{"id":1150,"date":"2019-09-23T11:31:51","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T10:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/?p=1150"},"modified":"2019-09-23T11:31:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T10:31:54","slug":"viking-age-treasure-to-dark-age-monster-slayers-book-festival-will-be-an-epic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/?p=1150","title":{"rendered":"Viking Age Treasure To Dark Age Monster Slayers &#8211; Book Festival Will Be An Epic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scotland\u2019s National Book Town is gearing up for a friendly invasion of book lovers when the annual Wigtown Book Festival gets underway this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Authors and authorities of every kind will be talking about a multitude of subjects including new evidence about the Viking Age Galloway Hoard \u2013 one of the greatest discoveries of buried treasure ever made in Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There will be more from the \u201cDark Ages\u201d with events looking at great European Epics such as the Anglo Saxon Beowulf and the Norse sagas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the festival\u2019s key themes is The Lost Province \u2013 an exploration of Galloway\u2019s past as a melting pot of Norse, Gaelic, Anglo Saxon, Scots and Cumbric invaders and settlers and how their languages, art and culture helped shape one of Scotland\u2019s most remarkable regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The festival starts on Friday 27 September and runs until 6 October and will see a host of well-known names taking part including&nbsp;Kirtsy Wark, Arabella Weir, Sinead Gleeson, Kathleen Jamie, Doddie Weir, Prof. Steve Jones, Ruth Davidson MSP, Geoffrey Roberston QC, Tom Devine, Melanie Reid, supermodel Eunice Olumide and Matthew Parris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They will be joined by the likes of&nbsp;wine mogul Tony Laithwaite, author and illustrator Jackie Morris and Wigtown\u2019s own best-selling author Shaun Bythell who is publishing a new set of his bestselling diaries, called&nbsp;<em>Confessions of a Bookseller<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time the festival is giving away thousands of free tickets for under-26s in its ongoing work to promote a love of literature and creativity among young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Adrian Turpin, Artistic Director of Wigtown Book Festival, said:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u201cThe 21<sup>st<\/sup>&nbsp;Wigtown Book Festival looks like being an epic. Advance ticket sales are almost 10% higher than ever before and we are offering more than 275 events from talks, debates and readings to music, theatre, film and feasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are really looking forward to welcoming visitors of all ages and from every part of the world to Scotland\u2019s National Book Town.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis year we are have a programme packed with everything from history, archaeology, Dark Age treasure hoards and mythical monster slayers to contemporary fiction, current affairs, poetry, true-life stories and young people\u2019s literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd it\u2019s precisely the friendliness and intimacy the festival offers, plus the chance to discover the very best writers and writing, that makes Wigtown so special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With 2019 being the UN\u2019s International Year of Indigenous Languages, the festival will celebrate the power of conversation and will celebrate the country\u2019s three native languages \u2013 English, Gaelic and Scots.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The brand new Wigtown Feasts, in association with A Year of Conversation, will involve a series of simultaneous suppers in houses across the town in order to give visitors, festival guests and residents that chance to mix, chat, dine and gain new perspectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This children\u2019s programme&nbsp;<em>Big Wig<\/em>, continues to grow, and will begin with a party celebrating of the 50<sup>th<\/sup>anniversary of&nbsp;<em>The Very Hungry Caterpillar<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the first time the line-up for young people\u2019s festival, under the new name of&nbsp;<em>WigWAM<\/em>, has been integrated into the main programme. The events are open to all but free to under 26s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>The Riddle of the Runes<\/em>, The Whithorn Lecture \u2013 Dr David Parsons reveals new evidence relating to Saxon runes within the Galloway Hoard. Sponsored by the Whithorn Trust and taking place on Saturday, 5 October, 10.30am.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Before the festival started Dumfries and Galloway Council Events Champion Councillor Adam Wilson dropped by to see how preparations were going. While there he met Wigtown Festival Company board member Sandra McDowall,&nbsp;Ellie&nbsp;Marshall (8) who goes to&nbsp;Wigtown Primary School and&nbsp;Big Wig \u2013 mascot of the children\u2019s programme, which Ellie is looking forward to.