Treats in store from The Bakehouse

From Chrys Salt


Warm yourself up for Big Lit with the rare opportunity to hear Hungarian poet and translator George Szirtes - one of the UK’s most respected poets. You’d have to travel a long way to see George, but he’s at The Bakehouse on March 28th. Don’t miss him. He’ll be joined by one of our best local poets and translators, Donald Adamson reading from A Landscape Blossoms Within Me his stunning ( and sexy) translations of Finnish Nobel Nominee Eeva Kilpi. For more details see the Bakehouse website here  (Maybe this will inspire you to come to Booker Prize nominee, Michèle Roberts’ BIG LIT workshop on Friday April 17th The Pleasures of the Text.....!?) Followed by an open mike session. I’m sure George would love to hear what the region has to offer. Come and read! The evening will not disappoint! 

TICKETS: Tel: 01557 814175 or email: chrys@chryssalt.com

Some Strong Harsh Magic - rescheduled

From Katy Ewing

27th February at 19:00

The Yellow Door, 16-22 Queen Street, Dumfries, DG1 2JF 

Re-scheduled event!
Our launch on the 29th January had to be cancelled because of bad weather. We're trying again on the 27th February - please join us!

Scottish artist Sheila Mullen has in recent years often painted inspired by songs and poems, myths and stories. 

Her daughter, Katy Ewing, is a writer of prose and poetry. 

Their newly published pamphlet, Some Strong Harsh Magic, contains a sample of their recent collaboration: Sheila’s painterly responses to Katy’s poetry and vice versa.

At this, the Dumfries launch, Katy will read from the book, and Sheila will display and talk about her paintings. 

Please come along and join us! Katy and Sheila will be signing copies of the book, which will be on sale in the gallery.


Seating and space is limited, due to the size of the gallery. This is a free event. There will be a bowl for Donations to cover the cost of refreshments, and to support The Yellow Door Group. (Many thanks!)

Surprise guest for Lee’s Burns Supper

From Kerry Willacy

Barman Lee McQueen was amazed when a special guest accepted his invitation to appear at a Burns-themed fundraiser. The Globe worker, a popular accordionist, planned a modest evening to raise funds for the SNP locally. He was amazed when former First Minister Alex Salmond accepted his invitation to speak at the event on 26th February. As a result, the fundraiser has “grown arms and legs” with an array of local talent supporting the event which will be held in the Cairndale Hotel.

Robyn Stapleton, a BBC Radio Young Traditional Musician of the Year, will sing and Ian McIntyre, past president of the Burns Howff club, will act as Master of Ceremonies. There will also be an auction featuring memorabilia signed by Mr Salmond, a unique designer hat by Milliner Tracey Little and a handmade Burns quilt by Ann Hill.

Joan McAlpine MSP, who helping to organise the evening, said: “This is a great coup for Lee who has worked incredibly hard to make the evening a success. Lee helped to organise the entertainment when Alex Salmond visited Dumfries just before the referendum. Mr Salmond was completely overwhelmed by the scenes of welcome at the Devorgilla Bridge and promised to return to the town to thank all the activists.”

Ms McAlpine added: “Tickets are selling fast and we are confident of raising a substantial amount to support the campaigns of our SNP candidates Richard Arkless in Dumfries & Galloway and Emma Harper in Dumfriesshire, Clydessdale and Tweeddale.”

Tickets can be obtained from Lee by texting 07835 405471 or by emailing dumfriesburnssupper@gmail.com

Joanna Lilley at the Bakehouse

From Chrys Salt and the Bakehouse Team

We’re thrilled  to be bringing a poet from Canada for our February event. Multi-prize winning Joanna emigrated from the UK to Canada in 2006 and comes all the way from the snowy Yukon to share her extraordinary work. I was privileged to read there a couple of years ago. Yukon writers were incredibly supportive to me. I’m hoping Scottish writers will help me reciprocate by sharing their work with Jo. Jo’s  work appeared in BIG LIT windows last year and received much excited attention. We look forward to seeing old friends and new.

