Moffat Book Events Listings this Spring

From Moffat Book Events

28th February Writer's Workshop and book Launch

Michael Malone acclaimed crime writer wlil lead a writers workshop and talk about his new book "Beyond the rage"

Venue : Old Well Theatre, Old Well Road.Moffat 

Writers workshop 1pm till 2 pm 

Book launch 2pm

Tickets for workshop  5 pounds

27th March Karen Campbell in conversation

Karen Campbell, now resident in Galloway, author of the Anna Cameron books and "This is where I am " will talk about her new book "Rise"

Venue: Old Well Theatre, Old Well Road Moffat.

Time 1 pm. 

Tickets 5 pounds

23rd April An evening with Michael Kerins and Moffat Music Live

Storyteller and raconteur, Michael Kerins, who was a big hit at Moffat Academy last year. , presents his fund of stories and yarns accompanied by Moffat Music Live's, fabulous mix of blues, rock and folk music.

Venue: Buccleuch Arms Hotel, High Street, Moffat

Time: 8 pm

Tickets 5 pounds

Moffat Book Events is pleased to acknowledge the assistance of the Scottish Book Trust Live Lit scheme.

28th April Afternoon tea with Alexander McCall Smith

The author of the "No1 Ladies detective agency" and "44 Scotland Street" and many many more comes to Moffat to take tea and talk about his work.

Venue : Moffat House Hotel, High Street, Moffat  

Time : 2.30

Tickets: 10 pounds (includes afternoon tea)

28th May In partnership with Moffat Music Live: "Words and Music" : Liz Lochhead and friends [part of Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival]

Liz Lochhead, Scotland's Makar.  will be accompanied by local writers and poets and Moffat Music Live's usual mix of great music and great musicians

Venue : Moffat Town Hall, High Street Moffatl

Time 8 pm

Tickets 10 pounds

Bar.

Moffat Book Events and Moffat Music Live is pleased to acknowledge the support of Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival.  

Tickets will be available from Moffat Bookshop, 

5 Well Street, Moffat DG10 9DP    01683 478 088

www.moffatbookevents.com

GYRE 2015 Programme

From Elizabeth Roberts

Moffat-based charity GYRE is putting on three events in Moffat this year, all connected with Moffat's colourful history.
Our Covenanters event at the Town Hall in April will be accompanied by Craigieburn's famous cream tea (prop. Janet Wheatcroft),
Good eats and drinks will fuel our now customary celebration at Moffat Town Hall of John 'Tar' McAdam's road-building exploits in November (please note slightly later time)
This August at the Annandale hotel (thanks to Simon and Margaret Tweedie) we honour Moffat's Hugh Dowding and mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

Monday April 20th 2015 3-5pm
Venue: Moffat Town Hall
'Moffat and The Killing Time' speaker Scottish historian David S Ross
Tickets from Eventbrite and Moffat Books, Well St, Moffat.

Thursday August 27th 2015 3-5pm
Venue: Annandale Arms Hotel, Moffat
'Hugh Dowding and the Battle of Britain' - speaker Battle of Britain historian Stephen Bungay
Tickets from Eventbrite and Moffat Books, Well St, Moffat.


Thursday November 26th 2015 5-7pm
Venue: Moffat Town Hall
'Roads to and from Moffat'
2nd annual John McAdam celebration

Siobhan Miller and Clan Blues at the Buccleuch Arms

From Dave Dick

Hi, I wonder if you could publicise this top class folk gig on in Moffat this Sunday?

As youll see from the attached poster these are world class singers and players and it will be a superb event in a warm friendly atmosphere.

The event is run by Moffat Music Live, a non profit local musicians collective.

Scotland's History Festival @ Moffat

From Elizabeth Roberts

This month, Moffat will be part of Scotland's history festival 'Previously…' for the first time with a unique tea-and-talk formula at Moffat Town Hall 3-5pm as follows:

Scotland's Imperial Railway - Thurs 13th Nov: historian David Ross will investigate the men and the money behind 'The Caledonian'

‘Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches’ David Ross, author of ‘The Caledonian: Scotland’s Imperial Railway – A History’ tells the triumphs and tragedies of the men and money behind the iconic network.
Adult £7.50 (to include Cream Tea with themed cakes.'

