Goodbye Edinburgh - guest post by Lisa Dempster [17.09.2010]
Lisa Dempster recently traveled to the Edinburgh Book Festival in search of ideas, inspirations, and people that go “hence” in the night. And now she’s passing on the literary goodness…
In case you hadn’t noticed, I am back.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival program was immense – think 750 authors, 220,000 visitors, thousands of books sold (and signed) and hundreds of events… I personally got along to over sixty events and saw about one hundred writers all up. Not to mention those I met outside the official program, at networking and social events. I have a huge pile of books to read now, and many great ideas to process.
Beyond the Book Festival and Conference, the official reason for the trip, I was able to explore many aspects of literary Scotland, including discovering some great Scottish indie publishers and spending a lot of time with the Edinburgh City of Literature Trust. Edinburgh is a fantastically bookish city, and the people and organisations I met are all dedicated to furthering their already-amazing literary culture. It was incredibly inspiring for me to be able to meet and swap ideas with such a broad range of organisations, from Creative Scotland to the super-indie Westport Book Festival, and so many in between.
Personally, I made some great new friends and came away feeling very inspired to get back to my own writing. It was also eye-opening to meet loads of people who work in the creative and literary industries in so many different kinds of ways – definitely food for thought about where I might go once I finish at EWF (not for a while yet, though!). I also really enjoyed the crazy challenge of blogging everyday – something I didn’t quite manage, but I think we can all agree I blogged enough.
If you missed anything (how dare you), all my adventures are posted here under the Edinburgh tag, or check the edbookfest tag.
I also took photos at the festival! You can find them here:
I would like to thank the following people and organisations, who made this trip possible with their generous donations and assistance:
British Council, Copyright Agency Limited, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh City of Literature Trust, Australian Society of Authors, Rob Beresford, Ali Bowden, Vivienne Corcoran, Matt Davies, Brooke Dunnell, Clouds of Magellan, Katherine Charles, Jane Curtis, George Dunford, Julian Fleetwood, Christian Gusner, Brad Martin, Chris Pash, R Pullan, Paul de Roo, Elizabeth Sayers, Adeline Teoh, Geneveive Tucker, Owen Vandenberg, Annette Vieusseux and the Emerging Writers’ Festival.
Now I am back in the Emerging Writers’ Festival office, thinking about how to translate my experiences and the ideas I soaked up into creating new and exciting opportunities for our writers and festival audience… like this, and more… stay tuned.
Lisa Dempster is the director of the Emerging Writers' Festival and the author of the Aduki Press title, Neon Pilgrim. This piece is cross-posted from Lisa’s Unwakeable blog.
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