Festival
Dundee Literary Festival 2010
We would like to give you a warm welcome to the new Dundee Literary Festival which will now run in the winter, giving a totally new feel to the fantastic combination of workshops, readings and informal talks by national and internationally renowned authors.
To launch our new timing, we're holding a series of events on 27th and 28th October, ahead of the main festival in winter 2011. We look forward to seeing you there.
Anna Day and Kirsty Gunn
Wednesday 27th October
Baxter Suite, room 1.36, 1st Floor, Tower Building
4.00pm to 6.00pm
Alan Warner, recently longlisted for the Booker Prize, returns to Dundee to read from his striking new novel Stars in the Bright Sky.
The six Sopranos of Warner’s 1998 novel reunite at Gatwick Airport to improvise a reunion getaway. Superbly sensitive the rhythms of everyday speech and crammed with the paraphernalia of contemporary consumer living, this riotous and subtly satirical comedy of youthful (over)exuberance confirms Warner as a brilliant talent.
Alan Warner was nominated by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists' and won critical acclaim with his novels, The Sopranos, Morvern Callar, These Demented Lands, The Man Who Walks and The Worms Can Carry Me To Heaven.
Thursday 28th October
Bonar Hall, University of Dundee
Creative Writing
10.00am to 12.00Noon
An inspirational session with our tutors to learn the basics of creative writing - discussion, exercises and examples will be used to encourage you to take a step towards achieving your creative writing goals, whether you are creating a short story, poetry or a novel.
Tutors from the University of Dundee's Creative Writing programme will lead this class.
PLACES ARE STRICTLY LIMITED
Poem and a Piece - Brian Johnstone
12.30pm to 1.30pm
Brian Johnstone - until recently Director of the STANza festival in St Andrews - comes across the river to read from his latest poetry collection, The Book of Belongings. The volume reads like an archaeology of the lost, its pages carefully uncovering and observing what has vanished, died or been
abandoned. Visiting former theatres of war, remote landscapes of Scotland, France and Greece, pre-war classrooms and the nightmares of childhood, these poems are not afraid to gaze long and hard at what has been deliberately concealed, erased, or dismissed as worthless - the past with all its demons, its sad domestic litanies.
Dr Finlay's Casebook with David Rintoul2.00pm to 3.00pm
With the publication of a new omnibus edition of Dr Finlay's Casebook and Adventures with a Black Bag, and a new biography of A.J. Cronin, Dundee Literary Festival is proud to present a celebration of Scotland's most famous doctor. With readings from master-actor, David Rintoul, who played Finlay in the hugely successful TV series of the 1990s and discussion with Alan Davies, author of A.J. Cronin, the Man who created Dr Finlay, we remember the quality of the writing, the characterisation and the wry humour of the central figure, Dr
Cameron and Janet. Welcome back to Arden House.
In conjunction with Booknation
James Robertson - And The Land Stay Still3.30pm to 4.00pm
James Robertson, Blairgowrie based author, has produced a sweeping epic story, charting the changes in Scottish life - personal and political - during the second half of the 20th century. An ambitious, enthralling and incredibly absorbing novel that has won acclaim and hit the best seller lists.
James Robertson's previous books have won the Saltire Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year, while the bestselling The Testament of Gideon Mack was picked by Richard & Judy's Book Club.
AND THE LAND STAY STILL
Michael Pendreich is curating an exhibition of photographs by his late, celebrated father Angus for the National Gallery of Photography in Edinburgh. The show will cover fifty years of Scottish life but, as he arranges the images and writes his catalogue essay, what story is Michael really trying to tell: his father's, his own or that of Scotland itself?
And what of the stories of the individuals captured by Angus Pendreich's lens over all those decades? The homeless wanderer collecting pebbles; the Second World War veteran and the Asian shopkeeper, fighting to make better lives for their families; the Conservative MP with a secret passion, and his drop-out sister, vengeful against class privilege; the alcoholic intelligence officer betrayed on all sides, not least by his own inadequacy; the activists fighting for Scottish Home Rule - all have their own tales to tell.
Tracing the intertwined lives of an unforgettable cast of characters, James Robertson's new novel is a searching journey into the heart of a country of high hopes and unfulfilled dreams, private compromises and hidden agendas. Brilliantly blending the personal and the political, And The Land Stay Still sweeps away the dust and grime of the postwar years to reveal a rich mosaic of 20th-century Scottish life.
Norman Watson - Dundee's Poet, The Worst Poet
Norman Watson, local author and journalist, has written the definitive biography of the world's worst poet, William McGonagall, is the remarkable, revealing and compelling story of a one-time Dundee weaver who continues to fascinate the world beyond Scotland a century after his passing. Award-winning author Norman Watson's insightful pen pulls back the curtain on the life of the self-styled 'tragedian and poet' in an important, absorbing and hugely entertaining biography which will appeal to McGonagall fans and general readers alike.
POET MCGONAGALL
William McGonagall is a literary legend and one of the best known names in the printed world. His disjointed verse has been popularised by the Goons, Pythons and Muppets, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, JK Rowling, Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman. He is on film and in reference books. His portrait hangs in galleries.
There are McGonagall societies and dinners, ceremonial plaques and websites. Yet we do not know where William McGonagall was born, where he was brought up or, indeed, where exactly he is buried. We do not know if the world's worst poet was Scots or Irish. No one has unpicked his first fifty years before he poured out formulaic rhymes on tragedies, victories, heroic deeds, nobility, clergy and gentry. We do not know how many poems he wrote or pamphlets of unappreciated verse he published.
McGonagall has largely escaped the biographer's pen and no adequate appraisal of his life has been attempted - until now. This definitive biography of the world's worst poet is the remarkable, revealing and compelling story of a one-time Dundee weaver who continues to fascinate the world beyond Scotland a century after his passing.
Award-winning author Norman Watson's insightful pen pulls back the curtain on the life of the self-styled 'tragedian and poet' in an important, absorbing and hugely entertaining biography which will appeal to McGonagall fans and general readers alike.
The June Literary Festival is over for another year, if you want to be kept informed of future events please email: literarydundee@gmail.com.
To relive the 2010 Dundee Literary Festival read A 'personal' diary by 'our scribe'.
2010 June Literary Festival
2009 Literary Festival
2008 Literary Festival.
