Our fundraising campaign
Thank you so much to everyone who, through their donations, helped us reach our initial target of £20,000. Your generosity has been vital in supporting this year's Wigtown Book Festival. We are continuing to raise money. Each contribution ensures that we can continue to provide events for all ages and make up the considerable shortfall from box-office revenue this year.
Donate
£30,236.22

Catch up

Missed an event at the festival? Browse the most recent events below.
Find all catch up events here.

 
Professor Carol Hill
A Seafaring History of Dumfries & Galloway
Watch Now
 
Ann Lingard
The Fresh and the Salt
Watch Now
 
Tea & Words
Kate Dickie reads The Ghosts of Wigtown
Watch Now
 
Working Lunch - Tamsin Calidas
I Am an Island
Watch Now
Visit our online bookshop

Our new 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

podcast

Episode 31: Word Perfect

Susie Dent talks to Jessica Fox

16 Oct 2020
On this episode Jessica Fox speaks to etymologist and lexicographer Susie Dent ahead of the publication of her new book Word Perfect, a brilliant linguistic almanac full of unforgettable true stories tied to every day of the year.
READ
#WigtownWednesdays

#WigtownWednesdays | Leonie Charlton ~ 21 October 2020

In conversation with Jenny Niven

12 Oct 2020
Leonie Charlton talks about her debut, Marram: Memories of Sea and Spider-Silk.
READ
#WigtownWednesdays

#WigtownWednesdays | James Rebanks ~ 14 October 2020

In conversation with Patrick Laurie

12 Oct 2020
The author of The Shepherd's Life returns with a stirring history of family, loss and the land over three generations on a Lake District farm. 
READ

5 Questions

Stuart Turton

29 Sep 2020
The author of The Devil and the Dark Water answers five of our questions.
READ
eleven poets for wigtown

Solway

Alan McClure

4 Oct 2020
The eleventh, and final, in our 2020 festival series of readings by poets from Dumfries & Galloway.
READ
podcast

Festival 2020 Day 10

Wilde at Heart with Rupert Everett

3 Oct 2020
On this episode we feature actor, director and author Rupert Everett for a very special chat with Wigtown favourite Lee Randall.
READ
Children

Reading Is Magic Festival

27 September - 2 October 2020

27 Aug 2020
An all-star lineup of authors and illustrators present 6 days of free digital events for schools and families. Programme runs 27 Sep to 2 Oct.
READ
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.
READ
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.
READ
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.
READ
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.
READ
review

Wigtown Ploughman revisited

Patrick Laurie

28 May 2020
Farmer turned author Patrick Laurie takes a fresh look at Wigtown Ploughman, a classic novel of rural life.
READ
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)
Motif Luke 3
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. If you would like to support our work, we would be very grateful.

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