Biennial Summer Party 2026 – Tuesday 21st July 2026 – 6.30pm for 7pm
Anstey Harris
“Life is good – happiness is available to everyone once we work out where to look”
Anstey Harris is the pen name of Anstey Spraggan (also, in her spare time, the mother of the singer/songwriter Lucy Spraggan). In 2015, she won the HG Wells Short Story Prize for her short story, Ruby. Her debut novel, The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton was published in nine languages in 2018. In 2019 it was chosen as a Richard and Judy Summer Read. Richard and Judy also included the book in their list of the 17 best novels of the last decade. In 2020, The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton won the RNA’s Sapere Books Popular Romantic Fiction of the Year Award. Harris’ follow up novel, Where We Belong, was shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Fiction of the Year Award 2021.
Anstey Harris is based in the UNESCO Biosphere of Galloway and South Ayrshire in beautiful south-west Scotland where she lives with her violinmaker husband, their dog, Pen, and rescue cat, Barbara. A former teacher & university lecturer, as well as an outstanding cook, Anstey runs the popular writing retreat, Write South West Scotland. She uses outdoor yoga, forest-bathing, outdoor-eating, dark sky tours, as well as fungi and foraging, as writing experiences and to add to writers’ skill sets. Anstey is a qualified Biosphere guide, Leave No Trace practitioner and Outdoor First Aider. The retreat is run on sound environmental principles and has been awarded the status of a Biosphere Business as a result.
Anstey teaches creative writing via Zoom groups to students in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, and Australia (at current count). Anstey writes about the things that make us tick, that make us human. She likes to write issue-driven fiction that disguises its message behind engaging characters and an emotionally charged storyline. Most of all, she hopes you enjoy it.
Anstey is coming to talk to The Stewartry Literary Society about her process, the agent model and her journey to being published, and her experience of the publishing industry here and abroad. She is also very happy to answer any questions on the subject of writing and publishing.
Kirsty Anderson
Kirsty Anderson has been an enthusiastic promoter of Scottish and Irish traditional music on the Clarsach, or lever harp, for over 40 years. Until 2022, she was based south of London where it was a struggle to get pedal harp players to take her instrument seriously. She now lives in Newton Stewart and is delighted to have found kindred spirits in the Dumfries and Galloway branch of the Clarsach Society with whom she plays regularly.
Kirsty has kindly agreed to play a selection of traditional Scottish / Burns songs for The Stewartry Literary Society Biennial Summer Party.