BOOKMARK Book Festival
Perthshire's Book Festival
BOOKMARK 2025
Organisers hail another successful BOOKMARK festival
Andrew Cotter with Mabel in conversation with Sally McNair at the 2025 BOOKMARK festival in Blairgowrie.
Image courtesy of Clare McMicking / CraicN Communications
Hundreds of people enjoyed the 13th edition of the popular BOOKMARK Festival at Blairgowrie Community Campus over the weekend, with organisers saying that they are thrilled with the success of the event.
10 events took place over the two days of the Blairgowrie and Rattray Book Festival – which is run entirely by volunteers - in a line-up that featured award-winning writers, household names and exciting new talent.
This year, the programme had a strong focus on Scottish voices, featuring Scottish and Scottish-based writers and journalists.
Among those appearing at the festival were sports commentator Andrew Cotter – who was joined by one of his dogs, Mabel, much to the delight of the audience - Hugo Rifkind, Lin Anderson, Brigadier Sir Mel Jameson, Jen Stout and Billy Kay.
The festival got under way with an enthralling session with award-winning author Sean Lusk talking to journalist Susan Nicholson about bringing history to life, stories of women - particularly in the 18th century - doing incredible things yet often having to hide their stories, and the magic of writing.
Banner-maker, community textile artist, textile curator and now award-winning writer Clare Hunter returned to BOOKMARK to talk about her new book Making Matters: In Search of Creative Wonders, and the joy of crafting, while former chief executive of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Brigadier Sir Melville Jameson, treated audiences to a behind the scenes look at his years at the helm of one of Scotland’s most popular events.
Journalist, writer and radio producer Jen Stout shared a moving and passionate insight into the lives of Ukrainians and the impact that the war with Russia is having on them, before a session with columnist and novelist Hugo Rifkind talking about the influences on his book Rabbits brought Saturday to a close.
Sunday’s sessions started with one of Scotland’s great champions of the Scots language, Billy Kay, who talked about the influence of Scots abroad historically, culturally and linguistically in what was BOOKMARK’s first bi-lingual event.
In a wide-ranging discussion Flora Johnston and James Robertson talked about - amongst many other topics - the complexities of creating fiction out of history, before Lin Anderson introduced new novelist and winner of the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect award for her novel Crow Moon, Suzy Aspley.
Award-winning writer of more than 30 books about Scottish history, a former director of the Edinburgh Fringe, Director of Programmes at Scottish Television and founder of the Borders Book Festival Alistair Moffat then took the BOOKMARK audience on an exploration of history and the impact of recent changes in technology on the world.
And last but by no means least, BOOKMARK 2025 finished with an appearance by one of the Covid pandemic's breakout stars - Mabel the Labrador, with her adoring human Andrew Cotter, both of whom charmed a packed auditorium.
The winner of the 2025 BOOKMARK Book of the Year award was announced at the weekend as The Paris Peacemakers by Flora Johnston, who was presented with a specially commissioned silver bookmark designed and created by Blairgowrie-based silversmith Sarah Cave.
Chair of the BOOKMARKfestival, Gail Wylie, said she was thrilled with the festival, commenting: "What a fantastic weekend! It was a joy from start to finish and we have had so much wonderful feedback.
It was an absolute pleasure to be able to highlight Scottish voices, traditions and culture and the impact Scots have had across the centuries and across the world - from Constantinople to Kiev – in such thought-provoking, informative and entertaining sessions.
All of us at BOOKMARK strive to bring a high-quality festival to Blairgowrie; it is an event that is regularly praised for its professionalism and its strong community feel, and I think we achieved that once again this year.”
Winner of the 2025 BOOKMARK Book of the Year Award Flora Johnston, centre, with silversmith Sarah Cave, left, and chair of the BOOKMARK festival in Blairgowrie, Gail Wylie, right.
Image courtesy of Clare McMicking / CraicN Communications
Flora Johnston said: “It was a real honour to have won the BOOKMARK Book of the Year Award and to be presented with the lovely handcrafted silver bookmark. I am absolutely delighted that people have engaged with The Paris Peacemakers and that it seems to have connected with so many people. Everyone at the BOOKMARK Festival was very welcoming and I really enjoyed the conversation with James Robertson about all things historical fiction, and the questions from the audience.”
As well as the author sessions, two local writing groups, Perthshire Writers and Nethergate Writers, were at the festival talking to any budding keen authors, and Blairgowrie’s Adventure into Books ran a very busy bookshop at the campus over the weekend.
BOOKMARK is a charity and the festival is organised by a group of dedicated volunteers, with all proceeds going towards supporting future events.
Gail added: “Thank you so much to all the wonderful writers and chairs for making it another year to remember, our amazing team of volunteers who work so hard to make it all happen, Adventure into Books, our sponsors including the Gannochy Trust and local businesses The A Proctor Group, and Hodge Solicitors, the technical team from Perth Theatre and Concert Hall, Perthshire Box Office, Something Special Flowers, the Janitorial staff of the Community Campus, our outside caterers, The Wee Coffee Shop and The Dome and of course to all our audiences for being so supportive, attentive and enthusiastic.”
“We’ll be back next year on October 10th and 11th - save the dates!”
We are hoping to do a little event in November during Scottish Book Week - more information will follow!
Background:
BOOKMARK established in 2012, has developed a reputation for being a friendly, well organised Book Festival which offers a wide range of events to suit all interests.
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