4 days to go

If you've been following the site build on Twitter you'll see all manner of familiar Book Festival shapes springing up in Charlotte Square Gardens. Which, by the way, is currently bathing smugly in dappled sunlight and promising cheekily that the sun will persist over August. But we know to be suspicious, don't we.

Either way, nothing can detract from the excitement of the coming weeks.

Judging by the buzz on Twitter (@edbookfest) it's going to be a good year for bloggers at the Book Festival. So be sure to tweet your Edinburgh International Book Festival blog posts and they might end up featured here!

Speaking of international events with infectious energy, the Olympics and the Edinburgh International Book Festival are going to enjoy a bit of a crossover.

Who says sports and books don't mix? Well no one does really, but the point is that the Book Festival has entered into the spirit of the Olympics along with the rest of the country. Frank Cottrell Boyce (11th, 10.30AM) helped script the opening ceremony, Thomas Heatherwick (25th, 4.30PM) designed the amazing Olympic cauldron, Bill Jones and Richard Moore (17th, 2.30PM) explore the darker side of sport, and Francesca Simon (left) lets Horrid Henry (26th, 10AM) explore the... much lighter side! Let's just say he's invented crisp-eating as an Olympic sport – which fits in brilliantly with my scheme to introduce poppadom frisbee.

5 days to go

Just skimming through the Edinburgh International Book Festival programme this year is absurdly exciting. 800 writers from all over will be gathering in Charlotte Square Gardens, fully equipped with the inspiration, charm and talent that has made us want them here to begin with.

I think I can speak for all us booknerdy types when I say that come rain or shine we will be out there in our droves.

And we've only got five more days to wait. Cue hyperventilation.

Hello, by the way! I forgot to say that. My name is Ellie. I'm very lucky that the Book Festival has plonked me right in the thick of it this year, so I can soak up as much of the Book Festival as possible and report back to you about it. That's a photo of me on the left there, so if you see me roaming around Charlotte Square Gardens do please come over and say hi!

There will also be live reports on Twitter @edbookfest, so get involved in the competitions, discussions, Q&As and more, with hashtag #edbookfest

So, what've we got to look forward to? I'm tempted to just copy and paste the entire programme. But here are some highlights of the opening days of the Book Festival.

On Saturday the 11th we've got former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who has penned a unique and irresistible follow-up to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Hear all about it at 3PM in the RBS Main Theatre. Andrew will also be making an appearance in a children's event at 10.30AM in the ScottishPower Studio Theatre, where he'll be joining Frank Cottrell Boyce (left), writer of the very exciting Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again.

You may not know this, but novelist and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce co-scripted the Olympics opening ceremony with Danny Boyle. Frank speaks highly of the power of imagination: “We think in stories.  Before you can build a rocket to go to the Moon, you have to dream of being able to do so."

Sunday the 12th will find Darren Shan in the RBS Main Theatre at 1.30PM with an ever-enjoyable event for kids who love horror. Thrilling the adults later on at 7PM will be Louise Welsh (left) in the ScottishPower Studio Theatre, along to discuss her exhilarating new mystery, The Girl on the Stairs. Louise has many strings to her writer's bow – she has written novels and short stories, radio plays and articles; and even a libretto for opera.

On Monday the 13th Ben Hammersley (left) provides some vital guidance to this hasty and baffling century we live in (3.30PM in the ScottishPower Studio Theatre). We'll also have Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart – the best creative partnership this side of the Edge – discuss their new books in a 10.30AM children's event in the ScottishPower Studio Theatre. They started working together in 1993, and – to the delight of millions – have said that they never want to stop working together.

That's just a tiny taste of a tiny slice of a massive festival. I'll be going to as many events as I can (and will let you know what I think!), and I'll be trying to speak to some of our amazing authors too. I promise I won't embarrass the blogosphere by turning into a gibbering star-struck wreck when speaking to them. But – let's be honest – that's not a promise I can keep.

The Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition - words from past winners

The Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition has well and truly established itself as the highlight of the poetry calendar. Created in honour of the legendary and much loved Scottish poet Edwin Morgan, the contest is open to all and you don’t have to be an experienced or recognised writer to enter.

Sponsored by the University of Strathclyde, it’s one of the richest awards for poetry around – the top prize is £5000 - but the benefits of winning go far beyond the financial gains. Whilst many previous winners have expressed their gratitude for the time and space that the prize money has given them, enabling them dedicate more time to their writing, many have also spoken of their pride in being associated with such a prestigious award and the new opportunities that have arisen as a result of winning, plus the confidence boost that the recognition can bring.

