Wigtown Book Festival Podcast

We are joined by Abiola Bello and Helen Lewis from the Diverse Book Awards. They discuss how they started the awards in the middle of the pandemic, the challenges of running them and even a sneak peak of what to expect from Wigtown YA 2021.

Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of 'Open Water', answers 31 pressing questions for Same Page. If you're not signed up for Same Page, here's the link: https://bit.ly/samepageya

We go behind the scenes with publishers 404 Ink and their forthcoming new non-fiction series, Inklings. This conversation features founders Heather McDaid & Laura Jones, and author Katie Goh whose The End: Surviving the World Through Fictional Disasters will be one of the Inklings titles.

Sometimes a book comes along that marries meaning, moment and enthusiasm with such force and beauty that it stops you in your tracks. Steven Lovatt’s Birdsong in a Time of Silence is such a book. Started as the world ground to a halt - its first page opens on 24th March 2020 - it charts the extraordinary days of the past year spent noticing the chorus around us, despite it all. A keen birder, Steven delves into the magic of birdsong and the places it can take us when we have too much time to dwell in the weeds and margins of our minds.

As an audio finale for Big Bang we present an interview with Robert Shearman, a man of many talents whose stellar writing career spans theatre, television, audio drama, novels and short fiction. We discuss Rob's forthcoming novel, a Doctor Who Target novelisation of 'Dalek', an episode, also written by Rob, that many Whovians will fondly remember from 2005. We also talk about Rob's book We All Hear Stories in the Dark. A titanic triptych weighing in at 3 volumes and nearly 2,000 pages, it is a thing of intricate and labyrinthine beauty, a choose your own adventure which no two readers will ever encounter in the same way.  We reflect on how this epic act of love and grief came to be, the joys of reading, literary adaptation, fan culture, and the pleasures and pains of being a writer.

As a special extra for Big Bang, Wigtown's annual dark skies festival, Elizabeth Tindal, Freelance Ranger and Biosphere Dark Sky Ranger, will be talking us through her stargazing adventures in the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park every evening at 8pm throughout the festival. This podcast is about Orion and the story of the Seven Sisters.

As a special extra for Big Bang, Wigtown's annual dark skies festival, Elizabeth Tindal, Freelance Ranger and Biosphere Dark Sky Ranger, will be talking us through her stargazing adventures in the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park every evening at 8pm throughout the festival. This podcast is about the winter circle of stars around Orion and where to find Mars. Mars is in a particular position at the moment and very easy to pick out.

As a special extra for Big Bang, Wigtown's annual dark skies festival, Elizabeth Tindal, Freelance Ranger and Biosphere Dark Sky Ranger, will be talking us through her stargazing adventures in the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park every evening at 8pm throughout the festival. Tonight, Elizabeth talks to us about Orion.

As a special extra for Big Bang, Wigtown's annual dark skies festival, Elizabeth Tindal, Freelance Ranger and Biosphere Dark Sky Ranger, will be talking us through her stargazing adventures in the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park every evening at 8pm throughout the festival. Tonight, Elizabeth talks to us about the Plough and the North Star.

As a special extra for Big Bang, Wigtown's annual dark skies festival, Elizabeth Tindal, Freelance Ranger and Biosphere Dark Sky Ranger, will be talking us through her stargazing adventures in the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park every evening at 8pm throughout the festival. Listen to Elizabeth's introduction to find out a few stargazing tips and some recommendations on what to take with you. Then join us tomorrow (3 March) for Episode 1 of Big Bang Stargazing.

We chat with writer and visual artist Sara Baume about her third book, handiwork. Just last week shortlisted for the prestigious Rathbones Folio Prize, it is a contemplative short narrative that charts Sara's daily process of making and writing, exploring what it is to create and to live as an artist. Short and spare, gentle and devastating, handiwork reflects on the nature of art, grief, bird migration and a life lived well.

