Introduction
Sometimes people ask us why we started the West Port Book Festival. The short answer is because it seemed like such an obvious idea. West Port has some great bookshops, a sense of community (and shared adversity thanks to collapsing buildings, dug up pavements, roving Neanderthals etc. etc.) and an amusing community of bibliophiles. The stage was set.
I’d also misspent many hours of my youth working in Shakespeare and Company in Paris and Atlantis Books on the Island of Santorini and had become used to equating bookshops with events that ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, or perhaps merely the inept. Just after I left, S&C had also started their own Literary Festival and I’d watched in admiration as Sylvia had made this into something vibrant, innovative – and free.
Perhaps we – that is West Port – should run our own Book Festival. Why not? (a deadly question if approached rhetorically). I asked around at the bookshops and received a cautiously optimistic assent and then asked Peggy, who’d been thinking about starting her own Poetry Festival in any case. I imagine we were at a pub at the time for where else can you discuss improbable, if compelling ideas? Peggy was enthusiastic in a way that only Peggy can be, and that was it. The beginning.
It got a bit tougher after that.
Hannah Adcock
Director
Us
Will Brady: design
Will is a freelance graphic designer, photographer and writer. It is thanks to him that people pick up our programmes and say, ‘Ooohh, these are lovely,’ their eyes lingering on the delicate use of white space, off-beat ink splot and seductively graceful design. Sometimes we think we should just frame a few programmes and be done with it. Will is currently available for art direction, design, typesetting and photography commissions.
willbrady.net
Andrew Neil: web developer
During the day Andrew is a mild-manned software engineer; at night, and sometimes at weekends, he masquerades as @nelstrom and plunges himself into the world of open-source innovation and social media technology. He straddles the art/geek divide, equally at home with creative flair and ruthless logic. Lately, he has been collecting Collective Nouns on Twitter, and encouraging people to Pass the Plot. He is also the best-dressed Edinburgh twit 09 and is the proud owner of a parrot (not alive).
drewneil.com
Colin Fraser: social media
Editor of Anon, the anonymous submissions poetry magazine, and co-founder of constrained fiction website confiction.org, Colin is a freelance writer, tutor and social media fellow, and is especially interested in the potential of Twitter for creative pursuits. As well as being the recent New Media Scotland twitterer-in-residence, he produces podcasts for various literary organisations - including StAnza, the Scottish Poetry Library and the Ullapool Book Festival. Some call him 'Beard'.
Kayleigh Bohan: advertising and marketing director
A recent graduate of Edinburgh University, Kayleigh spent much of her time at university pottering around second-hand bookshops and being breathtakingly efficient on behalf of the West Port Book Festival. Currently dipping her toes into church administration to pay the rent, she would like to be learning more about editing, events' organising and all things bookish in capacities both paid and unpaid. She is surprised to be 21 already.
Peggy Hughes: programme director
Peggy uses her communication powers and events muscles at the Scottish Poetry Library by day (and sometimes by evening and weekend too). When she's not there, she moonlights in many other masked guises: freelance reviewer for Scotland on Sunday and The List; literary blogger; co-editor of Anon poetry magazine; commissioning editor of The Poetry Paper; and PR operative to A L Kennedy. Peggy's spiritual home is second hand bookshops, and she's not as old as her name suggests.
Hannah Adcock: director
Hannah is a freelance journalist, author, copywriter, editor, events’ organiser and jack-of-all-trades bookish. She is always looking for (paid) work to counterbalance the hours she puts in running the West Port Book Festival, coveting old books and talking to stuffed animals. She has a chequered employment history that includes training horses in Australia, publishing a book and working in far flung bookshops. She is beginning to forget how old she is but thinks she might still be under 30. She has a twin brother so can always check. hannahadcock.co.uk