Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.11.2013, Side 22

22The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 17 — 2013
“It arose over a curry,” says British
author Quentin Bates, who organ-
ised Iceland Noir along with fellow
crime writers Ragnar Jónasson and
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. The trio met at
the inaugural meeting of the Ice-
landic chapter of the Crime Writer’s
Association—the first CWA chapter,
it bears noting, which has been es-
tablished outside of the UK. Quen-
tin says that they all thought “it was
odd that Iceland had never had its
own crime fiction festival. By the
time we met again a few weeks later
at CrimeFest [another international
crime fiction festival], the decision
had more or less been made to or-
ganise Iceland Noir ourselves.”
Keep it simple
This decision was only made in May,
but “as you might expect from Ice-
landers,” Ragnar says, “we thought,
‘let’s do it this winter.’ We all have
the same mentality. We weren’t
afraid to do this right away, and
it’s been very enjoyable. We have
zero budget, but still haven’t spent
a single krónur—everyone is volun-
teering and all the events are free.”
True to this communal spirit,
none of the authors appearing at
the conference are being paid ap-
pearance fees, and all of those who
are travelling from other countries
are paying their own way. Neither
has there been a shortage of or-
ganisations and participants will-
ing to freely offer their services: the
Nordic House has made its facili-
ties available for panel and reading
events free of charge; the BBC and
iTV allowed the festival to screen
the first episode of the forthcoming
“Shetland” series (based on books
by Ann Cleeves) without paying for
the rights; Eymundsson is staffing
a pop-up bookstore stocked with
books by all the participating au-
thors; All Iceland Travel Agency is
independently organising sightsee-
ing activities for overseas visitors
(although participants will have to
pay for such tours); and Irish crime
novelist William Ryan is even teach-
ing a free crime writing workshop
for festival guests and participants.
The idea, Ragnar says, was to
make the whole process as easy as
possible—a particularly important
point given that all three organisers
have full-time jobs outside of their
writing careers. (These aren’t your
typical day jobs, either: Ragnar is a
lawyer, Quentin is a journalist and
writer, and Yrsa is a civil engineer.)
“One of the things that made
this possible was that none of us
were looking to make money out
of it, beyond hopefully selling a few
books,” agrees Quentin. “The plan
was to set up a friendly, informal
event with a bunch of like-minded
people. Crime writers really do like
to enjoy themselves when they get
together.”
Keep it open
When they started organising the
festival, Ragnar, Quentin, and Yrsa
simply invited fellow crime authors
who they knew to participate, and
the response was quite positive.
“We had hoped that Arnaldur In-
driðason could be persuaded to
take part, but when he did say yes
it was a bit of a surprise,” Quentin
says. Through word of mouth and
a little advertising, other authors
heard about the event, and asked
to participate. “We haven’t said no
to anyone,” Ragnar says. “It’s not an
invite-only thing. Any crime writer
who approaches us would be wel-
come.”
This open spirit is extended to
readers and conference partici-
pants as well. Beyond opportunities
to meet at special outside events,
like a Christmas buffet at Hotel
Borg, readers will also be able to
speak with authors throughout the
conference. Each author will be
on hand after panels to meet con-
ference guests, sign books, and
chat. “There’s no fun in just writers
meeting writers,” Ragnar says. “The
point is to allow writers and readers
to meet informally, to get to know
each other.”
Looking ahead
Even before the first conference
takes place, Iceland Noir has al-
ready exceeded the modest expec-
tations of the organisers. “What
has taken me by surprise,” says
Quentin, “is that people are already
asking when the 2014 event will
take place. We hadn't planned to
do another one—or, rather, we had
planned to see how this one pans
out before making any decisions on
any more. But such is the enthusi-
asm for it that we find ourselves in
the position of having to organise
another Iceland Noir next year.”
The organisers have some ideas
about how future conferences
could expand a little—perhaps host
some panels outside of Reykjavík
to give foreign guests some expo-
sure to the Icelandic countryside, or
look for a larger venue so that more
people could attend—but they aren’t
getting ahead of themselves.
“Ask me once it's all over,” Quen-
tin says. “We will have to take stock
of it all once Iceland Noir is over
and figure out what to do next year.
One of my goals would be to attract
writers from further afield, as there
are so many of them in far-flung
parts of the world. I'd also like to
maybe move it between locations.
We've joked about Iceland Noir in
the Faroe Islands in 2017—but who
knows?”
Going into its first year, Iceland Noir, the first ever Icelandic literary festival dedicated ex-
clusively to crime fiction, has already set a high bar: months prior to the event it attracted
over one hundred and twenty registered participants, many of whom will be travelling
to Iceland from abroad to attend. Arnaldur Indriðason will be the Guest of Honour, and
among the panel participants are a number of much loved and lauded authors such as
Ann Cleeves, whose Vera Stanhope novels have been adapted into a popular BBC TV
show; John Curran, a leading expert on the life and writing of Agatha Christie; and 2013
Glass Key winner Jørn Lier Horst. And yet, the idea for the conference has very mod-
est—and spontaneous—origins.
Words
Larissa Kyzer
Words
Larissa Kyzer
Nanna Dís
“It arose over a curry,”
says British author Quen-
tin Bates, who organised
Iceland Noir along with
fellow crime writers Rag-
nar Jónasson and Yrsa
Sigurðardóttir.
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir is a popu-
lar children’s book author and
one of Iceland’s best known
crime novelists. She has gained
worldwide popularity for her se-
ries featuring Reykjavík lawyer
Þóra Guðmundsdóttir. Her novel
‘I Remember You,’ is currently
being adapted for a Hollywood
film.
How did the idea for the festival
come about?
Ragnar Jónasson came up with
the idea when we were attending
Crimefest in Bristol this spring. He
wasted no time in setting things in
motion and now it is almost upon
us, and it’s much more impressive
than I, for one, had originally an-
ticipated.
Have there been any particular
challenges in planning this first
event?
I think the challenge was probably
all on Ragnar and Quentin's side
when they realised that I was not
kidding when I said I would not be
able to do much. The two of them
With more than 25 authors
participating in this year’s
Iceland Noir festival, there
are plenty of well-known
names from the Icelandic
crime scene—including
Guest of Honour Arnaldur
Indriðason and co-organ-
iser Yrsa Sigurðardóttir—as
well as many notable au-
thors, critics, translators,
and scholars who will be
arriving from the UK, Nor-
way, Germany, and The
Netherlands. In anticipation
of the event, we reached
out to participating authors
to find out what they are
most looking forward to
about talking crime in Ice-
land. The answers below
have been excerpted; see
www.grapevine.is for the
full Q&As.
Talking
Crime In
Iceland
If registration is full, there are still many events which are open on a first come-first serve
basis. See the Iceland Noir website for the full festival schedule: http://www.icelandnoir.com/
November 21 - 24 Nordic House and several
other venues around Reykjavík.
Iceland Noir: Iceland’s First Festival of Crime Fiction
FREE ADMISSION
PR
EVIEW
Literature
Illustration by Magnús O. Magnússon
The Friendliest
Little
Crime Fest In
Reykjavík