On this episode we’re joined by two special guests well-acquainted with the life and work of Robert Burns in a special episode for Burns Night 2021. Professor Gerard Carruthers is Francis Hutcheson Chair of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow where he’s leading on a major project 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century'. He’s General Editor of the new Oxford Collected Works of Robert Burns, Co-Director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies and also secretary of the Robert Burns Ellisland Trust. In our conversation with Gerry he tells us more about Burns and Dumfries and how we can celebrate Ellisland and its treasures for now and for the future.   Gerda Stevenson is an award-winning writer, actor, director and singer-songwriter, who has worked in theatre, television, radio, film, and opera throughout Britain and abroad. Her poetry, drama and prose have been widely published, staged, and broadcast. We talk about her second poetry collection, QUINES: Poems in tribute to women of Scotland, which charts the contribution made to Scottish history and society by remarkable women, from Neolithic times to the 21st century, starring singers, politicians, fish-gutters, queens, dancers, marine engineers and many more. Also, as one of the foremost performers of Burns’, we discuss her relationship to his work, some favourites, and a few top performance tips for the brave souls gearing up for Burns Night 2021 style.

On this, the last episode of 2020, we look back at podcasts past to pluck out some books for your reading future. And for Christmas present, we chat with New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan about piano playing, Christmas traditions around the world and her return to the island of Mure for ‘Christmas at the Island Hotel’, a heartwarming new novel celebrating the season and Scotland.

This episode features the wonderful Polly Pullar. No stranger to Wigtown Book Festival audiences as one of our wonderful chair people, the tables are turned here as we hear about Polly’s life and work as a wildlife rehabilitator and journalist - Perthshire’s own Dr Doolittle. In this conservation, Polly tells us about a childhood spent in thrall to nature, introduces us to some of her menagerie and stars of her books, including A Scurry of Squirrels - Nurturing the Wild, due out in July, rewilding, the joys of nature during lockdown, and all other times too.

This episode features the entire event from this year’s Wigtown Book Festival with chair Lee Randall in conversation with author Douglas Stuart, who was announced last week as the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize for his novel Shuggie Bain.

On this episode we continue our series of highlights from this year’s festival with two very different authors who are united in emphasising the importance of promoting healthy relationships between us. The ways in which we relate to the world and to the people in our community has been drawn into stark relief this year and bestselling YA author Nicola Yoon and the pioneering campaigner and author Alastair McIntosh take very different approaches to exploring the best ways we can relate to our environment, to our community and to ourselves.

On this episode we revisit two very special events from this year's festival, featuring two of Northern Ireland’s finest exports, poet Michael Longley and novelist Jan Carson. Listen to the short story 'Soup' which Jan reads in its entirety and hear edited highlights from Michael Longley's conversation with diplomat, author and fellow Belfastian William D. Hanna.

On this episode we feature more edited highlights from this year's Wigtown Book Festival with excerpts from our events with wildlife TV presenter and author Kate Humble and former British Army officer, international aid worker and spy thriller writer Simon Conway.

On this episode we hear about witches and graveyards with authors Alice Tarbuck and Peter Ross who discuss their books A Spell in the Wild: A Year (and six centuries) of Magic and A Tomb with A View: The Stories and Glories of Graveyards with Hannah Trevarthen and Dani Garavelli. You can buy copies of these from our website https://bookshop.wigtownbookfestival.com

In the first podcast of edited highlights from this year's Wigtown Book Festival we feature two award winning authors whose very different books look at our interconnected lives. Conservationist and nature writer Dara McAnulty, winner of the Wainwright Prize at the age of just 16, talks to Rachel Plummer about his book Diary of a Young Naturalist. Multi-award winning author Maggie O’Farrell speaks to Stephanie Merritt about her fictional account of Shakespeare's son, the eponymous Hamnet, who died at the age of 11 in 1596.

On this episode Jessica Fox speaks to etymologist and lexicographer Susie Dent ahead of the publication of her new book Word Perfect, a brilliant linguistic almanac full of unforgettable true stories tied to every day of the year.

This episode continues our celebration of the legendary Oscar Wilde with Matthew Sturgis, the author of acclaimed biography Oscar: A Life, and Sally Rees, a teacher and festivals organiser in Enniskillen who offers her unique insights into the world of Wilde.

On this episode we feature actor, director and author Rupert Everett for a very special chat with Wigtown favourite Lee Randall. In his highly anticipated third memoir, Rupert Everett tells the story of how he set out to make a film of Oscar Wilde's last days, and how that ten-year quest almost destroyed him.

