If you were in Stonehaven on the first weekend of September, you'd have seen the population swelled by around 200 poetry lovers and poets, sharing words, meeting old and new friends, socialising and generally squeezing every drop of poetry from the weekend. But the festival's activities began long before September, and it wasn't all about the performances, brilliant as they were. Over the summer, volunteer trustees were all over Scotland, visiting and staging take-overs at co

We are lucky to have a brilliant selection of workshops at the festival this year, facilitated by some incredibly creative poets. As ever, all the workshops are FREE to attend and you an book a place via Eventbrite. Get ready to be inspired! Links here: Scots for newbies and fearties Tickets, Thursday 3 September • 2 PM - 3:30 PM | Eventbrite Ekphrastic Writing Tickets, Friday, September 4 • 9 AM - 10:30 AM | Eventbrite This is Just to Say Tickets, Saturday, September 5

The Wee Gaitherin is coming to Aberdeen! The wonderful folk Poetry at Books and Beans have invited us on headline at their next event on Thursday 27th August, starting at 6.30pm. Get all the details here, and get along if you can! The Wee Gaitherin at Poetry at Books and Beans | Facebook

What a fabulous line-up of free workshops and poetry performances we have lined up for you! As ever, everything is free to attend and we look forward to welcoming poets and poetry lovers to Stonehaven for our signature friendly, chilled sharing of words, with some music in the mix too. It all kicks off on the afternoon of Thursday 3rd of September with a scrievin in Scots workshop with David Bleiman, with the evening seeing our first Scots Showcase hosted by Dundee's ain Tayl

Last, but never least, our own Neil Young will be joining our celebration at the Grassic GIbbon Centre on Saturday. Get your FREE tickets here: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 125 Year Celebration Tickets, Saturday, August 15 • 7 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite Neil Young is a poet, publisher, editor, journalist, and a regular reviewer for Poetry Salzburg. Neil, who hails from west Belfast (1964 batch), has lived in north-east Scotland since 2010. His poems appear in journals ranging from T

Perthshire poet and Wee Gaitherin Trustee Karen Macfarlane will be joining our celebration at the Centre on Saturday. Tickets here: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 125 Year Celebration Tickets, Saturday, August 15 • 7 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite Karen Macfarlane grew up in Dundee and wandered a bit before settling back by the Tay in the Carse of Gowrie. Her poetry is widely published in magazines and anthologies and her collections, All About the Surface and Native River and Other Retu

More wonderful local talent to come at our joint celebration on Saturday - get your FREE ticket here: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 125 Year Celebration Tickets, Saturday, August 15 • 7 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite Jonathan Ball is a semi-freelance geographical modeller who fills his spare time with music and learning Gaelic. He is a regular member of the Stonehaven Folk Club and took up Gaelic as a lockdown-hobby but now is very slowly working towards a degree by distance learning.

Our joint celebration with the Grassic Gibbon centre is on Saturday 15th August and you can get your FREE tickets here: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 125 Year Celebration Tickets, Saturday, August 15 • 7 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite We will be joined by Gloria and David Potter who will be sharing their words and music. In their own words... Gloria Potter singer, writer, wife, friend...loves countryside, seascapes, reading, dreaming, all kinds of music. David Potter singer, song writer,

We're delighted that Alistair Lawrie will be joining us to celebrate Lewis Grassic Gibbon on 15th August. Alistair grew up by the sea in Peterhead, Scotland. His poetry and short stories have been published in a variety of magazines; he coedited the Scottish Sea Anthology A Glimmer Of Cold Brine; he won the William Soutar Memorial Prize in 2016 and the McLellan Scots Poetry Prize in 2023. His poetry collection Caal Cries was published in 2023 and Opent Petals in 2026, both Dr

