An Inverness book festival is set to put locals firmly at the top of its agenda.
Organisers at NessBookFest are busy gearing up for their largest festival yet, set to take place from October 3-5.
With 37 public events, four films, 10 school events and an outreach programme to The Bridge, the Raigmore Hospital Children’s Ward and Highland Hospice, it is by far their most ambitious festival yet.
The team of local volunteers have worked tirelessly to bring high-calibre writers like international bestseller Lucy Foley, Book Bug Prize winner Alan Windram and Teenage Book Prize winner John Young to Inverness, but the focus is also on giving emerging voices and local writers a platform.
Black Isle novelist Vee Walker will run writing workshops inspired by family memorabilia while author and dolphin conservationist Charlie Phillips will join Highland writers Mandy Haggith, Merryn Glover, Caroline Logan and Sarah Fraser at this year’s festival. There is a local poetry showcase with local poets Kirsteen Bell, Stephen Keeler and Lynn Valentine.
Inverness is also well represented with events featuring historians Norman Newton, James Miller and Gill Bird, the crime writer Margaret Kirk, the poet Anne Macleod and Ellen MacAskill who returns to her home town to deliver a writing workshop.
Dr Ian Blyth of UHI Literature will introduce participants to rare books on the Scottish Enlightenment while local actors from Eden Court Youth Theatre will perform at the Highland Archive Centre. Gaelic is given prominence in the programme too, from school events to poetry and fiction.