Acclaimed Ross writer to have his own festival
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WO acclaimed Highland authors, whose careers are separated by almost half a century, are to be celebrated in festivals set to attract international attention.
The first of the two events, organised through the University of the Highlands and Islands literature department, takes place in July this year and will be the first festival dedicated to award winning Ross-based author Michel Faber.
A year later, the department hopes to hold a festival dedicated to Inverness-born author Elizabeth MacKintosh, who is best remembered today under her crime-writing pseudonym Josephine Tey.
Although born in the Netherlands and party raised in Australia, Michel Faber is a long-term resident of Easter Ross.
He used the area as the setting for his first published novel, Under The Skin, recently filmed starring Scarlett Johansson in the lead role.
Topics to be discussed at the two day event on Thursday July 21 and Friday 22 include the film adaptation of Under the Skin, self and nature in Mr Faber’s writing, and panels on The Crimson Petal and The White and The Book of Strange New Things.
"We have speakers from Scotland, the wider UK, Australia, the US. Michel Faber himself will participate in this event, which we’re very excited about," said Dr Kristin Lindfield-Ott, programme leader for the UHI’s BA Literature and History & Literature courses.
The UHI’s Josephine Tey conference is planned for July 2017, but the exact date will depend of the availability of the key note speakers and is being organised with the help of Inverness author Jennifer Morag Henderson, author of an acclaimed biography of Josephine Tey.
First finding success as a playwright under the name Gordon Daviot, her crime novels written under the Tey pen-name have gone on to be highly influential on later crime writers such as Fife-born Val McDermid. Tey’s 1951 novel, The Daughter of Time, was named by Britain’s Crime Writers Association as the best crime novel of all time.
The two-day conference could also include such events as a Josephine Tey walking tour, a chance to see archive related to Tey at Inverness Library or the Highland Archive Centre, and perhaps even a presentation of some of her dramatic works, Dr Lindfield-Ott revealed.
