Editors Angela Hicks and Calder Hudson reflect on some of the exciting events and releases which transpired in August of 2018 in the midst of Edinburgh’s many features and festivals.
Discussion: August Recap
A: Last month was certainly busy. With the Fringe in town, we had the chance to attend a lot of really exciting lit events, and also to catch up on reading many of the books which came out this summer.
C: Yes; The Ogilvie is all online, but as editors, we’re based in Edinburgh–and the Scottish capital gets very cultural during August. We went to events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF), and at Book Fringe, and also at the Fringe Festival. It was a hectic time, but in a good way.
A: Do you want to kick off with your favourite event from the EIBF?
C: Yes indeed–though there’s a ramble which comes with it. Namely: I’ve lived in Edinburgh for I guess about three years now, and in my time living here I’ve never been as awestruck. The opening of the 2018 Fringe Festival on August 11th stands out even by the high standard of previous EIBF kick-offs. I left Charlotte Square on the opening day even more excited than I’d been when I first got there.
A: That’s exciting–what was on?
C: For starters, speakers–there we a number of really great events, including one with Laura Bates, who began the Everyday Sexism project. There were also phenomenal panel discussions; one which I cannot speak highly enough of was called ‘Freedom to Write’ and addressed matters of inclusivity, expansion, internationalism and diversity as they relate to Scottish publishing. It also introduced me to the work of Raman Mundair–I was trying to frantically write down some of her lines at the event itself, since a lot of them were fantastic, but I didn’t capture every one so I’ve since gone in search of more of her writing.
A: That’s really cool.
C: There were tons of amazing international speakers. Hearing Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o speak was an absolute privilege and reintroduced me to the discussion surrounding translation in publishing, and the often unspoken effects which translations can have. I think sometimes, as readers, we… hm… I guess we can’t see the trees for the forest, to put it one way. We get so fixated on the prose we read that we don’t understand its composite pieces, and the immense history that has shaped our reading diet, our conception of literature and “capital-L Literature” as a whole… this event is making me think a lot more thoroughly about that, about all that really, and I’m much better off for it.
A: I couldn’t make it to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s talk, but you did grab copies of The Freedom Papers—where his work features–as well as his latest biography. I haven’t got onto the latter yet, but reading through the former, it’s full of powerful writing.
C: I think it’s fair enough that you haven’t got onto the biography yet; I know you’ve been reading a lot of other new literature.
A: Yes! I’ve just finished Christina Neuwirth’s debut novella, Amphibian, which is this really amazing, surreal story in which an office worker arrives at her job one day to find that her workplace is being slowly flooded by her bosses as a new initiative to increase productivity. I think the book would appeal to everyone, but especially to anyone who’s ever worked in an office and had to cope with the slightly deranged actions of superiors.
C: Yeah, I can’t lie, that’s definitely part of why I’m looking forward to reading it. We went to its Edinburgh launch at Lighthouse Books. I really liked the actual style of the event–it felt much more natural and conversational than many launches I’ve gone to elsewhere. Much of that can, I think, be chalked up to compelling questions and a good author-interviewer rapport, which really helped embellish the good atmosphere you always get at Lighthouse Books. Every time I go there I have a wonderful time, spend much too much money, and get many too many books. But I guess that’s the literal price you pay.
A: Yeah; at Christina’s event, you also bought Claire Askew’s crime novel All the Hidden Truths, which I finished this morning. It was a very gripping book; it’s told from three different perspectives which helped keep the pace and intrigue high.
C: That’s another one at the top of my reading list; I’ve heard a couple excerpts and I know it gets super real. I don’t want to give away too much of the premise from the outset but there was one point where you had to ask me what “Men’s Rights Activists” are, which was a painful, painful reality to have to explain.
A: For clarification, I do, depressingly, know about Men’s Rights groups. I just didn’t know they shortened it to MRA. It’s not a great acronym since it already means something else. Still, if they want to pick a stupid name, who am I to complain.
C: I also went to an event for the anthology Trans Britain at Lighthouse, which was fascinating for a few reasons. Learning more about trans history in Britain was absorbing, and from a writing and editing perspective, hearing about the making of the anthology was also interesting. My exposure to Unbound books and the campaigns surrounding them has been relatively minimal–despite it having a big impact on how we consider publishing nowadays–so hearing Christine Burns talk about the editing and publishing process as she encountered it was really interesting. It seems like Unbound works well for anthologies in that it emphasizes the many voices and contributions which exist within an essay collection. This may have been a particularly powerful and poignant collection given its scope and subject, but it certainly seems to have benefited in many ways from emphasizing its own diversity.
A: You also managed to go to some lunchtime events at Lighthouse, right?
C: Yeah. One of those lunchtime Book Fringe events focused on the She-Wolves project, which adapted She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth into a performance piece. Transforming a work between genres is fascinating procedurally as it brings people from wholly different artistic realms onto one team and asks them to find joint purpose… and if the show’s reviews are anything to go by, this project succeeded. I’m fascinated to see where it goes.
A: Speaking of performances, I went to a production of The Crucible, which is a play that I’ve read before, but never had the opportunity to see performed, so it was really nice to see it on stage in the intended medium. Although perhaps ‘nice’ isn’t quite the right word. It’s an intense play.
C: There were a number of shows or events I saw which blended the line between panels and performances, which were all wonderful. Inua Ellams’ EIBF event was so spellbinding it really did feel more like a performance than a talk or a reading, although that’s probably a whole discussion in of itself with regards to poetry and performance. There were also some shows we got to see on the more Fringe-y side that pose questions about performance, storytelling, and how authors and audiences can interact–I’d never seen Adventurers Wanted in action before, and that was a thrill.
A: We also saw Austentatious, who perform improvised Jane Austen plays. They’re perhaps not ‘Culture’ in the way that events at the EIBF are, but it was a lot of fun.
C: Phew! As we said, a busy month, to put it mildly. Who knows what next year will bring?
A: We’ll have plenty to read in the meantime.
C: Thanks to Lighthouse and my empty wallet? Yeah, for sure.
Angela and Calder can be found on Twitter (as @Ms_a_hicks and @CMA_Hudson, respectively). The Ogilvie’s editing team can be reached via theogilviecontact@gmail.com.