Kirkcudbright Book Week 2023 has been awarded a grant of £1,350 by the Robin Rigg Community Fund to support the event’s varied programme of performances by authors.
The annual week, which will take place between Monday February 27 and Saturday March 4, celebrates the developing literary scene in Kirkcudbright and the wider Dumfries and Galloway area and will feature both professional and aspiring authors.
The fifteen events to be staged at venues in Kirkcudbright will include free and paid-for poetry and prose performances by more than twenty writers as well as film, song and music.
Kirkcudbright Book Week has been organised by Kirkcudbright Book Week Society, which is supported by a number of organisations, sponsors and venues.
They include the Robin Rigg Community Fund, which is administered by the Solway Firth Partnership. Funding is provided by RWE, the operator of the Robin Rigg wind farm, with the aim of benefitting the communities local to the wind farm.
Clair McFarlan, Partnership Manager at the Solway Firth Partnership, said: “The Robin Rigg Community Fund is pleased to be supporting this year’s programme of events at Kirkcudbright Book Week. The events look really interesting, and I’d encourage everyone to come along and enjoy this celebration of literary talent.”
Book Week Society Chair Chris Walker, from the Selkirk Arms, said: “We are looking forward to Book Week and very much appreciate the support we have received from a range of organisations. The programme is a superb line up of local and national talent. There really is something for everyone.”
Events include a screening on Monday February 27 of a film about local novelist S.R. Crockett, who died in 1914. After the screening of ‘S.R.Crockett: The Kirkcudbright Connection’ at the Kirkcudbright Galleries there will be a virtual chat/Q and A with Cally Phillips of Galloway Raiders, who made the film.
February 27 also sees an evening with crime writers Jackie Baldwin, Ian Robinson, Ann Bloxwich and John Dean at Broughton House.
On Tuesday February 28, Where Rivers Meet features an evening of poetry and song at Station House Cookery School with writers Hugh McMillan, Stuart Paterson, Clare Phillips and Nicola Black. Tuesday February 28 will also include the first joint performance by local groups The Gallery Writers, Stewartry Writers and Kirkcudbright Poetry Group at The Kirkcudbright Galleries and a Zoom event featuring crime writers from around Scotland, talking about their work. Writers taking part are all members of the Crime Writers’ Association’s Scottish Chapter and include Allan Martin.
Another highlight happens on Wednesday March 1 when the Selkirk Arms hosts Confessions of a Novice Motorcycle Guide Book Writer with author J.G.Fergusson.
That evening sees the Selkirk Arms Supper Club with Chrys Salt, who will present Home Front/Front Line in which she records a dialogue in letters, images, film and poems between herself, a pacifist, and her younger son who, as a Territorial Army Paratrooper, was unexpectedly mobilised to Iraq in 2003 and spent five months in action.
Other events include an examination of Scotland’s future in the light of the independence debate by author and academic Gerry Hassan at The Garret Hotel & Restaurant on Thursday March 2. The same day sees All In a Day’s Work, readings from a book based on the creative response of a group of writers to artifacts held in the Devil’s Porridge Museum, which commemorates the lives and work of the many people who laboured at HM Gretna to provide munitions for World War One. The event will take place at The Kirkcudbright Galleries.
Also on Thursday March 2 Kirkcudbright Library will host events for young writers as part of World Book Day, featuring appearances by children’s writers Greta Yorke and Alan McClure.
On Friday March 3 author OphAuthorf John Nelson will talk about his book On the Trail of a Broken Shoe at the Selkirk Arms. The book is based on the true story of the last man hanged in Scotland for horse-stealing.
Also on Friday March 3 at Feast Cafe editors of, and contributors to, arts magazine Southlight will read pieces from the current edition, followed by a Q and A.
The week’s final two events are The Leaves of the Years on Friday March 3 with authors Hugh McMillan and Stuart Paterson and invited guest readers at the Kirkcudbright Dark Space Planetarium, in which they will celebrate the life and work of Galloway poet William Neill and book week comes to a close on Saturday March 4 with An Evening With Laurence Bristow-Smith with musical illustrations by Gordon Mursell and David Preston. Laurence’s books include the two-volume History of Music in the British Isles.
You can find out more about events and how to book tickets here at www.kirkcudbrightbookweek.org The website also has details of the organisations and businesses that have sponsored book week. You can also follow the event on Facebook and on Instagram at kbt.bookweek
Kirkcudbright Book Week 