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The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Scotland needs a new kind of festival to take on the liberal elite
In the arts world, composer and conductor Sir James McMillan could walk down any Scottish street without recognition, except possibly in his native Cumnock, despite being one of the most significant cultural figures to emerge from this country for decades. Also 65, there's time yet, but Sir James is not just a national but a global treasure, his deep Catholic faith inspiring modern choral works of astounding beauty on a par with the 19th Century Austrian giant Anton Bruckner, also a devout Catholic. At 95 and widely regarded as the keeper of the Edinburgh Festival soul, Richard Demarco can lay justifiable claim for national beatification and the closest he came to controversy was his early support for Jimmy Boyle, the convicted killer who found redemption as a sculptor in Barlinnie prison's special unit. A long-running and now forgotten dispute with [[Edinburgh]] Council in the 90s about rent arrears for housing his archive in an empty Old Town school hardly counts these days. I recall several conversations with him 20 years ago when at Scotland on Sunday, we campaigned to revive the moribund visual arts festival, hoping it would become a Scottish version of the Venice Biennale and attract the kind of A-list high rollers who don't grace the August season unless they have a kid performing on the Fringe; 21 years on, the [[Edinburgh]] Arts Festival is very much alive, but the oligarchs' super yachts off Granton Harbour are noticeable by their absence. Always very much part of [[Edinburgh]]'s arts scene, but somehow detached from it, his vigour for an argument is undimmed, and in an interview in The Scotsman with Martin Roche, one of many executive committee members of the pro-EU campaign, the European Movement in Scotland, he called for [[Edinburgh]] to host a new annual 'Festival of Thought' because of the threat of the 'far right' in Europe, Donald Trump, and the rise of Reform in the UK. Read more Visitor levy group will have good intentions but may collide with reality A vote of no confidence in Labour council is now a real possibility The inside story of the battle for control of Edinburgh The idea is to assemble a cast of 'liberal thinkers' from across academic disciplines in defence of liberal democracy, but he does not want politicians involved and instead of the language of politics he favours 'the language of the arts' because it is 'the language of love for our fellow human beings'. Whether it's laudable depends on your point of view, and his interviewer needed very little persuasion, but it struck me that the whole August shooting match, if that's an appropriate phrase, is already a celebration of liberal thought, particularly the Book Festival. The exclusion of politicians at first glance sounds timely, especially in a year when having dumped fund manager Baillie Gifford because of its minimal investments in oil companies, the Book Festival will be giving pride of place to the most divisive politician of the last 20 years, Nicola Sturgeon. In what is supposed to be a celebration of free speech, it would be strange to ban politicians, but there should be a rule that if they are cashing in on their record by writing a retrospective reputation booster then they should get a damn good grilling, not the patsy chats the Book Festival likes to stage for its favourites. I don't know if he was invited, but I can't imagine Boris Johnson getting an easy ride if he came up to promote his memoir, Unleashed, if he was being cross-examined by Kirsty Wark. How she approaches her conversation with Nicola Sturgeon remains to be seen, but there would be a roaring trade for tickets on Viagogo if the inquisitor was JK Rowling. Richard Demarco (Image: Newsquest) A Festival of Politics was tried a few years ago, with a series of crashingly dull discussions at Holyrood which received the audiences it deserved, but now politicians are everywhere on the Fringe, most notably as guests on Iain Dale's 'All Talk' show for LBC radio at the EICC, and indeed The Herald's Unspun Live at Summerhall – now home of the Demarco Archive – with John Swinney and Anas Sarwar lined up for conversations with Herald journalists. None of it should be as cringeworthy as the Alex Salmond Show at the Assembly Rooms, at which the late SNP leader told sexist gags which would get him banned from MasterChef. Without a politician in sight, this year's Arts Festival itself is way ahead of the Demarco plan, with events like Decolonosing the Outdoors, another about 'the histories of masculine-leaning gender diversity in Scotland' and My Blood Runs Purple, a short experimental film 'questioning the inequalities and barriers in healthcare offered to artists in so-called black, gendered bodies', putting it well in the liberal vanguard. Its finale is a conversation event in which artists, 'thinkers' and local groups assemble to 'imagine a world where art bridges the knowledge of the past with a sustainable, interconnected future.' At 95, Demarco can be forgiven if this has all passed him by, as it will have done for 95 per cent of the population, the kind of people who adore Lorraine Kelly. But this is the problem with the Scottish liberal elite – they spend so much time talking to each other that the rejection of their world view is so bewildering that the best they can come up with is to turn inwards in an ever-tightening circle. Looks like the job's a good'un, Ricky, but it's enough to make me vote Reform.
