I wrote my last post on a train bound for Scotland, where I was due to appear at the Wigtown Book Festival last Saturday. Little did I know the treat I had in store.

More than almost anywhere else I’ve ever been, Wigtown lives and breathes stories. There’s a good reason for that: since being designated Scotland’s National Book Town in 1998, it has undergone extraordinary regeneration. More than 20 book-related businesses (including numerous bookshops, as you can see from the photo above) operate there – no small matter for a place with a population of only around 1,000 people, and a powerful testament to what books can do.

The annual Wigtown Book Festival is a big part of this success story. And because of this, many local people throw themselves into making it work, from putting authors up and driving them to and from the station, to ushering at events. The result is that the extravaganza has a cosy, community feel, while attracting some of literature’s biggest names.

I first realised this on the drive from Dumfries station when I found myself sitting next to Caine prize-winner and three-times Orange prize-longlisted Sudanese-Scottish author Leila Aboulela, whose novel Minaret is one of the books on my list for Sudan. The journey took an hour (yes, Wigtown really is remote), but we barely noticed the time because we found so much to talk about, comparing notes on our various writing projects and the books we’d read.

Owing to the timing of my event the next day, I was lucky to have two nights in Wigtown. I resolved to make the most of them by going to as many events as possible. The first of these took place that evening: a shadow Man Booker Prize judging event, featuring an expert panel chaired by critic Stuart Kelly, who was one of the real-life judges in 2013.

None of the six books on the shortlist escaped unscathed as the panel laid into them, although it’s fair to say that Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life came in for a particular bashing. In the end, by a narrow margin, Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island was voted the Wigtown favourite to win. It will be interesting to see how this compares to the announcement of the winner on Tuesday.

The next morning I went to hear young Scottish author Kirstin Innes talk about her novel, Fishnet, which came out of research she did into the sex industry. Then it was off to the McNeillie tent, where Leila Aboulela was talking about her new book, The Kindness of Enemies. Set partly in present-day Scotland and partly in the Caucasus mountains during the Crimean War, the novel explores the concept of jihad and the problems that come with moving across borders. It was, Aboulela said, partly motivated by her desire to ‘put Muslim culture in English literature’.

Afterwards, I queued up to have my copy signed and Aboulela kindly agreed to a photograph, as you can see below – a lovely memento of our discussion.

Following a sumptuous lunch in the Writers’ Retreat above The Bookshop on North Main Street – the owner generously turns his private living room over to the authors visiting the festival each year – I got invited by writer and explorer Robert Twigger to participate in his ‘The Message Board’ project. This involved the authors speaking at the festival writing a message on a blackboard and being photographed with it.

He’d already garnered an intriguing selection, from ‘Educate all the world’s children’ by Debi Gliori to ‘The dream shall never die’ from former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, as well as more quirky offerings, such as ‘A pig looks you right in the eye’ from Canadian novelist Patrick de Witt. You can see my contribution below.

No sooner had I put the chalkboard down then it was off to hear Patrick de Witt speak about his new book, Undermajordomo Minor. I’d not come across de Witt’s writing before, but his droll style and the dark humour of the extract he read quickly won me over, and I’m keen to read him.

Following my event, which took the form of a lively discussion with BBC arts producer Serena Field, I repaired to the Writers’ Retreat once more. Further discussions with authors, critics and editors followed, and the evening ended with a spin around the dance floor at the festival ceilidh.

The next morning yielded another car journey full of fascinating conversation, as Clandestine Cake Club founder and cookbook writer Lynn Hill, author Gregory Norminton, agent and writer Andrew Lownie, and I all piled in with local volunteer Jim for the ride to Dumfries.

Once back on the London train, I tried to get to work on an article I had to write, but I found myself distracted. I was already wondering how soon I could make my way back to Wigtown…

Black-and-white photograph by Robert Twigger