Feb. 8th, 2023 at 1:43 PM
Emirates Festival of Literature, Dubai 2023
Where to start, describing the most EPIC week I had at the Emirates Festival of Liberature in Dubai?
Photo by a member of the Emirates Lit Fest team: me, Rob Biddulph, Ally Oliver, CEO of the Emirates Literature Foundation Isobel Abulhoul, Philip Reeve, Carmel Rosato
This year marked the fifteenth year of the festival, so everything was even a bit more fabulous than I'd seen in my two previous visits (in 2014 and in 2017). The theme was 'Old Friends', which felt right, because I'd missed seeing people from those past visits and it was wonderful to catch up. I've just caught sight of the festival's official photos and here's one they snapped of Emirati illustrator Maitha Al-Khayat (from Ras Al Khaimah) and me, seeing each other for the first time since we'd done the most rollicking pirate event together in 2017 and had such a good laugh, way back before Covid and lockdown and not getting to see people and catch up. Even that by itself gave any extra element of joy to the whole experience.
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team, dress by Esther Blessed
On the first evening, all the authors, translators, illustrators, performers and team went out to the sands for the 'Desert Stanzas', which was magnificent. (I don't usually get to ride a camel into events.)
Photo by Philip Reeve
(...Or hold a falcon, for that matter.)
Photo by Philip Reeve
When I was little, I was obsessed with the desert and Arabian horses. I read every single Black Stallion book, and every second-hand copy of Arabian Horse World magazine that I could get my hands on. I'd stick the magazine pictures to bits of cereal-box cardboard, cut them out, and stable them in a 'Hickory Farm' barn box my mother found for me. (Since the horses were practically 2-D and very slender, I could fit hundreds of horses into my stable, with a little section cordoned off as the tack room.)
So being able to visit the desert as an author and illustrator was very much like stepping into a story, it gave me goosebumps. This blog is going to be long, but that's really for me, because I'm so glad I blogged on previous trips; I've gone back to look at those blog posts many times to relive the adventures.
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team
This was the view from my desert sofa, where we all got to see amazing singers, dancers, poets, whirling Sufis and more, before a magnificent dinner.
Back at Dubai Festival City, at the InterContinental Hotel, I was able to attend some talks, one being Maitha Al-Khayat's picture book event about Aisha's Pearl. It's a very relevant subject to Dubai, as pearl divers were something the area was known for before the city appeared. Here's Maitha in the performers' lounge (the 'Green Room'), fabulously dressed up as a jellyfish:
Photo by Philip Reeve, my dress by Christy Lavivatche
Maitha gave a very interactive talk to the little ones and their families, and I drew a picture of her leading two girls on an adventure game.
My co-author Philip Reeve was also invited, and I remarked more than once to him that I wasn't always quite sure if I was dreaming or awake; a lot of the encounters felt like dreaming and I had to double-check a few times.
Left photo by Philip Reeve (dress by Esther Blessed), right photo by me
One encounter which felt like a dream was when the head of the Emirates Literature Foundation, Isobel Abulhoul, invited Philip and me and a few other festival people to have tea in the Green Room with HH Sheikha Latifa Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and her team of assistants. Sheikha Latifa is the Chairperson of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and a member of the Dubai Council. As her job suggests, she's very interested in the arts, and she has children, so we were able to talk a bit about children's books, and she told us some funny stories from her own unusual childhood, growing up as daughter of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who's Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. She had her own photographer swirling around us with a fancy camera, so it didn't feel appropriate to pull out my own phone and start snapping, but I nicked a photo from the cover of Vogue, and you can read the magazine's accompanying story about her here. Thanks for taking time to meet with us, Sheikha Latifa!
Photo on left by Paola Kudacki for Vogue Arabia September 2021; video still on right from @latifamrm1 on Instagram
Seeing as the United Arab Emirates is very much about HORSES, we were wondering how our roly-poly flying pony, Kevin, would go down with people in Dubai. Kevin probably isn't the sleek kind of pony a Sheikh or Sheikha would keep in their stables, or appear on Emirates airline posters, but because he has little wings (and is surprisingly aerodynamic), he might fare all right there after all. Big thanks to everyone who came along to our event, drew Kevin with us, and played the game!
