer, that I just read as a wide-eyed reader, desperate to find out what happens next (and not noticing how the writer is making me care) those are the books I love the most. Probably those are the books that influence me most. And certainly those are the books I happily and enthusiastically reread.
And so. I took a deep breath. I started with Dogsbody, and The Ogre Downstairs, and Howl and those castles. And I have had the most glorious weekend rereading Diana Wynne Jones. To be honest, most of the time, I forgot why I was rereading them (workshop, what workshop?) and just lost myself in the wonderful magical world of her imagination.
Lari Don is the award-winning author of 21 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
Lari’s website Lari’s own blog Lari on Twitter Lari on Facebook
Despite the almost continuous rain earlier in the summer last Saturday when the
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012 opened its doors the sun shone and it was glorious. People were sitting all around the lovely square in Charlotte Gardens chatting reading books,eating ice cream, enjoying the atmosphere and people watching - trying to spot their favourite author.
On the walkways there was a buzz as people rushed to join the queue for an event or strolled by to browse in the bookshops or cafes.
It is my favourite time of the year. A chance to catch up with lots of friends, writers from all parts of the country, to meet new people and to go to listen, laugh and be fascinated by the skill and imagination of the speakers.
In the famous authors' yurt, (green room) the great and the good, famous, not so famous and the first time authors gather before or after events. As the festival lasts for over two weeks and has something like 800 authors from all over the world, there are always new people to meet. This year sees the festival holding the 2012-2013 Edinburgh World Writers Conference, with special events looking at the role of literature around the world today.
On Saturday I caught up with other authors many of them SASsies - Nicola Morgan, Cathy MacPhail, Eleanor Updale, Elizabeth Laird, Julia Donaldson and Moira Munro, Keith Charters and crime writer Alex Gray. it is a place for families and I also met the Bookwitch and her daughter, and Mary and Gerry (the Mole) from Ourbookreviews and their lovely daughter.
I went into listen to the brothers Scarrow, Simon and Alex, both highly successful authors who decided that they might share some characters! So Alex was able to bring two of his brother's well loved Roman characters into his own book set in Rome.
The event was great fun with teams of three chosen from the young audience brought up to compete in a history quiz. Lots of fun and cheering ensued.
Monday the sun was still shining and I met up with Barry Hutchison and I went into the event on his new book the 13th Horseman, which made me realise just how much fun you can have with your characters!
Barry, along with Sally Gardner and Steven Butler were understandably nervous about an event called Story Consequences. Vivian French was the excellent chair person (and had control of the bell!) in an event where the three other writers were invited to start a story (character, place and emotion suggested by the audience) and keep it going for 30 seconds until the bell rang signalling that they had to pass it on to the next person, and so on.
Despite their reservations it was a riotous success and by the end of the event three very different, if slightly strange, stories had come to life. The audience got behind the authors cheering them on, and everyone had a great time.
It occurred to me that this might be an interesting challenge to try in the future, for writers, aspiring writers and in creative writing sessions with young people, too.
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| Story Consequences event |
This week also saw the Society of Authors in Scotland (SOAiS) AGM and lunch when we welcomed some new committee members Cathy MacPhail, Gillian Philip and Michael Malone and our new Scottish (SOAiS) chair Lin Anderson. It was also a pleasure get the chance to chat to the new Chair of the Society of Authors who had travelled up from London - Lindsey Davis.
I had a lovely surprise when dropping in to the yurt to find Keren David there, who introduced me to Amy Plum, a YA author who is American living in Paris and will be speaking at the book festival next week.
I will be appearing in the book festival this Sunday when I will be reading as part of the Amnesty International Imprisoned Writers Series on Freedom of Speech when I read Nasrin Sotoudeh.'s poignant letter to her daughter.
On Friday 24th I am looking forward to delivering my workshop 'So you want to write for Children?'.
On the following Tuesday, after the main bookfest closes there is the School Gala Day when Charlotte Square is closed to the general public and bus loads of school children fill the square to attend events with their favourite authors.
