The wood where I was gone
for ages, on those Sunday afternoons:
lost on purpose, looking for the lithe
weasel in the grass,
stopped in my tracks, the way you stop
for echoes…
—John Burnside, “Lost”
from SELECTED POEMS (Cape, 2006)
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/389400/selected-poems-by-burnside-john/9780224078030
New book – The Piano Juries, the last book with God
https://subspacewagon.systems/new-book-the-piano-juries-the-last-book-with-god/
__
https://archive.org/details/the-piano-juries-by-richard-j-tilley
__
@poetry
@writingcommunity
@writingbooks
@bookstodon
#Poetry #DisabledArtist #PoetryCommunity #Poem #WritingCommunity #literature #art #writing #books #humanities #sociology #amwriting #CreativeWriting #ableism #library #theology #ethics
To be honest, I told my close people this poem deserved a Pulitzer…and meant it at the time
___
@poetry
@writingcommunity
@writingbooks
@bookstodon
#Poetry #DisabledArtist #PoetryCommunity #Poem #WritingCommunity #literature #art #writing #humanities #books #amwriting #CreativeWriting #ableism #sociology #library #Pulitzer
Paddling Their Own Canoes
13 Nov, Edinburgh. Free
In 1876, Robert Louis Stevenson & his friend Sir Walter Simpson set out on a canoe voyage through France & Belgium that would become his first travel book, 𝘈𝘯 𝘐𝘯𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘝𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘨𝘦. This year marks the 150th anniversary of that adventure, and the Club is gathering for readings to commemorate it.
https://www.planomato.com/en/edinburgh/p/robert-louis-stevenson-day-paddling-their-own-canoes
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #RobertLouisStevenson #Victorian #France #Belgium #canoeing
2026 Jimmy Reid Memorial Lecture: Jackie Kay
20 October, Glasgow City Chambers. Tickets £10
Poet & author Jackie Kay will deliver the Jimmy Reid Foundation’s annual lecture, chaired by Lyn Henderson, & talk about responding creatively to the challenges we face & the impact responding creatively can make.
https://reidfoundation.scot/2026/09/2026-jimmy-reid-memorial-lecture/
Singapore is paying its citizens to read. (But will it work?)
https://lithub.com/singapore-is-paying-its-citizens-to-read-but-will-it-work/
Julie de Graag and her Charming Cats
Dutch printmaker Julie de Graag transformed ordinary cats into gorgeous works of art
by ByKaren Strike
Books about Cats at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/16673
Naima Bock Live
https://subspacewagon.systems/naima-bock-live/
___
@poetry
@writingcommunity
@writingbooks
@bookstodon
#Poetry #DisabledArtist #PoemADay #PoetryCommunity #Poem #TodaysPoem #WritingCommunity #humanities #amwriting #CreativeWriting #writing #art #poetics #critcalThinking #community #literature #sociology #ableism #RuleOfLaw #Law #Library #Labor #Ethics #Education #SupportHumanArtists #IndieMusic #NaimaBock
Book launch
The Pocketbook Guide to Scottish Superheroes
5 November, Blackness Library, Dundee – free
It’s been five years since Scotland became the birthplace of a new breed of superheroes.
While iconic figures like Golden Eagle and the Phantom Fantoosh take to the skies, others are left with less mighty gifts: turning ceramics into instant coffee or bypassing community centre opening hours, anyone?
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-pocketbook-guide-to-scottish-superheroes-tickets-2003394210012
#Scottish #literature #superhero #superheroes #booklaunch #Dundee
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 on Mitchison’s life & work
1/12
https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/25/naomi-mitchison/
This Week in Literary History: Sinclair Lewis Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
The First Writer from the United States to Do So
Books by Sinclair Lewis at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/278
Novelist Mary Brunton (1778–1818) – an almost exact contemporary of Jane Austen – was born #OTD, 1 Nov, in Orkney. Prof HJ Jackson considers what factors might have contributed to Austen’s present fame, & Brunton’s neglect. A 🎂🧵
1/3
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2017/07/14/why-are-we-still-reading-jane-austen-but-not-mary-brunton/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #MaryBrunton #JaneAusten #WomenWriters
How H. P. Lovecraft Shaped the Horror That Still Dominates Pop Culture
H.P. Lovecraft’s legacy endures as the writer who turned personal tragedy into cosmic horror and transformed genre storytelling.
