Wigtown Book Festival 2006

The annual Wigtown Book Festival begins on 22 September and will run until 1 October - a ten day celebration of the written word.

Included in the programme will be Festival Theatre, Cinema and Children's events, and this year a folk festival has been integrated into the programme over the final weekend.

Throughout the ten days, there will be readings, performances, exhibitions and debates.

Wigtown is a historic market town situated on the Galloway coast and is known as Scotland's National Book Town. It is home to a large number of bookshops and a quarter of a million books, and there will be plenty of time for browsing between events at the Festival.

This year, there is a new venue - a 350-seat marquee which will be situated in the Wigtown Gardens, providing the main festival venue as well as various trade stands.

Names appearing this year include Aline Templeton, Richard Holloway, Jackie Kay, Des Dillon, Andrew Greig, Magnus Magnusson, Louis de Bernières and Rageh Omaar. The children's festival, which promises to be better than ever this year, includes appearances from Douglas the Clown, Tom Pow, Mike Nicholson and Anne Forbes.

This year's festival also sees the launch of the Wigtown Poetry Competition 2006. The competition is held in association with the Sunday Herald, the Scottish Poetry Library, DGAA and the Wigtown Book Company, with support from the Dumfries and Galloway Leader. First prize is £2,000.

 The competition will be launched with an event on Friday 22 September with the main category judge, Jackie Kay. Go along to the Bladnoch Distillery at 3pm to hear details of how to enter, and to hear Jackie talking about what she looks for in a poem and reading a selection of her own poetry. Admission to this event is free.

On the last weekend of the festival, from 29 September until 1 October, musicians from all over Ireland, England and Scotland will entertain in two formal concerts as well as various low-key events around Wigtown.

For further information and to view the whole programme for what promises to be another highly successful Festival, please visit the Wigtown Booktown website.