Jason Cowley on "an intimate jewel of a place" where readers meet writers

It is often said that book prizes have long since replaced reviews as our primary means of literary transmission, of bringing writers and readers together. If a book is to enjoy an afterlife, if it is to be read, discussed and recommended beyond its immediate publication, it must in some way escape the ghetto of the book review supplements and enter the national conversation. There are various ways to achieve this, but perhaps the most successful is for the writer to meet his or her readers.

The mid- to late 1980s was a period of rapid transformation for authors and the book business. The emergence of Waterstone's, Books etc and Dillons, the strengthening and expansion of publishers into powerful, cash-rich conglomerates, the advent of competitive auction for books, the launch of multi-section newspapers with their own dedicated books and culture sections - it was a vibrant period for writing. At the same time, many of the newly opened chain bookshops, staffed by enthusiastic young graduate managers, began organising events, readings and signings; and towns, institutions and hotels began holding their own literary festivals. Writers, it seemed, had never had it so good, nor had more opportunity to promote their writing.

It did not last. Today, most publishers concede that bookshop readings are fewer in number and, more often than not, poorly attended - only the celebrity names are guaranteed an audience. Yet festivals, by contrast, continue to proliferate. Hay-on-Wye and Cheltenham are the best-known and most established of the festivals; but numerous others, such as those in Ilkley, Oxford and Essex, have become essential parts of the publishing calendar, and are often more valuable than the more celebrated events because they are more interested in books than in celebrity (last year's Hay-on-Wye festival became a kind of black farce of intrigue and paranoia when Bill Clinton turned up to deliver an opening lecture).

I've been a guest or speaker at many festivals and literary gatherings, but perhaps my most enjoyable time has been spent at Greywalls Hotel in Gullane, on the east coast of Scotland. From April to October each year, Greywalls hosts a series of literary luncheons and dinners at which established and local writers talk about their work with a small group of dedicated readers and enthusiasts. The events are models of their kind: discreet, intelligent and lacking the pretensions of some of the larger, more pompous festivals, at which writers are encouraged to pontificate like kings. Edinburgh-based Ian Rankin, the author of the bestselling series of Rebus crime novels, is a regular at the lunches and an engaging speaker - smart, confident, but with a nice line in self-deprecating humour. Here is one eminently successful way of bringing writers and readers together.

Greywalls was designed by Edward Lutyens in 1901, and must be one of the most aesthetically pleasing hotels in Britain. From the rear of the house, you look out towards the North Sea and directly over the rolling scrubland of Muirfield golf course. In many ways, we are in golfing country and Greywalls is a golfing hotel, but never oppressively so - because with its library of many fascinating first editions and unusual atmosphere of ease and calm, it is a perfect place in which to read and write and think, far from the madding crowd.

All that will change, no doubt, for one week this summer when the British Open returns to Muirfield, which remains perhaps the most exclusive golf club in the country - certainly, I wasn't made to feel welcome there when I inadvertently wandered across the invisible line separating public from private land. I had taken no more than half a dozen steps towards the clubhouse when a red-faced, elderly greenkeeper emerged from a thicket of trees to remind me, splenetically, that "this is a private club". Perhaps if I'd arrived by helicopter at Muirfield, as so many of the golfers do, or spoken with an American accent, the greenkeeper would have offered to be my caddy for the day. Fortunately, the staff at Greywalls are infinitely more welcoming, and I spent the rest of the afternoon, on their recommendation, exploring the surrounding countryside, with its long, remote, sandy beaches, its ruined castles and monuments, its low, grey skies and innumerable golf courses.

Greywalls has been owned by three generations of the same family since 1924 and has been a hotel since 1948. The family's presence is spectral, peering down at you from photographs rather than being there to greet you in person with a cigar and glass of sherry. The garden was designed by Gertrude Jekyll, and is really many gardens in one. I recall with particular pleasure the rose garden, the sunken garden, the herbaceous and silver borders and the slightly bumpy lawn tennis court. On my last day in Gullane, I spent a long contemplative morning working on the draft of a long article in the rose garden, and I have seldom worked in a setting more tranquil or conducive to concentration. Greywalls is an intimate jewel of a place - one of the secret gardens of literary Britain.

The 2002 programme of lunchtime events at Greywalls is: Wednesday 1 May, Ian Rankin; Wednesday 22 May, Peter Gillies on the hidden East Lothian; 12 June, Margaret Bennett, "The Celtic year: songs and customs"; 3 July, travel writer Peter Kerr; 7 July, Martin Treacher, a Scottish tribute to Noel Coward; 10 July, Bruce Jamieson; 14 August, nature writer Jim Crumley; 4 September, Geoff MacEwan on Scottish painting; 18 September, Owen Dudley Edwards, "How Irish was Dracula?". Details on 01620 842 144

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