Sports
Poetry
Workshops
Business
Fiction Comics Children Non-Fiction
Crime 23 - 27 October 2013 | Free Programme
foreword Welcome, one and all, to the 2013 Dundee Literary Festival and Comics Conference. We’re delighted to be back with a packed line-up to entertain and excite each and every one of you, whatever your tastes: sports, crime, translation, poetry, theatre, music, business, knitting and kids events, the end of October is once again a plethora of words, books and discussion. Kirsty Gunn, our Creative Director, will open the festival with a panel discussing the importance of Nation and Culture as we head into the last twelve months of debate around the issue of Independence. Then we’ll delve straight into the literary world with more than 40 events over four days, only returning for air once the final applause has died down. The Dundee International Book Prize is again a key part of our festival, with a prize of £10,000 and a publishing deal to be awarded. You can read the finalists by downloading the free eBook from Amazon, just search for Dundee International Book Prize shortlist 2013. This year the Comic Conference is celebrating Science Fiction comics, and will feature creators who have worked extensively in this genre. As Dundee bids to become the UK City of Culture in 2017, we are proud of the calibre of author who has chosen to come here and share their work and their words with us all – join us for the 2013 Literary Festival and discover the best writers in the world, in Dundee.
FESTIVAL HUB
Anna Day Director, Literary Dundee
Makers’ fair & Ms Battenberg’s Travelling Tea Room
ticket information All events, unless otherwise stated will take place in the Bonar Hall. The Bonar Hall is located on the corner of Nethergate and Park Place.
24 - 27 October • 10am - 5pm • Bonar Hall, Dundee Stay awhile in our lovely festival hub; browse stalls from Aitken’s Wines, Vanilla Inkers, Yuck n’ Yum, Rosy Tuesday and others, and enjoy delicious snacks, cakes and drinks courtesy of Ms Battenberg... Yuck n Yum | The Kitchen Press | Rosy Tuesday | Aitken Wines | Paul Craven | Five Million Questions (5MQ) & Vanilla Ink alumni Scarlett Erskine, Audrey Reid, Sally Fenton, Leanne Evans, Joanne MacFadyen and Victoria Kelsey
facebook.com/dundeebooks @literarydundee #dundeelitfest
Tickets are available: • online at www.literarydundee.co.uk • by calling 01382 384413 • or emailing literarydundee@gmail.com • in person on the 6th Floor, Tower Building at the University • Waterstones, Commercial Street • The Overgate Shopping Centre ticket booth, ground floor • Dundee Contemporary Arts, Nethergate www.literarydundee.co.uk 3
Wednesday 23 October
Thursday 24 October
Launch of the 2013 Dundee Literary Festival
Theatre Studies Workshop If you’ve ever thought about working for the theatre, this free workshop will take you on a whirlwind tour of the jobs involved - try your hand at directing, stage design, playwriting. We’ll have experts from the University of Dundee on hand to help develop your skills.
Five Million Questions: Nation and Culture The University of Dundee gives the independence debate the platform of Five Million Questions, on which to address the nation’s concerns over Scotland’s constitutional future through a series of lectures and activities.
This event is supported by the brand new degree in Theatre Studies at the University of Dundee - bringing students, actors and theatre professionals together in a rich creative mix.
With the vote for Scottish Independence in 2014 drawing ever closer, Dundee Literary Festival 2013 opens with big questions in this Nation and Culture debate. Jim Tough, David Robinson, Elizabeth Reeder, Calum Colvin, Christopher Whatley, Scott Hames and Denise Mina form a fantastic and diverse panel
For more information about the degree, go to www.dundee.ac.uk Time: 9am Tickets: Free but ticketed
of speakers, writers and thinkers who will explore nationhood and identity. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear a range of views not always presented in their texture and variance by politicians and the general media. You’ll have the opportunity to have your say too. Time: 7pm Tickets: Free but ticketed
I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. - Oscar Wilde
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Eddie Small
Robert Alan Jamieson
Come and find out about Dundee’s best-kept secret. Eddie Small’s recently published book about Mary Lily sold out within days (don’t worry – the publishers have reprinted!) and Eddie will talk about her life and times, and explain her disappearance from the consciousness of the public of her home city.
Robert Alan Jamieson was born in 1958 in the crofting community of Sandness on Shetland. After publishing two novels (Soor Hearts and Thin Wealth) and a collection of poetry, Shoormal, during the 1980s, he studied English Literature at the University of Edinburgh as a mature student, before taking up the William Soutar Fellowship in Perth (1993-96). He currently teaches on the Creative Writing course at Edinburgh University. His most recent publications are the poetry collection, Nort Atlantik Drift (Luath, 2007) and Da Happie Laand, his epic ‘strange masterpiece’ from 2011. Here he talks to Dundee’s own Kirsty Gunn about his work with words.
Mary Lily Walker - Forgotten Visionary of Dundee
Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, who led the ‘Mary Lily Walker Project’, will be in conversation with the author about the research and the writing of this book about a remarkable lady who did so much for the women and children of Dundee. Time: 10am Tickets: Free but ticketed
Writing Family Histories Workshop Researching your family history, or anybody else’s for that matter, is a fascinating and ever more popular pursuit. Many archives, including the excellent one at the University of Dundee, have opened welcoming arms to the public to encourage genealogy hunters. But how do you convert this research into a piece of writing?