Hans India
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hans India
Book fete in Ongole from August 15
Ongole: Ongole is set to host its third annual Book Festival from August 15 to 24. This grand event is being jointly organised by the Vijayawada Book Festivals Society, the Andhra Pradesh Cultural Department, and the Libraries Department. Laxmaiah and Manohar Naidu, president and secretary of the Vijayawada Book Festival Society respectively, announced the details here on Wednesday. As part of the preparations, Collector Thameem Ansariya unveiled the official poster for the Book Festival at the Collector's Chamber on Wednesday. The Book Festival will take place at the PVR High School grounds, running daily from 2 pm to 9 pm. Organisers stated that about 100 stalls will be set up by prominent publishers, offering a wide array of books. In addition to the book exhibition, the festival will feature literary, cultural, and educational programmes every evening. A science exhibition is also being organised to complement the event. The primary objective of the Book Festival is to foster a greater love for reading among the public. Municipal Commissioner Dr Koduri Venkateswara Rao, CPI State Executive Committee Member Gujjula Eswaraiah, Andhra Pradesh Praja Natyamandali State President Nayak and Secretary R Ramakrishna, Prakasam District Writers' Association president Ponnuru Venkata Srinivasulu, CPI District Secretary ML Narayana, APUWJ State Secretary Alugula Suresh, and other dignitaries participated.
Edinburgh Reporter
25-06-2025
- Business
- Edinburgh Reporter
Government pledges more funding for the Edinburgh International Book Festival
A grant of £300,000 announced on Wednesday morning by The Scottish Government to the Edinburgh International Book Festival will ensure the continuation of free events for schoolchildren. This funding will replace financial backing from Baillie Gifford which was lost last year after protests against the investment company's involvement in fossil fuel industries. Baillie Gifford was the major sponsor of the schools programme. This year there will be more than 60 in-person and livestreamed events, including author talks with How to Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell and award-winning storyteller Frank Cottrell-Boyce. The grant will also maintain travel cost support and free tickets for pupils whose families are unable to cover the cost of ticketed events, ensuring young people of all backgrounds in Edinburgh have the chance to take part in the internationally renowned festival. Children attending will also receive a free book through the philanthropy of Book Festival donors. The Scottish Government also announced that it is spending an additional £4 million on Scottish festivals in Edinburgh and Glasgow. This is part of a commitment by the government to invest an additional £100 million annually in arts and culture by 2028-29. Creative Scotland has already awarded the Edinburgh International Book Festival £1,88 million in public multi-year funding for the next three years, more than doubling previous support. Minister for Business and Employment Richard Lochhead said: 'The Edinburgh International Book Festival is one the country's most significant cultural institutions. Its schools programme has been crucial in fostering literacy and cultural engagement among young people, with thousands of pupils benefiting annually from free events and resources. 'This funding secures those benefits for young readers across Edinburgh, helping schools that might otherwise struggle with travel costs, and ensuring they have the same opportunity to take part in one of the world's leading literary festivals.' Jenny Niven, Festival Director & CEO of Edinburgh International Book Festival said: 'The work the Book Festival does for children and young people is a cornerstone of what we do. Publishing for children and young people has never been more vibrant, and the benefits of reading never better evidenced. 'The Festival is perfectly positioned to help children engage with the amazing range and breadth of stories around them, to support teachers to use books imaginatively and creatively in learning, and to supply older kids with the tools to think critically, and learn to evaluate the deluge of info around them. This aspect of what we do is vital, and we're delighted to have specific public funding support to develop this work further in the coming years. 'We've identified the cost of transport as a key barrier to a wider cohort of schools joining us in August, and are committed to maintaining free access for as many children as possible. We're delighted that the Scottish Government's increased support for festivals has delivered public funding to develop this work further in the coming years and we look forward to widening our reach across Scotland and exploring further the digital potential of what we do.' Earlier protest at The Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2023. © 2023 Martin McAdam Baillie Gifford funding ended last year In August last year the book festival board announced they would end their 20 year relationship with Baillie Gifford. At the time Allan Little, chair of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said: 'Our team cannot be expected to deliver a safe and sustainable festival this August under the constant threat of disruption from activists. This was a pragmatic response to that reality. 'Funding for the arts is now in a perilous position and we should all be clear that without the support of our partners and donors, the future of festivals like ours – and all of the benefits these events bring to authors and readers alike – is in jeopardy. 