First events in 2021 John O’Groats Book Festival set to go online
The first events in the third John O’Groats Book Festival will go online this weekend.
Last year’s festival had to be cancelled because of the pandemic. Organisers agreed that an online event for 2021 would be the best way to hold it safely.
At 7pm on Saturday, Freeland Barbour talks about his biography of Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne. Carolina is the writer of many of well-known Scots songs, yet her work was never publicly acknowledged during her lifetime.
Freeland, a descendant of Lady Nairne, has produced a book called the White Rose of Gask. Poet, singer and actor Gerda Stevenson will perform some of the songs during the session.
This is followed at 8pm by two Highland-based writers, Helen Sedgwick and Liz Treacher, with a discussion on the roles, issues and position of women in literature over the last 100 years. Using examples from their own writing, they explore similarities and differences.
On Sunday there are sessions with James Miller and then James Hunter.
On Wednesday, April 28, four local writers will discuss Writing from Caithness. Donna Booth, Gail Brown, Charlotte Platt and Andrea Wotherspoon each read extracts from their writing.
The festival continues over the following two weekends with a wide variety of writers discussing and reading from their works.
The festival is being run with technical and advisory support from XpoNorth.
Everything is online and free. To register and get the link, go to the Eventbrite website and search for John O’Groats Book Festival.
A full programme is available to download from the John O’Groats Development Trust website. For further information call Ian Leith 07715 493696.
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