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I(cid:2)’s my PARTY
Lynsey May takes a sneak peek at the Wigtown Book Festival programme as Scotland’s National Book Town gears up to celebrate the event’s 20th anniversary
Feted far and wide as Scotland’s National Book Town, Wigtown was not always so well-known for its literary connections. The spark of change came in 1998, when the closure of the local distillery (happily, now producing whisky again) and the creamery in nearby Bladnoch prompted several key players in the area to champion Wigtown as a Book Town. Now, as it marks its 20th anniversary, the Wigtown Book Festival is celebrating the milestone with a sophisticated programme of almost 300 events spread over ten days.
Artistic director Adrian Turpin says: ‘What we’ve done this year is whittle down the number of themes we cover so we can have a bloody great party for our 20th birthday.’ The revelries range from The Making of a Book Town, which brings together some of the key i gures in Wigtown’s transformation, to panel discussions like Europe’s Future and The Future of Technology, which ask what the next 20 years may hold.
Two guests of honour, literature professor Darryl
David and Canadian vet Peter Baker, are l ying in to discuss how Wigtown inspired them to create a Book Town in the run-down little sheep town of Richmond, South Africa. Closer to home, Shaun Bythell will celebrate the adventures of Diary of a Bookseller, a memoir chronicling life as a grumpy second-hand bookseller in Wigtown, published last year. Elsewhere, big names like Susan Calman, Sally Magnusson, Patrick Gale, Ann Cleeves and Clare Balding will all be making appearances at the festival.
Wigtown itself will be having something of a transformation, as Astrid Jaekel, previously artist in residence for Wigtown Book Festival and Spring Fling 2013/14, returns for a new project, If These Walls Could Talk. She’s taken 20 local stories and is producing three to four-metre-high illustrations to be placed on the buildings featured in the tales.
Of course, the area is also home to some stunning
natural beauty spots and Turpin says that not only are these rel ected and included in the programme through tours and unusual event venues, but that
24 THE LIST 1 Sep–31 Oct 2018