{"id":123256,"date":"2025-11-09T01:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T01:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/123256\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T01:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T01:13:11","slug":"crime-author-denise-mina-says-book-festival-is-like-the-spine-of-her-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/123256\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime author Denise Mina says book festival is like the ‘spine’ of her career"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Denise Mina has been part of the festival since it began <\/p>\n

Last year it looked as if Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival would not make its 20th anniversary.<\/p>\n

It came close to cancellation due to a lack of funding \u2013 and just a few pop-up events took place instead.<\/p>\n

However, the celebration of two decades of the festival is now in full swing, although six months later than normal.<\/p>\n

It is the first full-scale version to go ahead for two years and will see 130 events with 180 authors taking part.<\/p>\n

Crime writer Denise Mina has been a stalwart of Aye Write since the beginning, appearing at the first ever event in 2005 and only missing three since.<\/p>\n

“It’s felt like the spine of my career,” she says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Aye Write festival will take place across Glasgow until 16 November <\/p>\n

Mina came to prominence with her Garnethill trilogy in 1998, which established her as a key figure in the Tartan Noir, a genre of crime fiction known for its dark, gritty, and realistic portrayal of Scottish life.<\/p>\n

She now ranks alongside other prominent writers in the genre such as Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Louise Welsh but Mina says she did not really feel part of a writing community until events like Aye Write came along.<\/p>\n

“I was kind of working in a vacuum at the time because I had kids,” she says.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t really feel part of a community and Aye Write really created a community.”<\/p>\n

Twenty years on and Mina is established as crime-writing royalty and will be discussing her 20th novel The Good Liar when she appears at the festival next weekend.<\/p>\n

She says she loves the energy of the Glasgow audiences and the event feels very natural.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t feel like a festival superimposed on the city,” she says. “It feels like very much part of Glasgow.”<\/p>\n

“It never felt that it was a festival company coming in here and putting up tents.”<\/p>\n

‘A drunk at a funeral’<\/p>\n

Mina, who was born in East Kilbride in 1966, spent much of her childhood in places such as Paris, London, Bergen and Perth, moving around with a father who worked in the oil industry.<\/p>\n

She returned to Glasgow in 1986 and says the festival makes her feel at home unlike other places which can be much more reserved.<\/p>\n

“Quite often I feel like a drunk at a funeral,” she says.<\/p>\n

“You’re always too extroverted for wherever you go.<\/p>\n

“But in Glasgow, the audiences respond like that.”<\/p>\n

However, she concedes that interacting with Glaswegians might not be for everyone. <\/p>\n

“I think we are quite heavy going,” she says. <\/p>\n

“If you get it, you get it. And if you like it, you like it.”<\/p>\n

\"JamieJamie McDonald<\/p>\n

Debut author Aim\u00e9e MacDonald said it was surreal to promote her book <\/p>\n

This year’s Aye Write is going ahead after Creative Scotland awarded \u00a3262,500 to Glasgow Life, which will provide expenses for this year’s programme and the next two.<\/p>\n

It means new writers such as Aim\u00e9e MacDonald can experience the event for the first time.<\/p>\n

She took part in a panel for debut authors, on the first day of the festival, at Waterstones in Sauchiehall Street.<\/p>\n

“I think you could definitely feel a kind of buzz,” the writer says.<\/p>\n

She says her appearance felt strange because she had studied in the bookshop with her friends at university.<\/p>\n

“It’s quite surreal to be on the other side of that and imagine my book in there,” she says.<\/p>\n

The Last Witch on the Knock, Aim\u00e9e’s debut novel, is about a girl escaping to the Scottish Highlands and becoming caught up in a witch-filled past.<\/p>\n

\"ColinColin Mearns\/The Herald<\/p>\n

Novelist Callum McSorley will take part in a panel of award-winning Scots writers<\/p>\n

Award-winning author Callum McSorley was part of Aye Write in 2023 when he was promoting his debut novel Squeaky Clean.<\/p>\n

He says it was “quite a shock” when the 2024 festival was cancelled.<\/p>\n

“Glasgow has a really impressive and important literary heritage so for our city to not have its own literary festival is mad,” he says. <\/p>\n

“It’s brilliant to see it back again.”<\/p>\n

McSorley, whose new book is called Paperboy, says he finds writing a lonely profession and like Mina sees festivals as a way of interacting.<\/p>\n

He says book festivals help people discover their new favourite books by interacting with novels they might not have before.<\/p>\n

And he says that’s exactly the experience he has had himself at previous festivals. <\/p>\n

“We’re making sure we’re still shining a light on people who are living in this city and working here,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"Books<\/p>\n

Aye Write tries to focus on Scottish authors and writers<\/p>\n

Aye Write’s programmer Bob McDevitt says he is excited to see the festival come back to life.<\/p>\n

He says he is excited to see the audience fully in action again after the festival’s multiple cancellations.<\/p>\n

Aye Write started at a single venue 20 years ago, Glasgow’s Mitchell Library, where it was library staff who began it all.<\/p>\n

McDevitt says he still likes to focus on Scottish authors when it comes to choosing the programme to make sure the festival is rooted in the city.<\/p>\n

He says: “Aye Write is for the people of Glasgow.”<\/p>\n

Events will continue until Sunday 16 November.<\/p>\n

Among the authors taking part are Irvine Welsh, Jeanette Winterson, Sally Magnusson, Dougie Donnelly and former first minister Nicola Sturgeon.<\/p>\n

Venues include the festival’s birth place, The Mitchell Library, as well as Waterstones Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow’s Film Theatre and the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.<\/p>\n

Some events will branch out from the city centre to venues such as The Burrell Collection in Pollok Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BBC Denise Mina has been part of the festival since it began Last year it looked as if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-123256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}