Paisley Book Festival 2025 is all about The Lives We Live. Associate programmer Jess Orr shares the inspiration behind the theme – and her excitement about the great line-up of authors who will be taking to the stage in April.
Everywhere we turn – particularly on social media – we are bombarded by opinions and apparent advice about how we should live our lives.
Whether it’s what we should eat, what we should wear, how we should parent our children, how we can protect our environment – even, ironically, how much time we should spend on social media – it can be easy to feel bombarded.
But what does it all really mean?
And what can we truly take from people’s experiences to help shape our lives in a positive way?
Those were some of the questions which inspired the theme of this year’s Paisley Book Festival.
The Lives We Live allows us to delve into the competing ideas about life in today’s complicated world.
Our authors, interviewers and audiences will consider concepts such as home and identity, travel, love, work, food, fashion, music and more.
For me, a book festival is an amazing place to spend time unpacking these issues. Not just to see them online and panic about what we should be doing to live our lives better, but to come to a place with other people and listen to writers who have actually spent time thinking about these things in depth.
It’s a chance to enter into a conversation, encouraged by the stellar line-up we have secured covering so many genres, from food culture with Julie Lin and Pam Brunton to music with Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch and Fence Collective’s James Yorkston.
A key strand of the programme will be the Life’s Fundamentals series, where writers will focus on the issues that affect us all in our lives. Not just digging deeper into the more serious issues of day-to-day life, but the things that we enjoy and take hope from as well.
A fantastic programme
The festival team at OneRen is really excited by the programme we have lined up and the writers taking part. The reaction we have had to it since our launch has been fantastic. It’s well worth taking a look through our website because there is sure to be an event which catches your eye.
We are delighted to have the Leith legend Irvine Welsh joining us for the first time and to have him in conversation about his writing career with Ewan Morrison, another award-winning Scottish writer who has a new big tech thriller out. That’s sure to be one of the weekend’s highlights.
Others will include a session for fans of Shuggie Bain and The Young Team featuring Karen Campbell with her new novel about a young boy in Glasgow’s care system, This Bright Life, alongside authors Juano Diaz with Slum Boy and Tom Newlands with Only Here Only Now. All three of these books focus on young people growing up in Scotland who face big challenges, and who are wondering what else their lives could be.
We are also delighted to have A L Kennedy, whose books I’ve been reading for years. She’s joining us to discuss her new novel, Alive in the Merciful Country, set during the coronavirus lockdown and cutting to the heart of some of the biggest issues faced by society. A L Kennedy is one of Britain’s foremost writing talents and this is a real story of our time. It’s a fantastic opportunity to have her join us.
Music – and The Writer’s Playlist strand of our programme – is another exciting part of this year’s festival, as it is of life in Paisley and throughout Renfrewshire.
Bringing together writers who are also musicians and musicians who are also writers is going to be something really special.
I am really looking forward to hearing Stuart Murdoch and David Keenan chat to broadcaster Vic Galloway about music, life and writing, while it will be great to hear Malachy Tallack, whose new book, That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz, is a testimony to his love of country music chatting with singer-songwriter turned novelist James Yorkston and journalist Nicola Meighan.
The Paisley Music Trail: Punk, Paolo and the Poet Weaver – delivered in partnership with Glasgow Music Tours – will take the festival on to the streets to explore a significant part of life and culture (past and present) in the town.
Poetry has always been a key pillar of the festival and this year is no exception. Our daily Poet’s Corner will showcase exciting new work and voices in Scottish poetry, exploring key areas of the lives we live, such as growing up, parenting and finding your place.
Open, inclusive, welcoming
I love Paisley Book Festival. And the whole team involved is incredibly proud of the diversity that the programme brings, year after year.
Everyone involved is driven by wanting to bring the life-shaping impact of reading and writing to everyone – and it was lovely to hear one of our festival stalwarts, Ely Percy, speak of that as they helped us to launch this year’s programme.
Over the past six years, this is an event which has gained a well-deserved reputation as a festival which foregrounds bold ideas and radical thinking, platforming the voices and stories of everyday people while supporting a burgeoning community of book enthusiasts locally.
We are extremely proud of the fact that Scottish writers want to come here because they are excited to see Paisley have a festival of its own, sharing stories from people who haven’t been heard before in a place where there is an increasing excitement for books and reading.
And, in Paisley Town Hall and Paisley Central Library, we have fabulous venues in which to showcase all of this.
I’m currently working my way through the pile of books from authors ahead of the festival. I know it’s going to be a fantastic three days. We can’t wait to see you there.
Paisley Book Festival takes place from Friday April 25th until Sunday April 27th 2025. For booking and full programme information, go to www.paisleybookfestival.com.
