Edinburgh<\/a> book festival has also attracted controversy recently for failing to invite gender-critical writers such as the authors of The Women Who Wouldn\u2019t Wheesht.\n <\/p>\n\n The poet Jenny Lindsay called it \u201cdiscrimination\u201d but Jenny Niven, the festival\u2019s director, has justified it on the grounds that discussion of the subject is \u201cextremely divisive\u201d.\n <\/p>\n
\n Read more:\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n A spokesperson for the festival said that because of Darren raising his concerns about his inclusion in the festival, they had approached his publicist at Penguin Randomhouse and both Mr McGarvey\u2019s team and the festival were keen to see him on the programme in 2026.\n <\/p>\n
\n The spokesperson said: \u201cThere is a significant issue of inequality and access for working class writers within the publishing industry and wider cultural landscape.\n <\/p>\n
\n “This issue is well-documented, and as well as impacting the income and opportunity for individual writers, it impacts the diversity of stories being told, which disadvantages readers and audiences too.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWith the current decline in literacy rates, the book festival is committed to widening access to all of our programmes. Disadvantage begins early, which is why we provide free tickets and travel to children from schools in areas across Scotland with a high index of multiple deprivation.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cEarlier this summer we launched a new programme working long term with five Edinburgh libraries, including Streetreads, who work directly with people experiencing long term or temporary homelessness. Our aim is that people who discover the book festival through these programmes will be more likely to write their own stories, or come to the festival as readers, which in time will contribute to a more equitable industry.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe’re also proud to be a new partner of\u00a0A Writing Chance, a programme created by New Writing North and supported by Michael Sheen, which creates opportunities specifically for working-class writers\u00a0and New Writing North will\u00a0be at the Book Festival on August 19. A number of our other strands supporting new talent take a similar approach.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n Read the full interview online and in print on Saturday.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the post on X, Mr McGarvey, 41, said: \u201cI know I\u2019m not a big deal in grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[457,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-72221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}