If you missed the event, here's a video from my website, showing how you can draw Kevin, step by step:
Philip Reeve and I also visited nearby Arcadia School and talked with them about our latest book, Kevin vs the Unicorns. Big thanks to Emma Stott & Mel for helping us get around; here we are, posing with their library's 'Author of the Month' stand. (Thanks, Arcadia!)
Back at the festival, I did a joint event called 'Story Carousel' with fab fellow British authors Onjali Raúf, Ben Miller and Christopher Edge.
We'd never done this event together, and for a format, we decided to lead the children in making their own books. We had a group of children at each of our tables, and every fifteen minutes, the four of us swapped tables and worked with a different group on another element of making their book, with a half hour at the end for them to finish. So at my table, I talked with the group about illustration and the most important elements of cover design, Onjali led them in drawing and creating their story's main character, Ben led them in a world-building exercise, creating a map, and Christopher walked them through inventing a plot for their story.
It was kind of interesting to plan out, because they met with us all in different orders, so their books were sparked off and driven in different ways: cover-driven, character-driven, world-driven, plot-driven. And all are valid ways of creating a story, it was fun.
I wasn't able to go to Philip Reeve's Railhead event (the futuristic world of its trilogy of books so fitting for Dubai, and partly inspired by it!). But I did manage to squish myself in to see his packed-out event about his amazing Utterly Dark books: Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep and its new sequel, Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild.
And I did another event drawing! I was trying to capture a sense of the menacing sea over the island of Wildsea, and the spectre of the Ghorm, a mysterious creature of legend, seaweed and shipwrecks who haunts the sea... or perhaps even IS the sea. (She would have made quick work of the stage decor.)
It was great seeing enthusiastic readers queuing up to get their books signed.
One of the great things about the festival is that it puts a lot of young people into the spotlight, introducing our events. They're remarkably good at public speaking, they've obviously been trained and very well prepared. We went along to see one of our young moderators, Inaya Fathia Faeez, win an award as a partipant in the Young Voices of Arabia collection, published by ELF (the Emirates Literature Foundation).
We only caught a glimpse of the writing, but the illustrations showcased in the video were top-notch; the publishers have obviously put a lot of thought and budget into the creation of this book, showcasing these young writers.
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team
And here are a couple of the entries! Here's the second place winner, The Library Lion, by a class at United International Private School, a Philippine school in Dubai. As judges, we loved its artistry, simple boldness, and the textured patterning of the books and seed-pod roofing, all created from recycled materials.
The first prize went to 'As an Oak Tree Grows' by a class at Pristine Private School, for the taking the idea of 'box' in a very clever and innovative direction: each of its hexagonal sides folded down to reveal a different tableau, showing different timeline scenes from its featured book.
It was great watching the children and teacher go up to collect their prize, and that little boy third from the right even did a series of ethusiastic and impressive jigs.
Ah, here's judge Greg Stobbs again, and that book of their that Lemn Sissay was talking about, Don't Ask the Dragon.
Oh, and Lemn himself! We got a bit carried away taking selfies, and even got in Anil Seth at one point. I love Lemn's enthusiasm; the first time I ever heard him perform was on Trafalgar Square in London on World Book Night. He read a Shakespeare poem and, you know how in comics, they sometimes show lines radiating from a person's face to express bliss or intense emotion? Well, Lemn had lines radiating from his face, I've never heard words spoken with so much joy in them.
One of my events was at the festival's other venue across the Creek, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library. I was thrilled to get the chance to have a peek at it. The last time I was in Dubai, it had just been a building site!
As you can see, it's built to look like an open book sitting on a lectern, and it's pretty impressive. Dubai doesn't do things by halves.
Here, have a little wander around the library itself:
And here's my comics workshop! Here I'm talking about my comic book Vern and Lettuce, which ran for awhile in The DFC magazine, The Guardian newspaper, was initially owned by Random House, then David Fickling Books, and now Bog Eyed Books. (It has quite a past! Do check out Bog Eyed Books in the UK, they publish amazing comics for children, as well as David Fickling Books' impressive comics, including the Bunny vs Monkey series by Jamie Smart.)
