Wandering around Wigtown last weekend, I invented a great new game. I take it everyone has seen the Midsomer Murders episode Sins Of Commission, where a great many authors and literati get bumped off during the Midsomer Literary Festival. Well, among the crowd in Galloway, I came up with "Victim or Killer?" Given we had politicians, including Sir David Steel and Jack McConnell (who nodded vigorously at another panellist's denunciation of the Iraq War: rather more vigorously than when he was First Minister); historians specialising in 18th-century sex gurus and 21st-century race relations; a Zimbabwean journalist with an idiosyncratic take on Britain's "love-hate with Mugabe"; plenty crime writers (who all act suspiciously); and the man who tried to stop Wigtown becoming a Book Town, it seemed ripe for a bludgeoning or poisoning. I stopped playing sharpish when I was reminded that there were two authors whom I'd given unfavourable reviews to, and that if anyone was likely to be dispatched, it was myself.

Writing from the art

My highlight of the festival was Claire Kilroy from Dublin, author of Tenderwire and All Summer. She read exceptionally, sprinkling in unforgettable aphorisms ("You have to have a mind of winter to see the snow") – but most of all, I was impressed with her total lack of the kind of self-justification that afflicts many young Scottish writers, and her unerring commitment to aesthetics. "My area of interest is art" she said – thank goodness for that.

Short and bittersweet

Congratulations to Andy Drummond, who won the Short Short Story competition. Here's his winning entry, in only 100 words, which impressed the judges because it deals with the ambiguity of terse communication: "Wee Eck texts Big Horace: 'Bank job. Friday 9am. Bring shooter.' Police watching Wee Eck. Message intercepted. Big Horace thinks: a job at last. Arrives at bank on time. Police waiting. Horace opens sports bag, police pounce, Horace thrown to floor, 'Michty me!' Wee Eck saunters in, 'Crivvens!', handbrake turn,nowhere to run, Taser. In bag, just Big Horace's prized digital camera. In Wee Eck's jacket,
contract from head office – 'Photo-shoot – Theme: Local Bank Working for Community'. 'Justifiable suspicion,' say Police. Bank statement:
'Normal background checks failed,contract now cancelled.' Big Horace
back to the margins of society."

Jamie's a natural

Wigtown boasted some fine poets, including Kathleen Jamie and Kei Miller. Jamie read several new works, including her own take on Hugh MacDiarmid's 'On A Raised Beach'. Never one to shun challenges, I asked her how she coped as a "nature poet" given the weight of tradition. "I ignore it," she grinned. Miller had the audience laughing while reading from his novel; and then dumb-struck with his haunting, empathetic poetry. It's been a great week for Scottish poetry, with Mick Imlah winning the Forward Prize for Best Collection and Don Paterson the Best Individual Poem.