University of Aberdeen Writer's Festival: Word 2008
The 2008 WORD Festival, the University of Aberdeen's Writers Festival, runs from the 9th to the 11th of May this year. There is a strong Scottish contingent of authors and events, as well as writers from Ireland, England and the antipodes. The main programme of events is supplemented by a free children's programme, and a series of events for schools.
Most of the events take place at the King's College Centre.
Friday 9th May
- 12noon - Rosemary Goring, editor of Scotland: The Autobiography, will be in discussion with Tom Devine and Magnus Linklater
- 1.30pm, King's College - James Kelman reads from his new novel Kieron Smith, Boy
- 4.15pm, Elphinstone Hall - The latest Aberdeen crime novel from Stuart MacBride, Flesh House, is launched
- 4.30pm - A Reformed Scott - David Hewitt presents the Linklater Lecture on the work of Sir Walter Scott
Saturday 10th May
- 12noon - The great Alasdair Gray reads from his latest novel, Old Men in Love
- 1pm - Readings from Anne Donovan's latest novel, Being Emily, and from Ron Butlin, the new Edinburgh Makar
- 2pm - Readings from poet Peter Davidson, a Professor at Aberdeen University and the writer of The Palace of Oblivion; and from Andrew Greig, the author of Romanno Bridge
- 3pm - Both Meaghan Delahunt and Kirsty Gunn are award-winning novelists, and they will be discussing their books The Red Book and The Boy and the Sea
- 6.15pm - John Burnside's latest novel, Glister, is published this month. James Meek's We Are Now Beginning our Descent was published earlier this year.
Sunday 11th May
- 12noon - Best Scottish poems with Sheena Blackhall, John Burnside, Andrew Greig and John Purser, in an event introduced by Word Festival Artistic Director Alan Spence
- 2pm, Elphinstone - The paperback of The Don: The Willie Miller Story is launched
- 2pm, City of Aberdeen Room - Finlay MacLeod celebrates the launch of his new collection of short stories, Diomhanas
- 3pm - John Purser's book Scotland's Music accompanies a thirty-part BBC radio series of the same name
- 4pm - Peter Jinks' novel Hallam Foe was made into a successful movie last year. Ruaridh Nicoll is a journalist and columnist, and the writer of two novels.
- 5.30pm, Elphinstone Hall - Doric, Gaelic, and English mixed in with traditional Scottish music in a ceilidh-style event with Sheena Blackhall, Derrick McClure, Angus Peter Campbell and Martin MacIntyre
- Being Emily
'Being Emily' is a novel about one girl trying to find her place in the world, and the turmoil that only one's own family can create. - The Boy And The Sea
From the author of 'Rain' and 'Featherstone' comes a story of one sun-drenched, sea-soaked day when a boy's life is turned upside down. - Dìomhanas
This is a collection of 24 short stories in Gaelic. - The Don: The Willie Miller Story
'The Don' gives a unique insight into professional football during Miller's era, what it was like to be the first successful captain in a team managed by Sir Alex Ferguson - including their European Cup-Winners' victory over Real Madrid on May 11, 1983. - Flesh House
Panic strikes the Granite City. 20 years ago 'The Flesher' was butchering people all over the Uk until Grampian's finest put him away. But 11 years later he was out on appeal. Now he's missing and people are dying again. - Glister
The children of Homeland exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their school disappears, vanishing into the wasteland of the old chemical plant. Nobody knows where the boys go, or if they are still alive. The town policeman was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and is determined to find the killer. - Hallam Foe
Hallam, a confused and sweetly old-fashioned teenager, has chosen an unusual way of following life on his father's estate. His voyeurism becomes dangerous, but Hallam is eventually redeemed by love. - Kieron Smith, Boy
Rejected by his brother and largely ignored by his parents, Kieron Smith finds comfort in the home of his much-loved grandparents. But when his family move to a new housing scheme on the outskirts of the city, a world away from the close community of the tenements, Kieron struggles to find a way to adapt to his new life. - Old Men In Love: John Tunnock's Posthumous Papers
'Old Men in Love' constitutes the posthumous papers of a recondite - yet venal - retired Glaswegian schoolmaster, named John Tunnock. - The Palace Of Oblivion
This first collection by Scottish poet and academic Peter Davidson is full of sensual delights. It moves between languages and continents - English and Latin, Scotland and Latin America - with linguistic exuberance. - The Red Book
20 years after the Bhopal gas disaster, three lives are bound together by a series of coincidences in this beautifully-written novel. - Romanno Bridge
'Romanno Bridge' is a new adventure from the acclaimed novelist and poet Andrew Greig. The hunt for the crowning stone of the Dalriadic kings, Jacob's Pillow, the Stone of Scone - whatever it is, it is worth enough to make life cheap for some and dear for others - has begun. - Scotland's Music: A History Of The Traditional And Classical Music Of Scotland From Early Times To The Present Day
'Scotland's Music' is an all-embracing account of the history of music and musicians in Scotland, from the Stone Age to the present day. It emcompasses traditional, classical and popular music and places them in their historical contexts, adding vital information to the history of Scotland itself. - Scotland: The Autobiography
The story of Scotland, of her history and culture in the words of the people who lived it, from the first century to the present day. Contributors range from Tacitus, Mary Queen of Scots and Oliver Cromwell to Adam Smith, David Livingstone, Billy Connolly and William Boyd. - We Are Now Beginning Our Descent
With all the explosive drama of 'The People's Act of Love', James Meek's novel spans continents and cultures. It is a timeless tale of folly and the pursuit of love, set against the incendiary politics of our time. - Without A Backward Glance: New And Selected Poems
This collection contains work selected from previous volumes plus a batch of new poems. Among the new poems are reflections on Scotland in an untried phase of its history, stories of human loss and change, and an evocation of the very different music imagined by a boy 'in the absence of an orchestra in his muddy Scottish village'.