Photo by Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve helped me demonstrate a 'Comic Jam', an interactive comic game where we took turns coming up with a panel of story (a bit like the game of Consequences).
I started by having the participants design their comic story's characters, and used guinea-pig rascals Neville and Beyoncé from our book Kevin and the Biscuit Bandit to start them off.
If you missed the session, here's a half-hour Comics Workshop that you can do on your own or use with your family or class (visit my website page for extra materials):
Photo by Emirates Lit Fest
See his colouring? The Burj Khalifa REALLY looks like that! Some of the festival people took us there for dinner one night, to a restaurant at its base, and the lights and laser show every half hour were jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Big thanks to the team working for Magrudy's bookshop, for doing such a great job stocking and selling our books! I know when I was at the Abu Dhabi Book Fair, a lot of families would do all their book-buying for the year in one big swoop, and this festival really gave them a chance to browse, listen to the speakers, and browse some more.
While Emirates Lit Fest was running, this group were holding a parallel conference of international festival organisers, and it was lovely when our groups overlapped. Here are people from Botswana, India, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Cyprus and lots more countries, all working incredibly hard to run festivals in their own countries, at vastly varying size and scale. The unifying thing for all of them seemed to be that they were already incredibly busy people before they decided to take on a festival AS WELL, and I have no idea how they do it - hats off to them!
Photo at the libray tweeted by Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn and Lyndsey Fineran
I already knew one of the organisers, Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn of the Aké Arts & Books Festival, whom I met something like ten years ago at the Edinburgh Book Festival. In 2021 I'd done an online event for Nigerian illustrators, with the Association of Children's Authors & Illustrators of Nigeria (ACAIN). Great to see you, Lọlá!
And a few more pics with fellow authors: Philip Reeve, Catherine Webber and Kevin Tsang. (Catherine also goes by Katie Tsang on her joint Sam Wu and Dragon Realm books with her husband, Kevin.) And with Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness.
With Onjali Raúf (author of The Boy at the Back of the Class), Wendy Meddour (author of Howard the Average Gecko), Olaf Falafel (comedian and author of Blob Fish) and Philip Reeve (my co-author, with a new series in March called ADVENTUREMICE!)
I spent several evenings hanging out with Christopher Edge, his landscape architect wife Christina Edge, and Philip. It was wonderful getting the chance to talk at length. With most festivals, there's only time for a couple air-kisses in the Green Room and then one of us is off to catch a train; I love how the Emirates Lit Fest gives us time to get to know people better.
Here's Christopher with author Hannah Gold (she created The Lost Whale with artist Levi Pinafold), and Onjali Raúf with her wonderful mother, who was kind of the life and soul of the party, everyone loved having her around and she seemed to know everyone.
Photo tweeted by Christopher Edge
Here's Philip Reeve with two excited Railhead fans, and Olaf Falafel with Alexander McCall Smith. Philip and I managed to go along to one of his events and he is a brilliant and funny storyteller, as well as being the perfect gentleman. (I adore his No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency books.)
We had a Quiz at the festival's Farewell Dinner, and here's Olaf Falafel demonstrating impressive plasticine skills in creating that beloved picture book character, Superworm.
Oh look, here are all the authors, together in one photo (which is like herding cats)!
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team
Can we just talk about the food? The festival would be worth it for the food alone, we ate like KINGS, mostly in the InterContinental Hotel's 'Anise' restaurant, which has lots of food stations featuring different fantastic foods from all over the world. (I had sushi and waffles for breakfast one morning, don't judge me.) I would always go in, saying that I was only going to have a light meal this time, but there were too many things that I knew I'd probably never get back in Devon, and I just had to make the best of it, etc, etc.... I took this first photo of Christopher Edge, looking so ecstatic over his pudding that he asked for a reshoot the next night, so he could look a bit more authorial.
So many new things I just had to try!
