Are you a lover of historical fiction? Then check out these events during Kirkcudbright Book Week.
Monday February 27 Screening of ‘S.R.Crockett: The Kirkcudbright Connection’ (20 minutes) followed by virtual chat/ Q&A with Cally Phillips of Galloway Raiders.
The Kirkcudbright Galleries, St Mary Street 11am£5
S.R.Crockett (1859-1914) is the most famous and prolific novelist of Galloway. His stories range across the region, but his Kirkcudbright connection is little known. The short film explores Crockett’s relationship with the town and some of her more famous sons, including E.A.Hornel and William Mouncey. William Stewart MacGeorge was a boyhood friend and the central character in Crockett’s sole Kirkcudbright novel is based on him. Published in 1907, Little Esson features fictionalised romance and mystery among the Kirkcudbright Artists. Crockett’s Kirkcudbright connection is explored through rare Galloway Raiders archival material and other stories. Cally will be available ‘virtually’ after the screening to chat more and answer questions regarding Crockett’s Kirkcudbright Connections.
Thursday March 2 Talk by Stuart Campbell, author of the recently-published novel The Woman Clothed With The Sun Selkirk Arms High Street 2pm £5
Stuart Campbell has previously written for the BBC, the Guardian, The Big Issue and Scottish Book Collector. He is the editor of RLS in Love, an anthology of Robert Louis Stevenson’s love poetry, and author of John McPake and The Sea Beggars, a novel set in Leith and sixteenth-century Holland. He has also written a second novel, The Aeronaut’s Guide to Rapture, and two travelogues, Boswell’s Bus Pass and Daniel Defoe’s Railway Journey. His latest novel, The Woman Clothed With The Sun, tells the extraordinary true-life story of Elspeth Buchan and the Buchanites, an eighteenth-century Scottish apocalyptic sect based in Galloway at the time of Robert Burns. In this talk, he will discuss the research undertaken in Dumfries and Galloway in search of the Buchanities and the difficulties involved in fictionalising such an extraordinary tale. There will also be readings from the text
Friday March 3 Talk by John Nelson, author of On the Trail of a Broken Shoe
Selkirk Arms High Street 2pm £3
The book is based on the true story of the last man hanged in Scotland for horse-stealing. As part of John’s research, he rode a Clydesdale into the Highlands in 2011 following in the footsteps of an ancestor whose horse had been stolen in 1811. The book also includes tales of Kirkcudbrightshire. John Nelson lives in Crossmichael.
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 