From the Director’s Chair

Get the inside view – JASON ROSE, the director of the Inverness Book Festival, filed a daily report from the festival.

Thursday 7 October 2004 – Off to a flying start

Wow. That was unbelievably cool. The first day of the first ever Inverness Book Festival and it went swimmingly. I’ve felt like a kid at Christmas all day.

Claire Macdonald opened at 2pm with an exuberant talk about Highland food and drink. About a hundred folk showed up, which is pretty good for a wet Thursday afternoon. Claire claimed to have butterflies in her tummy but calmed down by having a chocolate brownie before going on stage. She also fed me one, which helped settle my nerves. How sweet of her. Speaking of sweet, Claire revealed that she thinks that deep fried Mars bars are delicious. I’m sure they’ll be on the menus at Rocpool and the Mustard Seed soon.

Angus Peter Campbell wowed a crowd of about twenty with his passionate Gaelic language event. I was spellbound and I don’t even speak the language.

Jackie Kay, Toby Litt and Ali Smith gave a superb performance this evening. Ken Kelman did a great job chairing. Ali said: “He’s good.” Toby seemed impressed on his first visit to Inverness and thought the crowd of about two hundred was good. Jackie was, as expected, an amazing speaker. Ken confessed to researching his introductions from Google. I never knew Toby Litt was once a subtitle writer for Blind Date! The audience murmured and laughed in the right places and heaps of books were sold and signed afterwards.

Can’t wait to read Ali’s new novel. It’s about someone conceived in a cinema who grows up with the movies. Ali’s English teacher from her high school days was in the audience. One proud teacher I reckon. The event was scheduled to last an hour but went on for two. I had feared that traditional Inversnecky modesty would cause an awkward gap when Ken asked for questions from the audience but they were champing at the bit. It was perfect and has filled me with confidence for the rest of the fest.

I hope that Toby and Jackie and reporters like David Robinson, the literary editor of The Scotsman, have been given a very positive and up to date image of Inverness. I hope they spread the word and help make next year’s festival – if there is one – bigger and better.

We’ve sold 1,500 tickets already but would like even more. It’s 1am now so I should probably hit the hay but I must finish Iain Banks’ new sci-fi novel. I’m chairing his event tomorrow night!
 

Friday 8 October 2004 – The trouble with stovies

Day Two and Nicola Morgan from Edinburgh gets things going with a superb talk to seventy kids. She blows a whistle and tests them for synasthesia – hearing shapes, tasting colours, etc. I see a green bow tie when she blows the whistle but I do not own up! Kids ask amazing questions.

The first hand that goes up at Nicola’s event results in: “Are you rich?” Swiftly followed by: “Do you know the author of Lord of the Rings?” To which Nicola replies: “No, he’s dead.” In my introduction to her I told the primary seven kids that they were getting to do something that I never dreamed of when I was a school pupil in Inverness – meet a writer whose book I had read.

Jim Love from the Inverness Courier chairs the 5pm event with Scottish historian David Stevenson, whose book about Rob Roy caught the headlines recently for revealing that a man regarded as a hero or at least a lovable rogue was in fact a seriously dodgy geezer. A small crowd of about twenty for that event but they seemed keen to be there and asked some very interesting questions.

One of the biggest events in the festival programme has got to be Banks and Brookmyre, and somehow I’d managed to convince myself that I could chair it. I know Iain and Chris from having done radio interviews with them. Iain also opened the Inverness branch of Waterstone’s when I worked there. Both top blokes and their bestseller statuses richly deserved.

I read most of Iain’s new sci-fi novel, The Algebraist, on the ferry to Stornoway and back last week. Even someone who thought that they didn’t like sci-fi would enjoy it. Anyway, I took to the stage and people started to clap. They must have thought I was one of the authors! I introduced the two chaps who then read from their latest works.

Chris’s latest rant was on stovies. The audience was in stitches. I made sure that as well as talking about books we touched on current events, which influence so many writers. Iain had some strong anti-war views and anti-Queen views. Not the band but the monarch. He won’t be going to the opening of the parliament tomorrow. Chris will. Because his mum told him to.

Questions from the audience were superb, and I ended up being a bit of a sook, thanking Iain and Chris by presenting them each with a bottle of malt whisky. Seriously, if they hadn’t agreed to take part, the festival wouldn’t have been the success that it’s already turning out to be.

The whole of Eden Court was swarming as the Banks and Brookmyre crowd queued to get books signed and the next lot, for Doug Scott, filed in. Doug is an amazing character, and his pictures from his mountain adventures are as breathtaking as his stories. Between the two evening events we had around eight hundred folk in. Who says books are boring?

