Eggplant.place

69d

This morning I watched from here
a helicopter skirting like a damaged insect
the Empire State Building, that
jumbo size dentist’s drill, and landing
on the roof of the PanAm skyscraper.
But now midnight has come in
from foreign places…

—Norman MacCaig, “Hotel Room, 12th Floor”
published in THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #FourthofJuly #july4th #IndependenceDay #NewYork #USA

Hotel Room, 12th Floor
Norman MacCaig

This morning I watched from here
a helicopter skirting like a damaged insect
the Empire State Building, that
jumbo size dentist’s drill, and landing
on the roof of the PanAm skyscraper.
But now midnight has come in
from foreign places. Its uncivilised darkness
is shot at by a million lit windows, all
ups and acrosses
But midnight is not
so easily defeated. I lie in bed, between
a radio and a television set, and hear
the wildest of warwhoops continually ululating through
the glittering canyons and gulches –
police cars and ambulances racing
to the broken bones, the harsh screaming
from coldwater flats, the blood
glazed on sidewalks.

The frontier is never
somewhere else. And no stockades
can keep the midnight out.

ALT

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88d

“A Jacobite By Name?”: Jacobitism in the Life & Work of Robert Burns
5 July, Ellisland – £4

Patrick Jamieson explores how ideas of identity, naming & political memory shaped Burns’s engagement with Jacobitism throughout his life & writing

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-jacobite-by-name-jacobitism-in-the-life-and-work-of-robert-burns-tickets-1990504417295

#Scottish #literature #RobertBurns #18thcentury #Jacobites #romanticism #poetry

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33d

Publishing Scotland Presents: Graeme Macrae Burnet
21 Aug, Waterstones, Oban. £3/£5/£12 with book

Hosted by Breege Smyth, Graeme Macrae Burnet will be reading from his new novella BENBECULA, & discussing it in the context of his other work. Followed by a Q&A

https://www.waterstones.com/events/publishing-scotland-presents-graeme-macrae-burnet/oban

#Scottish #literature #crimefiction #truecrime #Hebrides #Oban

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88d

“The Muirs gave Kafka a distinctive voice in English for half a century: fluent, formal, enigmatic and mesmeric” – but a new, award-winning study of Kafka’s translators has almost completely erased their work from literary history, writes Boyd Tonkin

https://engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-forgotten-scots-who-gave-kafka-his-voice/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #translation #translators #Kafka

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87d

Currently on BBC Sounds: Douglas Stuart speaks to Take Four Books about his latest novel, JOHN OF JOHN, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other works of fiction.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xnt0

#Scottish #literature #novel #DouglasStuart

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67d

Nine ways of looking at rain

Beyond the clichés, rain has inspired a rich thread of Scottish culture. From myth and science to film, fashion, and fiction, Sarah Mackay, Curator at the National Library of Scotland, explores how drizzle has soaked into the nation’s imagination in nine objects. The NLS exhibition ‘Rain’ runs until April 2027 and is free to visit.

https://www.nls.uk/collections/stories/life-in-the-library/nine-ways-of-looking-at-rain/

#Scottish #literature #culture #exhibition #rain

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73d

Mollie Hunter (1922–2012) was born #OTD, 30 June. Although she produced work for all ages she is best remembered as a writer of fantasy & historical fiction for children & YAs. She received numerous awards including the New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year Award, the Boston Globe Horn Book Award & the Carnegie Medal.

@bookstodon

1/5

https://discoverkelpies.co.uk/kelpies-author/mollie-hunter/

#Scottish #literature #ChildrensLiterature #kidlit #YA #fantasy #historicalfiction #folklore

Edited 73d ago

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59d

Heard ye o’ the tree o’ France,
I watna what’s the name o’t;
Around it a’ the patriots dance,
Weel Europe kens the fame o’t…

—“The Tree of Liberty”, attributed to Robert Burns (disputed). First printed in Chambers’ THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BURNS (1838)

A poem for 🇫🇷 Bastille Day!

