WDC Booked! Festival 2016
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Booked! West Dunbartonshire’s Festival of Words 7 - 20 May 2016 A vibrant and diverse festival of talks and events by leading authors organised by your local library service. Week 1 Welcome to Booked! 7 - 13 May 2016 West Dunbartonshire’s Festival of Words Welcome to Booked! West Dunbartonshire’s annual Festival of Words. It is my privilege to introduce this year’s Booked! literary festival, brought to you by West Dunbartonshire Council’s Libraries and Cultural Services with sponsorship from Creative Scotland. We always strive to outdo our efforts year on year, and we have every expectation that this year’s line-up will provide an amazing range of entertainment and Week 2 thought provoking performances for your enjoyment. The reading-themed programme will be spread across West 14 - 20 May 2016 Dunbartonshire, as for the first year each of our eight libraries will play host to at least one event. We are also excited to introduce a new cabaret-style evening at Clydebank Town Hall. This year’s festival also coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Clydebank Blitz and as a mark of respect several events will be themed on this milestone. Booked! 2016 boasts a wide range of journalists, fiction and factual authors, poets and musicians, with something to appeal to everyone. We kick off events with a sprinkle of Govan stardust from Gregor ‘Rab C. Nesbitt’ Fisher and his biographer Melanie Reid in conversation Remembering the about his extraordinary upbringing and subsequent career. This year’s Alastair Person Lecture at Gartocharn will be delivered by journalist, Clydebank Blitz Erwin James, who having served 20 years of a life sentence is now an advocate of prison reform. Next Claire McGowan, an up and coming crime fiction writer deemed ‘Ireland’s answer to Ruth Rendell’, will speak about her Paula Maguire series of novels – currently tipped for a TV drama adaptation. Fellow Irish author Neil Mackay is a multi-award winning investigative journalist, newspaper executive, non-fiction author, radio broadcaster and film-maker who will speak about his latest novel, The Wolf Trial, For the first time Booked! a historical crime story intriguingly described by his publisher as a tickets are available cross between The Name of the Rose and American Psycho. exclusively through If non-fiction is your preference we can thoroughly recommend Amy Liptrott’s memoir The Outrun, a remarkably honest and revealing Eventbrite account of a return to her home on Orkney to find solace in nature after struggling with alcohol addiction. Meanwhile Brooke Magnanti – www.wdcbooked.eventbrite.co.uk author of the blog Belle de Jour - subsequently adapted for television as The Secret Diary of a Call Girl starring Billie Piper – will be introducing her new crime thriller The Turning Tide. Dramatist and screenwriter Des Dillon, best known for his play Singin I’m No a Billy He’s a Tim, will meet up with Dalmuir Library’s www.bookedfestival.info resident Reading Champion, poet Donny O’Rourke, for a Saturday afternoon conversation event. Fellow poet Rachel McCrum will return to Clydebank Town Hall following a very well-received performance in West Dunbartonshire during Book Week Scotland. This time she will be joined by singer-turned-poet Jenny Lindsay and a variety of special guests to present Rally & Broad – a cabaret-style evening of poetry, music and spoken word. One of the worst offshore disasters in UK history will be examined by Aberdonian ex-pat Iain Maloney, whose book The Waves Burn Bright explores the impact of the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster on a family. Musical entertainment will also form a key part of this year’s programme, with an evening of songs, tales and laughter from Scottish folk legend Jimmie Macgregor to be enjoyed at Gartocharn. Sports journalist Hugh Keevins from Radio Clyde will also be returning to his roots in Faifley to talk about the text message from Gordon Strachan he keeps on his phone and just what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of Sir Alex Ferguson’s ‘hairdryer’ treatments. Gill Graham And we’ll finally round off the festival with comedian Rhona Cameron Manager Libraries and talking about her autobiography Nineteen Seventy-Nine: A Big Year Cultural Services in a Small Town, which charts the trials and tribulations of coming to terms with her sexuality whilst growing up in Musselburgh. We are delighted to be able to present such a varied and stimulating programme for Booked! 