Berlin 87 are a new all-girl band from Stonehaven and Aberdeen. The three – and sometimes four – band members perform songs ranging from New Wave to contemporary rock covers, from Talking Heads to Franz Ferdinand . . . And they're working on their own material! The band will be joining us at our celebration event at the Grassic Gibbon Centre on 15th August. Get your free ticket here: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 125 Year Celebration Tickets, Saturday, August 15 • 7 PM - 9:30 PM |

Next up for our celebration on 15th August is Wee Gaitherin Trustee and fine poet, Lesley Benzie. (Get your FREE tickets here: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 125 Year Celebration Tickets, Saturday, August 15 • 7 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite) At the event, Lesley will be performing her poem 'Sunset Song and the Terminators' , her prize-winning poem inspired by Grassic Gibbon's best-known novel. Here's Lesley giving us flavour of her style with 'Woodstock tae Aiberdeen'. Lesley Benzie is

As well as some fabulous poets, we're delighted that our line-up for our joint celebration of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's anniversary on 15th August includes music from Lenny Helsing. Guitarist and vocalist with long-running Edinburgh-based garage beat group ‘The Thanes’ as well as drummer and vocalist with vintage punk-style rock’n’rollers, ‘The Wildebeests’, Lenny Helsing has been writing, playing and recording since the late 1970s. His inspiration is drawn from a vast cauldron

Next up on the fabulous event line-up for 15th August is Andrew Urquhart, here to tell us aboot the Wifie o Troy... get tickets for the free event here: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 125 Year Celebration Tickets, Saturday, August 15 • 7 PM - 9:30 PM | Eventbrite Andrew Urquhart - originally from Glasgow, has lived in the North East for many years. He is a former teacher and writes poems and stories in both English and Scots. His work has been published, in the award nominated pamphl

We're delighted that Northeast poet Marka Rifat will be performing at our celebration of Lewis Grassic Gibbon on 15th August. Marka's visual and written works appear in more than 70 websites and anthologies worldwide, the latest is Pushing Out The Boat’s 25th anniversary collection. Winner of the 2025 Toulmin story award (the first scifi story in its 17 year history) and other commendations, her debut chapbook is The Sitting Room Lunar Mission (Grey Hen Press). Audio publishe

Join the Wee Gaitherin and the Grassic Gibbon Centre on 15th August to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the birth of James Leslie Mitchell, better known as the novelist Lewis Grassic Gibbon, author of Sunset Song and its sequels, the unforgettable story of Chris Guthrie as she lived through the fast-changing society of the Northeast in the early twentieth century. This free event will include poetry and music, and we'll be sharing some snippets and tasters here over the nex

Wee Gaitherin supporters have again generously donated to our Crowdfunded appeal, in memory of poet Sheila Templeton. The bursary aims to recognise young, talented poets, and financially support them to participate and perform at the festival. A huge thanks to everyone who contributed. This year we are able to award one bursary, and we're delighted to announce that it will be provided to Glasgow based poet, Spencer Mason. Spencer Mason reading 'Sonnet to a Tinderbox' Here's a

Thanks to all the wonderful poets who applied to perform at The Wee Gaitherin 2026. We were overwhelmed by the amazing response, the largest we've ever had! While we had the greatest number of applicants ever, unfortunately, in common with many other charities in the current economic climate, we are also putting the festival together with the smallest amount of funding ever and are still awaiting the outcome of some funding applications. This has meant some tough decisions,

Creative writing workshops We're gearing up for the Wee Gaitherin with a series of free creative writing workshops in June. With events at Stonehaven Library, The Grassic Gibbon Centre and online, there's one for everyone and we'd love to see you there. All the details and booking are on Eventbrite: The Wee Gaitherin Poetry Festival & Fringe Events

In memory of much-admired Scottish poet Sheila Templeton, we're crowdfunding to enable two young poets to take part in the Wee Gaitherin Festival. The Wee Gaitherin is Scotland's most democratic poetry festival – offering a forum for poets from the renowned to the unknown, of all ages and backgrounds, to read, perform and share their work on an equal footing. This year – 2026 – the free festival will take place over three days from 3rd to 5th September, in the coastal town o