Merlin & Moffat - Thurs 20th Nov: Nikolai Tolstoy reveals the truth about that old magician's sojourn in our hills

'Nikolai Tolstoy, author of The Quest for Merlin shows the evidence that Merlin was a Dark Ages historical figure who retired to a cave in the hills above Moffat after a traumatic battle nearby.
£7.50 (to include Cream Tea with themed cakes)'

'We're all on a journey' - Thurs 27th November: Richard Demarco will inaugurate Moffat's annual tribute to roadbuilder John 'Tar' McAdam

'Richard Demarco CBE describes in words and pictures an imagined journey of Russian national poet Mikhail Lermontov, b. 1814, through the land of his Scottish Learmonth forefathers. John McAdam of ‘macadamised’ and ‘tarmac’ fame is buried in Moffat churchyard.
£7.50 (to include Cream Tea with themed cakes)' 

Tickets £7.50 from Eventbrite here or Present Time 2/3 High St Moffat, DG10 9ET tel 01683 222777

Previously… has extended its coverage this year, with events taking place in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, St Andrews, Dunfermline and Moffat, offering history goings-on  which will appeal to families, students, history buffs, beer drinkers, foodies and anyone with an interest in Scotland’s past and what it can mean for our present and indeed future.

Why Moffat? And the invention of Environment

From Alan Thomson, Annandale and Eskdale Arts Convenor

Why Moffat? This question has become a recurring refrain as the stature and scope of the partnership between Moffat Book Events and the All Russia State Library for Foreign Literature has developed over three years.

Initially the answer was straightforward. Russia: Lessons and Legacy – The Alexander Men Conference 2012 was developed from an idea discussed by two old friends, Dr Ekaterina Genieva, Director General of the Library and Moffat resident Elizabeth Roberts.
During the planning and delivery of TRANSlation TRANSformed – contemporary aspects of translation between Russian and English, a slightly pejorative tone could be detected in the question, as if to imply that an international academic conference could not succeed in a small Scottish town. This time Moffat itself provided the answers in the manner in which it both welcomed and delighted the delegates. Moffat has been serving the needs of visitors for more than 200 years and knows its business very well, shop assistants and hospitality sector staff are friendly and helpful, while local people were welcoming and keen to engage with our overseas delegates. So much so that the library commissioned two young artists to study the town in some detail earlier this year. The result of these residencies, an exhibition entitled ‘An Anatomy of a Small Scottish Town’ opens in Moscow next week. I am not sure if our Russian friends understand the term ‘Place Making’ but they certainly appreciate the way in which the community of Moffat interacts with them, in and around the town’s public spaces. www.artofgeography.com describes ‘Sense of Place’ as the ‘combination of characteristics that makes a place special and unique’ and ‘involves the human experience in a landscape, local knowledge and folklore’.

These last three points were covered at Moffat Book Events most recent conference; Lermontov 200. They were discussed by Claire Lamont, Emeritus Professor of English Romantic Literature at Newcastle University and a specialist in Scottish literature of the 18th and early 19th century and Dr Sigrid Riewerts, Reader at the Gutenberg University, Mainz and Scottish Studies Fellow at Edinburgh University, where with German and Scottish colleagues she is editing a new version of Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Their topic ‘Landscape, Myth and Romanticism’ was designed to highlight how the work of our own Scott and Hogg was part of the pan-continental movement that inspired Lermontov. This was achieved.
Landschap was a apparently a Dutch word for a tract of land and what happened on it and was adopted by Dutch artists in the 16th century as a label for their work, when they began to develop the genre of painting countryside scenes.
A character called Barr, trading out of Berwickshire, brought the term to this country in 1598, but it was 34 years after people were introduced to the concept of appreciating ‘landscape’ painted on canvas that the usage expanded to describe what people could see around them.

Landscape art as popularised by the Dutch

Sterling’s analysis of his brilliant Sartor Resartus, in which he mocks Carlyle for making up words: "... and first as to the language. A good deal of this is positively barbarous. 'Environment', ' vestural', 'stertorous', 'visualized', 'complected', and others to be found I think in the first twenty pages,...are words, so far as I know, without any authority."
Environmentalists might be amused to discover that Carlyle did indeed make up the ’barbarous’ word Environment as he could find no English translation of the German Umgebung.
Yet just 175 years ago, hardly anybody spoke about "the environment," not even romantic nature poets. "Environment" was just a slightly high-flown word that meant "surroundings." When in 1827 Thomas Carlyle wrote (in an essay on Goethe) "in such an environment of circumstances," an editor should have trimmed it back as a redundancy.

Introducing ... the Moffat Gyre

From Elizabeth Roberts

Welcome to Moffat's new creative partnership, Gyre. 

Our website went live this morning with news of our forthcoming events – more details here

GYRE is a creative partnership formed to enhance life in and for Moffat, the region and internationally. The partners, all resident in Moffat, have strong links with and expertise in Russia, China, the USA and other countries around the world.

They believe that Scotland has a very strong role to play in cultural relations worldwide and that Moffat is ideally situated to host events over a range of professional interests.

Moffat's new creative partnership Gyre's first venture is to enable Moffat to feature for the first time as part of Scotland’s history festival ‘Previously…’ , with three Thursday afternoon events in November covering the town’s links with roads and a Russian poet, the Caledonian railway and that mystical character Merlin from the Dark Ages.