'We are a charity that provides an important platform for authors and readers of all views and political opinions to agree, disagree, challenge, and provoke. Book festivals around the world are forums in which rigorous, intelligent debate can take place. Our festival should be a place where progressive and nuanced discussion can happen in a safe and respectful space. 'Indeed, our programme this year is designed to give a voice to those directly affected by conflict and those engaged at the most senior levels in its resolution. We will explore the real challenges involved in transition, green tech and climate finance, misinformation and the need for new economic models. 'We are determined to have those debates and to have them out in the open, but we need everyone to come to the table. We have made several invitations to Fossil Free Books, and other groups, to attend this year's festival and regret that they have not responded to those offers.' And also in 2024 Nick Thomas, partner, Baillie Gifford, said: 'Our collaboration with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, spanning decades, was rooted in our shared interest in making Edinburgh a thriving and culturally vibrant place to live and work. In recent years we have been proud to support the Schools' and Children's programmes, providing free books and creating opportunities for young readers to meet authors. 'The activists' anonymous campaign of coercion and misinformation has put intolerable pressure on authors and the festival community. We step back with the hope that the festival will thrive this year and into the future. We hold the activists squarely responsible for the inhibiting effect their action will have on funding for the arts in this country. 'Baillie Gifford is a long-term investor with high ethical standards and a complete focus on doing what is right by our clients. The assertion that we have significant amounts of money in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is offensively misleading. Baillie Gifford is a large investor in several multinational technology companies, including Amazon, NVIDIA, and Meta. Demanding divestment from these global companies, used by millions of people around the world, is unreasonable and serves no purpose. Much as it would be unreasonable to demand authors boycott Instagram or stop selling books on Amazon. 'Nor is Baillie Gifford a significant fossil fuel investor. Only 2% of our clients' money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels. We invest far more in companies helping drive the transition to clean energy. 'We remain committed to contributing positively to our community through philanthropic support.' Jenny Niven Like this: Like Related
Scotsman
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh International Book Festival: Highlights for Children & Young Adults
As well as the usual line-up of children's writers, this year's EIBF will also have a dedicated Young Adult strand, writes Susan Mansfield Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... This year, the Book Festival has a dedicated programme of events for Young Adults for the first time, including a YA takeover of the Spiegeltent on 11 August promising a day of events, discussions and workshops aimed at teenagers hosted by writer Cynthia Murphy. Some of the most exciting YA writers in the world will be guests at the festival, including Alice Oseman, creator of the smash-hit graphic novel series Heartstoppers. On the series' tenth anniversary, she will talk about where it all began for Charlie and Nick (17 August). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Molly X Chang will talk about her epic romantasy The Nightblood Prince, inspired by Chinese myth, about a reckless princess who forms a bond with a runaway prince who commands an army of vampires (15 August). Rebecca F Kuang Japanese novelist Asako Yuzuki is in both the adult and the YA programmes with her word-of-mouth sensation Butter, about a chef turned serial killer who poisons her lovers (23 August), as is bestselling American novelist RF Kuang, author of Yellowface, whose new novel Katabasis is a story of two magical PhD students who band together to rescue the soul of their academic adviser from hell (24 August). Another author taking part in both sections is Scottish writer Kirsty Logan, with a new collection of short stories, No & Other Love Stories, about female desire down the centuries from a medieval monastery to a 1990s high school (22 August). Writer, activist and model Monroe Bergdorf is to speak to young people about the thorny question of truth as it relates to a range of topics from beauty standards to cancel culture (21 August). The festival promises additional facilities for children and families this year, and a wide-ranging programme for readers of all ages, from the tenth birthday celebrations for Ross Collins' There's A Bear on my Chair (10 August), to Michael Rosen's introduction to Shakespeare for older children (23 August). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Jacqueline Wilson is such an enduring and well-loved figure in children's literature that some of her fans now have children of their own. She will be at the Book Festival for a special event looking at her life as a writer with a back catalogue of more than 100 books (24 August). Cressida Cowell Cressida Cowell will read from How to Train Your Dragon School, the latest book in her enormously popular series (22 August). AF Steadman promises a new story in the blockbuster Skandar series, with curses, bloodthirsty unicorns, epic adventures and unlikely heroes (11 August). Dr Lucia Perez-Dias will explore how the world repairs itself, and how we can help, taking young readers on an epic journey through time and space to witness what the planet was like, why it changed, and what the future holds (9 August). Polly Faber openes up the surprisingly fascinating subject of recycling, looking at what happens to the things we throw away (10 August).
