Maisie Bisson wrote this about her experience of the Festival and, as you can see, she had a great time!

Friday

The first event I went to was Susan Fletcher: A Little in Love. As I was introducing this event I was lucky enough to meet Susan Fletcher and the singer Hyoie O’Grady. They were both really nice and extremely talented. The event started with a reading from the book and then a performance from Hyoie. This made an amazing atmosphere in the Hub for the interview led by Magnus Buchannan. Overall the event was inspiring and very interesting.

The second and last event of the night was the Literary Cabaret. This had everything from readings from a book to live music and an open mic. The names included were Hyoie O’Grady, A.L Kennedy and Ben Norris. The evening was thoroughly enjoyable my favourite part was Ben Norris’ poem about English at university. Another interesting and funny bit was A.L Kennedy having to change her words around because of my little sister being present. It certainly got a lot of laughs.

Saturday

On Saturday I first went to Neil Innes. He is a fascinating man with so many interesting stories to tell. As well as being an interesting individual he is also a very talented song-writer and musician. This was perhaps one of my favourite events of the festival because of how fascinating and enjoyable Neil Innes was to listen to. He is now definitely on my fantasy dinner party list.

The second event of Saturday was listening to Will Self in Town church. This was an interesting talk. I hadn't read any of his books prior to the event, so it was a bit difficult to follow some of the subjects, but Will Self did talk about a number of different subjects, especially when it came to audience questions. A very interesting talk by a very interesting writer.

The last event of the festival for me was Prue Leith’s talk also in Town Church. This talk made me think in a different way about Prue Leith. I had seen her on T.V. quite a lot but had never appreciated her story outside of the food industry. After hearing her talk I felt like I wanted to find out more about her and possibly other T.V. judges or cooks.

Overall I had a great time at the Literary Festival this year. I really enjoyed meeting Susan Fletcher and chatting to her, as well as introducing her on stage. I have met many great people and it was a pleasure to be involved.