The Bakehouse presents
Joanna Lilley
Author of The Fleece Era (Brick Books 2014) and a forthcoming
short story collection The Birthday Books (Hagios Press May 2015)

Saturday 28 February
7.00pm for 7.30pm

Joanna’s work is widely published in Canada and the UK, including poems in two New Writing Scotland anthologies. Her work has won many prizes including first prize in the Vancouver International Writers Festival Competition and second prize in the WH Drummond Poetry Competition. In 2005, she won the Lothian Life poetry competition here in Scotland. Her short stories have been included The Scotsman and Orange Short Story AwardSecrets collection and Openink’s A Fictional Guide to Scotland.

"The Fleece Era contains some beautiful poetry, but has a narrative ease to it that will appeal to readers who don’t usually read poetry. The writing is taut yet deep, brimming with energy and openness." Literary Press Group of Canada.

“I’m reminded of Emily Dickinson’s semi-mystical, epigrammatic lyrics, but also Elizabeth Bishop’s pointillist portraiture — the exquisite image and restrained emotion.” George Elliott Clarke, The Chronicle Herald

"In a voice that is at times happily off-kilter and nearly musical, the poems in Joanna Lilley’s The Fleece Era seek to solve the riddles of her present life in the Yukon and her past familial relationships..." Al Rempel, Arc Poetry Magazine

Tickets £6.00

To book ring 01557 814175 or email chrys@chryssalt.com

Scottish Poetry Library - By Leaves we Give

From Chrys Salt

I’m forwarding this on behalf of The Scottish Poetry Library, in the hope, that like me, you value the fine work The Library does in bringing people and poetry together  and will  make a modest contribution towards the cost of their renovations.

£5.00 is a small price to pay for the development of such a valuable cultural resource. Do hope you can help.

Friends, we need your help. Give to the SPL this Christmas!

 We need to raise £120,000 for the building renovation which will hugely extend our reach. Your gift helps us to give: to lend books; to send books, poetry postcards and poets around Scotland; to record and send poets’ voices around the world; to bring people and poems together in care homes, schools, hospitals… Every donation counts, so spread the word!

 Text LEAF70 £5 (or LEAF70 £10 !) to 70070.

 Or click www.justgiving.com/byleaveswegive  to donate online

After you have kindly donated, please send this to 3 people whom you think might help (circulate round your organisation, strong-arm your relations) with your warm recommendation! Thank you so much.

The Feral Choir presents War and Peace: Hindsight

From Alison Burns

Society of Authors light lunch in Sanquhar

From Jim Gracie

A' the Airts, Upper Nithsdale's arts centre based in Sanquhar, is hosting a light lunch for members (and non-members) of the Society of Authors based in Southwest Scotland. It takes place on Saturday October 18, and the arts centre is asking guests to turn up at about 11.30 am (ish), with the buffet lunch starting at 12.30 pm. 

The cost is £9 per person (£7 for the buffet and £2 towards the hire of the performance area within the arts centre) and the buffet will be prepared by Norma Slimmon, who owns and runs A' the Airts' organic cafe. After lunch, there is a great opportunity for writers and those with an interest in books and literature in the area to have a good chinwag, a gossip, network, meet up with old friends and make new friends. It should go on until about 3.30 pm.

This is the third such lunch, and the previous two have been enormously successful.Poets, novelists, short story writers, non-fiction writers, playwrights, journalists, screenwriters, etc - you're all welcome to attend.

If you'd like to come along, phone Jim Gracie on 01659 58640 or emailjamesgracie@btinternet.com. The arts centre is on Sanquhar's High Street, on the corner close to the Tolbooth.

Wagtonges - Cross-border Raid

From Wagtongues

WagTongues - Dumfries and Galloway's roaming bookshop - will be conducting a daring cross-border raid in September, to take part in Carlisle's Borderlines Festival on Saturday 6th September. It will be popping up for one day only at the Carlisle Library in the Lanes from 10-4 with books for sale from both Dumfries and Galloway and Cumbrian authors. Although we won't have the space to do any readings, we will be repeating our very popular exercise in battery-farmed poetry with the Poet is IN, as well as experimenting with a new venture called Ask the Author Anything.*

There's still time for anyone writing or publishing in the region to take part. All proceeds from book sales go direct to the authors - and after Carlisle we will also be popping up at Nithraid and the Wigtown Festival, so it's a chance for you to get your books in front of arts- and literature- hungry audiences all September long. 

