5 Questions with Carolyn Richardson

Tell us about your connection to Wigtown and the Book Festival 

As a wee girl growing up on the Scottish English border with Grandparents 

close to St John Dalry, I was always being brought over to visit them and 

the countryside of Galloway. I learned to love the area around Wigtown 

and when the festival started up, it was wonderful to see the town grow 

and transform into the vibrant place it is now. There have been too many 

highlights to winnow out one special event or reader but I do remember 

Pete McCarthy’s hilarious stories of his travels back in 2002 and being 

dazzled by BBC’s Two Thousand Acres of Sky, which is largely filmed near 

Wigtown. Too many gems to recall really!

 

Sum up your festival experience in 5 words 

Entertaining, energetic, family-friendly and fun!

 

What's your favourite festival memory? 

Book hunting around the shops... I hear that there are more than 250,000 for 

sale in Wigtown. That's more than 200 per head of population. Incredible. Can 

I have another festival memory please, because that one was more a fact! It 

would be the dancing and the music... Dancing to an Irish band late on a 

warm summer evening. Fabulous! 

 

Who would be your dream author to appear at the Festival? 

If he were still with us, it would be great to have Rabbie Burns of course, but 

in terms of living authors, Jackie Kay has to be up there. She's an incredible, 

visceral, authentic writer. 

 

Give our visitors one recommendation or top tip for Wigtown, the Festival or 

D&G. 

Only one? Oh how can I choose? Cream o’ Galloway ice cream, Logan 

Botanic Gardens, the many RSPB reserves, the mild climate, the arts & crafts 

of Spring Fling & of course the Book Festival & Big Lit, too. Sorry, I just 

couldn't stop myself! Too difficult to choose one recommendation. The region 

is a hidden gem. 

 

Carolyn is a poet as well as Chair of the Scottish Writers’ Centre