New York City’s Festival of Scottish Writing began last night as Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch (left) sat down with outgoing NBCC prez John Freeman to talk about, among other things, how much he was looking forward to spending a month-long literary retreat on the Isle of Jura. (I arrived late, but somebody whispered to me that he’d made a witty remark about his youthful days as a short story writer, commenting that he became a journalist so he would actually be forced to leave his desk.) Jura master distiller Willie Tate, who brought several varieties of his company’s single malt for the 75 or so guests to sample, said afterwards that he’d had a great time listening to them talk, then quipped that his idea of a perfect night was “picking up a good book and a good scotch, and seeing which one I’ll finish first.” The festival continues tonight with a poetry reading at the National Arts Club; we hear that one of the coolest events, though, will be the closer on April 15, when Mark McNay and Alison Miller read at KGB.
