2010 Festival dates, 17 - 20 June
Oh dear, it's all over for another year. The sense of anticlimax is much greater than in previous years for one simple reason. 2009 was the best, the most fun festival we have had to date. The weather was OK, the writers fantastic, the crowds enormous and the problems small. If the success of a festival can be judged by the width of the director’s smile, which stretched from here to Canada, then it was a huge success. We began with the wonderfully articulate and fluent Joan Bakewell, on to Michael Palin in sparkling form, Gervase Phinn and Jackie Kay delighting their audiences and ended with the beguiling charm of Bill Paterson and the musical wizardry of Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain. The wrap party went on into the wee small hours when an exhausted festival staff finally dropped and went to bed. A fabulous four days. Our sole problem is – how do we follow that? Having made a big rod for our own backs, we have to come up with an even better programme for 2010. What a thought!
A big thanks for everyone involved, to Paula Ogilvie for tremendous hard work and attention to telling detail, to Orna Mulrooney for running the festival as it happened, great job, and to Francis Hamilton for being calm and reassuring throughout. The temporary staff were excellent and the National Trust for Scotland very tolerant. It was a good one, well done all!
Alistair Moffat
Festival Director
Latest News from Borders Book Festival
Worth £25,000 to the winner, the Walter Scott Prize is open to historical novels first published in the United Kingdom in 2009. It will be awarded at the 2010 Borders Book Festival between 17th and 20th June.
Read more about the Walter Scott Prize »
Read the announcement in The Scotsman » (link opens in a new browser window)
The 2010 festival programme will be launched in early April. To whet your appetite, you can see Michael Palin, Chris Bonington, Vince Cable, Joan Bakewell, Ian Rankin, Bill Paterson and many others authors in interviews after their events in 2009.