In conversation with Sara Sheridan, Damian Barr discusses his novel THE TWO ROBERTS, which reimagines the lives of Scottish artists Robert MacBryde & Robert Colquhoun. Recorded at the National Galleries on 7 October 2025
20thcentury
A gifted writer of gothic & horror fiction, Dorothy K. Haynes (1918–1987) was born #OTD, 12 Oct. Haynes & her twin brother spent 4 years in Aberlour Orphanage, from 1929 to 1933: last year, we republished her long out-of-print childhood memoir, HASTE YE BACK
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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/haste-ye-back/
#Scottish #literature #memoir #gothic #horror #weird #weirdtales #20thcentury #womenwriters
Dreaming the Daily Darg: Working Lives in Scottish Writing since 1918
Studies in Scottish Literature 50/1, 2025
A special issue exploring work & working life in Scottish writing chiefly of the 20th & 21st centuries – available now on Open Access
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol50/iss1/
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #21stcentury #work #working
Tap me with your finger,
rub me with your sleeve,
hold me, sniff me, peel me
curling round and round
till I burst out white and cold
from my tight red coat…
—Edwin Morgan, “The Apple’s Song”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)
A poem for Apple Day – 21 Oct – which is definitely about an apple 🍎
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMorgan #AppleDay
Michel Byrne on poet & translator George Campbell Hay | Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa (1915–1984) – born #OTD, 8 Dec
Gaelic & Scots: Cultural Connections & Inspirations in the 20th Century (Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland & Ulster webinar, 6 May 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIesmENZ0Iw
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #poetry #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Scots #Scotslanguage
SCOTTISH LITERARY REVIEW 17/2 (Autumn/Winter 2025)
The latest issue of Scottish Literary Review is online now via Project MUSE (institutional access required). Print copies will be in the mail to subscribers shortly! Papers range from medieval poetry, through 18th- & 19th-century literature, to Muriel Spark & the Brontës
https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55415
#Scottish #literature #poetry #medieval #18thcentury #19thcentury #20thcentury #JamesHogg #RobertBurns #MurielSpark #Brontes
Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean, 1911–1996), one of the greatest European poets of the 20th century, was born #OTD, 26 Oct. A 🎂 🧵
Watch “Sorley MacLean’s Island” via the National Library of Scotland – Sorley MacLean in conversation with fellow writer Iain Crichton Smith
1/8
https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/3141
#Scottish #literature #Hebrides #Skye #Raasay #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poetry #20thcentury #modernism
In Gránada, in Gránada,
They dumbed the mou o a makar,
In Gránada, in Gránada,
They strak doun Garcia Lorca…
—“In Gránada, in Gránada (Llanto por Federico Garcia Lorca)”, by Syndey Goodsir Smith (1915–1975) – a major figure in the 20th-century Scottish renaissance, born #OTD, 26 Oct
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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #Lorca
Jessie Kesson (1916–1994) was born #OTD, 28 Oct. Taken from her mother at 10, she spent 6 years in an orphanage; although she displayed obvious academic talent she was denied any chance of further education & was sent into domestic servitude aged 16.
Despite these & other hardships she became a highly regarded novelist whose works explore ordinary women’s lives with clarity & poetic prose
A 🎂🧵
1/5
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/9964/jessie-kesson-novelist
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #workingclass
Naomi Mitchison (née Haldane, 1897–1999) was born #OTD, 1 Nov, & saw almost every day of the #20thcentury. A hugely influential writer, with 80+ books—poetry, politics, historical novels, #ScienceFiction, #Fantasy, #ChildrensLiterature & more—to her credit
A 🎂🧵
“She liked to challenge, she liked to shock, she liked to deliver the unexpected, she liked to experiment”
—Jenni Calder looks at Mitchison’s life & work
@litstudies
1/9
https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/25/naomi-mitchison/
Someone was playing the piano when suddenly
there they were standing in the room.
They would not sing or speak or tell their names.
