Interview: Jari Moate
Jari Moate is a novelist and the festival organiser of Unputdownable: The Bristol Festival of Literature (Oct 19 – 27). Now in its third year, Unputdownable has managed to carve a unique identity out of a crowded South West literary scene
How would you like Unputdownable to be viewed in the UK lit fest universe?
I would like us to be seen for our warm atmosphere and our willingness to take risks by putting on writers who we think are absolutely fantastic but might not be household names. We’d love to be noted as the place where above all you’re inspired to pick up a new book or actually start writing, whether for publication or just for yourself.
Above all, we want to be known as a place where you can have literature and fun together. One of the things that I really enjoy is the way that we present literature as important and powerful among all of that. It is a way of looking at the world afresh, and it’s not about sitting and listening to someone thump a heavy idea onto a podium in front of you.
Literature, when it switches on your imagination, takes you to an entirely different place where you see the world from someone else’s angle. You can come back from that, once it has ceased being unputdownable, and you are reactivated in the world. You’re empowered in your real world, and how you view it. (laughs)
Which literary festivals do you admire?
Cambridge WordFest. Manchester Literature Festival is really interesting, slightly rebellious. I also like the Greenbelt Festival of Literature, which focuses on a dirty word: faith. And they’re avowedly not afraid to delve into that.
Describe the current Bristol literary scene.
It sings. In the middle of a recession we’ve had a new bookshop open—a major national bookshop—Unputdownable has started, and there’s also been events at the Birdcage with Bookslam coming up from London. The scene has really burgeoned… little things like Word of Mouth—a fiction and poetry evening once a month, and we incorporate one of their sessions into the festival.
There’s also the Bristol Short Story Prize, it’s just going from strength to strength. Since we sat down in late 2010/early 2011, to look at the possibility of organising a festival and saw that the literary scene in Bristol was a desert, it’s just exploded. I think, in the middle of a recession, you’ve got to ask yourself what’s going on.
Writers coming out of Bristol?
Mike Manson is a great comic writer in the town; Chris Wakling is fab and very talented indeed; we’ve obviously got Helen Dunmore, we all know about Helen. Sanjider O’Connell is local, while Emylia Hall and Nikesh Shukla are incredible recent additions to the city and bring an incredible energy.
Final word?
Writing matters, not for book sales, but because it can change your life.