Aye Write! Glasgow's Book Festival

Aye Write! first took shape when library staff set out to rectify the shocking fact that Scotland’s biggest city didn’t have its own book festival.  Growing from the humble beginnings of the libraries’ Reader Development Programme, last year Aye Write! reached its highest ever attendance with over 42,000 participants and is already on track to beat that record in 2013. Their audience might have increased dramatically but the aim of the festival remains constant. “What we wanted to do was give everyone in Glasgow the opportunity to engage with the best local, national and international writing,” says festival director Karen Cunningham. While they’re keen to fly the literary flag for Glasgow, Aye Write! doesn’t want to define itself as a Scottish Book festival – “It’s always been our ambition to celebrate the best of Scottish writing and to give it a forum but we would never restrict ourselves to that because people in Glasgow and Scotland are wider read than that,” elaborates Cunningham. 

The programme is incredibly diverse and doesn’t attempt to grade the events into topics or themes, instead offering stand alone talks focused on music, war, memoir, crime, Gaelic literature and feminism to highlight just a few. This year’s programme opens with their Cookie Cabaret, a taster of the literary talent featured throughout the festival with music by Admiral Fallow and a live DJ set by Richard Colburn of Belle and Sebastian.

The festival aims to address the hot topics of the year and so a debate on independence is a predictable favourite. At the Independence Debate Sunday Herald diarist Alan Taylor and a panel of creative types will examine how independence could affect the arts and take questions concerning the cultural output of an independent Scotland. Also under discussion is the Leveson enquiry. At Leveson Six Months On, Brian Cathcart of the Hacked Off campaign will be joined by a variety of journalists and campaigners to demonstrate that the report might be published and the trial over but there are still big questions about the future of investigative journalism left unanswered.

Other events guaranteed to draw controversy and spark debate include Howard Marks: In Conversation. The author of Mr Nice and ex-drug baron is returning to Aye Write! to discuss his campaign for the legalisation of recreational drugs.  John Bird, social entrepreneur and founder of The Big Issue, will be discussing his work The Necessity of Poverty – an excoriating attack on the wealth gap. As a passionate campaigner who has spent years personally working with disadvantaged people across Britain in prisons and orphanages it’s guaranteed to be one of the most poignant and politically charged appearances of the festival.

In terms of fiction the festival draws big names in Scottish literature and Louise Welsh, Alasdair Gray, A L Kennedy, Christopher Brookmyre will all be discussing their most recent novels and collections.  Aye Write! offers plenty of live literature events including showcases from the acclaimed creative writing courses at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities and the Scottish Poetry Slam Championship – where poets rhyme and rap as they compete to represent Scotland in the World Series.  The festival will also see events celebrating the launch of several works including the greatly anticipated eighth addition of Gutter, Scotland’s leading magazine of new writing. Gutter never fails to produce a showcase of challenging, innovative pieces by the outstanding new voices of Scottish fiction and Aye Write! offers an opportunity to hear them perform their work.