On Thursday November 13 the series starts off with David Ross,  author of The Caledonian: Scotland’s Imperial Railway – A History, who tells of the triumph and tragedies of the men 
and money behind the iconic network.

The following week, on Thursday November 20 Moffat’s connections with Merlin are explored by Count Nikolai Tolstoy, author of The Quest for Merlin, who shows the evidence that the legendary character was a Dark Ages historical figure who retired to a cave in the hills above the town after a traumatic battle nearby.

Professor Richard Demarco CBE delivers the inaugural John ‘Tar’ McAdam talk on ‘Roads’ with an imagined journey of Russian national poet Mikhail Lermontov through the land of his Scottish Learmonth forefathers on Thursday November 27.  The lecture commemorates John McAdam, of tarmac fame, who is buried in Old Moffat churchyard.

A Harvest of Festivals

From Alan Thomson, Area Arts Convenor for Annandale and Eskdale

Just as there is a sudden flowering of events and festivals across our region each May, this time of year also brings a burgeoning crop of activity. They make the most of the last vestiges of decent summer weather and the longer evenings.

This rich harvest kicked off with the inaugural Electric Fields, when Annan favourites, More from Jim, Sheepwagon and Cammy Black opened the lid on a feast of terrific music. Great programming and the perfect mix of the best local bands, plus Glasgow’s indy finest, will surely ensure a successful future for this ambitious event.

Another first the following weekend saw an invasion of Carlisle, as D&G writers and book enthusiasts swarmed all over Border Lines. The city’s long overdue first book festival was aimed unashamedly at the local market and high profile Cumbrian writers and broadcasters spoke to large and enthusiastic audiences.

A final first was the Huge Festival, a MacDiarmid tribute in Langholm last weekend. The wisdom of staging this celebration of a man, who had flirted with fascism before converting, via nationalism, to communism, just days before the referendum was debated long and hard in the licensed premises of the Muckle Toon.
The organisers David Calladine and Ruth Cockburn, both self-confessed incomers to the town, were vindicated though when a large turn out of volunteers and participants enjoyed a full day of activities. A four hour poetry pilgrimage followed the poet’s journey from the cradle to the grave with site specific readings at 20 locations. The diehards who completed this marathon were fortified by nips of MacDiarmid’s favourite Glenmorangie - the event sponsors. 

Looking ahead, but only as far as this evening (19th Sept), Alex McQuiston’s Absolute Classics season kicks off in Annan, with a return visit of the amazing Soraya Mafi. Although diminutive in stature Soraya has the most powerful soprano voice, which coupled with her flirtatious personality and acting prowess always delights audiences.

A different line up of crowd pleasers will take to the stage at Lockerbie Jazz Festival the following weekend. Headliners Maggie Bell, the BBC Big Band and New Orleans clarinet star. Evan Christopher will be joined by a range of talented musicians across different jazz and blues genres to provide a full weekend of good music.

A Sunday afternoon programme in Moffat is on offer this year, and the usual Saturday afternoon Take 5 will deliver an incredible 15 hours of music across two venues and three stages. A feature of the 2014 Festival will be the input from local community and youth groups who have been practicing hard with professional tutors. Then, the next weekend again, we will have an array of international authors, poets and academics in Moffat for the Lermontov 200 Conference, celebrating the great poet’s bicentenary and his Scottish heritage.

How can so much be happening in a small area like Annandale and Eskdale? And if you think, after this surfeit, that things will then be a bit quiet in the east, check out the Buccleuch Centre programme, one of their best yet. Lunasa, Eddi Reader, Clare Teal, Martin Taylor, Archie Fisher, Absolute Classics and Scottish Opera are all appearing in October!

Moffat's International Ambitions...

From Elizabeth Roberts at Moffat Books

Dear Commonty

In her encyclical, Kathleen O'Neill mentions 'Moffat's international ambitions'. In the interests of history, may I explain how these came about? A remarkable woman came to Moffat as my personal guest four years ago. Her name is Dr Ekaterina Yurievna Genieva, Director of the State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow, known as VGBIL for short. 

Katya (O.B.E.and was elected the first ever female member of the Athenaeum Club) and I have known each other for thirty years, operating in the realm of 'soft diplomacy', establishing official and unofficial contacts between Russia and Great Britain, with demonstrably benign results for both sides. On her first visit to Moffat within days Katya became something of a local celebrity, greeted warmly in the street by all who had met her. 

During that first visit she and I had the idea of holding an international conference on a subject dear to both our hearts, a man who was in the vanguard of outward-looking reform, murdered in 1990 by persons unknown but easily guessed at when he was at the height of his powers, poised to break onto the international stage: the Russian Orthodox priest Fr Alexander Men. With private sponsorship, the conference was held successfully in 2012 under the title 'Russia: Lessons and Legacy'. We immediately began to plan a follow-up, on translation, which took place last autumn under the title 'TRANSlation TRANSformed' with double the number of Russian participants. 