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For full details of Wigtown Book Festival go to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/wigtownbookfestival.com\/\">wigtownbookfestival.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Picture by Colin Hatterley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8211; Ends &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>For further information and interview requests contact Matthew Shelley on 07786 704299 or&nbsp;<\/strong><a><strong>Matthew@ScottishFestivalsPR.Org<\/strong><\/a><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Festival themes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Epic North:<\/em>&nbsp;A short strand that takes a fresh look at Northern European epics, from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Finland and Scandinavia. Sessions include discussions of a key passage of the text. Book them all for a serious discount.&nbsp;<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This Farming Life:<\/em>&nbsp;A series of events on the life agricultural, including the Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda Owen and three of Galloway\u2019s finest farmer-writers. Plus put your wellies on and see behind the scenes on inspiring visits to three very different farms.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Lost Province:<\/em>&nbsp;The story of Galloway is written in its place names, which reveal an extraordinary variety of languages: Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, Scots, Norse and Cumbric, the Brittonic language closely related to Old Welsh. The Lost Province celebrates the region\u2019s past as a melting pot, through new writing, translation, illustration, speaker events and even an archaeological survey.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>A Year of Conversation:<\/em>&nbsp;Wigtown Book Festival is part of A Year of Conversation 2019, a Scotland-wide collaborative project about the potential for conversation to make our lives better. Events include The Wigtown Feasts, a town-wide invitation to eat together.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Bookspired:&nbsp;<\/em>A mini film festival within WBF19, supported by Screen Scotland, where cinema and books meet. Films include&nbsp;<em>1984<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>The Snow Goose&nbsp;<\/em>and&nbsp;<em>Angelou on Burns<\/em>, Elly M Taylor\u2019s remarkable documentary about Maya Angelou\u2019s fascination with Scotland\u2019s national bard.&nbsp;<em>In association with Driftwood Cinema.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Year of Indigenous Languages:<\/em>&nbsp;In the UN International Year of Indigenous Languages, we celebrate Scotland\u2019s own. Activities include two days of drop- in Gaelic events and the relaunch of Wigtown\u2019s Scots and Gaelic poetry prizes. We also ask why minority languages matter and welcome Celtic cousins from Galicia.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Some of this year\u2019s guests<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Kirsty Wark,<\/strong>\u00a0bestselling author and one of the most trusted names in British news will be talking about The House by the Loch, inspired by her own childhood memories and set in rural Galloway.<\/li><li><strong>Ruth Davidson<\/strong>\u00a0became Scottish Conservative Party leader in 2011, just six months after becoming an MSP. She discusses her book\u00a0<em>Yes She Can<\/em>\u00a0which combines the story of her own rise with her conversations with 17 mould-breaking women in fields as diverse as science, politics, the military, business and sport.\u00a0<\/li><li>Barrister\u00a0<strong>Geoffrey Robertson QC<\/strong>\u00a0will spill the beans in a talk about his memoir Rather His Own Man, recalling his battles on behalf of everyone from George Harrison and the Sex Pistols to Salman Rushdie and Julian Assange.<\/li><li><strong>Melanie Reid<\/strong>, who was paralysed from the top of her chest down after falling from a horse, talks about The World I Fell Out Of, a powerful account of how she rebuilt her life.<\/li><li><strong>Matthew Parris<\/strong>\u00a0looks ahead to his forthcoming work Fractured, which draws on his Radio 4 series Great Lives to consider whether genius comes from the wreckage of a fractured childhood \u2013 considering eminent figures from Freddie Mercury to Marie Curie.\u00a0<\/li><li>Scottish rugby legend\u00a0<strong>Doddie Weir<\/strong>\u00a0will be a particular highlight as he discusses a remarkable sporting career and his campaigning for motor neurone disease research.<\/li><li><strong>Kathleen Jamie<\/strong>, winner of the Saltire Book of the Year and the Costa Award for Poetry, talks about her new book\u00a0<em>Surfacing<\/em>\u00a0which blends memoir, cultural history and travelogue, exploring how the changing natural world alters our sense of time.\u00a0<\/li><li>The mother of all confessional shows from the bestselling author and star of\u00a0<em>The Fast Show<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Two Doors Down<\/em>,\u00a0<strong>Arabella Weir<\/strong>.\u00a0<em>Does My Mum Loom Big in This?<\/em>\u00a0is for everyone who\u2019s had a mother or been a mother, featuring hair-raising hilarious true stories from Arabella\u2019s dysfunctional childhood and her life as a single working mother.