Category Archives: Events

Literature festivals are awesome (and you should come to Crieff’s)

(*updated timetable) Many years ago I went to the Edinburgh International Book festival on a trip with my Higher (5th year) English class. We were dropped into the middle of an event that felt like it was part rock festival and partly like sitting down for a cup of tea in a friend’s living room. There was excitement, humour, and we were introduced to a lot of incredible writing. However, the most striking thing for me was the way it felt to be talking to an author about their work.

Meeting an author, even of a book you haven’t read, can be a really interesting experience, mostly because writing is such an intimate art form and those who do it gain a lot of insight into what makes them tick. It can be genuinely refreshing to get inside someone else’s head and see how ideas form and develop into something tangible, which is then presented openly to the public. Not everyone acts like this and when I saw the type of people that writers are it made me even more sure that I wanted to be one.

Well, good news everyone! Now anyone in the Crieff area on the 22nd August can get the chance to have this experience too as, Crieff is getting their own mini literary festival! There will be a huge array of writers with very different writing styles in attendance and there will even be a talk on getting your own work published (for any aspiring authors among you).

Don’t forget to add the date to your diary, I’ve added a facebook event so that you can join and get a reminder closer to the time (click here to pop over and join the event). I’ve written about the ‘Writers Live’ event before but we now know more about the line-up. I should point out that I previously posted a list of authors who would be attending but was mistaken about Jess Smith who unfortunately won’t be able to make it along this year. Apologies for my mistake.

For those who would like to join me and many other writers on the day, here’s the timetable:

‘Writers Live’ Saturday 22nd August 10am-3pm Strathearn Artspace:

10:00am: The day starts with me (John Bray). I’ll be reading from, and talking about, the first two books in the Jack Reusen series (click these links to find out more about ‘Jack Reusen and the Fey Flame‘ and ‘Jack Reusen and the Spark of Dreams‘). I will also be reading an exclusive excerpt of (my still very rough draft of) ‘Jack Reusen and the Children of Fate’, so if you want a wee glimpse of what happens next you’ll need to come along.

10:25am: Peggy Hewitt: Peggy will be reading three of her children’s short stories which were commissioned BBC Children’s television. Peggy is also a real Bronte lover, you can get an idea of her work at her Amazon author’s page here. Probably her best known book ‘Bronte Country: Lives and Landscapes’ looks at the land that the Bronte sisters called home, and its history. Peggy is also one of only a handful of people who can say that they got to read about their own demise in the newspaper. You can read the retraction from The Telegraph and Argus here. It must have been a very odd experience for her, though she seemed to find the humour in it.

10:45am: Margaret Bennet: Margaret is a writer, folklorist, ethnologist, broadcaster and singer. She has so many talents, and such a large body of work to draw on and is sure to bring something to ‘Writers Live’ which will be both entertaining and informative in equal measure. She will also be reading from her latest book: “We Are the Engineers!”

11:25am: Ann Petrie will be reading from her book about the 1920s rent strike

11:45/12 noon: Break for lunch (we’re leaving a bit of space to be safe)

12.45pm: Hazel Buchan Cameron: Hazel is a well noted poet and In 2014 she was the first Writer in Residence for the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Moving away from poetry Hazel will read from her new book “Just Go In” which follows a seventeen year old as she sets off from a council estate near Glasgow to become a farm secretary in the East of Scotland. Her memoir spans the late 70s to the early 90s. “…Life is often stranger than fiction, and this story shows the fine line that is walked in relating true events whilst maintaining a believability.” (Hardeep Singh Kohli, comedian and chef)

1.15pm: Patricia Ace (Poet): Partricia has a lovely, smooth yet disjunctive style to her work and her debut poetry collection ‘Fabulous Beast’ contains some intriguing and sometimes comical takes on some every-day or at least familiar scenes and scenarios. You can hear her read some of her own work by clicking this link. (As it turns out Partricia is also my mum’s yoga instructor, small world)

1:35pm: David Cowan author of books on Ley Lines and the energies of the Earth will be talking about. Crieff’s secret societies and symbols.

1.55pm: Helen Grant: Helen will be reading from her ‘Forbidden Spaces’ trilogy of urban exploration themed thrillers set in Brussels and Ghent. Helen’s research for these books looked like a lot of fun, if you pop over to her Twitter account and look through the pictures you’ll see what I mean (warning, you’ll be clicking for a while). Helen is an international author and thriller extraordinaire who has enjoyed glowing reviews from The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, and The Daily Mail.

2.25pm: Publishing talk with Q&A by Helen Lewis McPhee and Gonzalo Mazzei. Helen has worked with Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communications, and, currently Canongate Books. Gonzalo is from Grace Note Publications C.I.C, publisher of many the books listed here. They will both be there to talk about the publishing process and answer questions from would-be (and current) writers.

3pm: Finish: You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. (Actually you can stay, if you stick around you’ll catch a the concert that follows us, admission for the concert is £3)

So there’s a basic run down of the programme. There will also be the Jack Reusen window and competition over at Fun Junction to look forward to (click here for more information). The competition is a ‘design a Jack Reusen character’ competition which closes during the festival weekend, the winner will see their character feature in a short story to appear on this site sometime after the festival closes (and if I can manage I’ll try and fit it into one of the books so that the winner can see their character in print).

I look forward to seeing you along at the ‘Writers Live’ event, thanks for reading, all the best, John

Crieff Arts Festival competition

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In the run-up to the Crieff Arts Festival Fun Junction has agreed to help run a ‘design a Jack Reusen character’ competition with me. It’s all very simple; basically children are asked to design a magical character that they think would fit into the world of ‘Fey’, the winner will see their character feature in a short story to appear here on this website sometime after the festival. They can choose to submit either a picture, a character description, or even both. A winning entry will be chosen on the weekend of the arts festival (22nd and 23rd August).

