[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-wigtown-book-festival-2011":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"Okay, the endless supply of lobster is not the only reason I love \u003Ca href=\"http://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/\">Wigtown Book Festival\u003C/a>. But it is one of the reasons.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/lobster1-12ca6302c8.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nLast Friday, Stuart and took the train to Carlisle, then hired a car and drove over to beautiful \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigtown\">Wigtown\u003C/a> in southwest Scotland. Even thought it's a fairly small town, it has something like 20 indie bookshops and is a wonderful, cosy sort of place even when the wind is whipping down the high street. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wigtown-d452d25722.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nWe always stay with the excellent \u003Cb>Mary\u003C/b> and \u003Cb>Angus MacIlwraith\u003C/b>, and Stuart and Angus have been friends for 25 years. Here's a picture I drew (fairly quickly) of their farmhouse.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wigtown_farm-e4975aacb5.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more Click here for lots more photos and write-up!-->\\r\nI think they were quite surprised when I came to breakfast in full pirate costume, and here we are, posing with Suzy the border terrier in their back garden. Thanks so much to writer \u003Ca href=\"http://www.geraldinemccaughrean.co.uk/\">Geraldine McCaughrean\u003C/a> for lending me her Captain Hook hat! Geraldine wrote the authorised sequel to \u003Ci>Peter Pan\u003C/i>, called \u003Ci>Peter Pan in Scarlet\u003C/i> and has been working with the \u003Ca href=\"http://peterpanmoatbrae.org/\">Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust\u003C/a>, not far from Wigtown, to create a JM Barrie centre in a lovely old house where Peter Pan took it shape. The Moat Brae Trust and Geraldine are hosting a tea party at the Wigtown festival on \u003Cb>Thursday at 4pm\u003C/b> and I'm very sorry to miss it!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/macilwraiths-05cfc0f443.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI was very excited to meet writer and illustrator \u003Ca href=\"http://fiddleandpins.blogspot.com/\">Debi Gliori\u003C/a> for the first time and, besides doing our own events, we both gave talks together twice in front of 300 schoolkids. 600 kids is a lot of people when the town's population is only about 1200! And we were both very chuffed to see writer and illustrator \u003Ca href=\"http://www.shoorayner.com/\">Shoo Rayner\u003C/a>, who does more school events than almost anyone I know, and has posted hundreds of how-to-draw videos on You Tube (or Shoo Tube, as he calls his channel). We spent a couple hours chatting up in the Writer's Retreat, a beautiful room above Wigtown's most central bookshop, and we got a bit silly. Here's the evidence... (not a video for children, really; sorry about that...)\\r\n\\r\n\u003Clj-embed id=\"1140\"/>\\r\n\\r\nHere's the actor \u003Ca href=\"http://www.celiaimrie.com/\">Celia Imrie\u003C/a> with Shoo in an \u003Ci>oh-please-take-this-or-my-wife-will-never-believe-it\u003C/i> shot.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/celia_shoo1-4d43e3840d.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nLately it's seemed that the first person I've walked into at every festival has been the tweedy besuited \u003Ca href=\"http://www.birlinn.co.uk/author/details/Stuart-Kelly-1483/\">Stuart Kelly\u003C/a>. I think he moderated something like 14 events at the Edinburgh Book Festival. So I couldn't help laughing when there he was, first person I saw, in the Writers' Retreat. Poor Stuart, I think he thinks I'm a bit nuts, swanning noisily into the room in my various pirate costumes. He inhabits the, ahem, very serious world of books for adults.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/stuart_kelly-8ca4f9c9fd.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nBut enough of that. Ahoy! Jolly pirates!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wigtown_event-39b733037c.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nLast time I was in Wigtown I met fabulous storyteller \u003Ca href=\"http://renitaboyle.com/\">Renita Boyle\u003C/a>, who can do absolutely anything with a guitar and silly voices, that woman is totally fearless. Here she is, leading the crew in a galloping rendition of \u003Ci>I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly\u003C/i>, while I'm drawing her.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/renita3-09a14cb329.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThanks for all your help with the events, Renita! You're amazing! If anyone's in need of a great storyteller to really whip up the kids, Renita's your person, and will travel. She also just had a book published this year, \u003Ca href=\"http://renitaboyle.com/shop/amazon-uk/\">\u003Ci>My Storytime Bible\u003C/i>\u003C/a>.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/renia_boyle_poster-15b2849449.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAfter a swashbuckling pirate event, the lovely \u003Ca href=\"http://www.zoesbookblog.com/\">Zoë Bestel\u003C/a> interviewed me. I sound like a real airhead but so would you if you'd just turned a tent full of kids into pirates for an hour. Go have a look \u003Ca href=\"http://www.zoesbookblog.com/2011/09/wigtown-book-festival-interviews-24911/\">here at Zoë's blog\u003C/a>, where she's also interviewed Debi, Shoo, and Maria Cairnie.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Clj-embed id=\"1141\"/>\\r\n\\r\nHere's our group at the Wigtown public library, who went off on a rollicking Comics Jam session with me.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wigtown_library2-ccc1f53dd5.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere are my two lovely assistants, \u003Cb>Pamela\u003C/b> the librarian and \u003Cb>Angus Dunn\u003C/b>, whom I met last year. Angus and I had a good chat about comics, he showed me some of his (which were very funny) and he's been publishing some of them online in \u003Ca href=\"http://comicalanimal.com/\">\u003Ci>Comical Animal\u003C/a>\u003C/i>, edited by my former DFC colleague Jim Medway. Do keep an eye on \u003Ci>Comical Animal\u003C/i> for free, bi-monthly, family friendly, top-quality comics!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/wigtown_library_1-9efadc2dae.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHee hee, since I didn't have a publicist along with me on this trip, Angus got to be my 'official minder' and helped me partake of the lobster. This one had such a big claw that it was slightly intimidating.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/angus_lobster-84e3bfacfe.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nWe had two fine days of weather, but Sunday was blowy, wet, and as Scots put it so well, rather \u003Ca href=\"http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dreich+%28Old+Scots+origin%29\">dreich\u003C/a>. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/portpatrick-53e9439a91.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nAngus and Mary took us for a fine lunch at Portpatrick and we got blown about on the beach for awhile at Cairnryan.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/sarah_stu_beach-728cc684be.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/sarah_suzy-fa0d726cd6.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nOf course, Suzy the noble border terrier lives on a farm and is used to any sort of weather nature can throw at her.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/suzy-517887a42a.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nSuzy came along with us as we went around inspecting Angus and Mary's sheds. Sheds are a big deal in Wigtown, and theirs are very fine.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/sheds-e7f2fde668.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere's Stuart (in a shed) with our fine host. Thanks so much, Angus and Mary, for putting us up! Thanks to \u003Cb>Shaun\u003C/b> and \u003Cb>Jessica\u003C/b> for all the fab Writers' Retreat hospitality, and to Renita, \u003Cb>Heather Bestel, Anne Barclay, Carolyn Yates\u003C/b>, and so many other organisers and volunteers who are making this year's festival such a great success. We were very sad to leave!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/stu_angus-32442bb781.jpg\">","2011-09-27T22:51:00.000Z","wigtown-book-festival-2011",[],"wigtown book festival 2011",1776628720744]