Arts Live will feature the diverse and vibrant range of arts and entertainment that distinguishes Dumfries and Galloway all year round. To help to get new events and commissions off the ground, dgArts is calling now for applications to the Arts Live funding pot. Arts Live events will be featured here on www.dgarts.co.uk
Download the Arts Live Promoter Application Form:
Arts Live grant application form
If you have a great idea for an event or a piece of new performance or writing, then get in touch with dgArts’ Arts & Communities Officers. In the west of the region (The Rhinns, Wigtownshire and Stewartry) contact Winnie Cooper on [email protected] or call 07788 608248, and in the east (Nithsdale, Annandale and Eskdale) contact Louise Davies on [email protected] or call 07919 574 105. They will provide advice and support for your application.
If you have an artistic idea, commissions that specifically link to events planned by other organisations and local artists will be looked on favourably. We encourage cross-arts activities.
To discuss an idea for a literature event or new writing, please contact dgArts’ Literature Development Officer, Carolyn Yates: email [email protected] tel. 07833 477 728.
“Dumfries and Galloway Council has provided the funding for Arts Live,” said Director of dgArts Susan Garnsworthy. “We are very keen to include the highest quality events and projects that really showcase the talent we have here in Dumfries and Galloway. Recent years have demonstrated the positive impact of arts and events on the region’s economy and profile.”
Dumfries & Galloway Arts aims to get the money out to artists and performers as quickly as possible, and the deadline for applications is 9am Friday 29 October. The Arts Live programme will commence in January 2011.
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Dumfries & Galloway Arts Gracefield Arts Centre Edinburgh Road Dumfries, DG1 1JQ
Tel: 01387 253383 Fax: 01387 253303 E-mail: [email protected]
When poet Andrew Forster’s first collection, Fear of Thunder, was shortlisted for the 
Forward First Collection Prize in 2007 he was working in Dumfries and Galloway as Literature Development Officer. Andrew has since moved to Cumbria to work for the Wordsworth Trust, and he’s coming back across the border to take part in Dumfries and Galloway’s prestigious Poetry Doubles series.
Andrew will share a stage on Monday 20 September with Katy Ewing. They will perform at the Brigend Theatre, Dumfries at 7pm. Tickets are available from dgArts www.dgarts.co.uk
Andrew’s second collection, Territory, which was published earlier this year by Flambard, focuses on his time in the former mining village of Leadhills in Upper Nithsdale. His poems explore what it means to make a home in a particular place, and the relationship with the environment that this implies.
‘His descriptions of country life through the seasons offer an evocative perspective on living amidst the forces of nature, which can both inspire and oppress in equal measure.’ Poetry Book Society, Issue 225, Summer 10
Katy Ewing is in her third year of the Liberal Arts Humanities degree at Glasgow University in Dumfries. She lives with her young family in the Stewartry area of Dumfries and Galloway. Katy describes her poetry as an effort to distil moments of experience, feeling, or realisation so that they conjure a small, particular reality, and her work is, in consequence, precise, vivid and illuminating.
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Note to Editors:
• Dumfries & Galloway Arts (formerly Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association) is based in Dumfries, with an office open to the public at The Midsteeple in the High Street – the new Arts Information Hub. Dumfries & Galloway Arts create and support arts development at all levels, from grassroots to high profile national and international work and projects.
We provide an independent single point of contact for a wide range of arts and cultural information, advice, tickets, contacts and skills, which can be accessed by a variety of audiences, artists and stakeholders. www.dgarts.co.uk
Contact:
Jean Atkin
Marketing Officer
Dumfries & Galloway Arts
Gracefield Arts Centre
28 Edinburgh Road
Dumfries
DG1 1JQ
01387 253383
[email protected] PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF EMAIL ADDRESS!
This varied and exhilarating programme links international poets with regional talent, bringing you a great opportunity to hear today’s poetry at its best.
Dennis O’Driscoll is an international poet who ‘you can commend unequivocally to anyone with a heart and a mind. O’Driscoll’s crisp, unobtrusively musical precision gets to the heart of so many subjects, large and small’ Robert Potts, The Guardian.
JoAnne McKay is an up-and-coming talent from Penpont whose poetry packs a real punch. Her first poetry pamphlet, The Fat Plant, is a skilful collection whose poems are taut and laced with black humour. For Poetry Doubles McKay unveils her new poetry pamphlet, Venti, which examines the symbolic role nature has played in the history of mankind.
This year Poetry Doubles brings world-class poetry events to venues across Dumfries and Galloway, from Stranraer to Sanquhar, and Dumfries to Castle Douglas.
This varied and exhilarating programme links international poets with regional talent, bringing you a great opportunity to hear today’s poetry at its best.
Kenneth Steven is first and foremost a poet; seven of his collections have been published to date as well as a volume of selected poems. His first collection of short stories Ice and Other Stories was published in April 2010. He’s had several picture books published and a first novel for children, The Santa Maria, as well as three novels – A Highland Trilogy. His work takes its inspiration from the land. Elements of history and local tradition, the Gaelic language, Celtic Christianity – all these and more are woven through his writing.
Jean Atkin has been writing seriously since 2006, since when her poetry has been widely published and she has been a winner in several poetry competitions, most recently the Torbay Prize(2009), the Mirehouse Poetry Competition (2010) and the Ravenglass Poetry Press Competition (2010), the prize for which has been the publication of a short collection, The Treeless Region. Her poetry is absorbed with place and the marks that people leave on place. ‘Jean Atkin has a marvellous dreamy rhythm to her work and an eye for a powerful image.’ Hugh McMillan in Markings 30
Tickets are £7/£5, available from dgArts at The Midsteeple, or ring 01387 253383, or on the door.
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This varied and exhilarating programme links international poets with regional talent, bringing you a great opportunity to hear today’s poetry at its best.
Robin Cairns is that rare beast, a stand-up poet. Bringing an irreverent Glasgow humour to the usually solemn 
business of poetry he has blazed the spoken word at comedy clubs and ceilidhs, at rock festivals and reading-rooms. And yes, he will be doing his celebrated poem about being on the receiving end of corporal punishment in school, the one about the fierce and fearful teacher by the name of “Old Lochgelly”.
Rab Wilson, poet and Robert Burns Writing Fellow, recently launched his Horace’s First Buik o Satires to great 
acclaim at the Wigtown Book festival. Horace’s Satires, among the towering literary achievements of Ancient Rome, get a vibrant and bawdy new lease of life from Rab’s ‘owersettin’. Rab also sits on the parliamentary working group on Scots Language, advising on ways of strengthening and preserving Scots language in the 21st century.
Poetry Doubles presents an exceptional opportunity to enjoy poetry, being as accessible and pleasurable for readers, as it is a series of masterclasses for both aspirant and experienced writers. ]]>
Poetry Doubles presents an exceptional opportunity to enjoy poetry, being as accessible and pleasurable for readers, as it is a series of masterclasses for both aspirant and experienced writers.
To increase access to some of Britain’s best poetry, the events will this year take place in venues across the region.
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