Chewin’ the Fat and Balamory Stars to appear at Wigtown Book Festival

• Scotland’s National Book Town welcomes Wild Swim stars Julie Wilson Nimmo and Greg Hemphill
• Programme features Reeta Chakrabarti, Helen Lederer, Nicola Sturgeon and Del Amitri’s Justin Currie 
• Enjoy the festival sauna, take a dip in the Solway Firth or join an erotic-writing workshop

Wigtown Book Festival launches its 2025 programme today (5 August) with its largest and most varied programme ever.

Named Best Festival or Cultural Event 2024 in Scotland’s national events awards, The Thistles, the 10-day gathering takes place from Friday 26 September to Sunday 5 October and will feature 200-plus events and activities in Scotland’s National Book Town. These include author talks, wild-swimming, night walks and a sauna in a bookshop garden.

Closing this year’s festival will be much-loved comedians Julie Wilson Nimmo (Balamory) and Greg Hemphill(Chewin’ the Fat) who will discuss their new guide to wild swimming in Scotland, which accompanies their BBC TV series Jules & Greg’s Wild Swim.

Other well-known names include former first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon in conversation with Gavin Esler, Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie, stand-ups Helen Lederer and Robin Ince, broadcasters Reeta Chakrabarti and Louise Minchin, ex-chancellor of the exchequer Jeremy Hunt and performance poet and Scots language sensation Len Pennie.

Rory-Cellan Jones tells the heart-warming story of how he adopted Sophie, the Romanian rescue dog; TV antiques expert James Braxton returns with more adventures from the auction room; former newsreader and foreign reporter John Suchet explores his lifelong love affair with Beethoven; and the presenter of the BBC’s The Big Scottish Book Club, Damian Barr, tells the extraordinary story of the love affair between “the two Roberts”, Scottish artists Colquhoun and Macbryde.

As ever, the festival offers a strong focus on new Scottish writing. It also includes daily afternoon poetry slots and the return of its environment-focused “Change the Stories” strand, as well as welcoming some of the UK’s most acclaimed non-fiction writers including Anne Sebba, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Kate Summerscale, Andrew Lownie, Suzanne O’Sullivan and Horatio Clare.

The winners of the Wigtown Poetry Prizes and the Anne Brown Essay Prize for Scotland will be announced during the festival, while Professor Sir John Kay will deliver the James Mirrlees lecture, in honour of the Galloway-born Nobel Prize-winner. The festival’s offering also includes a strong young adult programme, supported by The Holywood Trust, and Big Wig, its dedicated children’s festival.

Other events that give the festival its distinctive flavour are the return of the Wigtown’s Got Talent contest, a mobile sauna in a bookshop garden, a unique evening of storytelling at Bladnoch Distillery, a mass wild-swim with author Vicky Allan, and the now traditional opening-night fireworks display and pipe band.

Novelist Lucy Ribchester offers an erotic writing workshop; author and adventurer Robert Twigger’s End of the World Survival Guide promises a timely, entertaining and practical guide to preparing for the apocalypse; while Dan Richards will lead Overnight Live, which re-imagines his book about life after dark as a night-time walk with music and readings. There will also be music from Boo Hewerdine and Yvonne Lyon, whose album Things Found in Books is inspired by random items discovered in the pages of second-hand books at Caerlaverock Castle.

Julie Wilson Nimmo said: “We’ve always loved the sound of Wigtown Book Festival and now we finally get to go. We’re really looking forward to it. It’s such a great line-up of authors, and there’s so much more going on even beyond the book events. Plus the Galloway coast is so beautiful, we’ll doubtless be off for a swim while we’re there.”

Adrian Turpin, the festival’s outgoing Creative Director, said: “Wigtown gives audiences the chance to enjoy famous names, new writers, great storytelling, big ideas and colourful characters in intimate surroundings at the heart of Scotland’s National Book Town. The festival  prides itself on being friendly, laid-back, full of surprises and intensely curious. Dive and and you never know what you will find.”

Wigtown has been Scotland’s National Book Town since 1998 and, despite a population of under 1,000, is home to 15 bookshops and book-related businesses. Wigtown Book Festival attracts an audience of more than 26,000 people annually.

• Wigtown Book Festival’s 2025 programme goes online today (5 August) with tickets on public sale on 7 August. For more about the festival, see wigtownbookfestival.com
• Jules & Greg’s Wild Swim is released on 16 October, but advance copies will be available at their event.