New voices to be heard loud and clear at Literary Festival

Published On Mon 13 Oct 2014 by Grant Hill

The 2014 Dundee Literary Festival will feature more debut and emerging writers than ever before, bolstering its reputation for championing new voices and literature.

Carys Bray, Hannah Engelkamp, Kirsty Logan, Uuganaa Ramsay, Neil Broadfoot and Nicola White, winner of last year’s Dundee International Book Prize, are among those appearing at the Festival to promote their first books and pass on the benefit of their experiences.

Finalists Rachel Fenton, a writer and artist living in New Zealand, and English writer and performer Amy Mason will be hoping to follow in Nicola’s footsteps when this year’s Book Prize winner is announced on Thursday, 23rd October.

The victor will receive £10,000, the largest award for an unpublished author in the UK, and a publishing deal with Cargo Publishing. Over the past 14 years, the competition, run in partnership with Dundee City Council, has proved to be a springboard for several successful writing career, with 2013 winner Nicola also being nominated for the First Book Award at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

A series of free events showcasing the freshest new voices in literature and workshops for aspiring writers will also be held at the Festival, which takes place from 22nd to 26th October.

Literary Dundee Director Anna Day said, “The Dundee Literary Festival has established itself as the festival that supports the next generation of brilliant wordsmiths as well as bringing some of today’s best writers to Dundee to inspire them.

“We have more debut writers on the bill than ever before, as well as a series of free events showcasing new writers. This is where you’ll hear the names of the future first. It is vitally important to the vibrancy of all arts that new talent is allowed to get its foot in the door, and promoting new voices has always been an important part of the Literary Festival’s ethos.

“This is shown in the award of the Dundee International Book Prize, a day of activity aimed at writers seeking advice on their own work, and our other showcase events, including one dedicated to the University of Dundee's renowned Creative Writing MLitt programme.”

More than 60 workshops, talks, book signings, readings, walking tours and other events will be held during the five-day run. As a result, 2014 will be the biggest Dundee Literary Festival to date as sports, crime, comics, translation, poetry, comedy, music, politics, history and children’s books are all covered.

More information about this year’s programme, including the full line up and how to obtain tickets, can be found at http://www.dundee.ac.uk/literarydundee/.

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
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