A long-running program brings authors into communities around Scotland. We look at the Live Literature program and what we can learn from it.
Meeting an author or illustrator can be a transformative experience. Our recent research showed that community organisers value live events with authors and illustrators, and see them as a “major factor in supporting Australia’s reading culture”.
Alan Lynch, Writing Communities Co-ordinator at the Scottish Book Trust, shares valuable insights about how they’ve implemented their Live Literature program in Scotland.
What is the Live Literature program?
Live Literature is a programme which funds live author events in communities across Scotland. It’s existed in different forms for 51 years, and funded author events reach more than 20,000 audience members each year. We also host an author directory on our website which features nearly 800 authors including writers, illustrators, poets, traditional storytellers amongst others.
The programme is aimed at bringing reading and writing to Scotland’s communities, while providing opportunities for authors to deliver events for audiences in a range of settings including schools, libraries, parks, prisons, drop-in centres for homeless people, writing groups and local literary festivals. We prioritise a love of reading and writing, and events which wouldn’t be possible without Live Literature support.
How does it work?
We have two main strands to the programme, both based around paying authors a fee of £200 per session. We have guidance around how long each session should be: the fee will cover up to 90 minutes with one group.
Live Literature is part funded, which means that we pay over half of the author fee for each session supported, along with any expenses such as travel costs and accommodation. The balance of the author fee is paid by organisations. Applications can be submitted at any point throughout the year, and panels meet three times p.a. to consider these. When funding is confirmed, organisations contact authors through our directory and make plans for their sessions. Authors invoice us in full after their event(s). Once we’ve paid the author, we contact organisers to reclaim their contribution towards the author fee.
Our School Residency programme offers schools the chance to work with authors on longer projects across the academic year. This is a fully funded programme, so schools don’t have to pay anything towards their author fees. A panel meets to select 10 schools before the summer break, so that work can start right away in the new school year. The Walter Scott Giving Group provides funding for our school residencies and a representative from our funding body sits on the selection panel each year. Authors will work with a core group of pupils on their chosen literacy project across 10 sessions. They’ll also deliver two professional development sessions for school staff, to help them improve their own approaches to literacy and ensure the residency has a deeper impact and legacy.
Why is it effective?
A 2023 report from the National Literacy Trust found that more children and young people who had experienced an author visit enjoyed reading in their free time compared with their peers who hadn’t experienced one (58.6% vs. 39.3%). This pattern is repeated when children are asked about writing in their free time (43.2% vs. 32.2%).
The same report suggests that this impact is especially felt by the most economically disadvantaged children (in the UK we can use the number of children eligible for funded Free School Meals / FSM to measure this). For instance, more children and young people who received FSMs who had attended an author visit at their school reported that they enjoyed reading in their free time (58.9%) compared with their FSM peers who hadn’t attended an author event (36.1%), and their peers who had attended an author event but who didn’t receive FSMs (54.4%).
However, these same children are less likely to engage with authors: Fewer children and young people from schools with a high percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSMs) said that they had had an author visit (16.7%) compared with children at schools with a medium (21.9%) or low percentage of pupils eligible for FSMs (24.7%).
This is a gap that Live Literature can help fill, as school budgets are increasingly stretched and a curriculum with limited time for activities like author visits. Live Literature stands out as the only programme of its type in the UK, as noted by the Society of Authors in 2018.
The author events that we support have allowed organisations to build links with new audiences and create new networks in their local areas. Organisations working with audiences of all ages have told us of the impact Live Literature funding and the authors have had.
What are the challenges?
Arts organisations across Scotland are facing challenging times dealing with reduced or standstill funding, rising costs and the current cost of living crisis. This means that our budget is stretched but demand for support has remained high: every year we receive applications for more sessions than we can support.
We’re also aware of the need to make sure authors involved in Live Literature are paid fairly, so any increases made to their fee invariably impacts on the number of sessions we can offer. We are consistently having to balance these different demands in a way that supports authors while protecting the level of funding required for the programme to have a meaningful impact.
Maintaining a directory of eligible authors also bring challenges, as this covers a wide variety of creative disciplines. We need to work with partners to keep our criteria relevant and up to date, especially since the pandemic when professional work is published and shared online more widely.
Find out more via the Scottish Book Trust website, and hear more about their work in this session as part of our VOLUME symposium.