Kirkcudbright Book Week runs between Monday February 27-Saturday March 4, 2023, and here’s a reminder of the programme for Thursday. 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/
This event is sold out Thursday March 2 A talk on Scotland’s future and the independence debate by Gerry Hassan The Garret Hotel & Restaurant 116 High Street Kirkcudbright 11am £6
The independence debate is the defining issue of our times in Scotland with huge implications not just for the people who live here, but the rest of the UK and internationally and in the recently-published Scotland Rising: The Case for Independence, academic and author Gerry Hassan explores where the debate is going. He explores both sides of the argument, examines the importance of culture, stories and collective voices in reshaping how people see Scotland and seeks out the thoughts of people who have historically haven’t voted or see themselves as don’t knows. Known through his work as Professor of Social Change at Glasgow Caledonian University and as a leading commentator on Scottish and UK politics, Gerry is the author of a number of books, including The People’s Flag and the Union Jack and Caledonian Dreaming.
Thursday March 2 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 Kirkcudbright Galleries, St Mary Street 2pm £5
This event is sold out Thursday March 2 World Book Day – events for young readers
Talk by Ayrshire-based children’s writer Greta Yorke Kirkcudbright Library Daar Road Free event 11am
Greta is the author of books including Witch Hitch, which won the under 7s category in the Scottish Association of Writers’ Competition in 2010 and was published in 2015, featuring work by illustrator Maggie Bolton. This was followed by The Woo in the Wild Woods and Tartan Witch. Suitable for younger children.
This event is sold out Thursday March 2 World Book Day – Talk by Alan McClure Kirkcudbright Library Daar Road Free event 7pm
Alan is a writer, musician and primary school teacher based in Galloway. His first children’s novel, Callum and the Mountain, was shortlisted for the Kelpies Prize in 2016 and published by Beaten Track Press in 2019. The magical adventure for 8-12-year-olds draws on Celtic mythology and a love of the Scottish landscape and language. Alan will read extracts and discuss the inspiration behind the book, as well as encouraging the audience to share their own magical adventures.
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.
Kirkcudbright Book Week 