On today's episode we're teaming up with our sister book town, Featherston, to celebrate all things New Zealand. Featherston became a full member of the International Organisation of Booktowns two years ago in 2018 and so we’re taking the opportunity to present an episode with a distinctive New Zealand flavour. We talk to the former poet laureate of New Zealand, Selina Tusitala Marsh, about what life was like as a poet laureate and how poetry found her. We discuss what it's like to teach a course on Scottish crime fiction in New Zealand and find out more about a Dunedin-James Hogg connection with the award winning crime writer Liam McIlvanney. And we were delighted to talk to two of the people behind the Featherston Book Town project, Mary and Peter Biggs. Do check out Featherston's webpage to find out more about what they are up to: https://www.booktown.org.nz

Claire Urquhart and Marjorie Lotfi Gill from shared reading charity Open Book present the second of their two Wigtown Book Festival takeovers. On this episode they discuss an excerpt from the book A Musical Offering by Luis Sagasti and the poem 'Hinge' by Alycia Pirmohamed. You can read along with each of the readings by having a look at Open Book's special Wigtown newsletter bit.ly/WigtownOpenBook - and do come along to Luis Sagasti's digital event at 1700 on Saturday http://bit.ly/WigtownOpenLS or catch up with Alycia's event from Sunday 27th: bit.ly/WigtownOpenAP Find out more about Open Book from their website: openbookreading.com

In the second of our two episodes dedicated to Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters, we speak to former coastguard Tony Wood about his experience working on the Solway, to author Donald S Murray about his forthcoming book on lighthouses and his many works that have focused on the sea, and we feature two poems about the sea by poet Marjorie Lotfi Gill.

2020 is a year of literary anniversaries. As well as the 250th anniversary of James Hogg, which we featured a few episodes ago, it also marks the 100th anniversary of Scotland’s first Makar, or National Poet, Edwin Morgan. We talked to Robyn Marsack, the chair of StAnza, Scotland’s Poetry Festival and a trustee of the Edwin Morgan Trust about the work they do and she reflects on Edwin Morgan’ legacy as a poet and as a translator. The spectre of Scotland’s other national bard, Robert Burns, burns brightly in a new Young Adult series set around a time travelling History teacher who teaches in a school in the heart of Dumfries and Galloway. We talked to author Yvonne Ridley about the first in the series, The Caledonians: Mr Petrie’s Apprentice.

Claire Urquhart and Marjorie Lotfi Gill from shared reading charity Open Book present the first of two Wigtown Book Festival takeovers this week, focusing on authors who feature in our programme. In this special podcast version of one of their sessions, they read and discuss an excerpt from the essay 'Three Meditations on Absence in Nature and Life' by Chitra Ramaswamy and the poem 'Meditation While Plaiting My Hair' by Alycia Pirmohamed. You can read along with each of the readings by having a look at their special Wigtown newsletter at http://bit.ly/WigtownOpenBook - and do come along to Chitra's digital event at 1530 on Thursday http://bit.ly/WigtownOpenCR or catch up with Alycia's event from Sunday 27th: http://bit.ly/WigtownOpenAP Find out more about Open Book from their website: https://openbookreading.com

In the first of two episodes dedicated to Scotland's Year of Coasts and Waters we talk to writer Vicky Allan and photographer Anna Deacon, whose book Taking the Plunge is dedicated to the joys of wild swimming. We also include readings from three of the brilliant local poets - Celia Donovan, Fiona Lindsay and Peter Roberts - who have been featured in Hugh McMillan’s daily spotlight on our website during the Festival.

We talk to Katie Paterson, the artist behind the Future Library, a public artwork that aims to collect an original work by a popular writer every year from 2014 to 2114. The works will remain unread and unpublished until 2114. One thousand trees were specially planted for the project. We also talk about The Dark Outside, a project that broadcasts hitherto unheard sounds and music in the middle of a forest. The person behind this marvellous project is Stuart McLean, who also happens to be our sound artist in residence this year. We find out more about this thrilling aural adventure.

