Headliners announced who will help festival celebrate 20 years

Some of the headliners have been announced for the 2018 StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival, which will take place in St Andrews.

Dozens of poets will be taking part in the event, along with many musicians, visual artists and film makers.

Organisers have confirmed some of the line-up for the 20th anniversary event to coincide with National Poetry Day tomorrow.

Among the headline poets due to appear is Sinead Morrissey, who last week won the prestigious Forward Prize for Poetry and is a former Belfast Poet Laureate and TS Eliot prize winner.

She will be joined by former Scots Makar Liz Lochhead and Scottish poet and jazz musician Don Paterson, who will be in conversation with Marie-Elsa Bragg, daughter of Melvyn Bragg.

Also on the programme for 2018 is Gillian Allnutt, who was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry earlier this year, Tara Bergin, winner of the Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize in 2014 and up-andcoming Scottish poet William Letford.

Eleanor Livingstone, StAnza festival director, said: “Next year’s festival is a significant milestone for StAnza which held its very first festival 20 years ago. We’re delighted to be welcoming some of the biggest names from the literary world and friends of StAnza old and new to St Andrews.

“This year we have pulled out all the stops to put together a programme which is truly fitting of such an exciting year and we look forward to revealing more names over the coming months.”

StAnza will run from March 7 to 11.