image credit Bob McDevitt
Eddie Small will conduct this workshop which will explain how to make the most of your research material. And if you have some material to bring along on the day, so much the better. Time: 11am Tickets: Free but ticketed
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Talking Poetry
Time: 12noon Tickets: £3/£2
Michael Hulse A Poem and a Piece
Michael Hulse has won numerous awards for his poetry, and has earned the praise of Simon Armitage, C. K. Stead, the late Peter Porter and many others. His books of poetry include Knowing and Forgetting (1981), Propaganda (1985), Empires and Holy Lands (2002) and, most recently, The Secret History (2009). A new collection, Half-Life, is forthcoming. His best-selling anthology The Twentieth Century in Poetry (co-edited with Simon Rae, 2011) was described by The Guardian as “magnificent”. He has translated more than sixty books from the German, among them works by Goethe, Rilke, W. G. Sebald and Herta Müller Time: 1pm Tickets: £5 (including lunch)
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Lesley Riddoch
Michael Hulse
Blossom: A Journey Beyond Independence
Found in Translation
Covering topics including housing, health, language and culture, acclaimed journalist and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch looks at the way in which Scots identify themselves and how this needs to change in order for the country to ‘Blossom’ as an independent nation or a strongly devolved one. Arguing that limited access to security and wealth has left Scots feeling like outsiders in their own country, this book tackles fundamental and personal issues of identity that matter to ordinary Scots. Designed to incite discussion and debate, this book will appeal to those who believe larger issues of self esteem and power lurk beneath the complexities of the independence debate and want to delve deeper.
‘A poet, I believe, is always stronger for having a genuine love of language, literatures, the visual arts, music, history, the natural world, and a wish to pursue substance rather than surface effect, and these requirements fire my own writing.’ Michael Hulse is a translator, teacher, editor, magazine publisher and critic, as well as a poet. He has translated titans of German literature - including Goethe, Rilke, Jakob Wassermann, Elfriede Jelinek, W. G. Sebald and Herta Müller – and championed the work of others through his editorship of literary magazines, such as Stand and The Warwick Review. In his event he will share his love of language and thoughts on the landscape of literature with Kirsty Gunn.
Time: 2pm
Time: 4pm
Tickets: £3/£2
Tickets: £3/2
Sarah Hall & Ruth Thomas
James Adair
Join us for an afternoon with two writers equally adept at novels and short stories. Acclaimed novelist Sarah Hall’s latest book - her first collection of short stories - The Beautiful Indifference, takes us from the heathered fells and lowlands of Cumbria to an eerily still lake in the Finnish wilderness and places in between in seven uniquely disturbing and deeply erotic stories. Award-winning short story stylist Ruth Thomas’s second novel The Home Corner is a funny, tender exploration of feeling adrift when facing the ‘real world’ for the first time, the way we create our own identities in the light of other people’s, and queries the distinctions that are made between the absent and the present, the real and the imagined.
‘Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut’ - Ernest Hemingway
The Long and the Short of It
image credit Richard Thwaites
Time: 3pm Tickets: £3/2 8 Dundee Literary Festival 2013
Rowing Across the Indian Ocean Over a boozy Sunday lunch, flatmates James Adair and Ben Stenning made a promise to row across an ocean. At first they considered the Pacific, then the Atlantic, but once James Cracknell and Ben Fogle completed the high-profile Atlantic Rowing Race, their thoughts turned to the Indian Ocean, longer and tougher than the Atlantic and having seen fewer people row across its waters than have walked on the Moon. Join James as he gives a fascinating illustrated talk based on their record-breaking journey. Time: 5pm Tickets: £3/£2 www.literarydundee.co.uk 9
Friday 25 October
Kari Herbert Polar Exploration
Mlitt Workshop
Kari Herbert’s book Heart of the Hero tells the fascinating untold stories of the remarkable women who married polar explorers, acting not only as their inspiration but also as their travel companions, administrators, publicists, fundraisers and more. The book was launched right here in Dundee on board the Discovery.
Now a regular part of our Festival Programme, Kirsty Gunn introduces the stars of Dundee’s unique degree in Writing Practice and Study. Hear the latest work by new poets and novelists just graduating from the course and discover what secrets they’ve picked up about the world of writing - from first drafts to presentation. Time: 9am
The polar explorers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras were superstars in their day. Exploration was a male domain, and most women encountered the wilder parts of the world only second-hand. For those intrepid few who joined the men on these extreme frontiers, life was every bit as dangerous, gruelling and thrilling – yet their stories had gone untold.
Tickets: Free but ticketed
Juliet Conlin & Neil MacKay
Kari Herbert blends accounts of longing, betrayal and hope with moments of breathtaking peril all the while drawing on her own experience of life in a polar family (her father, pioneering explorer Sir Wally Herbert, took Kari and her mother to live in Greenland when she was 10 months old...).
The Road to Publication
Join our panel of debut authors (including the 2013 winner of the Dundee International Book Prize, announced the night before) as they discuss their unique experiences on the road to getting their novels published.
Join Kari for an unforgettable, illustrated talk and Q&A. Time: 7pm
Do you need a literary agent? Does winning a prize help? How should you approach publishers with your work? Have you considered self-publishing an eBook?
Tickets: £3/£2
Few people are able to tell this story and Kari Herbert has done it with rare sensitivity and insight. - Sir Ranulph Fiennes 10 Dundee Literary Festival 2013
image credits Bob McDevitt
Neil MacKay’s All the Little Guns Went Bang Bang Bang (Freight) is a brutal and unforgettable novel about two eleven year olds in Northern Ireland in the 1980s. The Fractured Man by Juliet Conlin (Cargo) is a psychological thriller set in the war-ravaged Europe of the 1920s. Time: 10am Tickets: Free but ticketed
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image credit Richard Thwaites
image credit Urszula Soltys
Sarah Hall & Jenni Fagan
Paula Jennings
Granta Best Young Novelists
A Poem and a Piece
Jenni Fagan and Sarah Hall are among the 20 brightest young writers unveiled by literary magazine Granta in their prestigious decennial Best of Young British Novelists list 2013. With four novels, one short story collection and countless awards under her belt, Hall is a writer of huge talent - disquieting, deeply sensual and visceral. Jenni Fagan’s first novel, The Panopticon, - ‘an utterly magnificent achievement’ in Irvine Welsh’s words - is the tale of fifteen-year old Anais Hendricks; smart, funny and fierce, she is also a child who has been let down by every adult she’s ever met. Join us today for readings and the low down on what it is to be a rising star in 2013.