The Herald Scotland
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Don't forget your pronouns if you are coming to our book festival
All invited authors should be issued with a set of guidelines to ensure no-one in their audience feels left out or traumatised by any unintended literary delinquency. Thus, writers should furnish festival moderators with the extracts from their works that they've chosen to read. This means that we can sift through them for any problematic themes or tawdry locutions which might increase anxiety levels. There would be highly-trained teams of facilitators who have gained certificates from our top universities on how to use redaction in a sensitive, empathetic and empathetically sensitive manner. They found that role-playing and group sharing in their experience of redacting problem texts had enriched the cultural experience of both author and reader. Read more This arose chiefly from an unfortunate incident at last year's book festival when an author (who must remain nameless) referenced Macbeth, a notoriously violent play about deforestation by William Shakespeare. 'I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked the nipple from his boneless gums, and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.' We would suggest something like 'I would, while it was smiling in my face, have ------- the ------ from his -------- gums, and ------ the ------ out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.' On this occasion, an ambulance was called to deal with three fainting cases and the Book Festival had to update our strategies on safeguarding. Authors are also instructed to deploy their pronouns on all social media platforms publicising their Book Festival appearances. Those who do not possess pronouns or are unsure about which ones to use will be invited to attend our 'pronoun awareness' session during which they will be assigned the figures of speech with which they feel most comfortable. And remember, as the great songwriter Sting once sang: 'Everything Little Thing They/Them/She Did Is Magic". Here at the Edinburgh International Book Festival we pride ourselves on being a very nimble, diverse and diversely nimble organisation. And so if, in the course of the festival, an author is making more than one appearance and decides to change their pronouns between events, then a special encrypted online portal will be available to register your new ones. The organisers also understand that things can get a bit lively during the question and answer sessions and that, in the heat of the moment, you might reference persons or books on the festival banned index. With that in mind we would kindly ask you to avoid any mention of She Who Must Not Be Named, JK (redacted) or Harry (redacted), Helen J**ce, Maya F***tater and J*nny L***say. The International Book Festival in Edinburgh (Image: PA)Of course we are all grown up here at the Book Festival and have a very laissez-faire attitude to sexual behaviour, believing that it should be taken in small doses at least once a month. We would counsel our authors though, to deploy caution when describing any concupiscence or houghmagandie as this has been known to lead to outbreaks of beastliness and other public displays of emotion on the streets of the capital. We also encourage our authors to participate in literary workshops based around the chosen themes of the festival. This year we have a very diverse and inclusive number of events. In the You'll Have Had Your Tea tent, one of our Festival Directors, Ms Elizabeth Lloyd will host a workshop on how to redact stories in a sustainable way and in a manner which doesn't undermine the reader's understanding of the plot. This will be followed by an in-conversation event with her old boss, Nicola Sturgeon (now an acclaimed pre-author) on the theme of Forgiveness, Truth and Reconciliation in politics. There will also be a late night session entitled Terf, Wind and Fire: Cashing in on Cancel Culture. Here, a diverse group of previously unknown authors will share intimate testimonies about how they targeted rivals known to hold problematic views and ensured they were de-platformed from all theatres, venues and literary events. They'll then describe their moving and uplifting journeys from anonymity to acclaim by taking the places of these terfs and bigots. Ms Sturgeon herself will also host a series of panel events around the influence of George Orwell on modern political thinking. Special guests will include friends from politics like John Swinney, Humza Yousaf and Mhairi Black. Her first one: Why Big Brother is the Unsung Hero of 1984 is already close to being a sell-out. Read more In recent years, we are justly proud of how our children's book events have grown in popularity. This though, comes with an added burden in our duty of care to the wee ones and their families. A highlight of this year's event will be the appearance of a celebrated Czechoslovakian children's author who will read from her award-winning novel, Giorgio Piorgio, about a young lad's journey from disaster to triumph when his Body Mass Index tips into the red. She will also host a children's literary workshop based around her critically-acclaimed collection of old, problematic nursery rhymes re-imagined and updated. In The Truth About Humpty Dumpty, she claims that Humpty didn't have a great fall, but that he had a fear of heights and was coaxed down by local trauma counsellors who put him on a government-sponsored course of counselling. Her re-imagined Hansel and Gretel sees the rascally brother and sister acting kindly to a sad old crone in the forest and inviting her to come and stay with them at their home. The crone turns out to be a Cabinet Minister for Justice who makes them both her Special Advisers for Kindness. The Edinburgh International Book Festival has scoured the globe seeking out authors who know which side their bread is buttered on so that you'll know too. Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist. He is Features Writer of the Year and writes regularly about the working-class people and communities of Scotland
