Don Winslow to headline Harrogate…

Published January 2, 2018 by Katherine Cowdrey

“New York King of Crime” Don Winslow has been revealed as the first headliner and “special guest” of The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.

The festival’s 2018 programming chair, author Lee Child, announced Winslow will join the festival’s roster of 90 authors between the 19th and 22nd July. Winslow has written 20 novels, selling over 100 million books worldwide and garnering fans such as Stephen King.

Winslow has written 20 novels, selling over 100 million books worldwide and garnering fans such as Stephen King

His latest book, The Force (HarperCollins), published in July, is being adapted by Fox for the silver screen in March 2019, with “Logan”’s James Mangold slated to direct and Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet attached as screenwriter. Leonardo DiCaprio is meanwhile set to star in a £40m Hollywood adaptation of another of his books, The Cartel, to be directed by Ridley Scott.

“I’m really thrilled to be coming to the UK,” said Winslow. “I’ve heard great things about the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival from my dear friend Lee Child who was kind enough to invite me to come this year. It’s always great to hang out with Lee and I look forward to meeting the authors, readers and booksellers who will be attending the festival.”

Child, who lives in New York, said: “I have access to people in America so we’re going to see some big names from America, and I think people are going to be thrilled with the line-up when we reveal the full list of names, I think everyone’s going to say ‘wow’.”
Simon Theakston, title sponsor and executive director of T&R Theakston, said 2018 was shaping up to be “a very special year indeed”. In the past the festival has featured notable crime writers such as JK Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith, Ian Rankin, Jo Nesbo, PD James and Ruth Rendell.

“As a festival that seems to get better each year it’s hard to know how to top the previous year, but 2018 looks like it will be a very special year indeed,” he said. “It’s a testament to the programming committee, chaired by the legendary Lee Child, and Harrogate International Festivals that the event has secured Harrogate at the centre of the international literary map.”

The festival was co-founded by crime author Val McDermid, agent Jane Gregory and arts charity, Harrogate International Festivals in 2003.

Review: Message From The Skies, various sites, Edinburgh…

It’s a show with a subtitle, this powerful piece of storytelling combined with installation art, playing around 12 locations in Edinburgh city centre through the dark winter month between New Year’s Day and Burns Night. Its other name is New Year’s Resurrection; and its text, by the great crime novelist Val McDermid, is not only a tribute to a city famous for its dramatic clashes between elegant enlightenment and dark criminality, but a plea to resurrect the reputation of generations of women writers who have too often been forgotten, in the litany of Edinburgh’s famous male literary stars. Message From The Skies, various sites, Edinburgh *** So we begin at Parliament Square with a brief introduction to the dark-and-light horror story of Burke and Hare, before visiting the National Library for a list of male writers, suddenly interrupted. Then, at Lady Stair’s Close, we finally meet the central character of the evening’s entertainment, the 19th century novelist Susan Edmonstone Ferrier who – with some help later on from the inimitable Muriel Spark – leads us through a journey from the Mound (where we cheerfully watch the Scott Monument crumble), to Calton Road, York Place and the New Town, where Ferrier lived out the last years of her life.

Read more:

Val McDermid’s innovative new work to honour writing duo…

The author Val McDermid hopes to turn on “thousands” of new readers to the works of Dame Muriel Spark courtesy of an innovative multimedia project which shines a light on Scotland’s literary past.

A new short story by the veteran crime writer being staged as part of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations features Spark, who was born in 1918, as a central character. The work, New Year’s Resurrection, focuses on the life and work of Susan Ferrier, a 19th century novelist from Edinburgh who was widely read in her day but has long been relegated to a footnote in Scottish literary history. McDermid’s specially commissioned story, the plot of which is a closely guarded secret, sees Ferrier approach Spark in an attempt to rebuff those critics who ignored women writers.

Read more…

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Val McDermid