There were tall tales about botany, legends of fierce women, film ceilidhs, book festivals, migrant stories, and songs charting the journey of a family pot hook from one continent to another. 2022 was Scotland’s Year Of Stories, and throughout the country communities came together in force to celebrate and explore the versatile art of storytelling. 

^{HippFest 2022/Picture: Tom Duffin}

Over 350 funded and partner events took place nationwide in multiple languages including Gaelic, English, Scots and Doric. While some of the better-known regular annual festivals used the opportunity to launch extra storytelling threads – such as Wigtown Book Festival’s Into The Nicht immersive night sky tour, or Celtic Connections’ Sing Me A Story – one of the year’s biggest triumphs was the number of small events created by local communities to share new types of storytelling. Scottish and East European Roma communities compared oral tales with common origins in Tales Of A Travelling Scotland; Pink Saltire highlighted untold stories from the LGBTQ+ community, in a new podcast series; poets and patients at Scottish healthcare venues created works inspired by landscape paintings; and Inverclyde celebrated its diversifying culture by bringing together New Scots families from Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan to share their traditional tales in Arabic alongside local legends in Scots and Gaelic. 

^{David Campbell/Picture: Mairi McFadyen}

The good news is that the story doesn’t stop there. The legacy of the Year Of Stories is continuing in a 2023 line-up of the country’s favourite regular annual festivals that all have storytelling at their heart. 

Celtic Connections is back to warm up the tail end of winter with its mixture of music, dance, eclectic collaborations and innovative approaches to old traditions. The 18-day festival, which takes place in venues across Glasgow, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. You might be able to catch trailblazing Gaelic musicians such as Dàimh or Malian icon Rokia Koné, also known as the Rose of Bamako, who teams up with Irish-Californian legendary rock producer Jacknife Lee. 

The regular book festivals will, as always, be sharing stories on the page, including the Edinburgh International Book Festival in its regular mid-August slot, the Paisley Book Festival and annual spring poetry bonanza StAnza in St Andrews. The latter has a cracking line-up planned, including Dr Craig Santos, an indigenous Chamoru poet from Guam who has authored five poetry collections; living legend and reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson; and feminist poet and spoken word artist Hollie McNish. 

June sees the return of the Borders Book Festival in Harmony Gardens, Melrose. Set among acres of scented borders in full bloom it’s the perfect place to relax and sink into a story by one of your favourite authors, while the inspiring Wigtown Book Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2023 and is sure to be sprinkling some literary stardust. 

^{Borders Book Festival/Photo: Ian Rutherford} 

The Scottish International Storytelling Festival will also be back in autumn to keep the flag of traditional oral storytelling flying. Perfectly timed to beckon you to the hearthside just as the cold sets in, it will once again host events both around the country, and in its home venue, the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. Also in the capital in the autumn is the third outing for the Push The Boat Out Poetry Festival, which aims to find room not just for poetry and spoken word, but also live music, songwriting, film, gaming, visual art and concrete poetry. 

Finally, one event in particular makes the case that stories don’t have to be told through words or even sound. Scotland’s only Silent Film Festival, known as HippFest, is set to return to Scotland’s oldest cinema, The Hippodrome in Bo’ness. After a programme last year that took in portrayals of Mary Queen of Scots, gender rebellions and WWI heroine Edith Cavell on film, we can’t wait to see what’s on the bill in 2023. There will also be workshops, community events and a touring programme to get involved in.

Read our full Guide To Scotland's Festivals 2023 now.