Paula Jennings’s poems have been published in literary magazines, national newspapers, and anthologies. They have also been carved in stone by Gillian Forbes (Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh) and broadcast on Radio Scotland. Some notable reading venues have included StAnza and, most recently, Rosslyn Chapel. Her poetry has been described as ‘radiating intense awareness of what it means to be alive’. She has published two collections – Singing Lucifer (Onlywomen Press, 2002/2007) and From the Body of the Green Girl (HappenStance Press, 2008) – and is currently completing work on a third.
Time: 11am
Tickets: £5 (including lunch)
Time: 1pm
Tickets: £3/2
A.L. Kennedy on Writing
image credit Kevin Low
After six novels, five story collections, two books of non-fiction, and countless international prizes, A.L. Kennedy certainly has the authority to talk about the craft of writing books - it’s just a wonder she has found the time. These are missives from the authorial front line - urgent and vivid, full of the excitement, fury and frustration of trying to make thousands of words into a publishable book. Based around the hugely popular blog that Kennedy writes for The Guardian these pieces add up to the most intimate master-class imaginable giving readers and aspiring writers almost everything they need to know about the complexities of researching, writing and publishing fiction, all from one of the finest - and most humane - writers in our language. Time: 12noon Tickets: £3/£2
Imogen Robertson, Iain Gale & Robyn Young The Dunnett Debate - Historical Fiction Historical fiction is more popular than ever, winning prizes and occupying the top of the best-seller lists. How accurate are these portrayals of the periods they describe though? Join our distinguished panel, including renowned historical authors, Imogen Robertson, Iain Gale and Robyn Young, as well as historian, writer and broadcaster Fiona Watson. This event will be chaired by Ann McMillan, Honorary President of The Dorothy Dunnett Society, which exists to share its members’ enthusiasm for history and literature - For more information see: www.dunnettcentral.org. Imogen Robertson’s latest novel, The Paris Winter is a deep, dark and opulent tale of Belle Epoque Paris, Iain Gale’s Keane’s Company introduces a memorable new character and is set in 1808 during The Peninsular War and Robyn Young’s Renegade is a dazzling story of conspiracy and divided loyalties, and a superb portrait of the mediaeval world. Time: 2pm Tickets: £3/£2
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Alan Spence
Denise Mina & Doug Johnstone
A Quest for Truth
Dark Tales from the East and West
My childhood name was Iwajiro, and I was eight years old when I first entered at the gates of hell . . .
Denise Mina is the 2012 & 2013 winner of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Her tartan noir novel The Red Road is a two-decade-long narrative of power, abuse and love gone horribly wrong. Sweeping from 1997 to the present day, and full of dark edges, twists and turns, Mina’s latest novel blends the harsh realities facing Glasgow’s underprivileged kids with the salubrious world inhabited by the city’s legal and financial high heid yins.
One night in eighteenth-century Japan, at the hour of the Ox, a young boy named Iwajiro sits in a state of pure concentration. At the foot of Mount Fuji, behind screen walls and amidst curls of incense smoke Iwajiro chants the Tenjin Sutra, an act of devotion learned from his beloved mother. image credit Calum Colvin
On the side of the same mountain, twenty years on, he will sit in perfect stillness as the summit erupts, spitting fire and molten rock onto the land around him. This is not the first time he has seen hell. In his latest novel, Night Boat, award-winning writer Alan Spence tells the story of this tremendous life. Time: 3pm Tickets: £3/£2
Quintin Jardine & Douglas Skelton Two Sides of Crime They say that opposites attract and we hope that this is true as we present what will hopefully be a memorable afternoon of criminal opposites.
As Mark Douglas photographs a pod of whales stranded in the waters off Edinburgh’s Portobello Beach, he receives a phonecall: his wife, Lauren, hasn’t turned up to collect their son from school. Calm at first, Mark collects Nathan and takes him home but as the hours slowly crawl by he increasingly starts to worry… Gone Again, Doug Johnstone’s latest psychological thriller, will leave you guessing until the final page. Time: 5.30pm Tickets: £3/£2
Duncan Bannatyne Riding the Storm In this inspirational second volume of memoirs from Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne, he talks about how he survived personal and professional setbacks, including the break-up of his second marriage and the recession.
Time: 4pm
As well as talking candidly about his own businesses, Duncan discusses the way the financial crisis unfolded and the conversations he had with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling at the time; he uses his experiences from Dragons’ Den to offer advice to start-up entrepreneurs in today’s market; he reveals the true nature of his relationships with the other dragons; he discusses the opportunities that success has given him, from learning to dance for Sport Relief to trekking up Kilimanjaro with his daughter; and he explains why, in spite of having just gone through the toughest years of his life, he feels positive about the future - and why you should too. Chaired by Chris van der Kuyl
Tickets: £3/£2
Time: 7pm Tickets: £5/£3
Quintin Jardine has been writing his popular Skinner novels for twenty years – Douglas Skelton’s Blood City is his first novel. Bob Skinner’s adventures have played out in the closes and crags of Edinburgh - Blood City is a tale of violence, corruption and betrayal, set in Glasgow’s criminal underworld. Pray for the Dying, the latest Skinner, is a contemporary tale of murder and politics – Douglas’s book is set thirty years ago in the 1980s… An unmissable treat for fans of crime fiction.
