FEATURES

It’s not just Cheltenham that’s going batso for books this month, novelist and event organiser Jari Moate gives us the lowdown on Unputdownable, which, he tells Alice Edwards, is Bristol’s first literature festival.

Tell us about Unputdownable... It’s the first ever literature festival in Bristol and there’s a twist in the tale, that’s for sure. Instead of simply responding to a publisher’s calendar and trotting out the most famous person we could find, we’ve hand-picked our authors to get the ones who address real world issues. We have both the established and the up-and-coming so it’s not celebrity worship.

I suppose it’s a DIY festival – maybe even anarchic. It will get people out into community venues, such as libraries, churches and Foyles bookshop. We’ll be drawing the city together. Our hub is Stokes Croft which probably doesn’t sound like the traditional location for a literature festival, but it’s a rich, thriving place. After the events of this year – the riots – Stokes Croft is ready for a life-affirming response.

Headlining the festival is ‘Mock the Week’ guest Milton Jones with his ‘10 Second Sermons’, as well as Simon Day with ‘Comedy and Error’, a fantastic book about battling addiction. We’ll also have a Literary Crime Lunch with a surprise crime venue. Thriller writer Sophie Hannah will talk about the search for justice – in particular the miscarriages of justice and how characters seek their revenge accordingly – while new writer Stuart Evers will be answering questions such as “Should David Cameron read more sci-fi?” alongside the brilliant Chris Paling.

Given that Bristol already has a poetry festival, a short story festival and many other literature-based events, was there a gap in the market? There was in Bristol, probably because of lack of opportunity. But now the culture of the city is changing. We want to prove that Bristol has an appetite for literature, but not one that’s as conventional as the Cheltenham festival. There’s also this idea that all cities need a literature festival. After writing [my novel] ‘Paradise Now’, I wanted to talk to my own city about the reasons behind the story but there was no platform to do so. So I’ve made one. And it’s good to start in a place where there hasn’t been a big festival before because it means there’s no history, no bad blood.

Having written yourself, how would you encourage other new writers? Write something! Get your pen moving across the page. The first chapter you might throw away – in fact, you probably should – but you’ll find something to preserve, something that delights you, and that’s the start. Never be afraid of a blank page.

People say that you should write about what you know. I think you should write what you care about. You can learn endless facts and figures and snippets of information but you can’t learn to care.

It can’t be easy getting such an event off the ground during these inauspicious times... It’s definitely a risky venture but one that’s worth it. We have no public funding. The money comes from gifts and personal funds. The charity Love Bristol is also involved. The rest is volunteer work. We have 35-40 volunteers but only about six in the hard core.

There’s an interesting event you’re holding in a prison… The festival launches at Ashfield Young Offenders’ Institute. Children’s author GP Taylor – who was once thrown out of a talk he gave to schoolchildren for using the words “bogey” “bum” and “fart” – will be there working with the kids and feeding their imaginations. And in the afternoon the kids will be released on temporary licence to showcase their work.

So fiction has a broader purpose beyond mere entertainment? Fiction has two purposes. One is to provide escapism, whether you’re turning the pages of a fluffy easy-read or a highbrow hardback. But really good art makes people stop in their tracks and think again. It makes you reframe who you are. What you do afterwards with that knowledge is up to you. But it can change your life and that’s a reflection of reality, not fantasy.

Does Unputdownable have a long future? We definitely want it to be an annual event but that entirely depends on what happens this year. So if you want to see year two, come along to year one!

UNPUTDOWNABLE TAKES PLACE AT VARIOUS VENUES IN BRISTOL FROM 14-23 OCT. FFI: WWW.UNPUTDOWNABLE.ORG

Copyright Joe Spurgeon 2011