Calling all poetry-lovers! Check out what’s on offer at Kirkcudbright Book Week.
Tuesday February 28 A Meeting of Minds with The Gallery Writers, Stewartry Writers and Kirkcudbright Poetry Group The Kirkcudbright Galleries St Mary Street 11am Free event
Members of the three Kirkcudbright-based writing groups perform together for the first time, presenting a mixture of prose and poetry.
Tuesday February 28 Where Rivers Meet Join Hugh McMillan, Stuart Paterson, Clare Phillips and Nicola Black in an evening of poetry and song from four of the finest writers in contemporary Dumfries and Galloway. Station House Cookery School 56-58, St. Mary Street 7pm Tickets £8
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Selkirk Arms Supper Club event with poet Chrys Salt on Wednesday March 1 has been cancelled. The hotel will be in touch with those people who have booked to arrange refunds. We apologise for any inconvenience that may have been caused.
Wednesday March 1 Selkirk Arms Supper Club: with Chrys Salt Selkirk Arms High Street 6.30pm . Cost £25 You can book by ringing 01557 330402
Two course supper followed by Home Front/Front Line. On the 20th Anniversary of the invasion of Iraq Chrys Salt records a dialogue in letters, images, music, film and poems between herself, a pacifist mother, and her younger son who, as a Territorial Army Paratrooper, was unexpectedly mobilised to Iraq in 2003 and spent five months in action.
What the critics said
It is a brave, beautiful and deeply unsettling way of making the reader look again at long-familiar events, as though the mother of Wilfred Owen or Edward Thomas had kept a verse diary during the First World War. Andy Croft (review The Morning Star)
(It) seems that World War One wasn’t the only war to produce poetry of grandeur .Sam Smith (review in The Journal.
Friday March 3 Feast Cafe 32 St Cuthbert Street 2pm
Southlight 32 is the latest edition of the region’s illustrated literary magazine and this free event is a chance to meet the editors, listen to some brief readings and connect with other writers. The magazine will be on sale at £5.00.
Friday March 3 The Leaves of the Years with Hugh McMillan and Stuart Paterson and invited guest readers Kirkcudbright Dark Space Planetarium The Johnston, St Mary Street 7pm £5
Join Hugh McMillan and Stuart Paterson and invited guest readers in an evening celebrating the life and work of Galloway’s greatest modern poet, William Neill. A short film about the poet will be shown then contributors will read from the newly published anthology The Leaves of the Years, celebrating the centenary of Neill’s birth. He wrote in all three languages of Scotland, English, Scots and Gaelic and his work celebrates the landscape and history of Scotland while addressing issues of language, politics and culture that are equally relevant today.
The Leaves of the Years (Ed Hugh McMillan and Stuart Paterson) is a book that is both worthy and entertaining and contains essays and poems from some of the nation’s finest writers, like Gerda Stevenson, Tom Pow, Christine De Luca, Derrick McClure, Magi Gibson, Bill Herbert, Donald S Murray, Ian Stephen, Rab Wilson, Willie Hershaw, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir. Anne Frater, Dolina Maclennan, Joy Hendry, Tom Hubbard and James McGonigal. Published by Drunk Muse Press.
How to acquire your tickets
Tickets for both paid-for and a number of the free events during Kirkcudbright Book Week 2023 can be booked by visiting http://www.eventbrite.co.uk and searching for Kirkcudbright Book Week Collection where all the events are listed. Alternatively, a direct link can be accessed via the book week website’s Acquire Your Tickets section at https://www.kirkcudbrightbookweek.org/buy-your-tickets/
Kirkcudbright Book Week 