So, whether you’re a secret scribbler, penning your poems in a private notebook, or you’ve tasted the world of published poetry, don’t be shy! There are still a few days left to enter the 2012 competition. Maybe you could be one of this year's winners.

Read on for some heartfelt testimonials from previous winners, be inspired by their stories, and enter your work into this year’s competition.

Jane McKie, first prize winner 2011
‘Winning the Edwin Morgan Prize was an unexpected delight. Although I have two collections under my belt, I still feel an early career poet, full of self-doubt, and the prize was a great boost to my confidence. That the prize was established to commemorate and celebrate one of my favourite Scottish writers made it all the more meaningful…But the glamour, if you are a poet, is fleeting – it’s so hard to make a living from writing in general, and poetry specifically; you are always scrabbling round the edges trying to make ends meet from other activities, no matter what stage you are at or how passionately you are impelled to write. That is why the financial aspect of the prize is such a tremendous boon: it allows you to buy a little time to try and develop as a writer, that endless and endlessly fulfilling project. With two young children to support, I am as grateful for the generous money associated with the prize as I am for the sheer craziness of winning something so prestigious.’

Paul Batchelor, first prize winner 2009
‘Winning the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition in 2009 meant a huge amount to me. In my view, Morgan was simply one of the very best poets of the Twentieth Century, a poet whose work I had admired since I was twelve years old.

I write freelance reviews for a few newspapers, and after the results had been announced, The Times asked me to interview Morgan and write a feature on him and his work. I was thrilled to have this opportunity to meet the man himself… A few years later, the Guardian asked me to review Morgan's last collection of poems, Dreams and Other Nightmares, and again this was because of winning the competition.

The money was extremely helpful too... It freed up a tremendous amount of time in which I was able to write and I will always be grateful for that. Finally, winning the competition seems to have made a difference to how I'm perceived: it continues to be mentioned frequently, when I give a reading or teach a workshop, and is clearly establishing itself on the poetry calendar of an ever-increasing number of poets.’

Emily Hasler, second prize winner 2009
‘I am immensely proud of the connection with Edwin Morgan and people recognise the prize and how much competition it attracts. The prize has made an immense amount of difference to my work. Firstly, the monetary aspect was very gratefully received… After receiving the prize I was able to give over more space to writing.

The prize has also had a huge impact on my publications. As a young, unknown poet, being able to mention the prize has helped to have my work read and accepted by magazines and anthologies. In my case, I also met several established writers and have maintained friendships with them which has helped in getting known in the poetry world. The path to getting to this stage in my poetry career has been greatly eased by the prize.’

Kate Miller, first prize winner 2008
‘In 2008 I was coming to the end of my first year as a postgraduate at Goldsmiths, funding my studies with part time work as a gardener. My poem ‘After the Ban’ was written in May/June 2008 with one eye on the achievements of Edwin Morgan (concrete poems, great feel for open space) and the other on a chance of winning enough money to fund a second year at college.

Winning the prize primed the pump and gave me an increased sense of worth, acknowledged by academic colleagues and friends in the competitive world of journalism and fiction.’ 

Wayne Price, second prize winner 2008
‘Winning second prize in the inaugural Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition was an enormous encouragement to me as a poet. Though I’d been writing and publishing short stories for many years, winning a major poetry prize in a competition as prestigious and competitive as the Edwin Morgan gave me the confidence I needed to devote as much time to my poetry as to my fiction. As a direct result I have since gone on to win a number of prizes and commendations in national and international competitions.’


Feeling inspired? The closing date for entries for the 2012 Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition is 9am on Monday 4 June. You can find out all you need to know about entering on the competition website.

The natural history of remembrance

This year we invited a number of guest bloggers to write about the Book Festival. Today’s post is by Pippa Goldschmidt who came to see Will Self talk about W. G. Sebald. Pippa is part of the ESRC Genomics Forum Writers team.

