First names announced for StAnza 2020

The St Andrews festival, which was recently shortlisted as a regional finalist for the Scottish Thistle Awards, will take place from March 4-8.

Among those performing at next year’s festival are Jen Hadfield, the youngest female poet to be awarded the TS Eliot prize, and award-winning American poet, editor and human rights advocate Carolyn Forché. They will be joined by poet, playwright and author Joelle Taylor and Charlotte Van Der Broeck, a Flemish poet and recent winner of the 9th Paul Snoek Prize awarded to the best Dutch-language bundle of the past three years for her collection Nachtroer.

In keeping with its reputation of being an international affair, next year’s programme will feature poets from all over the world who will travel to join many more from Scotland and the rest of the UK.

StAnza festival director, Eleanor Livingstone, said: “We’re delighted to announce the first names from the literary world already confirmed for StAnza 2020. It’s always exciting bringing together such a diverse mix of well known talent with new, up and coming poets to create a programme which is fresh and vibrant and we look forward to revealing more names over the coming months.”

StAnza traditionally focuses on two themes which interweave with each other to give each annual festival its own unique flavour. Next year’s themes are Due North and Coast Lines.