This year, 2020, is the 250th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable Scottish author James Hogg. To mark this we’ve decided to dedicate an episode to the Ettrick Shepherd himself, author of the celebrated novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner but also a subtle and multifaceted writer whose other work occasionally gets overlooked. We talk to Valentina Bold, a Hogg expert, as well as two authors who have been influenced by James Hogg in their work — James Robertson and Graeme Macrae Burnet.

We'll be releasing a daily podcast during the 2020 Wigtown Book Festival and as this is our first day, here's the first podcast! In this very special episode we're featuring our first online event with Wigtown's very own Shaun Bythell. Usually you have to watch these events on our website wigtownbookfestival.com or on our YouTube channel, but as a special treat we present Shaun and the marvellous Lee Randall in conversation in their audio-only glory!

This week has a distinctive Wigtown theme as we feature Astrid Jaekel and Ken Ilgunas, a married couple who met at the Festival and who have both featured prominently over the past few years. Astrid Jaekel is an artist and illustrator. Her project to wallpaper the buildings of Wigtown, 'If These Walls Could Talk', which celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Book Town, was the winner of the 2019 AOI World Illustration Awards. We are celebrating her contribution to the Festival with a retrospective of her many works with us over the years. Ken Ilgunas first came to Wigtown to present his fabulous Walden on Wheels and has returned many times to discuss his passion for land rights and the freedom to roam. His latest book is This Land is Our Land. We talked to him about the essay he wrote to us about his experience in America during lockdown, "Letter from the Heartland" which you can read on our website: https://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/blog/essay-ken-ilgunas

This week’s episode features Dean Atta and Sam Baker, two authors who have recently moved to Scotland, and whose very different books are united in looking at the potentially liberating possibilities of change in our lives. Dean Atta was named as one of the most influential LGBT people in the UK by the Independent on Sunday and his debut novel The Black Flamingo was awarded the 2020 Stonewall Book Award. Told through verse, it is a bold coming of age story which follows a mixed-race gay teen as he begins to accept his identity. Sam Baker is a journalist, broadcaster, and author, as well as the former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and Red.  She shares her experiences of life post 40 in her new book The Shift — showing how women are creating their own story, taking a leaf out of the millennial handbook and reinventing things their way.

Andy Miller is one of the hosts of Backlisted, a podcast which gives new life to old books. It features a guest (usually a writer) who has chosen a book they love and which they think deserves a wider audience. Author of The Year of Reading Dangerously, Andy is a fantastic ambassador for reading more diversely and boldly and it was a delight to speak to him for this episode.

We talk to our Operations Director, Anne Barclay, and our Artistic Director, Adrian Turpin, about what to look forward to at this year's digital incarnation of the Wigtown Book Festival including our involvement in the Reading is Magic festival and a special premiere from Alexander McCall Smith. Our official launch is on Wednesday 2 September - find out more on our website https://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/

On this episode we speak to two recent recipients of the Gavin Wallace Fellowship, a prestigious award aimed at allowing established writers the opportunity to work creatively with an organisation based in Scotland. Maisie Chan, author of Stories From Around the World and The Legend of Hua Mulan, is this year’s Gavin Wallace Fellow based at the National Centre for Children's Literature at Moat Brae in Dumfries. She tells us about her plans for the fellowship and how her early experiences of reading influenced her decision to become a writer. Jenni Fagan is an award winning novelist and poet, and we spoke to her just after she’d submitted the manuscript of her upcoming novel, Luckenbooth. She tells us what to look forward to in that novel, as well as how her experience as a Gavin Wallace Fellow at Summerhall in Edinburgh influenced the book.

Winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Philip Ardagh is a prolific writer of adult and children's fiction and non-fiction and towers over us mere mortals at over 2 metres tall. He often has trouble fitting into things designed for ordinary human beings - aeroplane seats, hotel beds and Wigtown Book Festival judges’ thrones. So it’s no surprise that we couldn’t fit him into our ordinary podcast— we had to dedicate an entire episode to the Great Ardagh himself.

