Get set for Book Week Scotland

Scottish crime writer Alex Gray’s visit (see previous post ‘Top Crime Writer to visit Muirhouse Library’) is the perfect start to Book Week Scotland, Scotland’s first-ever celebration of reading. And whether you want to spend the entire week celebrating books and reading – or if you have just have a single hour to spare – there’s time enough to fall in love with books!

Book Week Scotland runs from Monday November 26 until Sunday December 2, 2012, and people the length and breadth of Scotland will be encouraged to engage in the first ever week-long national celebration of reading and participate in a range of free events.

Initiated by the Scottish Government, Book Week Scotland will be delivered on behalf of Creative Scotland by Scottish Book Trust, the leading agency for the promotion of literature, reading and writing in Scotland. Scottish Book Trust is working with authors, workplaces, libraries and schools across the country to deliver a packed programme of free projects and events, bringing Scots of all ages and from all walks of life together to celebrate books and reading.

Key partners including Scottish Libraries and Information Council, Publishing Scotland, and Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature will help to deliver Book Week Scotland activity.

Launching the initiave earlier this year, Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, said: “Book Week Scotland will be a national, inclusive celebration of reading. It will encourage Scots from all backgrounds, of all ages and with all interests, to embark or continue on a reading journey. It will also provide a platform – in our Year of Creative Scotland – to celebrate our nation’s exceptional cultural, creative and literary talent.

“The Scottish Government is firmly committed to increasing learning through the arts and culture, and to promoting the value of taking part in cultural activity. Through Book Week Scotland, we hope to engage the whole of Scotland in these important aims.”

Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust, said: “Above all, Book Week Scotland will be a celebration of books and reading, providing everyone across Scotland with the opportunity to get involved, and with the inspiration to begin or continue their reading journey, to share old favourites and to discover new must-reads.”

Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive of Creative Scotland, said: “Book Week Scotland will celebrate Scotland’s love of writers and reading. It’s a great national initiative for this Year of Creative Scotland and has the potential to grow into another calendar event for Scotland.”

The development of Book Week Scotland is being supported with £150,000 from Creative Scotland’s Year of Creative Scotland programme, which is funded with investment from the Scottish Government and the National Lottery. Scottish Book Trust is working with a range of partners to lever additional funding and support.

As part of the national celebration, Scottish Book Trust will publish an anthology of writing celebrating Scotland‘s favourite places. Written by members of the public and commissioned authors, thousands of copies of My Favourite Place will be distributed free throughout Scotland during Book Week Scotland.

If a week of books and reading is too much, how about just an hour? At 11 a.m. on St Andrew’s Day (Friday 30 November) thousands of people across Scotland will stop what they’re doing and read. The Reading Hour will happen anywhere and everywhere and you can easily be a part of it. Whether you’re on a train, bus or ferry; in a library, at work or at school, or simply at home in your favourite chair; all you need to do is sit down with a good book.

If you’d like some advice on choosing a book then get in touch with the League of Extraordinary Booklovers, Scottish Book Trust’s band of citizen book experts who are on hand to make sure your next book is a good one.

Events are also happening across the country to mark the nation’s first ever Reading Hour. Come along to the Read-In at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh or click here to find other Reading Hour events throughout Scotland.

For more information about Book Week Scotland, visit the website here. Follow @Bookweekscot on Twitter, check out the #happyreading hashtag or ‘like’ the Book Week Scotland Facebook page.

Will you be taking part in Book Week Scotland? Reading Hour, then?

What’s your favourite book?

Let us know!

Top crime writer to visit Muirhouse Library

Best-selling Scottish crime writer Alex Gray will visit Muirhouse Library on Monday 26 November at 6.30pm. The Glaswegian author, who has nine published crime novels, will be reading from her new paperback A Pound of Flesh and answering audience questions about her writing and the Lorimer series.

The event is free – contact Muirhouse Library on 529 5528 for further details.

Read all about it – top author praises Craigie ‘illustrauthors’!