If you have books you'd like us to sell, contact us on WagTongues@aol.com to arrange the logistics, otherwise please make sure and come along on the day. 

WagTongues will also once more be raising money for Arthritis Care Scotland

*No writers are harmed in the making of these events. 

Cally Temple Project - This Monday!

From The Bakehouse

Book Launch in Dumfries

From Hugh McMillan

Penpont poet and writer Hugh McMillan is launching 2 books on Thursday 3rd July: 'Take the Low Road', a graphic novel illustrated by Hugh Bryden and published by Roncadora Press of Dumfries, and 'The Other Creatures in the Wood', a poetry collection published by Mariscat Press of Edinburgh. The event is at 7.30pm in the Minerva Hall at Dumfries Academy. Wine will be served.

The Big Lit - Gatehouse's Literary Feast

As ever, you're spoilt for choice in May in D&G.. first up this week - Gatehouse's Big Lit festival - a long weekend of writing, music and comedy with some magical highlights thrown in.

Bird watchers are in for a very special treat as award-winning bird writer and naturalist Mark Cocker will talk about his work at The Murray Arms. With eight natural history books under his belt and a number of columns in the national newspapers, Mark has travelled to over 40 countries spanning five continents in pursuit of wildlife. 

Actress Cheryl Campbell will revisit her starring role as Vera Brittain in the BBC’s Testament of Youth. Cheryl received best actress awards from the British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) and the Broadcasting Press Guild Award. Cheryl will read from the book and the poems and letters of Brittain’s fiancé Roland Leighton, who was killed on the Front

Following the mammoth success of Bill and Caro Barlow’s Magnificent Poetry Generating Engine at Big Lit last year, there’ll be a new crazy poetry installation in The Bakehouse Studio for everyone to enjoy plus a prize for the best poem.

Bicycle powerd poetry generator - 'Write poetry, keep fit!' - The Magnificent Poetry Engine is an amazing contraption that must be seen (and tried!) to be believed….

Just outside Gatehouse is Trusty’s Hill, the site of an ancient vitrified hill fort. Following an excavation in 2012 new finds suggest the site was very high status. An exhibition telling its story and of its place in the mysterious Dark Age Kingdom of Rheged will take place at the Mill on the Fleet.

Pictish findings on Trusty’s Hill will be the focus of a talk with Pictish Scholar and writer Stuart McHardy. Edinburgh-based Stuart is a writer, storyteller and lecturer. His interest in Scotland’s past has led him to re-evaluate the role of the oral tradition in gaining a clearer picture of our history. He was Director of the Scots Language Resource Centre from 1993 to 1998 and is a founder member and past president of the Pictish Arts Society. An experienced broadcaster Stuart McHardy has long been interested in Scotland’s musical traditions, playing music professionally since his teens.

Local singer/songwriter Alan McClure will visit the Murray Arms to launch his exciting new poetry collection and a solo album, Songs and Poems. Alan regularly performs with his popular band The Razorbills and has, since 2010, been writing and performing poetry. Both lyrics and poems deal with politics, nature and human relationships and he aspires to communicate his ideas with humour and economy of language. 

Author, journalist and funny woman Viv Groskop is queen of the mid-life crisis. Pushing 40, can 100 stand-up gigs in 100 nights help her recapture her childhood dream of becoming a comedian? I Laughed, I Cried is the five-star Edinburgh show of her acclaimed memoir. 

Alan Franks talks about his new novel, The Notes of Doctor Newgate, a gripping story of a GP in crisis who finds lethal comfort in the arms of a young patient. A Guardian Book of the Week, this roller coaster of addiction and romance was described as ‘both tender and harrowing, with twists as startling as those of Ian McEwan or Julian Barnes’.

The Big Lit is part of the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival, which takes places at 30 venues across the region between 16 and 25 May.

Tickets to all events are available from The Midsteeple Box Office, Dumfries, tel: 01387 253383 and Big Lit tickets can also be bought from The Bakehouse in Gatehouse.

