Wigtown Book Town Spring Festival & Wigtown and Bladnoch Book Fair

Wigtown and Bladnoch

The Book Town Spring Festival and Wigtown & Bladnoch Book Fair runs over the May Day weekend. Over 30 events are spread over the two days, including a series of Wicker Man events. Some of the literary highlights are:

Wigtown Poetry Competition – Prize-giving Lunch
With Don Paterson, The Scottish Poetry Library and The Sunday Herald
12.30pm to 2.30pm
Bladnoch Distillery
£12.50 (includes buffet lunch)

Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association and Wigtown Book Town Company present the results of the 2005 Wigtown Poetry Competition. Scotland’s largest poetry competition has attracted over 2,000 entries from all over the world. This is your chance hear judge Don Paterson discuss his selection and hear the winning poems.

James Hogg: A Bard of Nature’s Making
Dr Valentina Bold
2.30pm
The Old Bank Bookshop
£2.50

Bold suggests that ‘the Ettrick Shepherd’ (author of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner) resented and exploited being typecast as a Burnsian ‘bard’.

Valentina Bold, Head of Scottish Studies, is publishing a new book on James Hogg.

"Two pints of heavy, mate": Contemporary Scottish Fiction?
David Borthwick
4.30pm
Reading Lasses Bookshop
£2.50

It is a misapprehension to say that Scottish fiction is all about drugs, swearing or men in pubs. David Borthwick will tell you why.

David Borthwick teaches literature at the Crichton Campus. He has recently completed a PhD on narrative stylistics in Scottish fiction.

Contact: Tel. (01988) 402036
Full List of Spring events