On this episode we feature two really important and timely books that take a look at activism and hope, and consider the effects of trying to work to change the world for the better. Kirstin Innes discusses her phenomenal novel Scabby Queen, a tantalising portrait of a woman who defies the norms, painted in a half a century’s worth of memories from those whose life she touched. Bernadette Russell talks about her upcoming book How to Be Hopeful: Your Toolkit to Rediscover Hope and Help Create a Kinder World. Filled with cutting-edge research, timeless philosophy and tales of triumph over adversity, it is a book that gives you all you need to cultivate hope in yourself, your community and in our future.

We talk to an inspiring illustrator whose YouTube videos have taught millions to draw and to two editors who feature a guest illustrator for every issue of their literary magazine. Children's author and illustrator Shoo Rayner, a firm festival favourite, talks about how he learned to tell a story through pictures, his evolution as a writer, the glorious Wigtown Sketchbook and how he developed a substantial following on YouTube, as well as some exciting new projects he has in store. Literary editors Heather Parry and Jules Danskin discuss the second issue of their magazine Extra Teeth, which has been delayed due to the current situation. They tell us why they started the magazine and what to expect when it launches in late August.

On this episode we delve into the world of horror, taking a look at the classic 70s film The Wicker Man and talking with someone whose latest short story collection is currently being considered in Hollywood. What is the appeal of horror? Why has it increased in popularity during lockdown? Why do we tell stories about ghosts? In this episode we will try to find out. Award winning novelist and short story writer Kirsty Logan tells us why Things We Say In The Dark, her latest collection, is darker and more horror inspired than her previous work. She also talks about the appeal of horror fiction in general and why The Wicker Man in particular leaves us so uneasy. We also feature an edited excerpt from our Midsummer Wigtown Wednesdays event, which was a discussion on the classic 1970s horror film The Wicker Man. Musician, journalist and Church of England Parish Priest Rev. Richard Coles and comedian, writer and broadcaster Robin Ince discuss the enduring appeal of the film and consider its many themes with our marvellous chair Lee Randall. Presented by Peggy Hughes with incidental music by Ragland.

On this episode we talk to Dan Richards about his book Outpost. He tells us about his journeys to far flung areas of the world and the adventures he got up to on the way including spending time in haunted sæluhús (houses of joy)in Iceland, attempting to get to a Mars camp in Utah and retracing Jack Kerouac’s 1956 journey to Desolation Peak. We also talk to Joyce and Ian Cochrane about the wonderful Old Bank Bookshop in Wigtown, about the story of how they came to run the shop and what plans they have coming out of lockdown. We also chat to their daughter, Helena, about astrophotography and she tells about her YouTube channel, Helena's Astrophotography. Music by Ragland.

On this episode we feature Imagine a Country: Ideas for a better future, the brainchild of crime writer Val McDermid and Jo Sharp, a geography professor at St Andrews University. Starting off as a discussion over a glass of wine at last year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, they've asked from people from all walks of life to ponder the possibilities of life, work, love, and a whole lot more, in a future Scotland. We also chat to Festival favourite Hugh McMillan. A former history teacher and accomplished poet, Hugh talks to us about some of his past, present and future projects including McMillan’s Galloway, which will be out with Luath later this year.

In this episode we come home and feature two fabulous authors who live in Wigtown. Shaun Bythell is the author of the internationally successful books Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller. We ask him about the recent new diary extracts he has written for our website, as well as getting a sneak peek of a new book due out this autumn. Renita Boyle is our Storyteller in Residence and she joins us to tell us all about Friday Funky Folk and Fable Fridays that take place every Friday and also Tuck in Tales that launches next month. We also discuss Renita's work in schools and what it was like for her to win the Wigtown Scots poetry prize.

In this episode of the Wigtown Book Festival podcast we catch up with poet Nadine Aisha Jassat and novelist and short story writer Kevin Barry. Nadine Aisha Jassat talks about her unique experience of lockdown as she was taking part in the Edinburgh International Book Festival's Outriders Africa project. She also discusses her debut collection, Let Me Tell You This, and talks about a future piece of work which she is writing as part of her Scottish Book Trust New Writer's Award. Longlisted for last year's Booker Prize, Kevin Barry first attended the Wigtown Book Festival in 2012. He chats to Peggy about that experience, as well as telling us about the genesis of Night Boat to Tangier and giving us a flavour of what to expect from his forthcoming collection of short stories That Old Country Music. Presented by Peggy Hughes. Incidental music by Ragland.