The Green Room was a wonderful place to go to before and after events, but also just to drop by and see what was going on. There I met Ann Hiatt, who grew up about ten minutes away from where I did, in a suburb of Seattle, and who was a head person at Amazon right in the early days, and Google, too. She's the author of Bet on Yourself and she's well worth checking out. She's talking with Brandy Scott, New Zealand author of Not Bad People and presenter of the Business Breakfast on Dubai Eye Radio. If you look over Brandy's shoulder, the woman on the far right is Dr Rania Obaid Ghubash, UAE University professor and founder of The Women's Museum in Dubai.
It takes a huge and enthusiastic team to run such a spectacular festival! Where do I even start in thanking them?! There are so many people to thank, and I didn't even catch everyone's names, so a big thank you to all of you, even if I haven't listed you here. Thank you to Isobel Abulhoul, Ahlam Bolooki, Mary Ann Miranda, Karen Peralta, Tamreez Inam, Farah Ali, Aliya Khan, Aira Jane Anupol, Cassandra Brown, Yasameen Firas, Annabelle Corton, Yvette Judge, Daisy Line, Jo James, Carmel Rosato, David Perry, Emma Stott and the teachers at Arcadia, our moderators, the team at Magrudy's, my teams at OUP, Scholastic, David Fickling Books and Bog Eyed Books, the hotel and restaurant staff, the desert camp crew, the drivers and the photographers!
Festival team, Author Liaison Officer Mary Ann Miranda:
Green Room team Tia & Daisy Line, Jo James (from Hand Held Events), Yvette Judge, David Perry:
You all were amazing, thank you so much!!
And, of course, to the big sponsor, Emirates Airlines! The great perk of them being the sponsor is that we get to fly on them, and gosh, is it SWISH. Honestly, they take what, with most airlines, is the tedious experience of flying and turn it into a special treat to look forward to. Here I am, relaxing in one of the lounges:
A Mixed Mezze starter course (look at all that leg room! I am six feet tall and appreciate this GREATLY):
And even a bar at the back of the plane, where I can hang out with Philip and Carmel Rosato!
I already miss breakfasts on the InterContinental hotel balcony.
I love the odd juxtopositions in Dubai, I wish I had even more time to explore.
Goodbye, Dubai! I hope I get to see you again before too long! xxx
Photo by a member of the Emirates Lit Fest team: me, Rob Biddulph, Ally Oliver, CEO of the Emirates Literature Foundation Isobel Abulhoul, Philip Reeve, Carmel Rosato
This year marked the fifteenth year of the festival, so everything was even a bit more fabulous than I'd seen in my two previous visits (in 2014 and in 2017). The theme was 'Old Friends', which felt right, because I'd missed seeing people from those past visits and it was wonderful to catch up. I've just caught sight of the festival's official photos and here's one they snapped of Emirati illustrator Maitha Al-Khayat (from Ras Al Khaimah) and me, seeing each other for the first time since we'd done the most rollicking pirate event together in 2017 and had such a good laugh, way back before Covid and lockdown and not getting to see people and catch up. Even that by itself gave any extra element of joy to the whole experience.
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team, dress by Esther Blessed
On the first evening, all the authors, translators, illustrators, performers and team went out to the sands for the 'Desert Stanzas', which was magnificent. (I don't usually get to ride a camel into events.)
Photo by Philip Reeve
(...Or hold a falcon, for that matter.)
Photo by Philip Reeve
When I was little, I was obsessed with the desert and Arabian horses. I read every single Black Stallion book, and every second-hand copy of Arabian Horse World magazine that I could get my hands on. I'd stick the magazine pictures to bits of cereal-box cardboard, cut them out, and stable them in a 'Hickory Farm' barn box my mother found for me. (Since the horses were practically 2-D and very slender, I could fit hundreds of horses into my stable, with a little section cordoned off as the tack room.)
So being able to visit the desert as an author and illustrator was very much like stepping into a story, it gave me goosebumps. This blog is going to be long, but that's really for me, because I'm so glad I blogged on previous trips; I've gone back to look at those blog posts many times to relive the adventures.
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team
This was the view from my desert sofa, where we all got to see amazing singers, dancers, poets, whirling Sufis and more, before a magnificent dinner.