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image credit Neil Davidson
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Vic Galloway with special guest The Pictish Trail Songs in the Key of Fife The East Neuk of Fife may seem like an unusual place for a musical revolution. However, in amongst the sleepy fishing villages and rolling fields, a small community of gifted musicians has quietly crept up on the world. From psychedelic troubadours the Beta Band to the multi-million selling KT Tunstall, acclaimed singersongwriter James Yorkston and the reigning monarch and lynchpin of the Fence Collective, King Creosote, Songs in the Key of Fife plots the unique, intertwining tales of these Fifers from their schooldays to the present day. Vic Galloway’s book, full of personal anecdotes and insights, provides an in-depth look at a unique collective of musicians who have experienced the extreme highs and the desperate lows of the music business over 20 years and explains why this craggy outpost on the east coast of Scotland is responsible for providing us with so many talented artists. The event will feature a special performance by The Pictish Trail. Time: 8.30pm Tickets: £5/£3
Saturday 26 October Debi Gliori A Picture Tells a Thousand Stories Once upon a time, in Tobermory on the beautiful isle of Mull, there lived a cat… Join us for some Saturday morning storytelling with Debi Gliori, author and illustrator of over seventy picture books and novels for children of all ages, including the much-loved No Matter What and the Pure Dead series, recently optioned by Aardman. Time: 10am Tickets: Free but ticketed
James Robertson The Gruffalo’s Wean Has there ever been a more popular character than the Gruffalo? We’re pleased to be presenting a wee Scots twist on the stories as award winning author James Robertson reads from The Gruffalo’s Wean, the follow-up to the bestselling Gruffalo in Scots. There will be loads of fun, games and stories in the Scots language. Time: 11am Tickets: Free but ticketed
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Jackie Holt & Ruth Bailey
Maggie O’Farrell
Knitting Workshop
Instructions for a Heatwave
Jackie Holt and Ruth Bailey have written two amazing, creative books on knitting - Knit Your Own Scotland and now, Knit Your Own Britain. So if you’ve ever fancied having your very own miniature woolly version of William Wallace, Andy Murray, James Bond, Ant & Dec or even a Scotch pie, now’s your chance. Jackie and Ruth will be bringing along some of their amazing creations and will be giving you the tips and tricks you’ll need to make your own…
It’s July, 1976. In London, it hasn’t rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he’s going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn’t come back.... Instructions for a Heatwave is the stunning new novel from Costa Awardwinning novelist Maggie O’Farrell, the delicate portrait of a dysfunctional Irish family in crisis in the legendary heatwave of 1976.
Time: 12 noon
Time: 2pm
Tickets: £3/£2
Tickets: £3/£2
Em Strang
John Whaite
A Poem And A Piece
Let Yourself Eat Cake
Em Strang is a poet in her final year of a PhD in Creative Writing (Ecopoetry) at Glasgow University. She has published work in numerous anthologies and journals including Dark Mountain, Causeway, New Writing Scotland, and The Herald. She is currently working on a book of poems and illustrations with folk artist, Rima Staines. She lives in south west Scotland. Time: 1pm Tickets: £5 (including lunch)
The Great British Bake Off was one of those TV shows that got everyone talking. It was a phenomenal ratings hit and made an instant star of the winner, John Whaite. In his first book, John Whaite Bakes, John wants to share his mouth-watering creations with us so we can find the perfect recipe to fit our mood… There are comforting dishes here like Self-Saucing Chocolate Mud Pud and Pork, Apple and Thyme Sausage Rolls that will warm up the coldest of winter evenings, inspiring flavour combinations such as Fig and Rose Savarin and Salted Caramel Rum Babas, romantic dishes to share such as Pizza Puttanesca and Passionfruit Tart and some new showstoppers too, including the brand new Hellfire and Brimstone Cake. This will be the tastiest event of this year’s festival as John will be working with KitschnBake who take cake seriously, but not too seriously. Time: 3pm Tickets: £3/£2
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Dundee Literary Festival 2013 at a Glance 23 -27 October Children Wednesday 23 October
Crime
Business
Thursday 24 October
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Sports
Workshops
Comics STARBLAZERS! CREATORS OF BRITISH SCIECNE FICTION COMICS
Saturday 26 October
Sunday 27 October
Juliet Conlin & Neil MacKay - Free but ticketed
Debi Gliori - Free but ticketed
John Fardell - Free but ticketed
Writting Family Histories Workshop - Free but ticketed
Sarah Hall & Jenni Fagan - £3/£2
James Robertson - Free but ticketed
Jane Yeadon - £3/£2
12noon
Robert Alan Jamieson - £3/£2
A.L. Kennedy - £3/£2
Jackie Holt & Ruth Bailey - £3/£2
Gregor Ewing - £3/£2
1pm
Michael Hulse - £5 (inc lunch)
Paula Jennings - £5 (inc lunch)
Em Strang - £5 (inc lunch)
W.N. Herbert & Andy Jackson - £5 (inc lunch)
Science
2pm
Lesley Riddoch - £3/£2
Imogen Robertson & Robyn Young - £3/£2
Maggie O’Farrell - £5/£3
Iain Martin & Ian Fraser - £3/£2
Dundee Science Festival
3pm
Sarah Hall & Ruth Thomas - £3/£2
Alan Spence - £3/£2
John Whaite - £3/£2
Andrew Greig & Jim Hutcheson - £3/£2
4pm
Michael Hulse - £3/£2
Quintin Jardine & Douglas Skelton - £3/£2
Richard Moore & Hugh MacDonald - £3/£2
Tommy McLean - £5/£3
5pm
James Adair - £3/£2
Denise Mina & Doug Johnstone - £3/£2 (5.30pm)
Rosemary Goring & James Robertson - £3/£2
5pm Sat 2 November Neurocomic live What are our brains made of?
