Hot Tickets: 7th August

Alasdair Gray
11:30am – 12:30pm, 13 Aug
The venerable old man of the Scottish arts, Gray flanks the festival with an event both on the first and last days; the star-studded premiere of Fleck sold out within hours, but there are still tickets left to hear him talk about his extraordinary life as a painter and novelist and his book Life in Pictures—forty years in the making—up for the James Tait Black prize.

Alexei Sayle
8:00pm – 9:00pm, 13 Aug

From having Fatwah issued against him to winning an Emmy for one of his acclaimed sketch shows, comedian, screenwriter, novelist and rabidly anti-Thatcherite political activist Alexei Sayle has lived a life eventful enough for more than one memoir. Here, Sayle shares extracts from his comic autobiography Stalin Ate My Homework.

Ali Smith

11:30am – 12:30pm, 14 Aug

Described as "a genius" and "modern in the heroic, glorious sense", Inverness-born novelist Ali Smith, author of Whitbread award winningThe Accidental, is one of Scotland's best known contemporary literary exports. Her latest work, There But For The, is another skilful exploration of the disruptive effect strangers can have on our lives. Smith's description of her favourite word—"‘But’... takes you off to the side, and where it takes you is always interesting”—could equally apply to the woman herself.