<\/li><li><strong>Steve Jones<\/strong>, one of the UK\u2019s best-known scientists, shows how life on Earth is ruled by our nearest star which nourishes and destroys all life.\u00a0<em>Here Comes the Sun<\/em>\u00a0dazzlingly links science, politics and culture. Steve is a Senior Research Fellow at University College London.\u00a0<\/li><li>Historian\u00a0<strong>Tom Devine\u00a0<\/strong>speaks on\u00a0<em>The \u2018Death\u2019 and Reinventio<\/em>n <em>of Scotland<\/em>. By the late 18th century Scotland was prospering in the Union. But some believed this came at a cost: Anglicisation and the end of an ancient identity. Sir Tom looks at this \u201ccrisis\u201d and reaches surprising conclusions.\u00a0<\/li><li><strong>Eunice Olumide\u00a0<\/strong>was signed to the catwalk when she was just 16. Since then she has worked all over the world for designers including Mulberry, Alexander McQueen and Harris Tweed, as well as collaborating with the V&amp;A. Along the way, she has championed diversity and stood up for ethical fashion. In\u00a0<em>How to Get Into Fashion<\/em>\u00a0she talks about a remarkable career.\u00a0<\/li><li>In the 1960s\u00a0<strong>Tony Laithwaite<\/strong>, a student from Bolton, took a job washing bottles in Bordeaux. So began a 50-year affair with wine. His wonderfully engaging memoir\u00a0<em>Direct\u00a0<\/em>is a love letter to France and the grape, and the wonderful characters he met on his unlikely journey to becoming Britain\u2019s most successful wine merchant.\u00a0<\/li><li>When\u00a0<strong>Jackie Morris<\/strong>\u00a0heard about the removal of words such as kingfisher, bramble, and acorn from a junior dictionary, she had to act. The result was\u00a0<em>The Lost Words<\/em>, her award-winning, beautiful collaboration with Robert Macfarlane. She talks about our relationship to the natural world under threat, a subject she has also written about in the introduction to the lost childhood classic\u00a0<em>The House Without Windows<\/em>.\u00a0<\/li><li><strong>Shaun Bythell<\/strong>\u00a0runs The Bookshop in Wigtown. It should be an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don\u2019t understand what a shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival, and his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices. He tells<\/li><li>all about his new set of bestselling diaries.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>For younger visitors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>WigWAM is the new name for our young people\u2019s festival, programmed and run by a dedicated team of volunteers aged 13-25. For the first time this year, you will find WigWAM events in our main listings. And they are open to all ages \u2013 but free for under 26s.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Big Wig will offer lots of fun and inspiring events for our youngest festival goers \u2013 starting off with a Caterpillar Party to celebrate the 50<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;anniversary of&nbsp;<em>The Very Hungry Caterpillar.<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>About EventScotland&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">EventScotland is working to make Scotland the perfect stage for events. By developing an exciting portfolio of sporting and cultural events, EventScotland is helping to raise Scotland\u2019s international profile and boost the economy by attracting more visitors. For further information about EventScotland, its funding programmes and latest event news visit&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eventscotland.org\/\">www.EventScotland.org<\/a>. Follow EventScotland on Twitter&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/eventscotnews\">@EventScotNews<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">EventScotland is a team within VisitScotland\u2019s Events Directorate, the national tourism organisation which markets Scotland as a tourism destination across the world, gives support to the tourism industry and brings sustainable tourism growth to Scotland. For more information about VisitScotland see&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.visitscotland.org\/\">www.visitscotland.org<\/a>&nbsp;or for consumer information on Scotland as a visitor destination see&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.visitscotland.com\/\">www.visitscotland.com<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wigtown Festival Company Ltd, 11 North Main Street, Wigtown, Dumfries &amp; Galloway, Scotland, UK, DG8 9HN&nbsp;\u00a9 1999 \u2013 2018. Wigtown Festival Company Ltd is a company limited by guarantee with charitable status.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scottish Charity No. SCO37984.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scotland\u2019s National Book Town is gearing up for a friendly invasion of book lovers when the annual Wigtown Book Festival gets underway this week. Authors and authorities of every kind will be talking about a multitude of subjects including new evidence about the Viking Age Galloway Hoard \u2013 one of the greatest discoveries of buried [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1153,"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions\/1153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cool-banzai.185-132-38-6.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}