Lesley McDowell - £5/£3
Malcolm Archibald - £3/£2
William Mcllvanney - £5/£3
Canongate Life begins at 40! - £3/£2 (7.30pm)
6pm Fri 8 November Stuart Clark Astronomy in Fiction
9am
Friday 25 October
Poetry
Mlitt Workshop - Free but ticketed
10am
Eddie Small - Free but ticketed Theatre Studies Workshop - Free but ticketed
11am
Patrick Ness - £3/£2
6pm 7pm 8pm
Literary Festival Launch Five Million Questions: Nation & Culture - Free but ticketed
9pm 20 Dundee Literary Festival 2013
Kari Herbert - £3/£2
Duncan Bannatyne - £5/£3 Vic Galloway - £5/£3 (8.30pm)
Katherine Grainger - £5/£3 Alan Bissett - £3/£2
Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th October D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre & Baxter Suite Tower Building, Nethergate University of Dundee
6pm Sat 9 November Pippa Goldschmidt & Jessica Fox Stories in space www.literarydundee.co.uk 21
Rosemary Goring & James Robertson
Richard Moore & Hugh MacDonald From Andy Murray to Le Tour: How British Sport Took Over the World ‘Marginal Gains’ - the theory of making small percentage improvements across many areas in pursuit of sporting excellence - has been the driving force behind Dave Brailsford’s cycling revolution in Britain over the past decade. But it also helps explain the incremental steps that made Andy Murray our first men’s singles Wimbledon champion for seventy seven years. Award-winning sports writer Richard Moore discusses his ebook short – Mastermind: How Dave Brailsford reinvented the wheel – which analyses the mindset of the British Cycling and Team Sky supremo which lead to consecutive wins for Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. He is joined by The Herald’s chief sports writer Hugh MacDonald, whose own ebook short on Andy Murray, Murrayball, traces the Wimbledon champion’s obsession with extracting the most from his talents. Both Hugh and Richard’s 10,000-word ebooks are part of a groundbreaking new digital imprint, 90 Minutes, produced by sports publisher BackPage Press. Time: 4pm
Compelling stories In this the 500th anniversary of The Battle of Flodden, Rosemary Goring’s new novel combines political intrigue and romance, guilt and danger as it considers the consequences of this most significant of battles. If you love historical fiction, if you’re interested in the history of Scotland and the turbulent borderlands between Scotland and England, then After Flodden is the tale for you.
image credit Chis Scott
Twenty-one years after his wife and daughter were murdered in the bombing of a plane over Scotland, Alan Tealing, a university lecturer, still does not know the truth of what really happened on that terrible night. In this study of grief, obsession and the search for justice, Robertson’s fifth novel The Professor of Truth, inspired by the horror of Lockerbie, explores the political and personal ramifications of such a tragedy. Time: 5pm Tickets: £3/£2
Tickets: £3/£2
I can’t get my head around that. I still can’t believe it’s happened - Andy Murray after becoming the first British man to win Wimbledon in 77 years
I’ve heard the liltin at oor yowe-milkin, Lassies a-liltin before break o day Now there’s a moanin on ilka green loanin The Flooers o the Forest are a’ wede awa The Flowers of the Forest
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Lesley McDowell
Katherine Grainger
Launch of Unfashioned Creatures
Dreams Do Come True
Join us in celebrating the launch of Lesley McDowell’s Unfashioned Creatures, a gothic tale of madness, sexual obsession and murderous desires.
Katherine Grainger’s autobiography (published by Andre Deutsch) tells the inspirational story of one of Team GB’s golden girls from London 2012. Our finest woman rower had one final career target to achieve and, on 3rd August 2012, on the water at Eton Dorney, she - and Anna Watkins - beat three other pairs and Olympic gold medals were theirs. After winning silver medals in 2000, 2004 and 2008, Katherine Grainger could finally call herself an Olympic champion. Her story is a remarkable one - proof that nice people can be winners and dedication and hard work pay off. Incredibly bright, Grainger combined her athletic career with her education and she has degrees from Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities and a PhD from London, in subjects as diverse as law, philosophy and murder. Now much in demand as a motivational speaker, Katherine Grainger has packed an awful lot into her 37 years and in this autobiography she tells her life story, the highs and lows, and her ultimate moment of glory in front of thousands of home fans. We are proud to welcome this sporting heroine to Dundee as part of this year’s festival.
Mary Shelley’s real-life friend Isabella Baxter Booth is seeing ghosts and meeting mysterious strangers. To escape her increasingly violent, deranged husband and her own murderous impulses towards him, she flees London for her childhood home in Broughty Ferry… Lesley McDowell is a literary critic for The Herald, The Scotsman and The Independent on Sunday. Her first novel was The Picnic (2007). Her second book, Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th-Century Women Writers, was shortlisted for the nonfiction prize in the 2011 Scottish Book Awards. Time: 6pm Tickets: Free but ticketed
image credit Getty images/Andre Deutsch
Time: 8pm
William McIlvanney The Crime Writer’s Crime Writer
Alan Bissett
“It’s doubtful I would be a crime writer without the influence of McIlvanney’s Laidlaw.” Ian Rankin
Ban This Filth!
In 1977 William McIlvanney published Laidlaw, the first in a trilogy of detective novels that would re-define Scottish crime fiction. Now, re-issued by Canongate these masterful novels are finding a whole new audience and we are incredibly pleased that William McIlvanney will be here to read from and discuss the trilogy.