Back at Dubai Festival City, at the InterContinental Hotel, I was able to attend some talks, one being Maitha Al-Khayat's picture book event about Aisha's Pearl. It's a very relevant subject to Dubai, as pearl divers were something the area was known for before the city appeared. Here's Maitha in the performers' lounge (the 'Green Room'), fabulously dressed up as a jellyfish:
Photo by Philip Reeve, my dress by Christy Lavivatche
Maitha gave a very interactive talk to the little ones and their families, and I drew a picture of her leading two girls on an adventure game.
My co-author Philip Reeve was also invited, and I remarked more than once to him that I wasn't always quite sure if I was dreaming or awake; a lot of the encounters felt like dreaming and I had to double-check a few times.
Left photo by Philip Reeve (dress by Esther Blessed), right photo by me
One encounter which felt like a dream was when the head of the Emirates Literature Foundation, Isobel Abulhoul, invited Philip and me and a few other festival people to have tea in the Green Room with HH Sheikha Latifa Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and her team of assistants. Sheikha Latifa is the Chairperson of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and a member of the Dubai Council. As her job suggests, she's very interested in the arts, and she has children, so we were able to talk a bit about children's books, and she told us some funny stories from her own unusual childhood, growing up as daughter of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who's Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. She had her own photographer swirling around us with a fancy camera, so it didn't feel appropriate to pull out my own phone and start snapping, but I nicked a photo from the cover of Vogue, and you can read the magazine's accompanying story about her here. Thanks for taking time to meet with us, Sheikha Latifa!
Photo on left by Paola Kudacki for Vogue Arabia September 2021; video still on right from @latifamrm1 on Instagram
Seeing as the United Arab Emirates is very much about HORSES, we were wondering how our roly-poly flying pony, Kevin, would go down with people in Dubai. Kevin probably isn't the sleek kind of pony a Sheikh or Sheikha would keep in their stables, or appear on Emirates airline posters, but because he has little wings (and is surprisingly aerodynamic), he might fare all right there after all. Big thanks to everyone who came along to our event, drew Kevin with us, and played the game!
If you missed the event, here's a video from my website, showing how you can draw Kevin, step by step:
Philip Reeve and I also visited nearby Arcadia School and talked with them about our latest book, Kevin vs the Unicorns. Big thanks to Emma Stott & Mel for helping us get around; here we are, posing with their library's 'Author of the Month' stand. (Thanks, Arcadia!)
Back at the festival, I did a joint event called 'Story Carousel' with fab fellow British authors Onjali Raúf, Ben Miller and Christopher Edge.
We'd never done this event together, and for a format, we decided to lead the children in making their own books. We had a group of children at each of our tables, and every fifteen minutes, the four of us swapped tables and worked with a different group on another element of making their book, with a half hour at the end for them to finish. So at my table, I talked with the group about illustration and the most important elements of cover design, Onjali led them in drawing and creating their story's main character, Ben led them in a world-building exercise, creating a map, and Christopher walked them through inventing a plot for their story.
It was kind of interesting to plan out, because they met with us all in different orders, so their books were sparked off and driven in different ways: cover-driven, character-driven, world-driven, plot-driven. And all are valid ways of creating a story, it was fun.
I wasn't able to go to Philip Reeve's Railhead event (the futuristic world of its trilogy of books so fitting for Dubai, and partly inspired by it!). But I did manage to squish myself in to see his packed-out event about his amazing Utterly Dark books: Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep and its new sequel, Utterly Dark and the Heart of the Wild.
And I did another event drawing! I was trying to capture a sense of the menacing sea over the island of Wildsea, and the spectre of the Ghorm, a mysterious creature of legend, seaweed and shipwrecks who haunts the sea... or perhaps even IS the sea. (She would have made quick work of the stage decor.)
It was great seeing enthusiastic readers queuing up to get their books signed.
One of the great things about the festival is that it puts a lot of young people into the spotlight, introducing our events. They're remarkably good at public speaking, they've obviously been trained and very well prepared. We went along to see one of our young moderators, Inaya Fathia Faeez, win an award as a partipant in the Young Voices of Arabia collection, published by ELF (the Emirates Literature Foundation).
