Some of the most popular authors and poets in the land were in Gatehouse of Fleet on June 2nd for BIG LIT day - the core literature programme of The Dumfries and Galloway Festival. Events took place in The Faed Gallery, Mill on the Fleet, and the beautiful refurbished 'garden room' in The Murray Arms.

BIG LIT day, which is only in its second year, headlined Man Booker Prize winner James Kelman talking about the painful controversy surrounding his work and reading from his latest novel Mo said she was quirky and leading academic Derrick McClure  - who has an MBE for services to Scottish Literature - speaking on Scots Poetry as a tool for political discourse.

The Bakehouse together with its corporate sponsor Weesleekit received the award at a prestigious ceremony at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.
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Chrys Salt’s new collection has a wonderful warmth and immediacy- sometimes elegiac, always imbued with humour and humanity. Grass addresses big themes about the value and purpose of poetry through everyday observations of society, politics and family, offering a perfect prelude to the central poem, Weaver of Grass which questions the meaning and purpose of the act of creation itself. Seriously good. Thoroughly individual.

‘I was beguiled and delighted by the clear, unfacile fluency of her writing voice....her work will become widely known and loved, popular, because it speaks of past forms in a language so finely tuned it appears natural’ (Review in Ambit of Chrys Salt’s first collection).  

"The Bakehouse is an exciting place to be," says Bakehouse Artistic Director, Chrys Salt, "despite all the cuts and chaos in the arts at the moment."

The ongoing success of Bakehouse readings and workshops has led to another coup for the venue as Book Trust Scotland has supported its planned Winter series of events and readings, “Telling Stories".

The Bakehouse has secured another five funded placements to bring in readers from across Scotland, and as ever The Bakehouse plans to support both national and local figures.

"This is excellent news," says John Hudson who devised the series with his colleagues. "We are building real momentum with these themed series and offering quality events on a monthly basis. It's what people deserve and need despite these somewhat austere times.