W. G. Sebald was one of a small number of writers who gazed at the literal and metaphorical wreckage of the Second World War and attempted to describe as truthfully as possible what they saw. Born in 1944, he was clearly deeply marked by the simultaneity of his seemingly happy childhood in Germany with appalling events such as the deportation of Greek Jews from Corfu. According to Will Self in his lecture on Sebald, this clash of events in his psyche led him to see history as a sort of synoptic vision where everything happens at once, and can only be conveyed through a painstaking accumulation of fact and details. His books weave backwards and forwards through the past and present to build up layers of meaning. They have an apparent artlessness and immediacy to them, they are ‘easy to read’ but the lives of his characters weigh heavily on the reader.

And he didn’t just examine the Nazis’ legacy; his essay ‘Air War and Literature’ makes for uncomfortable reading in its detailed depiction of the physical and biological aftermath of the Allied bombing on German cities. Nobody should be allowed to claim the moral high ground here, he implies, all we are able do is remember and document. But he was not in favour of all types of remembrance. Self said that he would likely have thought that the British ‘Holocaust Remembrance Day’ was too one-sided, too capable of being subtly used for propaganda to demonstrate the moral superiority of the Allies, and perhaps we should have instead an ‘Allied Blanket Bombing of Germany Day’.

As Will Self started his lecture, a black and white photo was projected onto the screen behind him. I found out afterwards that the photo is actually a painting by Gerhard Richter, of a photo of his ‘Onkel Rudi’. It shows a smiling young man in Nazi uniform.

The photo seemed curiously weightless as it fluttered and bobbed behind Self. And this was a quite fitting visual counterpart to the lecture; Sebald’s books are illustrated by anonymous photos that have an uneasy relationship with the words. The photos are never explained or even directly alluded to in the text, and their effect upon the reader is to make you question what is real and what is fictional. As Self explained, Sebald was exposed to images of the Holocaust when he was at school, without any explanation or context. He spent the rest of his life trying to find that context in his writing, an extraordinary unclassifiable mixture of fact and fiction which tells the tales of emigrants and immigrants, people rendered passive by war who make what they can out of their lives.

Originally from London Pippa used to be an astronomer. Now with an MLitt in creative writing from Glasgow University she has had several short stories published. Much of her writing is inspired by science and she is currently writing a novel about a female astronomer. Visit Pippa's website for more information.

‘Who are your people?'*

This year we invited a number of guest bloggers to write about the Book Festival. Today’s post is by Pippa Goldschmidt who came to see Alistair Moffat. Pippa is part of the ESRC Genomics Forum Writers team.

Yesterday Alistair Moffat talked about the genetic identity of the Scottish people and the emerging science of tracing our ancestors using DNA. This essentially uses mistakes in DNA (mutations that occur by chance) which are then propagated. If we share these mistakes with other people, we must share a common ancestor, and by looking at where these mistakes are the most common, we can find out where that ancestor originated. So, for example, a fifth of Irish men are related to a single man, Niall Noigiallach, who lived about 1500 years ago.

There are two ways of tracing these markers back through the generations, by examining the DNA on the Y chromosomes that men inherit from their fathers, and by examining mitochondrial DNA that both men and women inherit from their mothers.

Alistair Moffat said that people are quite often moved when they find out about their ancestry and their links to Vikings, or Celts, or Irish kings, as this allows them a way of imagining their pasts. But using Y DNA or mitochondrial DNA only gives us two routes back through the complex network of our ancestors; we may have proof that we’re descended from an Irish chieftain but we shouldn’t forget that we’re also descended from a zillion (roughly speaking) other people too.

Perhaps it’s not the differences, but what we share that is more important, and also more moving. In 75,000 BC a vast volcanic eruption led to mass extinctions of species, and killed off all but a handful of Homo sapiens, who escaped because they were living in the narrow rift valleys of East Africa. These humans emigrated north, and in a relatively few generations had established themselves in Asia and Europe. We’re all descended from those tenacious people.

* The Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean (see Ken’s blogs below) apparently asked this when he first met people.


Originally from London Pippa used to be an astronomer. Now with an MLitt in creative writing from Glasgow University she has had several short stories published. Much of her writing is inspired by science and she is currently writing a novel about a female astronomer. Visit Pippa's website for more information.

Fiction shines a light on the Universe

This year we invited a number of guest bloggers to write about the Book Festival, including Pippa Goldschmidt who is part of the ESRC Genomics Forum Writers Team. Pippa caught up with science communicator and non-fiction author Stuart Clark before his event about his first novel The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth’

You were a professional astronomer for some time before you moved into science communication – why did you make that move?
I realised that I was more interested in the broad pictures of astronomy than in the nuts and bolts of doing research – debugging computer codes and arguing over marginal data held no appeal for me. So writing about astronomy provided a more natural fit.

