Tired of Frankfurt? Try this

Crossing Border, the literary and music festival which arrives in the diary just two weeks after its much grander, more Establishment older sibling, Frankfurt Book Fair, celebrated its 30th birthday this year. For most of its first decade the festival was a Lowlands affair, but the vision of Louis Behre and his son, Michel, was always to create an international space where literature and music rub shoulders.

I was introduced to what would become an annual pilgrimage to the underrated city of The Hague (people will try to tell you this city is boring; it is categorically not) by the legendary Dutch publisher, Oscar van Gelderen, who took me under his wing at my first Frankfurt in 2000. Over the next few years word about Crossing Border started to spread organically within the more adventurous elements of the publishing community. This year marked my 21st visit. It is almost a second home.

Gradually, agents, publishers, scouts and authors (of course – the festival is all about the writers, which is what makes it distinct from other international events in the publishing calendar, with their focus on "deals") started to congregate in The Hague for three days of music, literature and vaguely-work-related conversation, in the often rainy first weekend of November. You don’t come for the weather; and thankfully it’s as far from a traditional summer festival as can be imagined. This is a place where literature and music – which to me have always been natural bedfellows and are of course the bedrock of my imprint, White Rabbit – commingle in the most natural of habitats: classic continental arts spaces, theatres, extraordinary Dutch reformed churches... even an afterparty in Cremers, the city’s famous coffee shop, which boasts an excellent sound system in its basement.

For international publishing colleagues from all corners of the continent (as well as the occasional intrepid visitor from further afield) who have been invited to Crossing Border, the festival starts on a Friday afternoon with a programme christened, in a mischievous nod to our collective thirst for literature and pop culture, "The Addict". Imagine a version of the Frankfurter Hof but in the afternoon with a free bar where you can actually move/get a seat – and a distinct lack of €12 beers, green sauce and Frankfurt foam (Crossing Border is so small, intimate and inclusive there’s no opportunity for it).

I can’t help but feel the Crossing Border model of meetings  – i.e. there aren’t really any – makes more sense in a global publishing community that is increasingly and ironically both more connected and more atomised

I have heard attendance at Frankfurt was down by at least 20% this year and while it’s premature and futile to predict the decline of such a great institution after five centuries of service to books, I can’t help but feel the Crossing Border model of meetings  – i.e. there aren’t really any – makes more sense in a global publishing community that is increasingly and ironically both more connected and more atomised. I am sure some people do visit Crossing Border as participants in "The Addict" with meetings in their diaries (though if you schedule anything pre-midday you are ambitious), but the beauty of this festival and its congregation of like-minds lies in its randomness; there is a lack of pressure and business-derived urgency, which brings out the best in everyone. You meet people as you wander between events, at the bar, on the dancefloor at 2 a.m., or as you get older at the breakfast buffet in Hotel Mercure, where I calculated I have now spent over three months of my life. Yes, I really do like The Hague and Crossing Border that much.

In my introduction to an interview with the musician, now acclaimed memoirist, Vashti Bunyan on the Friday night, I paid tribute to Crossing Border as perhaps the crucial influence on my methodology as a publisher and evangelist for my writers. Louis Behre is a true believer in the counter-culture and his son Michel carries the flame for an emerging generation of younger publishers and agents, who are now experiencing the magic of a festival that has played host to the likes of The Flaming Lips, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Andryi Kurkov, Colson Whitehead, PJ Harvey, Fleet Foxes and hundreds of other writers and musicians from around the globe.

Crossing Border, despite the famous entrepreneurial reputation of the Dutch – capably represented at the festival by Barbara van Ouden and her team at the Dutch Foundation for Literature – is not a place to come and pitch, it is a place to come and discover. It is also a community that is ever-evolving. There are books to be acquired here but the purpose of this festival is not primarily commercial. It is a reminder that we all work in this business because we love books, music, art and the glorious connections and relationships they bring to us. Different every year, yet always the same, Crossing Border is the annual hang for publishing folk who like their literature with a soundtrack. Thirty years in, it is now also an institution, but the secret of its longevity is its refusal to compromise; its staunch championing of underground and diverse international voices from music and books.

If you are interested in visiting Crossing Border and participating in "The Addict" contact festival director, Michel Behre michel@crossingborder.nl