A group of Craigroyston Community High School students have been working with top author John Fardell over the autumn term. With John’s guidance the S2’s have produced their own story books, and the Edinburgh-based writer was full of praise for the students’ efforts when he attended his final session last week.

John spent his last session with the class looking at the students’ books – and he was delighted with what he read. He told students: “There is an incredible variety here – there are some amazing ideas and wonderful stories. I really do hope that you will keep writing.”

John was initially invited to Craigroyston by the school librarian Desmond Spiers, who explained: “The group of 16 pupils have literacy problems and during S1 they were targeted for extra support using a Literacy Programme called ‘SRA’, which is a reading support programme. Rather than having the work done with the pupils as a ‘stand-alone’ programme we wanted to embed and extend their work and progress with something outside the normal remit of the curriculum.

In 2006 and 2007 we had a very successful project with the author Keith Gray working in school for a year as our ‘Writer in Residence’ and we decided we would like to do something similar with this group of pupils when they entered S2 in August – this time we would have a writer in for a term. John Fardell was recommended to us by colleagues in other schools – he is both a writer and illustrator, having published a range of picture books and fiction books for older children and he has also contributed regularly to the adult comic Viz.”

Desmond continued: “John worked with the pupils for five sessions over the Autumn Term, talking to the pupils about how he gets his ideas for stories, how he goes about constructing a plot and then writing a story. He’s explained how pictures tell a story, along with lots of hints and tips for the pupils. He has also brought in and shown the pupils examples of work in progress from the first rough ideas and drafts to the finished book.

“John’s visits have been funded by the ‘Live Literature’ programme at Scottish Book Trust, who pay half of the costs with the school paying the remainder. This project has also been encouraged and supported by Education Advisors in Support for Learning, English and Literacy.”

In between John’s visits the pupils worked in class writing their own short stories which were then bound into books, and their creations were presented to the author at John’s final session on 8 November.

Every single book received positive comments and there was helpful feedback for each writer – among the comments:

‘Nice simple uncomplicated style’

‘Great use of white space – makes the pictures stand out’

‘Great work – go for what you find interesting’

‘Very striking – fine story and excellent design’

‘Wild, psychedelic colours and a really, really good fantasy story’

‘Lovely ideas on themes of friendship – wonderful illustrations’

‘Great first sentence for a story and mixes text and pictures really well’

‘Very original, with some fantastic cartoon baddies. A good fun, exciting story’

‘Nicely laid out – excellent mix of excitement and humour’

‘Very dark, bleak opening but you can start a story like that. Great atmosphere’

‘Nice use of wild lettering and curly writing, sort of Pop Art collage. Unique style’

‘Really good use of illustration, unique and personal’

‘Nice style with fluffy thought bubbles – I really like the diary format’

‘A collection of poetry with a contents page – some lovely contrasts here’.

In short, John was impressed!

Summing up, he told the students: “It’s great that these 17 books are all so wonderfully different. They are all very individual and that makes them unique and exciting books. I know you have all worked really, really hard and you should be very proud of what you have achieved. Keep your drawer full of rough ideas – you have shown a real talent, fantastic”.

John clearly possesses an infectious enthusiasm for books and 13-year-old Keiran Blackie was particularly inspired by working with the author. “John was brilliant to work with – he gave us lots of helpful tips and ideas and he was also very funny sometimes! My book is called The Best Accident and the idea for it came while I was watching the Paralympics on television. It took me around seven weeks from start to finish – I enjoyed writing it and I do like the way it looks now it’s finished. I’ve tried to write before but this is the first time I’ve really succeeded, and it has given me confidence – I think I will hopefully do another one.”

Teachers Margaret Beveridge and Eric Freund did the majority of the classwork with the pupils, and both were full of praise for John. They said: “He helped reinforce lessons already undertaken with the students, fired their imagination and left a body of work that we can build upon and extend over the coming months. We hope we can repeat this excellent project again next year.”