I swore off twitter a year ago but... The righteous outrage around the cancellation of the @AyeWrite festival is not merely a conversation about the merit of literary festivals, or whether Scotland’s first city deserves one. It is much, much bigger than that...
I have watched in horror, as Scotland has haggled over funding for the arts, has closed her libraries, and now has allowed the cancellation of a major literary festival in her largest city. A festival that has a focus on Scottish voices...
In the past year, I’ve sat through many interviews asking about the surge of great Irish writing. And while Irish writers are GREAT, it's also clear to me that Ireland understands that culture, people, & literature are her strength and they fund it like they mean it...
I toured all the major Irish festivals, and then spent another week touring the smaller towns from Ennis to Drogheda. (I ate a lot of cheese toasties)... And yet my hometown of Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, cannot have a literature festival? That's unacceptable...
When I won the Booker Prize, within hours of the announcement many of the major political parties contacted me asking for my support. But the politicians who wanted to use my art to protect their jobs, are failing to do their jobs to protect my art...
Aye Write is not just about one city or one festival, it’s about a nation’s pride in her art. It’s about working class access to literature – and let’s not be coy here: working class people are crucial to Scottish literature. Get a haud of yersels. And let Glasgow be great.
@Doug_D_Stuart @nee_massey Aye! They've jist made things even mair #Dreich From an exhibition. #MichtyMe #Artforall #Exceedinglylowbrow Fergy & Tom fae Fife ♡ ;-) #AyeWrite
@Doug_D_Stuart I enjoyed the festival from way over here in Toronto, Douglas. It certainly reached a wide audience.
@Doug_D_Stuart Where are our Scottish multi-millionaire authors?
@Doug_D_Stuart Good to see you back Douglas. Fingers crossed for a U turn x
@Doug_D_Stuart Let's not forget music funding being cut as well. I get why they want more TV & films as it brings tourists but literature & music is at the heart of our cultural identity. My children attend a music school run as a charity by volunteers but their funding was cut....
@Doug_D_Stuart It’s a tough lesson that there are Politicians who regard the doling out of Arts funding as Patronage, Glasgow deserves better.
@Doug_D_Stuart I think it’s almost an advert for the old style Arts Council where the great and the guide volunteered to hand out the funding by making subjectivity decisions. Creative Scotland absorb a lot of cash in their org but
@Doug_D_Stuart “The devil’s greatest trick was to let the Irish think they all were writers—and get the rest of us to think we weren’t.”
@Doug_D_Stuart Glasgow City Council is cutting 430 teaching jobs over 3 years so the weans will no be able to write anyway. The festival will be more Aye Right? than Aye Write.
@Doug_D_Stuart What we choose to spend money and time on says a lot about ourselves and who we want to be. Right now, the Scottish Government seems more focused on criminalising people for having different opinions than encouraging and promoting reading and writing and thinking.