It's not too late

Wigtown Book Festival 2020 took place online from 24 September - 4 October. If you missed it, don't worry. You can still view many of the events via our YouTube channel. They include a trio of award-winners: Booker Prize-winner Douglas Stuart; Women's Prize-winner Maggie O'Farrell; and Wainwright Award-winner Dara McAnulty. Subscribe to the channel for notifications, when we add new content.

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Events

#WigtownWednesdays

#WigtownWednesdays | Gavin Esler ~ 17 March 2021

18 Jan 2021
Journalist Gavin Esler discusses his latest book, How Britain Ends: English Nationalism and the Rebirth of Four Nations.
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#WigtownWednesdays

#WigtownWednesdays | Katherine May ~ 24 February 2021

13 Jan 2021
How do you survive the winterings of your life? Katherine May talks to us about her popular book, Wintering, and the power of rest and retreat in difficult times.
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#WigtownWednesdays

#WigtownWednesdays | Gavin Francis ~ 10 February 2021

13 Jan 2021
Join doctor and best-selling author Gavin Francis with his latest book, Intensive Care, a deeply personal account of caring for a community in crisis.
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#WigtownWednesdays

#WigtownWednesdays | Jenni Fagan ~ 27 January 2021

11 Jan 2021
Join Jenni Fagan, prize-winning author of The Panopticon, for a chat with Stuart Kelly about the release of her hugely-anticipated third novel, Luckenbooth, her gothic love letter to Edinburgh.
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Events

#WigtownEvents | Val McDermid ~ 15 December 2020

30 Nov 2020
Join the internationally bestselling Queen of Crime, Val McDermid, for a festive chat with Lee Randall about the release of her chilling short story collection, Christmas Is Murder.
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#WigtownWednesdays

#WigtownWednesdays | Michael Shaw ~ 9 December 2020

25 Nov 2020
Michael Shaw talks to Ruth Wishart about A Friendship in Letters, his new book about the correspondence between Robert Louis Stevenson and JM Barrie.
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Visit our online bookshop

Our online bookshop stocks all the titles for the 2020 Wigtown Book Festival, bestsellers and those from our recent online programme. You'll also find our exclusive Book Bond range and the chance to order any new title we don't stock to have delivered to your door within 3 working days (subject to availability). Each sale helps support the work of Wigtown Book Festival.

Browse the Bookshop
No 11 Main Street, the Wigtown Festival Bookshop

Featured content

Projects

‘Lovely Nelly’: A Ship of Hope

Vivien Jones updates us on this wonderful project with local writers

12 Jan 2021
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Mentoring

News | Mentoring awards for writers in Dumfries & Galloway

Wigtown Festival Company announces this year's mentees

12 Jan 2021
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Podcast Episode 38

Polly Pullar

10 Dec 2020
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.
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Sensory Stories and Rhymes

Ailie Finlay and Kate Leiper

17 Nov 2020
A series of sensory stories and rhymes developed by storyteller Ailie Finlay and illustrated by Kate Leiper. New stories and resources released monthly November-April.
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eleven poets for wigtown

The Sadness of Second Hand Books

Anndra Wilson

30 Sep 2020
The seventh in our 2020 festival series of readings by poets from Dumfries & Galloway.
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News

Year of Coasts and Waters

Festival 2020

2 Sep 2020
Take a look at how we're celebrating Scotland's Year of Coasts and Waters through this year's programme and an exciting new publication.
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visual arts

Exhibitions

2020 Festival

2 Sep 2020
Throughout the festival we celebrate visual arts and welcome our very first sound artist. Here's a peek at what to expect.
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essay

Captain, My Captain

Shaun Bythell

10 Jul 2020
Captain the bookshop cat has become one of the unexpected stars of Shaun Bythell's Diary of a Bookseller. Here the Wigtown-based author describes his love-hate relationship with his feline companion.
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story

The Ghosts of Wigtown

Karen Campbell

11 May 2020
Commissioned by the festival, author Karen Campbell has written a new tale of the supernatural which takes inspiration from Wigtown's women's history.
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Southlight Magazine 2020 - cover image. 1970s photograph of man with horses

Southlight

The latest edition of the Dumfries & Galloway new-writing magazine

Download Southlight (.pdf)
Galloway landscape - dry stane wall, hills and pasture
We need you

Wigtown Festival Company is commited to engaging new and existing audiences throughout the current crisis. Please consider donating to support our work

Donate

Find us in Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town

Designated Scotland's National Book Town in 1998 - by an international panel - Wigtown is home to a community of booksellers and literary events.

Wigtown: Scotland's National Book Town. Road signage on a grassy verge
Wigtown Book Town

A community regenerated through books

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A browser outside The Bookshop on Wigtown's main street
Bookshops

Wigtown is home to more than a dozen bookshops

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A panel event during Wigtown Book Festival
History of the Festival

We celebrated with our 20th Festival in 2018

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More than just a festival: what we do

Since the first Wigtown Book Festival in 1999, we have expanded to become an energetic arts organisation working through the year to deliver a programme of literature development activities in the Dumfries & Galloway region of south-west Scotland.

Read more about our projects
Interior of The Bookshop, Wigtown. Armchair by fireplace, bookshelves
The sort of festival people become possessive about.

The Guardian