Their skull faces blankly shifted round
as if they were studying us implacably…
—Iain Crichton Smith, “Halloween”
first published in the TLS (1982)
Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay,
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o’ the warld the day…
—Hamish Henderson, “The Freedom Come-All-Ye”
Published in The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks
https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #song #HamishHenderson #20thcentury #change #hope
But in the climbing ecstasy of thought,
Ere consummation, ere the final peak,
Come hours like this…
—Nan Shepherd, “Summit of Coire Etchachan”
published in WANDERERS: A History of Women Walking, by Kerri Andrews
Today, 11 December, is International Mountain Day
https://www.un.org/en/observances/mountain-day
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #mountains #cairngorms #NanShepherd #climbing #20thcentury #womenwriters #naturewriting #InternationalMountainDay
Nan Shepherd & her friends
21 Nov, Aberdeen – free, ticketed
Nan Shepherd has often been imagined as a solitary walker & writer. In this talk, Dr Timothy Baker looks at the importance of female friendship in Nan Shepherd’s writing & life, placing her as part of a much larger network of Aberdonian women writers & thinkers
https://aberdeencity.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/WPAC/EVSESENQ?SETLVL=&RNI=16811409
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #NanShepherd #Aberdeen
“The understated power of this writing is extraordinary. Something of that sense of human vision seeing beyond the time of its own life’s duration, surely appealed to T. S. Eliot, who published The Silver Darlings and more of Gunn’s novels”
—Prof Alan Riach re-examines Gunn’s legacy
Neil M. Gunn (1891–1973), one of the most important writers of the 20th century Scottish renaissance, was born #OTD, 8 Nov – a 🎂 🧵
1/5
https://www.thenational.scot/news/15637617.neil-gunn-and-the-search-for-scotlands-soul/
He blinks upon the hearth-rug,
and yawns in deep content,
accepting all the comforts
that Providence has sent…
—Alexander Gray, “On a Cat, Ageing”
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #poem #poetry #cats #aging #ageing
Hamish Henderson (1919–2002) – poet, soldier, intellectual, activist, songwriter – was born #OTD, 11 Nov. A hugely important figure in Scottish culture, Henderson fought in North Africa & Italy in WW2. A 🎂🧵
There were no gods and precious few heroes…
—“Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica”
1/10
#Scottish #literature #HamishHenderson #20thcentury #culture #poetry #poem #warpoetry #WW2 #RemembranceDay
Norman MacCaig (1910–1996) was born #OTD, 14 November. A self-described “Zen Calvinist”, when asked how long it took him to write a poem he would reply “one cigarette – or two for a long one”
A 🎂🧵
“Toad”
published in THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)
1/12
https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #NormanMacCaig
A birthday 🧵 for Violet Jacob (1863–1946) – poet, novelist, short story writer, & key figure in the 20th-century Scottish renaissance & #Scots language revival – born #OTD, 1 September
#Scottish #literature #Scotslanguage #19thCentury #20thcentury #WomenWriters
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https://www.scottishwomenwritersontheweb.net/writers-a-to-z/violet-jacob
Don Roberto: the Adventure of Being Cunninghame Graham
18 Nov, Carnoustie – free
Jamie Jauncey talks about his extraordinary great-great-uncle Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham – traveller, adventurer, politician, writer, etc. etc. – & asks why RBCG is so overlooked today
Elspeth Barker (1940–2022) was born #OTD, 16 Nov
Maggie O’Farrell called Barker’s classic O CALEDONIA “one of those books you proselytize about… I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named [it] as her favourite book”
A 🎂🧵
1/4
https://lithub.com/maggie-ofarrell-on-elspeth-barkers-modern-scottish-classic-o-caledonia/
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #comingofage
“Read it now” – Ursula K. Le Guin
Weaving folklore, fairy tale & Norse myth into a shimmering, witty & slyly subversive tapestry, Naomi Mitchison’s TRAVEL LIGHT – a rediscovered gem of classic fantasy writing – has just been republished in the UK by Virago
https://store.virago.co.uk/products/travel-light
#Scottish #literature #fantasy #kidlit #20thcentury #womenswriting #ursulaLeGuin #NaomiMitchison #folklore #mythology
Reigniting Spark: Jewish Values in the Modernism of Muriel Spark
26 Nov, University of Edinburgh & online – free
Prof Holli Levitsky investigates how Muriel Spark navigates her Jewish identity amidst the broader themes of modernity, nationalism, & personal identity
#Scottish #literature #murielspark #20thcentury #womenwriters #Jewish #Catholic #modernism #identity
“Laidlaw is the melancholy heir to Marlowe. Reads like a breathless scalpel cut through the bloody heart of a city’ – Denise Mina
William McIlvanney discusses and reads from his LAIDLAW trilogy at Dundee Literary Festival 2013, in conversation with Russel D. McLean
@bookstodon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K879j3KVFvo
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #CrimeFiction #WilliamMcIlvanney
The night tinkles like ice in glasses.
Leaves are glued to the pavement with frost.
The brown air fumes at the shop windows,
Tries the doors, and sidles past…
—Norman MacCaig, “November night, Edinburgh”
published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Birlinn, 2011)
https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #November #winter #Edinburgh #normanmacCaig