Sunday 25 November 2012

West Port Book Festival 2012: day 2

After a little bit of sleep day 2 arrived, starting off with Andrea Gillies in Central Library who discussed her writing and how depressingly inspirational it can be to deal with an elderly, dementia-addled relative.

WPBF12: Andrea Gillies

Edinburgh Books played host to a joyful Gavin Francis, whose props included an inflatable penguin as well as a penguin egg.

Off to St Columba's by the Castle then, for My Favourite Place, an event with the Scottish Book Trust and part of Book Week Scotland. Every year SBT publish some sort of crowdsourced collection of stories, this year they've printed 150,000 which are being given away free all across Scotland.

WPBF12: My Favourite Place

There were a couple of published contributors at the event (all of the submissions are available on the website) who read their stories to the room and then answered some questions.

WPBF12: My Favourite Place

After which there was a literary quiz which successfully got the competitive spirit going in everyone.

WPBF12: My Favourite Place

While this was happening Edinburgh Books was hosting a session on book repair, guided by Orlene McIlfatrick.

WPBF12: Book Repair

After which, a quick turnaround found Wayne Price and Liam Murray Bell reading from and discussing their new novels, Furnace and So it is respectively.

WPBF12: Wayne Price & Liam Murray Bell

WPBF12: Wayne Price & LIam

Then it was off to Pulp Fiction for a chat with Nick Holdstock and Keith Ridgway, hosted by the ever-delightful Stuart Kelly.

WPBF12: Keith Ridgway & Nick Holdstock

WPBF12: Keith Ridgway & Nick Holdstock

No rest for the wicked, a quick trek down the road found Isabelle Ting talking about the five eventful years of Owl & Lion. There was a crackle of excitement when she announced that she would be open for selling things afterwards...

WPBF12: Five Years of Owl & Lion

The next stop was another of the new venues, Inspace. Run by New Media Scotland, it's basically a big white box in the University quarter filled with shiny technological joy; it plays host to many events all year round but they make a point of not being an venue space but instead are an active collaborator for any event. They regularly show films in expanded 'Atmosphere' screenings so this promised to be interesting.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

For WPBF the film was Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book, a film about words, calligraphy, sex and death. Roughly.

Behind a bamboo forest people took it in turns to read from The Pillow Book while some of the more disturbing music from the film played in the background.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

One of the Inspace crew was passing among the crowd projecting Japanese characters onto people's faces, a very modern way of getting writing onto skin.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

Meanwhile, hidden at the rear of the space was a bed and a body, being used for a canvas more traditionally.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

Calligrapher Campbell Sandilands had stepped in at the last moment when the original ink artist had to drop out.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

After a while the fun subsided and everyone sat down to watch the film.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

The patient model lay there throughout the evening, with nothing but the complete works of Oscar Wilde to protect his modesty.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

There was a brief intermission, during which there were more readings from the book while sake cocktails were distributed.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

Finally, the film and the calligraphy were over. Not everyone had appreciated the Greenaway, but the evening as a whole went down extremely well.

WPBF12: The Pillow Book

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