BOOKMARK Book Festival
Perthshire's Book Festival
BOOKMARK 2026
Commitment to community is cornerstone of BOOKMARK Festival.
The importance of community to Blairgowrie and Rattray Book Festival BOOKMARK was highlighted at the east Perthshire-based cultural event's AGM recently.
The AGM was held on Saturday, May 16th, at the St Catharine's Centre in Blairgowrie and was attended by around 30 people.
Looking back at the previous 12 months, Chair of the BOOKMARK festival, Gail Wylie, said: "BOOKMARK Book Festival continues to thrive as a major cultural enterprise.
Our goal is to bring a high standard of live literary events to rural Perthshire so that our audiences do not have to travel to hear from talented authors.
Over more than a decade now we have worked hard to build BOOKMARK reputation for being a friendly, welcoming, well organised and professional event with a varied programme that both attracts big-name writers and introduces new faces to our audiences.
Outwith the main festival event in October, we continue to offer smaller sessions throughout the year, covering a range of genres and attracting packed audiences.
We also take our commitment to our community very seriously and do this in a number of ways, including supporting local businesses such as accommodation providers and caterers, as well as other community groups such as Blairgowrie and Rattray Highland Games.
We also support the Christine Findlay prize in Blairgowrie High School, read in local care homes, and chair theatre talks".
The AGM was followed by an interesting session with Helen Percy who talked about the working life of a contracted shepherd and some of the animals and human characters she has worked with over the years, much of which she has detailed in her book Skirly Crag: The Shepherd, her dogs, the hill and the hare. The former Church of Scotland minister was in conversation with Kate Davies, the founder of Blairgowrie's independent bookshop Adventure Into Books, and spoke about how she first got into shepherding, her love of the outdoors and learning about sheep on the job. And in what was a first for BOOKMARK, Helen spoke at the event accompanied by a two-day old lamb that she was bottle-feeding. She said: "My church is outside and I feel blessed to be able to work outside, and with animals - even when there is loss you can sometimes resurrect or restore a relationship between a sheep and a lamb."
Gail added: "We would like to thank Helen and Kate for a wonderful afternoon and for providing a really interesting insight into the world of shepherding.
Everything we do at BOOKMARK is aimed at encouraging people to enjoy reading, being read to, writing and talking about books, stories, poems and literature.
We can only do this thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and funders, and the support of our members, all of which we are very grateful for.
Thanks must also go to the committee for the huge amount of hard work and effort they put in to make sure BOOKMARK continues to deliver every year."
The next BOOKMARK event is on Saturday, July 25th, and will be a meet the author event and the launch of the programme for the October festival. Sally Magnusson will be returning to BOOKMARK to discuss her novels in what promises to be a fascinating discussion with Sally McNair.
This event is likely to be very popular and priority access to tickets is available to BOOKMARK members until the end of May when tickets will go on general sale. To become a {% component type: "snippet", alias: "bookmark" %} member and secure your ticket, contact
Rhona Christie on 01250 875613
or
rhona.maclean@yahoo.co.uk
Prices are £12 for non-members
and
£10 for BOOKMARKmembers
includes afternoon tea.
The event starts at 2pm.
BOOKMARK BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLIST
For Emma by Ewan Morrison
Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
This Bright Life by Karen Campbell
The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean
The Names by Florence Knapp
All copies are available at Blairgowrie Library and in the library of Blairgowrie High School.
A huge thank you to Kate Davies for her generosity in funding those library copies.
If those titles are not enough for you ardent readers out there,
Chair, Gail Wylie. has a few titles she would like to recommend for you.
The Correspondent, Virginia Evans
Belgrave Road, Manish Chauhan
The Finest Hotel in Kabul, Lyse Doucet
This is Where the Serpent Lives, Daniyal Mueenuddin
The Pretender, Jo Harkin
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.
Our Next Event:
Saturday 25 July
BOOKMARK 2026 Launch with Sally Magnusson and Sally McNair
Location: St Catharine's Community Centre PH10 6EY
More info >>
