Writers descend on Cromarty

JAMES MILLER looks ahead with a sneak preview of the programme for the 5th Cromarty Book Festival, which takes place at the end of March this year.

PLANNING IS WELL under way for the fifth Cromarty Book Festival, and the programme is nearly complete. Since its inception in 1999, the Cromarty Festival has become an established event in the cultural calendar, and the fifth Festival, taking place this year over the weekend of 26th-28th March, promises to maintain and build on the success of its predecessors.

The organisers are planning to make use of more venues within the bounds of Cromarty. The core of the Festival will remain in the Cromarty Field Centre, the converted brewery owned by Robert Gordon University, but some events will take place elsewhere where bigger audiences can be accommodated. Full details will be available in the brochure shortly to be published.

There will be ceilidhs with music and readings and, as usual, a phalanx of writers will host a series of workshops and talks. In alphabetical order, they are:

Gerry Cambridge – poet, naturalist, nature photographer and harmonica player. Author of several volumes of poetry, and editor of the international poetry magazine The Dark Horse. Brownsbank Writing Fellow 1997-99.

George Gunn – poet, playwright, broadcaster, journalist. Author of several volumes of poetry and many plays, founder and artistic director of the Grey Coast Theatre Company.

Robert Macfarlane – mountaineer, writer and academic. Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2003 for Mountains of the Mind.

Bernard MacLaverty – short story writer and novelist. Author of Cal, The Lamb, The Anatomy School and Grace Notes, which won the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award (1997) and was short-listed for The Booker Prize.

Candia McWilliam – novelist and short story writer.  Author of A Case of Knives, A Little Stranger and Debatable Land, which won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour for the best foreign novel of the year.

Catriona Montgomery – Gaelic poet, writer for stage, radio and television. First writer-in-residence at Sabhal Mor Ostaig and Bard of the Mod in 2003.

Kenneth Steven – poet, storyteller, for adults and children. Author of several volumes of poetry.

Jason Rose of Moray Firth Radio will present a workshop on writing for radio and being a correspondent.

Jenny Brown, formerly head of literature with the Scottish Arts Council and now a literary agent, will talk about what agents expect from writers.

The brochure will be out soon but, in the meantime, anyone interested in securing more information or bookings for the Festival should contact Jim Miller (01463 713 552 or jaimag@tesco.net) to be placed on the mailing list.