On this particular night, British author Sarah Waters was on hand to talk about her new novel with Flemish author and theorist Kristien Hemmerechts. Because it was in English, the sold-out room was brimming with an international crowd, spanning generations in a way that very good authors often do.

Border Kitchen is a series of author events in De Groene Waterman, which this year ended with Waters and will start up again in January with Israeli writer David Grossman. The name of the series is slightly strange and has its origins in another event altogether: Crossing Border, an annual festival in The Hague, which is enjoying its first staging in Antwerp on 22 November.

Crossing Border is a literary music festival, which sounds strange, even to its founder, Louis Behre, who has been coordinating it in The Hague for 17 years now. The genres “have nothing in common,” he laughs from his home inAntwerp. “That’s why Crossing Border became so famous. When I started it, people thought I was crazy, and I probably was.”

Crazy like a fox. Generally, if you’re interested in one art form, you’re interested in another, and the strange combination was so intriguing, audiences poured in from the very first year. The event has been selling out every year in the Netherlands and has already sold out the 2,000 places at the Arenbergschouwburg for Antwerp’s very first edition.

Crossing Border’s set up is democratic: several rooms in one venue host concerts, interspersed with readings or talks by writers “and a little bit of film,” says Behre. “If you think you’ve seen enough after half an hour, you can leave the room and check out something else.”

The festival has become a favourite for many musicians and writers from across Europe. “The writer can feel like a pop star, and the pop star can feel a bit like a writer because there is an audience for literature there, too,” says Behre. Audiences feel the same. “Those who come for the music also see writers, and those who come for the writers also discover new pop music.”

Behre was born in Belgium but then moved to The Hague with his family when he was a child. He has now moved back to Antwerp and travels between the two cities, running his production company together with his wife. He called the very first festival Crossing the Border (meaning the border between literature and music), “but the title was too long for the poster,” he says. “So we pulled out the ‘the’. People said, ‘you’re organising a literature festival, and you don’t even know how to write the name of it!’”

But the title stuck. Which brings us back to Border Kitchen. These purely prose events are like runners-up to the festival, a chance to test out authors to see who Behre could book for Crossing Border. “You prepare things in your kitchen; it’s the preparing of the Crossing Border festival.”

About 10 writers and 25 bands will be in the Arenbergschouwburg this Sunday for Crossing Border, including former Pavement front man Stephen Malkmus, who will deliver a solo performance of spoken word and music; master of Americana Steve Earle (pictured) and the long-awaited ensemble Monsters of Folk, made up of Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, Jim James and M Ward. Writers include Jessica Anthony, proving to be one of America’s brightest new novelists with her debut The Convalescent, and Flanders’ own Erwin Mortier, fresh from winning the AKO Prize for Dutch literature.

Although the festival sold out weeks ago, you’ll have your chance at tickets again next year – and every year thereafter. The festival has made and will continue to make one-off stops in other cities – Berlin, Glasgow and Austin, Texas, for instance – but The Hague and Antwerp are on the annual docket. Antwerp offers a fantastic audience, notes Behre. “The university is here, whereas The Hague doesn’t have one. The Hague is actually a bit of a quiet city. Antwerp is what Crossing Border needs.”

www.crossingborder.be

www.borderkitchen.be