‘I am sure we’ll see some day. We are here waiting for you.’

Packing and Mourning is a project about departure, journeys, the destination, and arrival.

The life of any artist involves travelling and moving, and in turn the unavoidable but complex necessity of safely packing and storing belongings, while mourning the loss of friends made but revelling in the excitement of the new possibilities created on arrival. Our blog documents the thrill of departure, the best way to pack, the nature of transit, sadness of leaving and the impact of place on work produced.

Four artists: Penny Anderson (via Manchester England, Bilbao Spain and Berlin Germany) Eija Hirvonen (via Oulu Finland and Kracow Poland) Shelton Walker (via Copenhagen, Denmark, New York and Virginia USA) and Youngjoo Yoo (via Seoul South Korea, London England and Bilbao Spain) document the process of living, leaving and being drawn back to Glasgow, where they will show work based on their experiences of packing, mourning and moving on as part GI 2012 courtesy of The Mutual Charter.

The artists involved have in common frequent relocations, as tourists, visitors, travellers and artists. The title emerged as I texted Eija to say goodbye as she reluctantly left Glasgow. When asked what she was doing, Eija replied: “I am packing and mourning.”

Some of the artists have met only briefly (if at all) but readily agreed to work together. Meanwhile we are all slowly returning to Glasgow for an exhibition of work inspired by our travels and the blog we have been writing.

Visit the Packing and Morning blog here.
Follow Packing and Mourning on Twitter here.

This year, the book festival was brave. It did things it had never done before. In a time where funding is being pulled left, right and centre, it would be easy for an established festival like the EIBF to stick to their guns, sit on their laurels and hide, but they didn’t.

Instead, they brought out a programme that was rich and varied, with more of my favourite writers than I have ever seen before (and that’s after working for  four literary festivals over six years) and a selection of exciting new events.

From Unbound, which filled the Spiegeltent with music, writing and tons of people every night, to their fantastic guest selectors, to their fantastic social media presence, they were really on the ball. They showed what a book festival could do.

As the Booker prize was announced today it made me sad that they did not take risks with their selection. There was no Mitchell, no Christos Tsiolkas, no spark. Though I appreciate the work that literary novelists do, I ultimately believe that authors who appeal to a wide audience do  great things too.  Be it Scarlett Thomas or (dare I say it) Stephenie Meyer, these guys are really reaching and affecting a large group of people. Neil Gaiman tells a great story about how he was once asked by a literary novelist at a festival how he made his living, to which he replied, ‘I write books’. The novelist was incredulous that Gaiman could support himself solely through his writing. This is something that has really stuck with me.  It makes me happy, then, to see the Guardian running the Not the Booker prize, which allows people to nominate the books they feel are deserving of acclaim. The shortlist is currently being contended, but you can read the original longlist here.

Seeing the range of books submitted for consideration is joyful; just look at it! Comics sit happily next to literary novels, which in turn are making friends with science fiction stalwarts and popular fiction.  It’s very similar to what you see in this year’s book festival programme, and it’s a trend I hope to see continuing.

And so I am going to look forward, to when the winter is over, when Charlotte Square has been re-sod, and my bones stop hurting.  I can’t wait to see what next year’s book festival, and Not the Booker, bring us..