Book Festival Talks Live-Streamed on BBC Arts

We are delighted to announce that, in a collaboration with BBC Arts, 10 events from the 2015 Book Festival will be live-streamed and available on demand by BBC Arts Online in August, reaching audiences far beyond Charlotte Square Gardens. Live-streamed events include some of our flagship sessions, including a talk by the American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson, a conversation between the Diamond Dagger winning crime writer Val McDermid and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and an introduction to Scots comedian Limmy’s new book.

As part of BBC Arts Online ‘Books at the BBC’ strand, audio from an additional 10 events will be made available for audiences across the UK to listen to on the site throughout August. This series of audio events will feature some of the many international authors speaking at our Festival, including Israel’s Etgar Keret, Republic of Congo’s Alain Mabanckou, Denmark’s Dorthe Nors and Mexico’s Gabriel Orozco as well as a selection of the 56 debut novelists including Bill Clegg, Claire Fuller and Chigozie Obioma who has been nominated for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.

On Saturday 15 August, Kirsty Wark will chair a special Book Festival event from the BBC venue at Potterrow, which will also be live-streamed. Kirsty will be joined by leading Scottish authors Maggie O’Farrell, Jackie Kay and poet Rachel McCrum.

Nick Barley, Director of the Book Festival, said “We are delighted to be working with BBC Arts again this year. We live-streamed George R R Martin’s talk in 2014 which received a fantastic response and are very much looking forward to enabling so many of our outstanding speakers to reach an audience outside Charlotte Square Gardens.”

Peter Maniura, Head of Digital Development, BBC Arts, said “Through this year’s greatly expanded collaboration with the Edinburgh International Book Festival audiences nationally and internationally will get a chance to sample some of the wonderful events and contributors at this wide-ranging and always stimulating festival.”

Live-Streamed Events include:

All BBC Arts live-streamed events from this year’s Book Festival can be watched on the BBC Arts webpage  and selected sessions will be available to view for 30 days on BBC iPlayer. The BBC Arts sessions, in conjunction with the Book Festival, are part of the BBC’s substantial output coming from the Edinburgh Festivals over the next three weeks, much of it coming from their Potterrow venue.