We only caught a glimpse of the writing, but the illustrations showcased in the video were top-notch; the publishers have obviously put a lot of thought and budget into the creation of this book, showcasing these young writers.
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team
And here are a couple of the entries! Here's the second place winner, The Library Lion, by a class at United International Private School, a Philippine school in Dubai. As judges, we loved its artistry, simple boldness, and the textured patterning of the books and seed-pod roofing, all created from recycled materials.
The first prize went to 'As an Oak Tree Grows' by a class at Pristine Private School, for the taking the idea of 'box' in a very clever and innovative direction: each of its hexagonal sides folded down to reveal a different tableau, showing different timeline scenes from its featured book.
It was great watching the children and teacher go up to collect their prize, and that little boy third from the right even did a series of ethusiastic and impressive jigs.
Ah, here's judge Greg Stobbs again, and that book of their that Lemn Sissay was talking about, Don't Ask the Dragon.
Oh, and Lemn himself! We got a bit carried away taking selfies, and even got in Anil Seth at one point. I love Lemn's enthusiasm; the first time I ever heard him perform was on Trafalgar Square in London on World Book Night. He read a Shakespeare poem and, you know how in comics, they sometimes show lines radiating from a person's face to express bliss or intense emotion? Well, Lemn had lines radiating from his face, I've never heard words spoken with so much joy in them.
One of my events was at the festival's other venue across the Creek, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library. I was thrilled to get the chance to have a peek at it. The last time I was in Dubai, it had just been a building site!
As you can see, it's built to look like an open book sitting on a lectern, and it's pretty impressive. Dubai doesn't do things by halves.
Here, have a little wander around the library itself:
And here's my comics workshop! Here I'm talking about my comic book Vern and Lettuce, which ran for awhile in The DFC magazine, The Guardian newspaper, was initially owned by Random House, then David Fickling Books, and now Bog Eyed Books. (It has quite a past! Do check out Bog Eyed Books in the UK, they publish amazing comics for children, as well as David Fickling Books' impressive comics, including the Bunny vs Monkey series by Jamie Smart.)
Photo by Philip Reeve
Philip Reeve helped me demonstrate a 'Comic Jam', an interactive comic game where we took turns coming up with a panel of story (a bit like the game of Consequences).
I started by having the participants design their comic story's characters, and used guinea-pig rascals Neville and Beyoncé from our book Kevin and the Biscuit Bandit to start them off.
If you missed the session, here's a half-hour Comics Workshop that you can do on your own or use with your family or class (visit my website page for extra materials):
Photo by Emirates Lit Fest
See his colouring? The Burj Khalifa REALLY looks like that! Some of the festival people took us there for dinner one night, to a restaurant at its base, and the lights and laser show every half hour were jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Big thanks to the team working for Magrudy's bookshop, for doing such a great job stocking and selling our books! I know when I was at the Abu Dhabi Book Fair, a lot of families would do all their book-buying for the year in one big swoop, and this festival really gave them a chance to browse, listen to the speakers, and browse some more.
While Emirates Lit Fest was running, this group were holding a parallel conference of international festival organisers, and it was lovely when our groups overlapped. Here are people from Botswana, India, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Cyprus and lots more countries, all working incredibly hard to run festivals in their own countries, at vastly varying size and scale. The unifying thing for all of them seemed to be that they were already incredibly busy people before they decided to take on a festival AS WELL, and I have no idea how they do it - hats off to them!
Photo at the libray tweeted by Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn and Lyndsey Fineran
I already knew one of the organisers, Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn of the Aké Arts & Books Festival, whom I met something like ten years ago at the Edinburgh Book Festival. In 2021 I'd done an online event for Nigerian illustrators, with the Association of Children's Authors & Illustrators of Nigeria (ACAIN). Great to see you, Lọlá!
And a few more pics with fellow authors: Philip Reeve, Catherine Webber and Kevin Tsang. (Catherine also goes by Katie Tsang on her joint Sam Wu and Dragon Realm books with her husband, Kevin.) And with Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness.
