list.co.uk/festival Scottish Writers | FESTIVAL BOOKS
L-R Pippa Goldschmidt, Michael Pedersen and Allan Wilson
helped to make an ‘honest poet’ out of her. Bamford will be reading her dark and unl inching poetry as part of Unbound, a series of free evening events in the Book Festival’s Spiegeltent showcasing the best of words, comedy, music and performance.
A lyrics writer, playwright and co-founder of multi-arts night Neu Reekie, Michael Pedersen considers himself a poet i rst. His talent is evident in his freshly published collection Play With Me.
Falling Sky, Edinburgh-based writer and ex-astronomer Pippa Goldschmidt explains she always wanted to write about ‘the emotional life of a scientist’. ‘I wanted to write i ction to explore what it feels like to make a discovery, to learn about new things, to make mistakes and to inhabit that liminal place where you’re not sure if you’re right or wrong.’
With her novel, Goldschmidt certainly got it right. Shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize and recently published by Freight, The Falling Sky is a stunning debut. So, will Goldschmidt be dazzling us with more science?
‘Oh, yes. I’m completing a collection of short stories inspired by different bits of science, such as the erotic possibilities of Einstein’s thought experiments, the inl uence of Snow White on the history of computing, suffragettes bombing the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh . . . And I’ve always wanted to write a novel about quantum physics.’ These four writers are already the crème de la crème of new Scottish literature. And they’re only getting started.
Brian Kimberling & Allan Wilson, 13 Aug, 8.30pm; Michael Pedersen & Luke Wright, 16 Aug, 8.30pm; Krystelle Bamford appears as part of Jura Unbound, 19 Aug, 9pm; Pippa Goldschmidt & Alice Thompson, 20 Aug, 3.30pm. All at Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 373 5888, £7 (£5). 8–15 Aug 2013 THE LIST FESTIVAL 29
The fascination with poetry began with stealing collections from his mother’s bookshelves. ‘I liked that poetry could express things very differently and I often felt – in a synesthesia type of sense – there was colour in sound and sound in colour.’
After a pause, he adds, ‘Also, as a teenager,
I heard it was a good way to get girls.’
Despite collaborating on numerous different projects – including a co-written play with Alan Bissett – and people deeming poetry as ‘the most niche of literary forms’ Pedersen insists that poetry is an invaluable form of expression: one with a wonderfully cathartic effect.
‘It’s expressing yourself with a higher degree of efi ciency than in everyday life,’ he says. ‘If you can do that with literary justii cation, you can write very good sorry notes.’
Discussing
the inspiration behind The
CANCER by Krystelle Bamford
Draw us a map and we will i nd them, those dark, sudden l owers.
Give me leave and I will go in with waders, a spade – an orchid thief
piloting the mangrove, the tangled, brackish backwaters. I will root them all out
and return with just one – a perfect, pale head, a yellow tongue. We will call
this thing the l ower of peace, of silence,
of leave us fucking be.
■ For three further extracts from Allan Wilson, Michael Pedersen and Pippa Goldschmidt see list.co.uk