Andrea Dworkin: radical feminist. Alan Bissett: man. One stage. Bissett plays himself, telling stories from his own life, with a penis, and Dworkin, one of the most controversial women in history, who has a few things to say to him. Expect laughter, Led Zeppelin and live reconditioning of a man who’s had it too easy. Until now... Ban This Filth was a sell-out success at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe with reviewers calling it ‘Eloquent and very funny’ The Herald, ‘Hugely engaging...Smart stuff.’ The Times
Time: 7pm
Time: 9pm
Tickets: £5/£3
Tickets: £3/£2
“Laidlaw is the melancholy heir to Marlowe. Reads like a breathless scalpel cut through the bloody heart of a city” Denise Mina
image credit Iain McLean
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Tickets: £5/£3
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Sunday 27 October Patrick Ness
John Fardell
Boy-Eating Monsters, Diabolical Baddies, Eccentric Professors and High-Flying Jellyfish
More Than This... The double Carnegie Medal-winning author of A Monster Calls and the Chaos Walking trilogy (which has just been optioned by Lionsgate Films, to be adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman), will be discussing his thrilling and utterly absorbing new novel for Young Adults (and older ones too!), More Than This which chronicles the life - or perhaps afterlife - of a teen trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world. Among the numerous awards Patrick has received are the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the Costa Children’s Book Award.
Award-winning author-illustrator John Fardell will show you his picture books and adventure novels, in this special behind-the-scenes look at his notebooks, rough drafts, artwork and models. Expect top tips and wisdom from John as he answers any questions you might want to ask about his work as an illustrator and cartoonist. And bring your thinking cap! - there will be plenty of opportunity to join in and draw your own characters, inventions and stories. image credit Kevin MacLean, City of Edinburgh Council
Time: 10am
Tickets: £3/£2
Jane Yeadon
Gregor Ewing
Nursing Tales from the Swinging Sixties
In the Footprints of Bonnie Prince Charlie
When Jane Yeadon decided that she wanted to become a nurse, the Sixties had arrived in style. But before her training the nearest she got to anything swinging was the udder of the cow on their farm in the north-east of Scotland. It was time to leave for the bright lights and some modern life. Call Me Sister continues Jane’s story from her first two books (It Won’t Hurt a Bit and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Midwife) and recalls Jane’s challenging and often hilarious route to realising her dream of becoming a district nurse. All set to the backdrop and soundtrack of the fabulous Swinging Sixties.
For the first time, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s arduous escape of 1746 has been recreated in a single journey. The author, along with his faithful border collie Meg, retraces Charlie’s epic 530 mile walk through remote wilderness, hidden glens, modern day roads and uninhabited islands.
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Time: 11am
Tickets: Free but ticketed
image credit Falkirk Herald
Join Gregor Ewing for an inspiring illustrated talk as he tells the Prince’s story alongside the trials of his own present day journey, whilst reflecting on the plight of the highlanders who, despite everything, loyally protected their rightful prince. The author’s love of history and the landscape in which he travels are conveyed beautifully in this modern day adventure. Time: 12noon Tickets: £3/£2 www.literarydundee.co.uk 27
W.N. Herbert & Andy Jackson A Poem and a Piece
Poem After Poem, Wave Following Wave
Whaleback City: the Poetry of Dundee and its Hinterland is a unique anthology of poems inspired by the city of Dundee and its surroundings. In it you will find poems about the city, its history, its architecture and its landscape, spanning six centuries and distilling the spirit and temperament of its people, both celebrated and ordinary. Poets range from Sir Walter Scott and William McGonagall to contemporary voices such as Douglas Dunn and Don Paterson. The poems themselves speak of subjects as diverse as the Tay and its bridges, the Jute industry, Liz McColgan, the People’s Friend, Dens Road Market and a hundred other things that are uniquely Dundonian. Whether you love poetry or you love Dundee, this is a very special collection saluting Scotland’s most industrious and enterprising city, and today’s event invites you to hear more from editors W N Herbert and Andy Jackson.
Through music and poetry Andrew Greig recounts the tale of his open dinghy voyage from Stromness to Cava. By sailing small boats in scary open waters Andrew Greig found a new activity and a new metaphor for life. Written in six weeks, Found at Sea is a ‘very wee epic’ about sailing, male friendship and a voyage, performed here with musical accompaniment from Jim Hutcheson.
Time: 1pm
Winging It
Tickets: £5 (including lunch)
Time: 3pm Tickets: £3/£2
Tommy McLean
One of the most enduring news stories of the past few years has been the collapse and bail out of RBS. With repercussions that will last for decades this is a story that will not go away and we now have two new books that look at the inside stories behind the headlines. Iain Martin’s Making it Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy is based on more than 80 interviews and tells the story from the birth of the Royal Bank in 18th century Scotland, to the manic expansion under Fred Goodwin in the middle of a mad boom and culminating in the epoch-defining collapse. Ian Fraser’s Shredded: The Rise and Fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland reveals how the ‘light touch’ approach to financial regulation of New Labour and the aggressive, confrontational and reckless style of Fred Goodwin led to disaster. He also looks at the future for the bank and examines its chances of ever regaining the public’s trust. Chaired by Ruth Wishart.
Tommy McLean made history as a player and a manager, but behind the triumph is an untold story. As one-third of Scottish football’s best-known team of brothers, McLean sampled the incredible highs. He became a Rangers legend as an integral part of the European Cup Winners’ Cup-winning team in 1972 and as a mainstay of Jock Wallace’s treble-winning heroes in the years that followed. As a manager he took Motherwell from the brink of bankruptcy to victory in the Scottish Cup final and European football. That memorable triumph is however tinged with pain for McLean, who faced his brother Jim’s Dundee United in the cup final just days after the death of their father. And there was further personal turmoil behind the scenes during that momentous game, a story McLean reflects on publicly for the first time. The years that followed have been filled with further joys and sorrows, including a tumultuous spell in charge of Hearts, a controversial six-day spell as manager of Raith Rovers, and a time as manager of Dundee United under the chairmanship of his older brother, Jim. He was also recruited by David Murray to head up Rangers’ youth system, but stepped away from football to concentrate on more important family matters. Tommy McLean will be in conversation with sports journalist Paul Smith and this will be an unmissable event for any football fan.