With Onjali Raúf (author of The Boy at the Back of the Class), Wendy Meddour (author of Howard the Average Gecko), Olaf Falafel (comedian and author of Blob Fish) and Philip Reeve (my co-author, with a new series in March called ADVENTUREMICE!)
I spent several evenings hanging out with Christopher Edge, his landscape architect wife Christina Edge, and Philip. It was wonderful getting the chance to talk at length. With most festivals, there's only time for a couple air-kisses in the Green Room and then one of us is off to catch a train; I love how the Emirates Lit Fest gives us time to get to know people better.
Here's Christopher with author Hannah Gold (she created The Lost Whale with artist Levi Pinafold), and Onjali Raúf with her wonderful mother, who was kind of the life and soul of the party, everyone loved having her around and she seemed to know everyone.
Photo tweeted by Christopher Edge
Here's Philip Reeve with two excited Railhead fans, and Olaf Falafel with Alexander McCall Smith. Philip and I managed to go along to one of his events and he is a brilliant and funny storyteller, as well as being the perfect gentleman. (I adore his No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency books.)
We had a Quiz at the festival's Farewell Dinner, and here's Olaf Falafel demonstrating impressive plasticine skills in creating that beloved picture book character, Superworm.
Oh look, here are all the authors, together in one photo (which is like herding cats)!
Photo by the Emirates Lit Fest team
Can we just talk about the food? The festival would be worth it for the food alone, we ate like KINGS, mostly in the InterContinental Hotel's 'Anise' restaurant, which has lots of food stations featuring different fantastic foods from all over the world. (I had sushi and waffles for breakfast one morning, don't judge me.) I would always go in, saying that I was only going to have a light meal this time, but there were too many things that I knew I'd probably never get back in Devon, and I just had to make the best of it, etc, etc.... I took this first photo of Christopher Edge, looking so ecstatic over his pudding that he asked for a reshoot the next night, so he could look a bit more authorial.
So many new things I just had to try!
The Green Room was a wonderful place to go to before and after events, but also just to drop by and see what was going on. There I met Ann Hiatt, who grew up about ten minutes away from where I did, in a suburb of Seattle, and who was a head person at Amazon right in the early days, and Google, too. She's the author of Bet on Yourself and she's well worth checking out. She's talking with Brandy Scott, New Zealand author of Not Bad People and presenter of the Business Breakfast on Dubai Eye Radio. If you look over Brandy's shoulder, the woman on the far right is Dr Rania Obaid Ghubash, UAE University professor and founder of The Women's Museum in Dubai.
It takes a huge and enthusiastic team to run such a spectacular festival! Where do I even start in thanking them?! There are so many people to thank, and I didn't even catch everyone's names, so a big thank you to all of you, even if I haven't listed you here. Thank you to Isobel Abulhoul, Ahlam Bolooki, Mary Ann Miranda, Karen Peralta, Tamreez Inam, Farah Ali, Aliya Khan, Aira Jane Anupol, Cassandra Brown, Yasameen Firas, Annabelle Corton, Yvette Judge, Daisy Line, Jo James, Carmel Rosato, David Perry, Emma Stott and the teachers at Arcadia, our moderators, the team at Magrudy's, my teams at OUP, Scholastic, David Fickling Books and Bog Eyed Books, the hotel and restaurant staff, the desert camp crew, the drivers and the photographers!
Festival team, Author Liaison Officer Mary Ann Miranda:
Green Room team Tia & Daisy Line, Jo James (from Hand Held Events), Yvette Judge, David Perry:
You all were amazing, thank you so much!!
And, of course, to the big sponsor, Emirates Airlines! The great perk of them being the sponsor is that we get to fly on them, and gosh, is it SWISH. Honestly, they take what, with most airlines, is the tedious experience of flying and turn it into a special treat to look forward to. Here I am, relaxing in one of the lounges:
A Mixed Mezze starter course (look at all that leg room! I am six feet tall and appreciate this GREATLY):
And even a bar at the back of the plane, where I can hang out with Philip and Carmel Rosato!
I already miss breakfasts on the InterContinental hotel balcony.
I love the odd juxtopositions in Dubai, I wish I had even more time to explore.
Goodbye, Dubai! I hope I get to see you again before too long! xxx