The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featured more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,746 different shows across 262 venues from 60 different countries. Of those shows, the largest section was comedy, representing almost 40% of shows, followed by theatre, which was 26.6% of shows.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is a book festival that takes place during two weeks in August every year in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. Described as The largest festival of its kind in the world, the festival hosts a series of cultural and political talks and debates, along with a well-established children's events programme.
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.
A makar is a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard, often thought of as a royal court poet.
Adelaide Writers' Week, known locally as Writers' Week or WW, is a large and mostly free literary festival held annually in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It forms part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, where attendees meet, listen, and discuss literature with Australian and international writers in "Meet the Author" sessions, readings and lectures. It is held outdoors in the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden.
The Skinny is a monthly free magazine distributed in venues throughout the cities of Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland. Founded in 2005, the magazine features interviews and articles on music, art, film, comedy and other aspects of culture across Scotland and beyond.
The Scottish Storytelling Centre, the world's first purpose-built modern centre for live storytelling, is located on the High Street in Edinburgh's Royal Mile, Scotland, United Kingdom. It was formally opened on 1 June 2006 by Patricia Ferguson MSP, Minister for Culture in the Scottish Executive. Donald Smith is Director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre, and himself a storyteller, playwright, novelist and performance poet.
The Buxton International Festival is an annual summer festival of opera, music and a literary series, held in Buxton, Derbyshire, England since its beginnings in July 1979. The 2020 festival was cancelled due to the Covid-19 crisis. The 2024 Buxton International Festival will run 4-21 July.
The Edinburgh People's Festival is an arts festival and labour festival in Edinburgh, Scotland which is intended as a celebration of indigenous talent and cultural entertainment at venues across the city, especially in the outer schemes, at prices everyone can afford. It is inspired by the 1945 Labour Government which established the Edinburgh Festival to be a celebration of the arts 'for the people, by the people'.
The Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival is a programme of free entry events that takes place at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, each August. It is organised by the comedy promoter Laughing Horse, although it includes shows of different genres. It used to be affiliated with the Free Fringe when it was initially launched, but since 2007 has operated as a separate entity.
Robert Crawford is a Scottish poet, scholar and critic. He is emeritus Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.
The Stand Comedy Club is a chain of three stand-up comedy venues in the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Newcastle upon Tyne.
Scottish Book Trust is a national charity based in Edinburgh, Scotland promoting literature, reading and writing in Scotland. Scottish Book Trust works with and for a range of audiences, including babies and parents, children and young people, teachers and learning professionals, and writers and publishers.
Word – University of Aberdeen writers festival was a book festival that took place from 1999 until 2011, initially every two years and latterly every year, over a weekend of May at the University of Aberdeen. Authors, thinkers and commentators from all over the world came each year to Aberdeen for a three-day celebration of the written word with a mix of readings, discussions, films and exhibitions. There was also a Schools' and Children's festival.
Sophie Cooke is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, poet, and travel writer. Speaking in an interview with Aesthetica magazine in 2009, Cooke has said that her work is primarily concerned with questions of truth. She has developed the notion of truth as a depreciable asset. Cooke's work deals with the concealment of truth on various levels, from personal self-deceptions to governments misleading the public. She is the author of the novels The Glass House and Under The Mountain.
The NGC Bocas Lit Fest is the Trinidad and Tobago literary festival that takes place annually during the last weekend of April in Port of Spain. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the first major literary festival in the southern Caribbean and largest literary festival in the Anglophone Caribbean. A registered non-profit company, the festival has as its title sponsor the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC). Other sponsors and partners include First Citizens Bank, One Caribbean Media (OCM), who sponsor the associated OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, CODE, and the Commonwealth Foundation.
Edinburgh Grand Opera was Scotland's oldest existing grand opera company, founded in 1955 by Richard Telfer. This society was run by its non-professional chorus with advice and support from the professional Artistic and Musical Directors and Designers it engaged. It was originally known as the Edinburgh Grand Opera Group, and it has also been referred to as Edinburgh Grand Opera Company. Its soloists were a mixture of amateur, semi-professional and professional singers from Scotland and abroad, many of whom were students or graduates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. It was the first amateur company to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.
Damian Leighton Barr is a Scottish writer and broadcaster. He is the creator and host of the Literary Salon, which started at Shoreditch House in 2008, and he hosts live literary events worldwide. In 2014 and 2015, he presented several editions of the BBC Radio 4 cultural programme Front Row. He has hosted several television series including Shelf Isolation and most recently The Big Scottish Book Club for BBC Scotland. He is the author of the 2013 memoir Maggie & Me, about his 1980s childhood in the west of Scotland, and the 2019 novel You Will Be Safe Here, set in South Africa in 1901 and now. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
Literature in modern Scotland is literature written in Scotland, or by Scottish writers, since the beginning of the twentieth century. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots in forms including poetry, novels, drama and the short story.
The Wigtown Book Festival is a ten-day literary festival held each autumn in Wigtown, Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. The festival was first held in 1999 and has grown to be the second biggest book festival in Scotland.