2016, and I sincerely hope you are as excited as we are to welcome such fantastic writers and performers to West Dunbartonshire. Keep in touch with Booked! Facebook - West Dunbartonshire Libraries and Cultural Services Twitter @wdclibraries Eventbrite www.wdcbooked.eventbrite.co.uk www.bookedfestival.info Have you joined West Dunbartonshire Libraries? There are 8 libraries in your area: Alexandria, Balloch, Clydebank, Dalmuir, Dumbarton, Duntocher, Faifley and Parkhall. For further details, addresses, telephone numbers and opening hours, please visit - www.west-dunbarton.gov.uk/libraries/library-branches/ Did you know? • You can reserve and renew items online • You can access eBooks, eAudiobooks and eMagazines for free • All our libraries have computers with free internet access and Microsoft Office software • We offer a wide variety of Quest computer courses • You can borrow items from any West Dunbartonshire library eBooks, eMagazines and eAudiobooks Like to read anytime, anywhere? eBooks, audiobooks and digital magazines are available free of charge to West Dumbartonshire library members. Delve into a world of eBooks and magazines from your computer or mobile device. Go to www.libraryonline.org.uk or call in to your local library to get started. Booked! www.bookedfestival.info Saturday 7 May Gregor Fisher and Dalmuir Library Melanie Reid at 7.30pm“ I look forward Gregor Fisher is one of Scotland’s most loved actors. He rose to fame playing the infamous Rab C. Nesbitt, each time to the Govan street philosopher. His memoir, The Boy from Nowhere, jointly written with the renowned the Booked! journalist Melanie Reid explores his complex family history. At the age of 14 Gregor asked where he was festival christened and was informed that he had been events - they adopted. The truth was actually far more complex than that and through the are so years Gregor was given a version of events interesting. that involved some truths, “ half-truths and polite cover-ups. In 2014 Gregor sought the help of Times columnist Melanie Reid to help him Gregor Fisher and Melanie Reid tell his story. Their exploration of his birth and early years disclosed a tale of secrets, tragic accidents and early death. He may have been The maximum Festival has been organised rejected by some of his number of “ own family but he would participants by very friendly, helpful and find a welcome from for this event where he would least competent staff. Great expect it. Join Gregor and Foris 10 further people. Melanie for an extraordinary information atmosphere and great “ family history told with warmth and humour. about The Artist Rooms speakers. at Clydebank Museum www.bookedfestival.info Monday 9 May Alastair Pearson Lecture – Millennium Hall Erwin James Gartocharn at 7.30 pm This year’s Alastair Pearson Lecture is delivered by Erwin James, regular columnist for The Guardian and a leading voice for prison reform and rehabilitation. He had a troubled start to life, losing his mother when he was seven and then being shipped from home to home. His father turned to alcohol and violence and Erwin committed his first crime of breaking and entering when he was ten. His life continued its downward trajectory through his teenage and early adult years and as his criminal behaviour became increasingly violent he committed the terrible act which resulted in a life sentence. It was through meeting Joan Branton, a prison psychologist, that Erwin’s life was transformed. Through her influence he was encouraged to read and to educate himself, and over the next 20 years Erwin James would go on to receive a BA in History, and become a regular columnist for The Guardian. He has written Redeemable: A Memoir of Darkness and Hope which is devoid of excuses but is full of the need to understand how we become who we are, and shows that no matter how far a person may fall, redemption is possible with the right kind of help. www.erwinjames.co.uk Erwin James Poetry Workshops with Dalmuir Library’s Reading Champion – Donny O’Rourke GUIDE LINES – Monday 9 May at Dalmuir Library from 2pm – 4pm If poems weren’t powerfully persuasive television adverts wouldn’t rhyme. And lots of them do. Poetry is all around us. It’s all ABOUT us. You may not know it but you’re a poet. Greetings cards. Nursery rhymes. Pop songs. Hymns. They helped form us. We are mostly made of water; but we’re also made of words. You don’t understand poetry? Don’t worry, poetry understands you. This relaxed and informal wee workshop is for anyone who wants to get more out of reading and maybe writing. Fun, fulfilment and laughter guaranteed. This workshop is your guide to reading and writing creatively. www.bookedfestival.info Claire McGowan Tuesday 10 May Parkhall Library at 7.30pm Claire McGowan is a rising star in the pantheon of crime fiction. She grew up in Northern Ireland and after completing a degree in English and French at Oxford University she moved to London and worked in the charity sector. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Crime Writing at City University London. She has written The Fall and four novels featuring Paula Maguire, the most recent being A Savage Hunger.