There have always been two passions in my life: story telling and space. Story telling developed into writing, and my interest in space turned into a BSc and then a PhD in astrophysics. I self-funded my PhD by writing for science fiction magazines, reviewing films and interviewing actors and directors. I even wrote the video sleeves for Star Trek for five years – it was that job that largely funded my PhD. I was also asked to write my first astronomy book at that time, Stars and Atoms, an illustrated family encyclopaedia. However, I think my research allowed me to develop the critical eye that I use to get to the bottom of stories. And my interest in story telling allows me to present it in a hopefully accessible way.

And then you made another move – to fiction. How big a jump was that?

When I began writing The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth it didn’t feel like a big jump at all but looking back I realise it was a leap into the dark. Having said that, I’ve always written fiction. There are a couple of finished and half-finished science fiction novels lurking on my hard-drive and a detailed synopsis and sample chapters for a novel called The Stone Ocean about Mary Anning and her fossil discoveries. However, Tracy Chevalier beat me to that one with her wonderful Remarkable Creatures.

I’ve been a voracious reader of fiction all my life, starting with science fiction. Now I read widely across genres and the main stream, looking for stories that resonate. As for the writing itself, it is very different. You simply can’t ‘tell’ in fiction, you have to ‘show’. Journalism or non-fiction writing is more direct; you have to tell as clearly as you can. I’m not saying either is better. They suit different stories. I have a number of ideas for possible books that would have to be large-scale narrative non-fictions rather than fiction. But fiction is something I’m concentrating on at the moment. I’ve just completed the second volume of The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth and I’m looking forward to starting the third book in the autumn.

Your first novel is actually a fictional account of real historical events. Why did you decide to tackle this in a fictional format?
The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth came about when an editor mentioned to my agent that the history of astronomy was like the plot of a thriller. It had danger, power plays, rivalry, intrigue. We found this fascinating and perhaps a way to move popular science onward. So I began to think seriously about whether you could write convincing fiction based on breakthroughs in science. I wanted to stick to the facts as much as possible, flexing things only where necessary.

As I was researching the lives of Galileo, Newton and Einstein, which form the bedrock of the three parts of the trilogy, it became obvious that the stories were so dramatic the best way to write them was indeed as novels. I took inspiration from authors such as Philippa Gregory and Robert Harris who are both brilliant at this style of historical fiction. I figure that if the public enjoy stories about kings and queens, generals and soldiers, why not about scientists too? After all, they helped shape their times just as certainly as the rulers of the day.

Were you hoping to attract new audiences with this approach? People who might be put off by non-fiction science books?
Yes. Everything I do convinces me that many people are fascinated by science but that they perceive a barrier to understanding it. These novels show science not as a daunting edifice but as a personal endeavour, driven by individuals with belief and passion. I think that makes these stories something that most people can relate to.

I want to present Galileo, Newton and Einstein as real people, embedded in their times and cultures, and grappling with new thoughts that blossom into science and a new way to understand the universe around us. Don’t we all want to make some sort of sense of our lives in the time we’ve got? I’ve learnt so much about what science is and what it isn’t by writing these books that I hope others will do the same.

Do you think a fictional treatment adds to our understanding?

Yes, because it invites us to empathise with these scientists as fellow human beings. As we follow them through their stories we confront the same question that they do: what does it take to stick to a belief or a course of action, even though you are being pressured by the authorities to stop and your family are suffering because of it? 

The first book takes place as Europe is ripping itself to pieces in the aftermath of the Catholic-Protestant divide. Into this uncertainty, Galileo in Italy and Kepler in Germany bring new insights into Nature, new ways of understanding the Universe and mankind’s place within it. They hope for certainty in an increasingly uncertain world. The story is how they follow these personal convictions and the consequences for them and their families for doing so.

At the very core, these stories are about how do you believe? Do you need evidence or are their certain beliefs that require none? Evidence or faith? And I’m not just talking about science versus religion. All of us decide how much faith we place in individuals and beliefs, and how much evidence we need to be persuaded otherwise. The benefit of the doubt, the burden of proof – we’re obsessed with this tension of faith versus evidence. It’s one of the key balancing acts in every one of us, and there are no concrete solutions. It’s an individual’s choice, and so exploring it in a fictional setting is the best possible way to do it.