For more information and a brochure, visit www.dgartsfestival.org.uk

If poetry was an event at the Commonwealth Games, which one would it be?

As part of Commonwealth Poets United, Tom Pow is paired with a poet from Nigeria, Tolu Ogunlesi. On the 14 May Tolu is giving a reading at the Yellow Room in Dumfries, doors open 7.00pm for 7.30. In June Tom makes a reciprocal visit to Nigeria. Let's give Tolu a warm Dumfries welcome - there will be refreshments and an open mic session. Free, but donations welcome. Details on the poster attached.

About Tolu Ogunlesi:  He lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where he works as Features Editor for NEXT, a daily newspaper. In 2009 he was awarded the Arts and Culture prize in the annual CNN Multichoice African Journalism Awards, as well as shortlisted for the inaugural PEN/Studzinski literary prize.

If poetry was an event at the Commonwealth Games, which one would it be?

TO:  Aquatics, perhaps. Diving into the music of language, swimming in it, making it all look effortless.

TP:  Synchronised weightlifting.

D&G Poets head for France

Kirkcudbright Poet Awarded Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship

This week the Scottish Book Trust announced the four Robert Louis Stevenson Fellows for 2014, including Kirkcudbright based poet Stuart A Paterson  and Dumfries based Tom Pow to be based in Grez-sur-Loing in France.

The Fellowships, supported by Creative Scotland’s Creative Futures fund, were initiated in 1994 by Franki Fewkes, a Scottish enthusiast then living in France. As well as giving writers a chance to escape the hustle and bustle of their everyday lives to devote time to their writing, Fewkes intended it to be an opportunity for the Fellows to meet other artists and to absorb new cultural and social influences.

Stuart Paterson

Born and brought up in Ayrshire, Paterson received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 1992 and a Scottish Arts Council Writer’s Bursary in 1993, with his first collection, Saving Graces, published in 1997 and nominated for a Saltire Society ‘First Book’ award. His work has appeared in many publications and in many newspapers & magazines. He was Dumfries & Galloway Writer-in-Residence 1996-98, and won the Poetry & Small Presses Federation Poetry Slam in Birmingham in 1997. He returned to live by the sea & write in Sandyhills, Kirkcudbright in 2012.

Commenting on the Fellowship, Paterson said:

“I was completely surprised & delighted when told I'd been awarded one of this year's Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowships. It's a real privilege to be given the opportunity of visiting & living in a place so admired by & inspiring to Stevenson, who's one of those rare writers we all grew up reading & hearing about, as novelist, poet & traveller. Like my fellow countyman Burns, he's one of those Scottish figures I consider to be a constant influence on my own work & to whom most writers since definitely owe a debt. I look forward to following in his footsteps just a little bit, for as he himself said, ‘There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.’”

Tom Pow

Tom Pow was born in Edinburgh and lives in Dumfries. He teaches part-time on Lancaster University's Distance Learning Masters in Creative Writing and is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow University Dumfries. Primarily a poet, several of his collections have won awards and three have been short-listed for Scottish Book of the Year. He has also written young adult novels, picture books, radio plays and a travel book about Peru. He was the first Writer in Residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (2001-2003) and in 2013, he was Bartholomew Writer in Residence at the National Library of Scotland. A Wild Adventure, Thomas Watling Dumfries Convict Artist, will be published in June; and in August, Concerning the Atlas of Scotland and Other Poems, based on his work at the NLS (both books published by Polygon).

Tom says:

"The fellowship offers the opportunity to think through and to work on a project on narrative poetry which has been on my mind for a considerable time. I also like to think there is some indefinable benefit resting and working in the shadow of a writer I have both loved and written about."

Poetry for Politics/Politics for Poetry

From Carolyn Yates
Rab Wilson, poet, rants in true Burns tradition about corrupt power. This robust rhyme is addressed to Dave Prentis of UNISON. Rab was hung out to dry when he whistle blew on NHS with no support from his union (long story). Rab was on the short leat for the Ayrshire global humanitarian's award 2014 for his NHS campaign for transparency and accountability. Poetry is for people and politics not just for Burns night!

