Dalbeattie Book Festival

Dalbeattie’s first ever Book Festival
10th-15th August 2026
Supported by The King’s Arms and Dalbeattie Library.

Programme

Dalbeattie is home to many talented writers, from science fiction, crime, poetry, historical novels as well as non-fiction.
The Library will be hosting storytelling and Margaret Movement Dance.
Follow the Golden Hedgehog trail in Dalbeattie woods and compose a poem with pebbles. Pre-readers make your first book, using stamps.
More details to follow on musical events.

Gordon Smart

About the author

Gordon was born in Brisbane, Australia and grew up in the South Side of Glasgow. He studied at Aberdeen University and graduated in English. He taught English in secondary schools in Glasgow, Western Australia and Clydebank before working as a development officer, then as a Quality Improvement Officer before he decided to retire and fulfil a lifelong ambition: to be a writer! Between 2017 and 2020 he published a series of three crime novels set in and around Glasgow: A Rendezvous with Death, The Deadly Shadows and Death of an Angel. His latest crime novel is Deception, published in 2024. He lives in the West End of Glasgow with his family.

Sara Shackleton at Dalbeattie Library with youngsters performing Margaret Morrison Movement with her book, “Into The Wild”.

Makita, performing during the festival, poetry and flute. Photo: Roger Lever