Thread by @Doug_D_Stuart

I swore off twitter a year ago but...

The righteous outrage around the cancellation of the @AyeWrite festival is not merely a conversation about the merit of literary festivals, or whether Scotland’s first city deserves one. It is much, much bigger than that...

I have watched in horror, as Scotland has haggled over funding for the arts, has closed her libraries, and now has allowed the cancellation of a major literary festival in her largest city. A festival that has a focus on Scottish voices...

In the past year, I’ve sat through many interviews asking about the surge of great Irish writing. And while Irish writers are GREAT, it's also clear to me that Ireland understands that culture, people, & literature are her strength and they fund it like they mean it...

I toured all the major Irish festivals, and then spent another week touring the smaller towns from Ennis to Drogheda. (I ate a lot of cheese toasties)... And yet my hometown of Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, cannot have a literature festival? That's unacceptable...

When I won the Booker Prize, within hours of the announcement many of the major political parties contacted me asking for my support. But the politicians who wanted to use my art to protect their jobs, are failing to do their jobs to protect my art...

Aye Write is not just about one city or one festival, it’s about a nation’s pride in her art. It’s about working class access to literature – and let’s not be coy here: working class people are crucial to Scottish literature.

Get a haud of yersels. And let Glasgow be great.