“Buchan’s tales of trust and treachery, public duty and private doubt, still have questions to ask – and answers we might not entirely expect”
THE BOTTLE IMP tracks the many paths of one of Scotland’s most surprising storytellers in his 150th year
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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2025/12/the-reign-of-saturn/
“SANGSCHAW… gave other writers permission to push the boundaries of Scots as a language of literature, capable of expressing deep thought and not just for light comedy or mawkish whimsy”
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s first book
https://www.thenational.scot/culture/25436484.100-year-tribute-hugh-macdiarmid-marking-crucial-work/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid
The glitter of water and the wake…
Heading for University in Aberdeen.
It’s an autumn morning. I am seventeen.
Above the Isle of Skye the dawn’s a flag
of red infuriate ore…
—Iain Crichton Smith, “Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)”
in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, ed. by John Greening (Carcanet, 2021)
https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #IainCrichtonSmith #Skye #Aberdeen
“I mean, your society’s broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No let’s blame the people with no power & no money & these immigrants who don’t even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.”
—Iain Banks, the final interview (2013)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the-final-interview
Kathleen Jamie & Don Paterson in Conversation with Chris Agee
29 Oct, Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh – £10
Ten years after the Independence Referendum, IRISH PAGES asks Scottish writers diverse Scottish writers to think about their country, & take stock of the current state of its culture & polity, language & literature, ecology & environment. How will Scotland fare in an era of momentous & unpredictable political change?
Why René Descartes Believed That Machines Will Never Be Able to Genuinely “Think”
According to René Descartes, no matter how advanced or sophisticated, machine intelligence remains fundamentally inferior to the complexity and depth of human intelligence.
by Scott Mclaughlan
https://www.thecollector.com/descartes-paradox-artificial-intelligence/
Descartes at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/44
My high school English syllabus, ranked.
By Brittany Allen
https://lithub.com/my-high-school-english-syllabus-ranked/
Ethan Frome & Bleak House at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4517
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1023
The Novel F. Scott Fitzgerald Never Wrote
A Romantic Drama Against the Backdrop of History
By Anne Margaret Daniel (from the archives)
Fitzgerald at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/420
The deid-hole’s a sma-boukit place for you.
You need tae be blawn aboot the cosmos
so’s your live matter mells wi the spaces
and you become the stour starns are made o…
—Alastair Mackie: In Memoriam Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
Christopher Murray Grieve – Hugh MacDiarmid – died #OTD, 9 September
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid
Who Were the Knights of the Round Table? (Arthurian Legends)
"In the Arthurian legends, King Arthur has an alliance of mighty men known as the Knights of the Round Table. Who were Arthur’s knights?"
https://www.thecollector.com/who-were-knights-round-table/
Books about King Arthur and his knights at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=king+arthur
The Parting of Lancelot and Guinevere
by Julia Margaret Cameron
Currently on BBC Sounds: Ian McMillan hosts poets Liz Lochhead, Robert Crawford & Hannah Lavery at the Edinburgh Festival
Hannah Lavery performs “Edinburgh is a Story”; “My Work is Loving the World”; & “Miss Has Started Using Sunbeds”
Robert Crawford reads “Camera Obscura” & “Mons Meg”
Liz Lochhead reads a selection of poems including “Trouble Is Not My Middle Name”; “Coming To Poetry”; & “Song For A Dirty Diva”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002htf2
On leaving
you playfully punched
my left
shoulder.
The sensation
remains
But your
voice fades
The sensation
remains
But your
image fades
I
short of breath
tremble
I think
you’ve
cracked
a
rib.
