Nikalas, co-author-and-illustrator of our brilliant Mega Mash-up series with Tim Wesson, writes about his experience of appearing at the Aye Write! festival in Glasgow last weekend:
“Neither myself or Tim had been to Glasgow before, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect when we were invited to the Aye Write! festival. What we found when we got there was pure five-star luxury in the form of the wonderful Blythswood Square hotel, in which the festival had very kindly put us up.
During our stay in Scotland we got to hang out with other authors. Andy Briggs was there doing an event about his new Tarzan series, and so was Liz Pichon (author of Tom Gates, of which I’m a BIG fan). It fel t great – like a real authors’ club.
“Our events were on at the Mitchell Library, apparently the largest reference library in Europe! Quickly nipping to the loo before we started, I walked past a cavernous room with a large stage… and hundreds of empty chairs. “I’m glad we’re not performing in there,” I thought to myself… only to find, on my return, the festival organiser pointing to the vast hall and grinning, “This is your room…”
GULP!
Nikalas and Tim in their enormous and beautiful room at the Mitchell Library
But in fact the events couldn’t have gone better. And we made one interesting observation by the end of our time in Glasgow: we always get our audience to help us create a ‘Mega Mashed-Up’ character, made up from different body parts of various people or animals, and, when given a choice of chicken legs, Egyptian mummy legs or old lady legs. Usually, we get a range of responses, but EVERYONE in Glasgow favoured old lady legs. It seems that Glasgow is a city of granny-lovers.
We’d like to thank the Aye Write! festival organisers and supporters’, the Mitchell Library, and, most of all, our great Glasgow audiencies.”
(Kate, a Scot, but from the Other Side of Scotland, says:
“Glasgow is, after all, a city in which everyone knows the following words to the song more commonly known as “She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes’:
Oh, ye canny shove yer granny aff a bus.
No, ye canny shove yer granny aff a bus.
Oh, ye canny shove yer granny… Cus she’s yer mammy’s mammy.
No, ye canny shove yer granny aff a bus.
Clearly, granny-love runs deep.”)
Nikalas and Tim signing books and talking to children at the end of one of the Aye Write! events