by Greg Beyer
https://www.thecollector.com/hp-lovecraft-shaped-horror/
Books by Lovecraft at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34724
Three most read poems in October
https://subspacewagon.systems/three-most-read-poems-in-october/
___
https://archive.org/details/the-ambush-of-time-by-richard-j-tilley
___
@poetry
@writingcommunity
@writingbooks
@bookstodon
#Poetry #DisabledArtist #PoetryCommunity #Poem #WritingCommunity #literature #art #writing #humanities #books #amwriting #CreativeWriting #ableism #sociology #library
The shape of time
In the 19th century, the linear idea of time became dominant – with profound implications for how we experience the world
By Emily Thomas
Space and Time at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/7601
Orra English: Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Nuanced Narrative Mode
15 October, University of Aberdeen – free
Marking the 125th anniversary of the birth of James Leslie Mitchell/Lewis Grassic Gibbon, this free talk looks at Gibbon’s unique approach to the literary use of the Scots language
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/24636/
#Scottish #literature #LewisGrassicGibbon #JamesLeslieMitchell #SunsetSong #AScotsQuair #Scots #Scotslanguage
A Syllabus for Attention: Megan Mayhew on John Elder’s Reading Life
What will I read? What ideas will I live beside? What deserves rereading? What will I memorize? What will I allow to alter me?
https://lithub.com/a-syllabus-for-attention-megan-mayhew-on-john-elders-reading-life/
Books about Syllabus at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=syllabus
Where ashes tap a grave’s bell
https://subspacewagon.systems/where-ashes-tap-a-graves-bell/
__
https://archive.org/details/the-piano-juries-by-richard-j-tilley
__
@poetry
@writingcommunity
@writingbooks
@bookstodon
#Poetry #DisabledArtist #PoetryCommunity #Poem #WritingCommunity #literature #art #writing #humanities #books #amwriting #CreativeWriting #ableism #sociology #library #PoemADay #TodaysPoem
How London’s 1838 ‘great stink’ created the modern vampire
Long before modern medicine could name the invisible terrors ravaging Victorian Britain, the public found a face for contagion: the vampire.
by Rae Gillibrand
https://theconversation.com/how-londons-1838-great-stink-created-the-modern-vampire-295391
Books about Vampires at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/2692
What Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot and Joan Didion Really Meant With Their Most Famous Aphorisms
Eli Burnstein Traces the Origins of Some of the Most Popular Phrases in Literature
Books about Aphorisms and apothegms at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/2215
What is your favorite aphorism? Share it with us!
“Owens meanwhile writes staccato sentences in the vein of Gertrude Stein; simplicity which seems at times nearly aphoristic soon reveals its full effect.”
via @literaryhub – Megan Nolan’s foreword to the US edition of Agnes Owens’ 𝘈 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳
https://lithub.com/megan-nolan-on-agnes-owenss-a-working-mother-an-ode-to-working-class-scotland/
#Scottish #literature #novel #20thcentury #workingclass #workingclasswriters #womenwriters #AgnesOwens
Ged dh’itheadh beul na h-oidhche
Mo nàbaidhean ’s mo chàirdean
Tha mi fada nad chomain
A ghuilbnich…
—Murchadh Dòmhnallach, “Guilbneach”
published in SOME SORT OF EMBRACE: New Writing Scotland 15 (ASL, 1997)
#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #naturepoem #naturepoetry #bird #curlew
Historicising Robert Burns’s Jamaica, 1786–1834
Stephen Mullen & Craig Lamont, 𝘉𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 135/1 (2026)
Re-evaluating Burns’s connections with Jamaica, 1786–1834, & establishing a model with implications for how Burns and Caribbean slavery is interpreted in civic Scotland
Free via Open Access
https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/burns.2026.0157
#Scottish #literature #history #18thcentury #RobertBurns #slavery #Jamaica #Caribbean #CaribbeanSlavery #transatlanticSlaveTrade