Time: 2pm
Time: 4pm
Tickets: £3/£2
Tickets: £5/£3
Iain Martin & Ian Fraser The Fall of RBS
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Andrew Greig & Jim Hutcheson
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Malcolm Archibald
Saturday 26th October 2013 2.00pm Comics Workshop – Draw Dr Who / Design a Villain 3.00pm Display & book signing event with Dr Who comic artists 4.00pm Storyboarding the Dr Who TV series, with Andy Wildman
A long time friend of the literary festival and a previous winner of the Dundee International Book Prize, Malcolm will be here this year to discuss his two new books – one fiction, The Dundee Murders: A Burden Shared (Fledgling Press) and one non-fiction, Whisky Wars, Riots and Murder: Crime in the 19th Century Highlands and Islands (Black & White).
Sunday 27th October 2013 10.00am Registration 10.25am Opening of Conference, Chris Murray
Victorian Crime: Fact & Fiction
Join him for an evening of riots, poaching, forgery, cannibalism and murder… Time: 6pm Tickets: £3/£2
Canongate Books: Life Begins at 40! Richard Holloway & Matt Haig
Canongate was founded in 1973. The company nearly went under in 1994, but became independent again following a management buyout by current Publisher and Managing Director, Jamie Byng. It has since emerged as one of the most dynamic publishing houses in Britain. In the last event of our 2013 festival, authors Richard Holloway and Matt Haig along with Publishing Director Francis Bickmore will discuss the Canongate Living Archive acquired by the University of Dundee in 2010, celebrate 40 years of this great independent force in publishing and raise a glass to many more.
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Dundee Comics Day – Science Fiction Comics Comics Day 2013 will celebrate Science Fiction comics and will feature creators who have worked in this genre, from well-established names to new talent. This comes at an important time for British science fiction, with the 50th Anniversary of Dr Who and last year’s 35th Anniversary for 2000AD, Britain’s premier science fiction comic. Many of this year’s guests have worked on Dr Who comics, and for 2000AD, and others have worked for beloved franchises like Transformers and Star Wars. Join us for Dundee Comics Day 2013 and meet the starblazers of British science fiction comics! For tickets consult the Dundee Literary Festival webpage: www.literarydundee.co.uk/ Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th October 2013 Ticket for Saturday & Sunday: £15/£7.50 Venue: Saturday - Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre (DCA)
Time: 7.30pm
Sunday - D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre & Baxter Suite
Tickets: £3/£2
Tower Building, University of Dundee
Session One 10.30am John Ridgway 10.50am Questions 11.00am Ian Kennedy 11.20am Questions 11.30am Sydney Jordan and William Rudling 12.00pm Questions 12.10pm Book signing by John Ridgway, Ian Kennedy and Sydney Jordan 1.00pm Break Session Two 1.30pm Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser 2.00pm Questions 2.10pm Simon Furman and Andy Wildman 2.40pm Questions 2.50pm Kev Hopgood 3.10pm Questions 3.20pm Book signing by Robbie Morrison, Simon Fraser, Simon Furman, Andy Wildman, Kev Hopgood, Tanya Roberts, Montynero and Mike Dowling Session Three 4.20pm Tanya Roberts 4.40pm Questions 4.50pm Montynero and Mike Dowling 5.20pm Questions 5.30pm Roundtable discussion 6.00pm Announcement of Dundee Comics Prize Winners and wine reception 7.00pm Conference ends www.literarydundee.co.uk 31
Robbie Morrison
Andy Wildman
Robbie Morrison is the creator of Nikolai Dante, one of the most beloved characters in 2000AD’s recent history. He also wrote Shimura, with art by Frank Quitely, and has written for US companies DC Comics, Marvel and Wildstorm, with runs on top-selling characters such as Batman and Spider-Man. He is the writer of Drowntown, recently published by Jonathan Cape, with art by Jim Murray.
Andy Wildman is best known as an artist on comics such as Transformers, The X-Men, Spider-Man, Venom, and Frontier, but he also creates character and environment design for the TV and Video Games industries. He was head character designer for the animated TV show Legend of The Dragon, production designer for the children’s animated TV show The Matt Hatter Chronicles and storyboard artist for the BBC on The Fades and Doctor Who. In 2005 he founded the charity project, Draw the World Together to raise funds to enable education possibilities for street children around the world.
Simon Fraser Simon Fraser is best known for his artwork on Nikolai Dante, which he created with Robbie Morrison for 2000 AD. In 2005 he drew the adaptation of Richard Matheson’s Hell House, written by Ian Edginton and published by IDW Publishing. He is also a writer, and creator of Lilly MacKenzie and the Mines of Charybdis which is being published online, as part of the online comics collective Act-i-vate.
Simon Furman Simon Furman has been inextricably linked to Transformers, the 80s toy phenomenon, since he wrote an outstanding series of stories about these ‘robots in disguise’, for Marvel Comics UK. He has gone on to write Doctor Who, Dragon’s Claws, Death’s Head, Alpha Flight, Turok, She-Hulk, Robocop, and Terminator. In the TV animation field he has written for shows such as Beast Wars, Roswell Conspiracies, Dan Dare, X-Men: Evolution, Alien Racers and A.T.O.M. Editorially, Furman oversees Titan Books’ range of Transformers titles and their ‘Comics Creators’ series. He also wrote a Doctor Who audio adventure (‘The Axis of Insanity’). He is currently writing more Transformers comics, and is lead writer and script supervisor for the upcoming animated TV show The Matt Hatter Chronicles.
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John Ridgway John Ridgway started his varied comics career freelancing for DC Thomson in the 1970s, drawing Commando comics. He became a full-time comics creator in 1984, working for 2000AD (Fleetway), Warrior (Quality Communications), and for Marvel UK and DC Comics. He lent his distinctive style to his work on Transformers, Dr Who and Zoids for Marvel UK, and Hellblazer for DC Comics. He drew The Dead Man series for 2000AD, which is notable for being the only story where Judge Dredd appears without his helmet. He also produced the colour and 3D models for Hal Starr and Jeff Hawke with Sydney Jordan.
