AL Kennedy

Aye Write!

1 Mar 2009

Now in its fourth year, Aye Write! 2009 promises to be the biggest and best instalment of the Glasgow-based literary festival yet, and - as the name boldly hints - one which continues to blend an appraisal of the wider written world with a strong spine…

30 top shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2010

The List's pick of the Edinburgh Festival programme

23 Jul 2010

From Turner Prize-winning Martin Creed and New York theatre experimentalists The Wooster Group to former wild child Storm Large and promising newcomer Jonny Sweet, this is The List's pick of August’s entertainment.

Book and Literary festivals in Scotland 2010

28 May 2010

With Glasgow’s Aye Write! and Aberdeen’s Word behind us for another year, Scotland’s book lovers are now holding their breath for the real heavyweight of the nation’s literary calendar, the Edinburgh Book Festival (Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, Sat…

Best of a decade: Books

2 Dec 2009

1. Cormac McCarthy – The Road (2006) 2. Dave Eggers – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) 3. Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections (2001) 4. James Ellroy – The Cold Six Thousand (2001) 5. A L Kennedy – Paradise (2004) 6. Louise…

Ballads of the Book

WORDS & MUSIC

27 Feb 2007

Projects like Ballads of the Book don’t come along very often. And, looking at the roll call of writers and musicians involved, it is easy to see why. It must have been a logistical nightmare getting 54 of Scotland’s finest writers and musicians…

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011 line up highlights

Grant Morrison, Will Self and Jo Nesbø among highlights

16 Jun 2011

A selection of international authors, a bunch of Scottish novelists, an array of top non-fiction scribes, a host of children’s writers and a series of exciting innovations: yes, it’s just another Edinburgh International Book Festival programme. A cliché…

AL Kennedy discusses inspirations at National Library of Scotland

14 May 2010

Not content with being an acclaimed and beloved author of non-fiction books such as On Bullfighting, novels of the calibre of Everything You Need and short story collections with titles such as Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains, Alison Kennedy…

Alain de Botton, AL Kennedy and Janice Galloway among highlights at Glasgow's Aye Write! literary festival

2 Mar 2010

Alain de Botton The terribly clever philosopher and author wonders just what our obsession with work is all about. Why do we spend most of our waking hours doing it and what makes it pleasurable? Fri 5 Mar, 6pm. Janet Paisley and Manda Scott…

Bletherheads

Literary and performance talent on the cheap

21 Aug 2009

Why would you bother forking out your last twenty quid for a probably patchy big-name comedian when you can see the cream of Scotland’s literary and performance talent, live, for less than the price of a fish supper? The increasingly ubiquitous…

AL Kennedy - What Becomes

30 Jul 2009

Glasgow writer and sometime comedian AL Kennedy does nothing to overturn her reputation as a miserablist in this latest collection of short stories. Through a litany of everyday tragedy, marriages crumble, feelings are trampled on and lives are lost as…

Scottish Books - Scottish Summer reads

9 Jul 2009

Craig Russell: Lennox In the first of a new crime series, Russell combines atmosphere, action and a pleasing pitch-black sense of humour in 1950s Glasgow. Dodgy PI Lennox has just lived through one war but is being flung into another, more local one.

West side story

25 Jun 2009

For decades, the West End has meant one thing to non-WEndies: Byres Road, and while that esteemed thoroughfare is still geographically pivotal, its tributary roads have formed little communities of their own, each with an increasingly distinctive…

AL Kennedy

14 Aug 2008

Those familiar with Kennedy's profound award-winning fiction will be surprised by her style of stand-up. Affable, enthusiastic and a little amateurish, Kennedy's routines revolve around commonplace subjects ranging from a visit to the dentist to pulling…

West End Festival

5 Jun 2008

Best for al fresco frolicking There is of course more to the West End Festival than Scotland’s Mardi Gras (pictured), but the impact of 500+ musicians and costumed revellers stopping traffic on Byres Road (Sun 15 Jun) is not to be sniffed at. Propping…

5 Things you might not know about - AL Kennedy

22 May 2008

The A stands for Alison, the L for Louise. She chose to go with the initials as she was keen on a certain degree of anonymity when starting out as a writer and her favourite authors as a kid were JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and EE Nesbitt. She doesn’t come…

AL Kennedy

23 Aug 2007

Dramatic career shifts don’t come more eye-opening than the transition from author to stand-up comic. But that’s the move AL Kennedy made over a year ago and she has gone on to prove to be just as adept in her new job. For this event, she will talk…

Day

Al Kennedy

26 Mar 2007

LITERARY NOVEL AL Kennedy’s latest creation, Alfred Day, finds his purpose through the Second World War, enjoying a sense of camaraderie as tail-gunner in a bomber crew. His narrative switches between this time and 1949, when a broken Day is trying…

Aye Write! highlights

Write In

12 Feb 2007

Raj Persaud With a twinkle in his eye, the dapper broadcaster, author and psychiatrist entertains with talk about seduction. It’s fine, though, you can trust him, he’s a doctor. Fri 16 Feb, 6pm.

Scots writers to look out for this year

New Chapters

12 Feb 2007

Rhona Cameron The Naked Drinking Club Having dipped her toe into the literary pool with her Musselburgh memoir 1979, the stand-up comic and reality TV survivor returns with a fictional tale of a twentysomething Edinburgher getting lost and loaded…

Aye Write!

The write stuff

16 Jan 2007

Aye Write!, the west coast festival which celebrates Glaswegian writing and the best of Scottish and international literature, has cut the red ribbon on its 2007 programme.

A.L. Kennedy - Paradise (2004)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Alison Kennedy is the kind of writer who gets her contemporaries frothing at the mouth, struggling for ways to describe their admiration. Paradise is an excellent example of why, and a bruising, emotional experience. Kennedy is a master of internal…