SCOTLAND’S International Poetry Festival, StAnza, has unveiled details of its 20th year celebrations in Fife.

The annual festival gets underway next week with traditional Scottish singer Sheena Wellington opening the festival in St Andrews. She famously sang Robert Burns' A Man's A Man For A' That at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and has previously performed at one of the early StAnza festivals and returns to celebrate the 20th year.

The festival lasts five days, from March 1 to March 5, and this year's first night is John Agard's "quirky re-visioning" of Christopher Columbus in Roll Over Atlantic. Agard takes on the voices of Columbus, The Atlantic Ocean, a native shaman and The Mighty Mosquito.

Writers attending StAnza include Alice Oswald, winner of the Costa Poetry Book prize and previous winner of the T.S. Eliot prize, Scotland's Makar Jackie Kay and Kathleen Jamie, winner of the Saltire Book of the Year Award among many others.

StAnza: Scotland’s International Poetry Festival is funded by Creative Scotland, EventScotland and Fife Council, with support from the University of St Andrews.

Tickets are on sale and can be purchased in person, by phone and online.

stanzapoetry.org

MY COUNTRY: A Work in Progress, a new play directed by Rufus Norris, written in "in the words of people across the UK" and interwoven by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, is the subject of a collaboration between the National Theatre in London and the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow and other arts organisations across the UK.

The play, which will run at the Citizens from March 28 to April 1, immediately following its London opening, is inspired by the recent EU Referendum. In the days following the Brexit vote, a team from the National Theatre spoke to people nationwide, aged 9 to 97, to hear their views, which have been combined with speeches from political leaders to create the new work

Cast for My Country: A Work in Progress includes Seema Bowri, Cavan Clarke, Laura Elphinstone Adam Ewan, Penny Layden, Christian Patterson and, playing the voice of Caledonia, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama alumnus Stuart McQuarrie.

citz.co.uk

THE BORDERS Book Festival in Melrose has announced that global investment managers Baillie Gifford will become title sponsor of the festival, and will also sponsor a new non-fiction strand within the festival’s programme. Baillie Gifford takes over as title sponsor from Brewin Dolphin.

The festival is now in its 14th year and takes place in Melrose every June. It also hosts one of the UK’s top book prizes, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

The 2017 Baillie Gifford Borders Book Festival will be held from June 15-18 at Harmony Garden in Melrose, with over 100 events.

bordersbookfestival.org