LOCH SUNART
A small arts and literature festival has been developing on the shores of Loch Sunart over the past 12 years.
The biennial Three Lochs Book and Arts Festival takes place on Saturday September 22 and organisers say this year’s event will be bigger and better than ever with events at various venues.
Highlights this year include a talk from Outlander star Scott Kyle about the making of the popular series and family story time with Ross Collins, well-loved author of There’s a Bear On My Chair and other books for preschool pupils.
BBC Folk Musician of the Year (2012) Tim Edey will host a Celtic guitar masterclass prior to his concert on the Saturday evening and there will be a pop-up bookshop courtesy of Fort William independent bookshop, The Highland Bookshop.
Adam Nicolson has recently taken over as festival patron from Alexander McCall Smith who supported the event for 10 years. Adam has links to the community and his highly-acclaimed book The Seabird’s Cry fits nicely with one of this year's themes – nature and wildlife.
With Jim Crumley, John D Burns, Polly Pullar, Dougie Cunningham and film-maker Hamza Yassin also attending, most aspects of enjoying wildlife and the great outdoors will be covered.
The festival evolved after a forward-thinking events and arts promoter wanted to make full use of a new community space in the local high school.
This, combined with an enthusiastic on-site librarian and a higher than average number of amateur writers living in the community, led to the first Three Lochs event taking place in 2005.
Since then the festival has slowly developed to become a standout day in the Sunart events calendar.
More information can be found at threelochs.co.uk.