On this episode we consider different aspects of the publishing world— from the perspective of an author, an agent and a publisher. Author Michèle Roberts discusses her new book Negative Capability, a candid and refreshing honest diary of a year in which she delves into the daily world of an artist and explores the relationships with her agent and publisher following their rejection of her novel. We also talk to two prominent figures in the Scottish literary scene, Jenny Brown of Jenny Brown Associates and Francis Bickmore, Publishing Director of Canongate Books, to get their insight into the publishing world during lockdown and their thoughts about what will happen after restrictions are lifted. Incidental music by Ragland.

On this episode we speak to three very versatile guests whose careers have spanned various professions. We chat to award-winning writer and former academic Denise Mina about her recent play Mrs Puntila and Her Man Matti, what it was like to choose a career as a crime fiction writer and her upcoming novels The Less Dead and Confidence. We also talk to screenwriter and former doctor Simon Stephenson, whose novel Set My Heart To Five has been optioned by director Edgar Wright. He talks about how the novel is a love letter to the films he grew up watching - and how this debut novel has been influenced by his experience working in Hollywood. And we catch up with former lawyer and now bookseller Ruth Anderson about her experience running one of the newest bookshops in Wigtown, Well Read Books, and about her latest project, the Dark Deeds Book Club. Incidental music by Ragland.

On this episode we talk to poet and Wigtown Poetry Competition judge Roseanne Watt about what makes an interesting poetry submission. She also reads from her debut collection Moder Dy and tells us about how it marked a returning to the Shetlandic dialect of her childhood. For more info on the prize head to: https://www.wigtownpoetryprize.com We also feature birder and naturalist Stephen Rutt, whose award-winning The Seafarers is out in paperback next month. He shares his passion for seabirds and also tells us a little about an exciting new project he's concocting with Wigtown Book Festival. Music: Ragland

Join us for a supernatual-themed edition of the podcast this week with host Peggy Hughes. Karen Campbell discusses her new tale of the supernatural, "The Ghosts of Wigtown", which was written exclusively for the Wigtown Book Festival, and how it was inspired by her own research into the women who used to live here. Edward Parnell talks about Ghostland, his moving exploration of what has haunted writers and artists such as M.R. James and W.G. Sebald. In particular he tells us about visiting the locations in Galloway where cult 70s horror film The Wicker Man was filmed. And we chat with Kathleen Cronie of Mostly Ghostly and Wigtown Festival's Creative Director Adrian Turpin about an exciting collaboration exploring literary tourism in Dumfries and Galloway. Image credits: Ian Watson, Colin Tennant Music: Ragland

We talk to former Home Secretary Alan Johnson about his memoir Please Mister Postman, where he shares his experience as a postie and how the postal service has changed over the years. He also discusses his recent memoir on music, In My Life, and give us a flavour of his debut novel, Mascara. Owner of the Wigtown Post Office, Mary Wallace, tells us the story of her journey back to Wigtown after a nursing career in Australia. Award winning novelist Jan Carson is a dedicated user of the post to send new stories to readers near and far. She talks to us about how she got into writing stories on postcards and how Lockdown is having a chilling effect on her writing. She also reads a couple of her micro fictions - each of which fit nearly onto a postcard.

In this week's edition, we consider the pull of home and the lure of the open road. Sara Maitland, author of The Book of Silence, joins us on the phone from her home in rural Galloway and talks about her unique experience of lockdown, her tips for thriving on your own and her upcoming story commissioned by the Festival. Carys Davies discusses her transition from short story writer to novelist, muses on how contemporary events influence her work and talks about her latest novel, West, and her upcoming novel,The Mission House. We share an excerpt from our #WigtownWednesday event with explorer poet Robert Twigger, where he muses on the long distance walker's experience of the invisible world alongside the practical necessities of keeping yourself fed and watered. Find out more about Wigtown Book Festival and our own programme of online events at www.wigtownbookfestival.com. Produced by Colin Fraser. Incidental music by Ragland.