Kirkcudbright Book Week Monday March 3-Saturday March 8 2025
The aim of Kirkcudbright Book Week is to showcase and celebrate the developing literary scene in the town and surrounding area.
The annual event happens in the first week of March as the people of the area start to emerge from the dark days of Winter and includes World Book Day for young readers on the Thursday.
Book Week features appearances by professional authors as well as affording community writing groups the chance to perform in front of audiences.
Events include talks, recitals and meet-the-author events as well as providing the opportunity to purchase books from the writers taking part.
The event includes appearances from authors working in genres ranging from poetry, short stories, novels and non-fiction to children’s writing, crime fiction, travel writing and history.
Kirkcudbright Book Week is organised by Kirkcudbright Book Week Society, which is chaired by Chris Walker of The Selkirk Arms and is supported by a number of local organisations and venues and is a non-profit organisation.
Any income received goes towards covering costs and developing plans for future years.
All coronavirus restrictions in place at the time the event takes place will be observed.
Book Week provides boost to town’s economy
Written by Kirkcudbright Book Week Co-Ordinator John Dean
There are a number of reasons why we stage Kirkcudbright Book Week, one of which is to boost the economy of the area by increasing awareness of the town among people who live outside Dumfries and Galloway.
Increased awareness means that Kirkcudbright can attract more day-visitors and holidaymakers and we were delighted to hear that, as the build-up gatheeds pace for the 2024 event between March 4-10, our efforts were showing results.
The majority of people attending our events are local, of course, but we first noticed people taking holidays to coincide with the second Book Week in 2023 and the build-up to 2024 has seen an increase in such reports, with people booking a week’s holiday in Kirkcudbright and planning to take in a few Book Week events as well as exploring the area. A growing number of people also take overnight stays during Book Week.
This means that they will spend money, booking into hotels, B and Bs or cottages, using the local shops, cafes and restaurants, visiting tourist attractions, purchasing tickets for Book Week events, as well as buying books (to find out about book purchasing opportunities, it is worth checking out our article on the subject at https://kirkcudbrightbookweek.org/2024/01/11/books-a-plenty-on-sale-during-week-long-event/)
It soon adds up to thousands of pounds spent, the vast majority of it going into the local economy.
As event organisers, Kirkcudbright Book Week Society appreciates the contribution of businesses, organisations and funding bodies that act as sponsors to help us stage the week (you can see who they are at https://kirkcudbrightbookweek.org/sponsors/)
If you wish to join them and become a sponsor for this exciting and rapidly-growing annual literary celebration, feel free to drop me a line at deangriss@btinternet.com and we can discuss the opportunities that are available.
At this point in the article, it may be worth reminding ourselves of some of the other benefits that prompted us to create Book Week, including:
For the authors taking part, a chance to develop new audiences and showcase new books and projects, particularly as live performance continues to recover after pandemic.
For community writing groups, the chance to experience taking part in live performance, in the case of some aspiring writers for the first time
For young people, a chance to take part in a series of creative workshops with award-winning writers and have their work performed during Book Week as well as meeting well-known children’s authors
For audiences, the chance to enjoy live performance, be exposed to new voices and to meet the writers. The emphasis is on providing quality
For the Book Week society, the opportunity to build on the work done year on year to develop an annual event which earns its place on the Scottish festivals calendar
For the town, the creation of a ‘buzz’ during the week and an optimistic sign that the area’s cultural scene is emerging from the gloom of pandemic times when performances were strictly limited.
Finally (and allow us a little sentiment here!) but we view Book Week as helping to mark the area’s emergence from the darkness of winter into the more optimistic days of Spring.
Finally, a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all those people who support Book Week, from Book Week Society committee members to volunteers, performers to venue owners and managers, plus, of course, the many people who attend events. We could not do it without you.
Picture: Kirkcudbright by John Smith
Kirkcudbright Book Week 