It was Katya's idea to celebrate this year in Moffat the bicentenary of the birth of one of Russia's greatest poets and artists: Mikhail Lermontov (Lermontov was  Scottish by descent from a Learmonth who served with the Russian army in the 17th century). Under Katya's auspices, a book of new translations by Scottish poets of his poems has been published by Carcanet 'After Lermontov' to be launched at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this August. 

It is not often that the transformation of international relations between two countries (and in her case, many more) can be attributed to one person, but I have no hesitation to attribute this to Katya whose influence extends worldwide via her library connections and personal friendships with international leaders and chambermaids alike. She has recently been undergoing treatment for cancer, but is well enough to be travelling again and all in Moffat look forward to seeing her here again in October.

Moffat Books Poetry Trail

MOFFAT BOOK EVENTS GARDEN TRAIL POETRY COMPETITION

Theme: Gardens. 

12 Gardens will be open on 22nd June in an around Moffat, displaying  poems entered for the competition. Submissions must be printed in black on white, in no less than 14 point and on no more than 1 side of A4 so that it is clearly readable  by people passing by. Entries must be anonymous. 

Please put your name and contact details  on a separate sheet of paper to the poem, sellotape a £1 coin to this, and seal both in an envelope. Please do not fold your poem as it will be laminated for display.

Billboard Poetry by Robert Montgomery

Entry fee £1       PRIZE: Book Token £25 for spending in Moffat Books

Judging by MBE panel and popular vote

ALL ENTRIES IN  BY 5.00pm FRIDAY 6th JUNE

To the Moffat Book shop in person or

By post to: the Moffat Book Shop 5 Well Street, Moffat DG10 9DP  moffatbooks@gmail.com 

or to  Carolyn Yates, Literature Development, Dumfries and Galloway, Wigtown Festival Company, County Buildings, Wigtown, DG8 9JH For further information contact E Mail: carolyn@literaturedevelopment.org 

Moffat - Looking into the Future (2014)

from Moffat Book Events

Moffat Book Events organising committee is pleased some of the highlights our 2014 programme - below. We will be at Moffat Town Hall this  Wed Nov 27 5-6pm - and delighted to share more detail with people there.

Moffat Book Events

•  The third in our series of international conferences in partnership with the State Library for Foreign Literature (VGBIL) , Moscow www.libfl.ru will be held in Moffat 3-5 Oct 2014 to celebrate the bicentenary of Mikhail Lermontov en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lermontov?, Russian national Romantic poet descended from the Scottish Learmonth family. The conference will include 
• panel discussions 
• a concert of settings of Lermontov songs to music by Tchaikovsky, Grechanin, Glazunov, Rubinstein, Rimsky-Korsakov etc
•  a reunion of Learmonts for Home Coming Scotland  
• appearances by the six Scottish poets commissioned to make new translations of Lermontov in association with The Scottish Poetry Library to be published by Carcanet March 2014
• Films 'Une Coeur en Hiver' and 'Ashik Kerib' based on Lermontov short stories
• A reenactment of the burning of an effigy of Tsar Nicholas I in the High St by townspeople on the outbreak of the Crimean war Oct 1853

• 'Moffat in Moscow '  an exhibition of photographs by Maria Buylova of the Gaidar Foundation and interviews with Moffatonians opening in Moscow  22 Oct 2014
•  MBE will continue to enable a Russian taster course at Moffat Academy
• MBE will continue to host 'Meet the Author' events, including in association with  local groups to further community aims, such as offering a talk on the history of the Caledonian Railway by David Ross to Reopen Beattock group

The Moffat Gallery

• An exhibition of Chinese scrolls in the Ming dynasty style by Chinese artist Yao Zhenjuan (pic attached) opens next week at The Moffat Gallery http://www.themoffatgallery.co.uk
• The Moffat Gallery will continue to host 'Meet the Artist' sessions throughout the year
• The Moffat Gallery is holding a competition for students at Moffat Academy to make a poster welcoming visitors to the gallery

Meet the Artist in Moffat - Yao Zhenjuan

As part of the Day of the Region (which takes place on the 4th and 5th of October across D&G - more details here), http://www.themoffatgallery.co.uk/future.htm Moffat Gallery is holding a Meet the Artist day, with Yao Zhenjuan, who specialises in Chinese scrolls in the Ming style, will give a talk alongside an exhibition of work. This will be held in the gallery, this Saturday the 5th, from 2 - 4pm. 

Also on at Moffat Gallery this weekend are an exhibition of works on paper by Richard demarco, landscape photographs by Simon Tweedie, street performance and storytelling for children with Angus Sinclair. For times check the website