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| Sally J Collins |
I will be there with Sally J. Collins the illustrator of the Hamish McHaggis books and we will be joined by Hamish himself as we tell the story of the Great Glasgow Treasure Hunt
I love the opportunity to go and listen to all sorts of writers talking with passion about the books they have written and living close enough to Edinburgh I enjoy dipping in and out of the festival to see a wide range of events.
A couple I am particularly looking forward to are events with Jasper Fforde and Eoin Colfer.
So if you get the chance to come to Edinburgh in August come along to the book festival - go to some events and soak up the atmosphere. And keep your eyes open, you never know who you might bump into.
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Linda Strachan is an award winning author of over 60 books for children of all ages from picture books to teenage novels and a writing handbook Writing for Children
I'm cheating a bit with this blog post, I'm afraid. Many of you know some of the things that are busifying me at the moment and I'm really struggling to keep up so I hope you won't mind my bringing you a link to a post I wrote recently for the Guardian books blog during the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which the Guardian now sponsors.
Even that post was a teeny bit cheaty, as I've blogged on ABBA about the gloriousness of the Yurt once before. But the Yurt is magically glorious and magical gloriousness deserves an audience.
However, not everything about the EIBF is magically glorious. But they give us due warning.
Which is very necessary when you see this:
But, in no way does this spoil anyone's enjoyment. In the very same minute that I took the mud picture, I took this, just a few feet away:
And besides, what do I care? I haz these:
The Edinburgh International Book Festival has said it has no relationship with print-on-demand publisher Publish America, after the US firm sent letters to its mailing list of authors promising their books will be presented to "the festival".
On Twitter last night, EIBF said: "We have no relationship with @publishamerica. We have asked them to cease and desist making promises involving us."
read more
Where can you find a Yurt and a Spiegeltent, comedy, politics, cuddly creatures, crime and all kinds of great writing?
Well, if you are in Edinburgh in the next two weeks or so there is one place you should not miss.
By the time you read this the 28th Edinburgh International Book Festival will have kicked off. Billed as the '
largest and most dynamic festival of its kind in the world'.
Now that is a huge claim to fame but for those of us who live in the vicinity - and the some 220,000 visitors it attracts- it is easy to see why.
Edinburgh at festival time is a completely different place than it is during rest of the year. It feels looks and even smells different!
Playing host to the The Book festival, the International Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, the Jazz Festival and several other festivals all at the same time, the city is converted into one huge venue, where even the streets become the stage and performers attract audiences in the most unlikely places.
In all this exciting cultural mayhem the Book festival is an oasis of calm. You enter Charlotte Square (which for the rest of the year is a leafy private garden) and immediately the bustle of the city is converted into an excited hush, a tranquil setting resounding with gentle roars when the audience in one of the tents begins to applaud.
Of course the Edinburgh weather can affect the Book festival as much as anywhere else and there have been a few years when the rain left delightful little ponds around the square- delightful for the little yellow plastic ducks that suddenly appeared! Their equally sudden disappearance gave rise to discussions about the possibility of a plastic crocodile..... ?
But each year they have added more solid walkways, then covered walkways to and from the event tents and the bookshop tents and finally even to the author's green room - the yurt.
There was one particular year when there was much comedy to be had watching the staff wielding large umbrellas to shelter celebrity authors in the dash across what seemed to be the only uncovered walkway- the first 2 metres as they stepped out of the yurt on their way to their events. Thankfully that was sorted the following year.
But when the sun shines the grassy centre of the book fe
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Emma's new series for 8+ Wild Thing about the naughtiest little sister ever (and her bottom-biting ways) is out now from Scholastic. 
Great so read lots of news about being at the EBF!
Fun for all - readers and writers! The best thing is seeing all those readers, just lying on the grass, chatting, eating ice-cream, and reading, while waiting to see an author or just, well, lie on the grass, chatting, eating ice-cream and reading! It feels very real. All book festivals have that feeling, I think. People coming together for one reason: books. But, ok, Edinburgh is a bit special :)
Hi Penny, Hope to see you up in Edinburgh next year!
You are so right, Nicola, a special place with a wonderful atmosphere that brings people back year after year.
The readers who come and listen, sit about reading, talking and enjoying books are the lifeblood of any book festival, but then we writers are readers, too!