Thank you very much! I’m looking forward to the remaining books in the trilogy.

Originally from London Pippa used to be an astronomer. Now with an MLitt in creative writing from Glasgow University she has had several short stories published. Much of her writing is inspired by science and she is currently writing a novel about a female astronomer. Visit her website for more information.

'How do the cells know about the jungle?

This year we invited a number of guest bloggers to write about the Book Festival. Today’s post is Ken MacLeod who came to see Ian Stewart in conversation with Joan Bakewell. Ken is part of the ESRC Genomics Forum Writers team.
 

Joan Bakewell is a speaker who needs no introduction, and in this capacity she's been introducing and interviewing speakers on key ideas for the 21st Century. Yesterday's topic was numbers, and the speaker was Ian Stewart. She introduced him by saying that of all the topics in her series, she found mathematics the hardest to understand, but that Ian Stewart was the best person to explain it.

Professor Ian Stewart is one of the great science popularisers - and not just in his own field of mathematics. Some of his many books on science were written with Jack Cohen, reproductive biologist and oft-invited speaker at SF conventions. In recent years, the two have teamed up with the wildly popular fantasy author Terry Pratchett to write (so far) three books on 'The Science of Discworld', which cleverly exploit the contrast between the eponymous flat planet (which runs on the rules of magic and the caprice of gods) and our universe (which doesn't) to explain an astonishing range of serious scientific points ... including the ways in which magic does work in our world, through the human propensity for Story.

Stewart began by asking 'Why maths and biology?' Biology has after all traditionally been the science for people who want to do as little mathematics as possible. (That was certainly why I took Zoology. How I ended up with an MPhil in biomechanics is another story.) The only mathematics used in most biology is statistics. We do experiments, and then we test whether the results are statistically significant (i.e. that they're unlikely to be chance). Ian's new book, Mathematics of Life, is not about that. It looks at ways in which mathematics is informing the science itself, in fields such as understanding how proteins fold into the shapes that (largely) determine their function, how ecosystems hold together and whether diversity is indeed the key to stability, and even in considering the possibilities of life on other planets.

To illustrate, he picked two topics in current research: animal markings, and animal gaits. Both are about patterns, and patterns are what maths is very good at explaining. As far back as the 1950s, Alan Turing studied animal markings and worked with equations whose solutions (when shown graphically) looked very like animal markings. Cue diversion about Turing wandering about with a sheet of blotchy paper, telling his colleagues that 'this looks like a cow' and being patted on the back - 'Yes, Alan, that does look like a cow'. Anyway, modelling reaction and diffusion together produces patterns similar to most of those found in nature, and the equations generate interesting predictions - such as that on a small animal, the stripes will move, and it turns out that they do, very slowly.

Gait, likewise, can be patterned, and the structure of the arrangement of nerves that would have to fire to generate the various gaits can be predicted, and one can even predict gaits we don't often see - Stewart and a colleague in Texas suddenly realised that one anomalous pattern was being acted out before their very eyes, as they watched a bucking bronco at a rodeo.

Joan Bakewell then asked a few questions. Why are tiger stripes vertical, rather than horizontal? Well, said Ian, it's because the stripes are camouflage, and tigers live in jungles, and tree trunks are vertical. Yes, but, Bakewell asked - and this is a direct quote - 'How do the cells know about the jungle?' Ian Stewart then broke the news about the recently discovered principle of evolution by natural selection.

The second part of his talk ranged from the discovery of evolutionarily stable strategies that follow the paradoxical pattern of the 'rock, scissors, paper' game, to the contribution of mathematical modelling to showing the possibility of plate tectonics (and therefore, by a long chain of inference, life) on rocky planets much larger than Earth. An even more wide-ranging discussion followed, and we all trooped out into the sunshine and the Book Festival and its magical buzz of Story with some new stories running in our heads.

PS: The principle of evolution by natural selection is explained in a book by Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen, and Terry Pratchett: Darwin's Watch. Other popular introductions are available.

Born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Ken has been a full time writer since 1997 authoring thirteen novels, including The Star Fraction (1995) and Intrusion (forthcoming, 2012), plus many articles and short stories. His novels and stories have received three BSFA awards and three Prometheus Awards, and several have been short-listed for the Clarke and Hugo Awards. In 2009 he was a Writer in Residence at the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum. Learn more from Ken’s blog The Early Days of a Better Nation.