Excitement grows as Mallaig gets ready for another literary hoolie!

A ‘write’ Highland hoolie is heading for Mallaig next month.

The town’s book festival will be making itself at home under one roof at The West Highland Hotel from November 8 to November 10.

This is the village’s fourth book festival and organisers are excited about the authors joining them for a weekend literary celebration. There will also be good food and live music.

The festival will open at 5pm with a ticketed drinks’ reception to celebrate Theresa Breslin’s recent OBE for services to literature. Theresa, pictured above, will be toasted with a free dram of Harris Gin.

The Joy of Spines takes place at 5.30pm. This is an award-winning highly entertaining show as seen in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with Graeme Hawley, head of general collections at the National Library of Scotland. In a rapid-fire slideshow of hundreds of those spines, he tells both the story of one of Europe’s largest libraries and the astonishing world in which people live. Juxtaposing the hilarious with the tender and thought provoking, this is a celebration of the human condition as revealed through the shelves of the National Library.

The rest of the weekend offers a fantastic line-up of authors, including crime-writer Alex Gray; nature writer John Lister-Kaye; Sue Lawrence; Dr Gavin Francis; mountaineer, climber and editor of The Scots Magazine, Robert Wight; Wigtown bookseller Shaun Bythell; Polly Clark; Mick Kitson and Ron Butlin.

This year the festival has greatly expanded its school events, with author events in Mallaig Primary School where all the area’s primaries will be able to join in.

This year’s winner of the Bookbug Picture Book Prize, Oban author and independent publisher Alan Windram, will be there along with OBE and winner of the Scottish Book Trust’s Outstanding Achievement award Theresa Breslin, and the brilliant illustrator Kate Leiper who delighted her young audience there last year. At Mallaig High School award-winning author Mick Kitson and Theresa Breslin will also be talking to senior pupils, while Kate Leiper will be holding an art workshop. International prize-winning novelist, children’s author and former Edinburgh poet laureate, Ron Butlin will also pay a visit to the primary school.

The weekend will end with a prize giving, rewarding the winners of a creative writing competition for primary and high school pupils. High school parents are providing an afternoon tea. Donations will go to school projects.

To find out about other events during the weekend and get tickets go to www.a-write-highlandhoolie.com This year’s festival kicks off on November 8 with an exciting array of authors and an expanded schools’ programme.