The Crieff Arts festival has been on the go for a number of years now and has grown to include a wide variety of things to see and do throughout the town (for grown-ups and families). This year’s arts festival will be running on the 22nd and 23rd of August. A full programme of events will be available closer to the time but Fun Junction’s shop event is aimed to highlight a literary event that will be held at the Strathearn Artspace in Comrie street.

The event will feature readings and discussions from a number of local authors and poets including Helen Grant, Susy McPhee, and Jess Smith, along with an exciting array of other names to be announced closer to the time. I’ll be starting the event off with a few wee readings from both the first and second books (and possibly even a wee sneak peek at ‘Jack Reusen and the Children of Fate’).

If you can please try to pop along to the Artspace (at 10:00am on Saturday the 22nd) to join our mini literary festival, it would be amazing. It’ll certainly make my day to see a wee crowd gathered to chat about Jack. Thanks for reading, all the best, John

Crieff Arts festival (Crieff Literary festival?)

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I’ve just been asked to join an event at the Crieff Arts Festival on 22nd of August. By the sounds of it I’ll be first in a solid line-up of local authors and poets; starting at 10:30am with myself and culminating with one of our best known authors; Helen Grant. I’ll add the names of other authors and poets on here once I know more.

Helen has posted her own description of the arts festival, and what she’ll be up to, over on her blog if you fancy getting a bit of an insight (here’s the link). As for me I haven’t really decided what to do yet. The most obvious will be a reading but there’s a chance that there might be a few readers of the books along for the talk so I might split the talk between reading excerpts and answering questions.

My kids quite often get impromptu stories fresh out of my mind (some of them set in Fey) for bed-time but I’m not sure if I’m confident enough to do the same thing in front of a crowd just yet. Jess Smith (one of the other authors who will be talking at the event) is a live storyteller and I really admire anyone who can do what live storytellers do, there’s something really absorbing about that kind of storytelling. I don’t think this will be my storyteller début somehow, I’ll wait and see.

If you’ll be in the Crieff on the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd and fancy popping along to hear me blether away about Jack and Thea, and read a wee snippet from one (or more) of the books, then pop along to the Strathearn Artspace on the 22nd of August at 10am (that’s when doors open, my talk will be at 10:30). Hope to see you then, all the best, John

Crieff Primary visit

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I knew it was going to be a different kind of talk today because the whole class had already read the book. In fact they had literally just finished the last chapter when I got there, so they had lots of questions about the characters.

The great thing for me was seeing that I’d managed to make a story that they had clearly all enjoyed. I tried to write the books so there was something for everyone and today made me feel like I’d managed to get pretty close to that goal.

The added bonus of knowing that the class had all heard the first book was that I could get away with reading a wee sample of ‘…the Spark of Dreams‘. I think they enjoyed their wee teaser, and they certainly asked a lot of questions about what to expect in future books.

It was a fantastic day and a genuine thrill to see that Jack’s world had clearly appealed to them all so much, and I’ll definitely be down there again (if they’ll have me) to talk about any future books. In the mean time it sounds as though I might be getting some illustrations from the class, inspired by characters from the book, to share with you soon. I’m looking forward to what they think Jack, Thea, Sparky, and Harold look like.

Weirdly enough I spent yesterday in my p2 classroom in Comrie primary and today I was in my p3 classroom. The last couple of days have been really enjoyable and a wee walk down memory lane. Hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about it, thanks for reading, Cheers, John

Comrie Primary

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Today I was at Comrie Primary School for a book talk. It was lovely to revisit my first primary school, and odd to see how different the school looks now I’m not four feet tall.

By the sounds of it there are a good few budding authors among Comrie Primary’s pupils and they had a lot of interesting (and some very practical questions) about writing.

That’s the fun thing about these kinds of events. Aside from getting a bit of feedback on my writing, these talks definitely help me build self-awareness as an author.

How do you make a character? Why do you write in this genre? What should someone do to become an author?

It’s tough sometimes; some of these questions are relatively easy to answer, yet I feel a little under-qualified to answer others.

What do I do if I want to be a writer? I was tempted to answer ‘you write’ but that’s too glib (and dangerously close to sarcastic) an answer for a budding young writer. The truth is that there doesn’t seem to be one way to ‘be a writer’ but even that would be an unsatisfying answer.

Instead we got into discussing some surprisingly practical elements of the writing process: from sentence structure and grammar, to royalties and the earning potential of writing. It was a surprisingly thorough discussion to be having with primary school children.

I’ve just been informed that the pupils have decided to create illustrations of some of the characters from the book. I look forward to seeing the results and will hopefully get a chance to share them on here if I can.

Of course; if you know any children who have read the book(s) and who feel like sending in pictures of characters these are more than welcome (adults can send things in too if they like).

I love doing school talks so if you’d like me to come to your school please get in touch and we can try and arrange something.

As always, thanks for reading, all the best, John

That was brilliant!

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Just finished my talk at Our Lady’s RC Primary School, Stirling. All the kids were fantastic, loads of good questions and they seemed to really enjoy meeting Jack.

I had been particularly worried about what the older kids would think to the book but I got big laughs for a good few bits (don’t worry they were supposed to be funny).

I would do that again in a heartbeat. If you’re a teacher, or are connected to a school in some way, and you think the children at your school would enjoy a book talk/author visit please let me know.

Grabbing a cup of tea in the staff room now, I’ll post again soon with an update on the progress of ‘Jack Reusen and the Spark of Dreams’. All the best, John