Myself and my better half joined Iain, Chris and their publishers for dinner at one of Inverness’s finest curry houses. In between mouthfuls there were some weighty discussions such as whether heated seats in cars are a good thing and which Absolutely sketch was the best (Stoneybridge town council’s promotional vido was a firm favourite). Most importantly, Iain and Chris enjoyed themselves. Hopefully they’ll be back soon.
 

Saturday 9 October 2004 – Orange cows and dead budgies

A long day but very rewarding. Today was proof that the first Inverness book festival had something for everyone. We had kids events, a current affairs debate, an historian, a travel writer and a musician.

Inverness’s very own John Ward got the ball rolling at 10am with the latest installment of his trilogy for teenagers. Not a huge crowd. Maybe the youth of Inverness were having a long lie.

The brilliant Natalie Russell from Dundee followed John with her Hamish the Highland Cow story. Her illustrations are very funky and she did a good job holding the attention of a gang of about thirty little people. She brought paper masks in the shape of cows’ heads which the children were encouraged to decorate. I think my orange woolly jumper must have made me look like Hamish because when I sat down next to some kids making cow masks they started to swarm round me with tubes of glue!

Black Isle-based Mairi Hedderwick took to the stage at 1pm with slides and a talk about her hugely popular creation, Katie Morag. She’d even brought a bucket of fresh seaweed from the Cromarty Firth to spread over the stage for added atmosphere. Mairi ended up signing books for almost an hour after her event.

Radio Scotland’s indefatigable Iain Macdonald chaired the Highland Debate which was reasonably well attended. Sir John Lister-Kaye, Andy Wightman, Kenny Taylor and Jim Hunter knocked about topics including the housing crisis and land reform and tried to answer some interesting questions from the audience.

Ten Days to D-Day author David Stafford was up next. A wonderful speaker and a wonderful book. Only a small crowd, which I found surprising given how well his book has been reviewed, how well it has sold and the fact that it was made into a TV series. Baffling, but still I and the others present enjoyed it.

Likewise a small but eager gathering for top Scots travel writer Peter Kerr. While host Tom Morton’s last book was called The Further North You Go, Peter is famous for his series of books about going south to grow oranges in Mallorca. An event with plenty of laughs, including the moment when Peter recalled soiling his trousers on the first day at school and also the anecdote about the budgie that was stunned, gassed, burnt and drowned by his dad.

To round off the day, over a hundred folk piled in for Fergie Macdonald. Super musician with many tales to tell.

So, some mysteriously small audiences for some events but good crowds for others. A good time had by all, which is the important thing. Hoping that folk come out in droves tomorrow morning to support three lovely Highland writers – Anne Macleod, Jim Miller and Erica Munro. Winnie Ewing follows and then we’re having a wee reception to say thanks and tell the press how it all went and maybe whether we’ll do one again next year. Difficult to say at the moment.
 

Sunday 10 October 2004 – To be continued…

And so the first installment of the Inverness Book Festival comes to a close. But in the finest literary tradition, it ends with a row of dots. To be continued …

Sunday began with three wonderful Highland writers – Anne Macleod, Jim Miller and Erica Munro. About fifty people attended, which is good for a Sunday morning. It was a lovely crisp autumn day with the trees along the river next to the theatre looking all golden and red.

Nicky Marr was a superb host. Anne Macleod burst into song at one point. Her mobile phone went off a couple of times, which made modest Anne blush considerably. Jim read from his Caithness soap opera, Brimster Tales. The audience hooted and cackled. Erica prompted much honking when she read from her forthcoming novel. “You could tell that it was the couple’s first baby because its bib said Thursday and indeed it was Thursday.”

Madame Ecosse and Mike Russell did their thing to round the festival off. Winnie was at the opening of the parliament and said that she was ‘enchanted’.

Then the post mortem. We invited as many people as possible to a wee reception to say thanks and have a drink and discuss how it went. The overwhelming view is that it was a success. Financially, it may have made a tiny loss but the positive news is that in total around two and a half thousand people attended the festival, through the events at Eden Court and the associated events at the bookshops and library.

All the authors had a super time and will hopefully spread the word. The big question is if we do one next year, where will it be held? Eden Court is about to undergo a much-needed expansion and it’ll be closed next October and possibly the October after that. I’d like to think we can secure one or two venues in the middle of the city and build on the wonderful atmosphere and momentum generated at this first festival.

I’m very proud and while it’s been a complex and at times worrying project, it’s been more than worth it. I can’t really relax though – I’m getting married in three weeks’ time! I’m really going to enjoy the honeymoon. Hmm. Maybe we can go somewhere where there’s a book festival…
 

© HI~Arts, 2004