It was festival fever in Foggie Toddle Books as Wigtown celebrated it’s 25th year. We were excited to launch our new title under the Second Sands imprint – The House that Sugar Built by Donna Brewster and the BigWig children’s programme featured our lovely picture book by Catherine Stables – Shona the Vet: A Coast to Coast Adventure. Both events were sell outs, in fact Donna’s was one of the first in the extensive programme to sell out.
We also welcomed a host of top children’s authors into the shop to sign copies of their books. These included Steven Lenton, Louie Stowell, A F Steadman, Emily Dodd, Alan Windram,Nadine Aisha Jassat and Sarena Patel. And, of course, we completely forgot to ask Catherine to sign copies of Shona the Vet!! We had a really fun festival as Puffin Patchworks and Butterfly and Toadstool – two local crafters who make the most wonderful products – were holding a pop up in the back of the shop. So we treated ourselves to coffees from the Talking Horse mobile van and pastries from the Co-op every day! 
Poet Nadine Aisha Jassat calls in to sign books
New in the shop this autumn are products from artist William Gorman, who has illustrated two of our picture book titles in the past. He was commissioned by the owner of Wigtown’s Post Office to create an artistic bookshelf on one of the junction boxes in the town. He spent a year researching each title so that the painting reflected the history of literature in Scotland but more specifically Dumfries and Galloway. He has now created a series of products which we are featuring for sale in our online shop as he currently doesn’t have a website. The products include bookmarks, one for each of the three shelves, a postcard, a tea towel and a lovely ceramic mug. They are also available in the shop.
In publishing news our attention now turns to preparing Yum by Susi Briggs with illustrations by Charlotte Brayley for launch in March next year. We’re also hoping to publish the second adventure for Shona the Vet not long after. More on both these titles very soon along with news of a fabulous book by a new author that we’re hoping will be on the shelves by the summer. Busy times ahead! But first Hallowe’en and Christmas!