Sydney Jordan Sydney Jordan was born and worked for a while in Dundee. A graduate of the Aeronautical Technical School in Reading he became a regular pilot in the RAF. Sydney is probably best known for his stunning science fiction newspaper strip “Jeff Hawke”, which ran in the Daily Express from 1955 to 1974. The series was especially popular in Europe. Sydney then went onto create another science fiction strip, “Lance McLane” for The Daily Record, which ran from 1976 to 1988. In June 1996 The Planet on Sunday (a very short-lived newspaper) published a new episode of Dan Dare, illustrated by Sydney. William Rudling, who runs the Jeff Hawke Club will accompany Sydney, and talk about this much loved strip.
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Ian Kennedy
Montynero
Ian Kennedy was born in Dundee in 1932 and started his career in 1949, working for DC Thomson. During the 50’s he worked on a variety of comics such as Thriller Picture Library, Air Ace, Hotspur and Wizard. After this Ian began his long association with Commando. In the 70’s Ian worked on science fiction comics such as Starlord, 2000AD and Starblazer. He had a long run on the new Dan Dare for IPC in the 1980’s as well as producing art for the Blake’s 7 comic magazine. Ian is semi-retired, but still produces covers for Commando!
Montynero is the writer of Death Sentence, a story about a disease that enhances its victim’s natural abilities, and sometimes bestows superpowers. It was serialized in Clint, and has gone on to considerable success, receiving excellent reviews and being published in a collected edition by Titan. Montynero is both a comics writer and artist, and has worked for 2000AD and in the computer games industry.
Mike Dowling Tanya Roberts Tanya Roberts is a comic book artist based in Edinburgh and working for various companies including Lucasarts, Disney and American Greetings. She has recently drawn several licensed properties, including Toy Story and Strawberry Shortcake and works on Star Wars: Clone Wars. She is the creator of Forgotten Muse.
Mike Dowling artist of Death Sentence, has been a regular contributor to Mark Miller’s Clint magazine and to 2000AD. He has also worked for Torchwood Magazine and for DC Comics, including a story for Vertigo’s Time Warp anthology: The Grudge written by Si Spurrier. He was the artist on Frankie Boyle’s Rex Royd (Clint). Outside comic books he occasionally works as an illustrator for film and other media, producing promo and concept art. Most recently he has contributed artwork for the title sequence of ‘Zombie Resurrection’ an independent film currently in post-production, (dir. Andy Phelps), and super-hero costume design for ‘Revengers’, a sitcom in development.
Kev Hopgood Kev Hopgood is a children’s illustrator and comic book artist. He works for a wide variety of publishers in the UK, US and Europe, including Marvel comics, for whom he co-created the popular character War Machine, who appeared in the recent Iron Man movies. He drew Zoids, written by Grant Morrison, for Marvel UK, and has worked for 2000AD, drawing Night Zero, Harlem Heroes and Judge Dredd. He has also drawn several Dr Who stories, He’s also worked in the educational and ELT field for publishers such as Oxford University Press, Barrington Stoke & Franklin Watts.
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Dundee Science Festival Neurocomic Live
Stuart Clark
What are our brains made of? What happens in our brains when we think, feel, see, hear and touch?
Astronomy in Fiction: The Science Behind The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth trilogy
Neuroscientist Dr Hana Ros and Illustrator Dr Matteo Farinella unravel the mysteries of the human brain in this unique ‘illustrated lecture’. Based on their ground-breaking graphic novel, Neurocomic, collaborators Dr Ros and Dr Farinella explain ‘the most complex thing in the universe’ through words and live-drawing.
A number of authors have interwoven astronomical facts into their novels: Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad and Peter Ackroyd to name but three. Stuart Clark’s critically acclaimed trilogy, The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth, goes a step further.
No knowledge of neuroscience required. The lecture includes a short Q&A and is followed by an illustrated signing.
Over the course of the three novels, it dramatises the lives of great astronomers such as Galileo, Newton, Einstein. In the way that CJ Sansom’s hugely successful Shardlake series marries crime writing with popular history, so The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth trilogy blends gripping historical fiction with popular science.
Dr Hana Ros studied at the University of Oxford and has worked as a neuroscientist ever since. Alongside her professional practice, she is an avid storyteller who devotes her spare time to writing and documentary film-making. Neurocomic is her first graphic novel with Nobrow Press.
Every novelist must determine how much weight to give the historical facts in their work. In this talk, Stuart will discuss the balancing act of incorporating science while showing how our changing view of the Universe revolved around these three scientists and the lives that they led.
Dr Matteo Farinella, studied neuroscience at University College London and now divides his life between art and science. When not in the lab, he’s to be found at his drawing desk, working on graphic journalism and scientific illustration. Date: Saturday 2 November Time: 5pm
Date: Friday 8 November Time: 6pm Venue: Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill. Tickets: Free
Venue: Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill. Tickets: Free
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Pippa Goldschmidt & Jessica Fox Stories in space Pippa Goldschmidt’s first novel The Falling Sky, about an astronomer who thinks she’s found evidence contradicting the Big Bang theory, is based on her own experiences as a professional astronomer. Jessica Fox, author of the memoir Three Things You Need to Know about Rockets has worked for NASA, where she used filmmaking and storytelling to capture stories of exploration and discovery in outer space. Come along and hear Jessica and Pippa talk about how stories can reveal the hidden truths and histories of science, and how the outer journey of exploration is often the inner journey of the creative imagination. Date: Saturday 9 November Time: 6pm Venue: Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill. Tickets: Free
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Dundee is a creative, vibrant city and securing a place on the UK City of Culture 2017 shortlist celebrates our strengths. Back the bid at www.wedundee.com
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