—“Gone but Not Forgotten”, by Maud Sulter (1960–2008)
born #OTD, 19 Sep – a 🎂 🧵
1/9
#Scottish #literature #poem #poet #poetry #photography #MaudSulter #BPOC #Blackwriters #womenwriters #Scotland #Ghana
“Newton had a way of making everyone in the movie react to him like astonished children, agog at the snarling, bug-eyed, peg-legged creature in their midst”
Today, 19 September, is #TalkLikeAPirateDay – but really it’s #TalkLikeRobertNewtonPlayingLongJohnSilverDay 🏴☠️🦜
#Scottish #literature #kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #TreasureIsland #RobertLouisStevenson #film #movies #classicmovies #pirates
So I stopped my walk, climbed the gate
to help an old farmer cursing his deaf god
bringing in the last of a poor harvest…
—Jim Carruth, “Only Human”
published in A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening: New Writing Scotland 30 (ASL, 2012)
“If there is sich a thing as a Author, I’m his favourite chara’ter. He does me fathoms better’n he does you—fathoms, he does. And he likes doing me. He keeps me on deck mostly all the time, crutch and all”
—Long John Silver & Captain Smollett argue fiction & morality between chapters, in Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Persons of the Tale” – download a free ebook here:
@bookstodon
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/fables/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #FlashFiction
Robert Louis Stevenson at 175
18 Sept, free online
Why do we continue to memorialise & study the life & works of a chronically ill bohemian author from Victorian Edinburgh, 130 years after his death? UHI Institute for Northern Studies PhD candidate James Simon investigates
#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #Victorian #19thcentury
Five cutting-edge Scottish sci-fi writers you need to read next
“Scotland has a long and proud tradition of science fiction writing – due, perhaps, to the country’s proficiency in both penmanship and scientific endeavour”
Barry Didcock looks at Martin McInnes, Ever Dundas, Anne Charnock, Rachelle Atalla, & TL Huchu
Seven scythes leaned at the wall.
Beard upon golden beard
The last barley load
Swayed through the yard…
—George Mackay Brown, “Taxman”
Published in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon, 2021)
https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #GeorgeMackayBrown #rurallife #harvest
This month the Distributed Proofreaders (DP) blog is a book about the US pre-Civil War abolitionist, "The Life of John Brown."
Scottish International Storytelling Festival: Lights of the North
22 October–1 November
The 2025 Scottish International Storytelling Festival explores Scotland’s northern identity – sharing tales, songs and myths from the world’s northern arc, which bridges Finland to Iceland and connects Germany to Norway, with Scotland in between.
Tickets on sale now.
#Scottish #literature #storytelling #identity #folktale #song #myth
Creative Conversations: Nicky Melville
2 March, University of Glasgow & online – free
Poet, creative writing teacher, musician & occasional artist nicky (nick-e) melville reading & in conversation. He has been developing a variety of forms and genres: found poetry and erasures, visual poetry, lyric experiment, conceptual & post-conceptual writing, & a badge. His work interrogates the imperatives of capitalism, politics & ideology.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-conversations-nicky-melville-tickets-1977612662710
#OTD in 1894 poet and essayist e. e. cummings was born.
"Cummings wrote approximately 2,900 poems. He is often regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. He is associated with modernist free-form poetry, and much of his work uses idiosyncratic syntax and lower-case spellings for poetic expression."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings
Books by cummings at PG:
“People who were taken to ancient places as children often have fuzzy old photos of themselves at the sites. Such pictures increase in power as the years go by. The people who took us pass away, and we ourselves grow up and change, but the stones stay the same.”
Peter Ross goes in search of a standing stone.
Peter Ross’s Upon a White Horse: Journeys in Ancient Britain & Ireland is published by Headline
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/sep/11/standing-stone-childhood-photo-scottish-island-islay
#Scottish #literature #standingstones #megaliths #prehistory
Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) was born #OTD, 11 September. Plays on the Passions, a series of female-led comedies & tragedies, brought Baillie fame during a period when serious drama was in decline. Her 256th birthday was commemorated by a Google doodle in 2018
1/3
https://doodles.google/doodle/joanna-baillies-256th-birthday/
#Scottish #literature #drama #theatre #WomenWriters #JoannaBaillie #18thcentury #19thcentury
Inside the Rooms Where 20 Famous Books Were Written
From The House of Mirth to Go Tell It on the Mountain
By Emily Temple (from the archives)