Hugh McMillan @BBS

Penpont poet Hugh McMillan is travelling from the Mull of Galloway to Dalry, from Dumfries to Wanlockhead, from Gretna to Moffat, in an attempt to capture the spirit of Dumfries and Galloway today. He has been commissioned by the Wigtown Book Festival to write a sequel to the funny and notorious 'Gallovidian Encyclopaedia' written by John McTaggart in 1824, a hilarious and partly slanderous work which was withdrawn from publication as a result of the furore it caused at the time.

Hugh is holding a regular series of events across the region introducing people to the work of McTaggart and revealing his own eccentric vision of the region today. He will be appearing in local libraries from the beginning of February but in the meantime you can catch him on Saturday 25th January upstairs in the Coach and Horses at 3.00pm as part of the Big Burns Supper Festival. Entry is £5.

Poetry @ The Yellow Door

Dumfries' Yellow Door is open late again this evening - join JoAnne McKay, Mary Smith & David Mark Williams for an evening of wine and poetry followed by an Open Mic session, so please bring something to read. And, it's free – with wine and nibbles!

For details on the Yellow Door, check out their Facebook page 

Young Scottish Poet Award

The Edwin Morgan Poetry prize is an award for young Scottish poets (under 30), of £20,000 for a collection of poems, published or unpublished. It's a biannual prize, and the next deadline is 3rd March 2014. Entry details, downloadable entry form and conditions of eligibility (including the broad interpretation of the term 'Scottish') on the website.

Scottish Book Week - Reminder

Just a reminder, that Scottish Book Week kicks off this week - on the commonty features include:
 Book Week in Wigtown
Skylight, Crichton Writers and Southlight 14
and the Wagtongues event
But there are many more across the region, From pointy toed pyjama thieves, book making and Iron Age fiction in the west to new anthologies, story time, writers sharing their new books for children in the east, and crime writers popping up everywhere,  Dumfries and Galloway celebrates local writing talent in an amazing programme right across the region. Go to Book Week Scotland, Scottish Book Trust website, and search Dumfries and Galloway (here, we've done it for you!) - Two whole pages of events to scroll through, many of them in a local library near you. PLUS a copy of ‘Treasures’. All FREE!

Treasures is a free book for all of Scotland to share, celebrating the nation’s most loved possessions.

Available from bookshops and libraries across the nation, Treasures collects together stories and poems from the Scottish public with pieces from some of Scotland’s best-loved personalities.

The book is the culmination of a nationwide writing project, where members of the public were asked to submit their memories of their most treasured items online. You can read over three hundred stories submitted to the project in our ‘Read Stories’ section.

Over 150,000 copies of Treasures will be given out to the public during Book Week Scotland 2013. The book will be available for the duration of the week only - keep an eye out for copies around the region!

Poetry and Song on St Andrew's Night at A' the Airts

Tickets are now available for A' the Airts St Andrew's Night - featuring poets Hugh McMillan and Stuart Paterson alongside singer-songwriter Dave Gibb, get 'em whilst they're hot - from the A' the Airts website 

WagTongues at Wigtown

On Sunday, 6th October The Writers’ Collective, a new venture that creates opportunities for the county's writers to sell their work, is launching itself with an all-star event at Wigtown during the final day of the Book Festival.

It's WagTongues, and will be at the Machars Inititaive Centre, 26, South Main Street, from 10am to 4pm. A pop-up bookshop, selling superb publications created in Dumfries and Galloway, there will also be pop-up readings from prize-winning writers Hugh McMillan, Vivien Jones, David Mark Williams and JoAnne McKay; from Sally Hinchcliffe, whose novel Out of a Clear Sky was Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, and from other local authors and some surprise guests.

If you want to talk books, hear books, see books and touch books (but no licking) then get along during the day. Wine, chat, gossip and the chance to own your own Moob Hat, created by the Paper-Sculptor-in-Residence.

The money from the books sold will go direct (no commission) to the authors themselves – and any donations from the readings will go to to Arthritis Care in Scotland. We're good guys.

If you’re a local author who’d like to be included, get in touch with the Writers' Collective sharp-ish . E-mail:  wagtongues@aol.com

More details here: http://thefankle.net/about/wagtongues-at-wigtown/