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RobertBurns #BastilleDay #quatorzejuillet #18thcentury #19thcentury

The Tree of Liberty
attributed to Robert Burns

Heard ye o’ the tree o’ France,
I watna what’s the name o’t;
Around it a’ the patriots dance,
Weel Europe kens the fame o’t.
It stands where ance the Bastile stood,
A prison built by kings, man,
When Superstition’s hellish brood
Kept France in leading-strings, man.

Upo’ this tree there grows sic fruit,
Its virtues a’ can tell, man;
It raises man aboon the brute,
It mak’s him ken himsel, man.
Gif ance the peasant taste a bit,
He ’s greater than a lord, man,
An’ wi’ the beggar shares a mite
O’ a’ he can afford, man.

This fruit is worth a’ Afric’s wealth:
To comfort us ’twas sent, man:
To gie the sweetest blush o’ health,
An’ mak us a’ content, man.
It clears the een, it cheers the heart,
Maks high and low gude friends, man;
And he wha acts the traitor’s part,
It to perdition sends, man.

My blessings aye attend the chiel
Wha pitied Gallia’s slaves, man,
And staw a branch, spite o’ the deil,
Frae yont the western waves, man.
Fair Virtue water’d it wi’ care,
And now she sees wi’ pride, man,
How weel it buds and blossoms there,
Its branches spreading wide, man.

But vicious folk aye hate to see
The works o’ Virtue thrive, man;
The courtly vermin’s bann’d the tree,
And grat to see it thrive, man;
King Loui’ thought to cut it down,
When it was unco sma’, man;
For this the watchman crack’d his crown,
Cut aff his head and a’, man.

A wicked crew syne, on a time,
Did tak a solemn aith, man,
It ne’er should flourish to its prime,
I wat they pledged their faith, man.
Awa’ they gaed wi’ mock parade,
Like beagles hunting game, man,
But soon grew weary o’ the trade
And wished they’d been at hame, man.

For Freedom, standing by the tree,
Her sons did loudly ca’, man.
She sang a sang o’ liberty,
Which pleased them ane and a’, man.

ALT

By her inspired, the new-born race
Soon drew the avenging steel, man;
The hirelings ran—her foes gied chase,
And banged the despot weel, man.

Let Britain boast her hardy oak,
Her poplar and her pine, man,
Auld Britain ance could crack her joke,
And o’er her neighbours shine, man.
But seek the forest round and round,
And soon ’twill be agreed, man,
That sic a tree can not be found,
’Twixt London and the Tweed, man.

Without this tree, alake this life
Is but a vale o’ woe, man;
A scene o’ sorrow mixed wi’ strife,
Nae real joys we know, man.
We labour soon, we labour late,
To feed the titled knave, man;
And a’ the comfort we ’re to get,
Is that ayont the grave, man.

Wi’ plenty o’ sic trees, I trow,
The warld would live in peace, man;
The sword would help to mak a plough,
The din o’ war wad cease, man.
Like brethren in a common cause,
We’d on each other smile, man;
And equal rights and equal laws
Wad gladden every isle, man.

Wae worth the loon wha wadna eat
Sic halesome dainty cheer, man;
I’d gie the shoon frae aff my feet,
To taste sic fruit, I swear, man.
Syne let us pray, auld England may
Sure plant this far-famed tree, man;
And blythe we’ll sing, and hail the day
That gives us liberty, man.

ALT

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59d

“Scots poets might have a few lessons to teach the French”

In “Towards a Post-Colonial Alliance?”, Paul Malgrati offers some perspectives on Franco-Scots poetry translation, exploring questions of voice, place, & power

🇫🇷🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2019/12/towards-a-post-colonial-alliance-some-perspectives-on-franco-scots-poetry-translation/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #language #translation #French #BastilleDay #quatorzejuillet

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59d

Cinquevalli in sepia
looks at me from an old postcard: bundle of enigmas.
Half faun, half military man…

—Edwin Morgan, “Cinquevalli”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 1990)

Paul Cinquevalli (1859–1918) died #OTD, 14 July

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857541885/collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #EdwinMorgan #poem #poetry #19thcentury #Victorian #Edwardian #circus #juggling #Cinquevalli

Paul Cinquevalli, by London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd. Bromide postcard print, circa 1912. National Portrait Gallery.

A sepia photograph of Paul Cinquevalli (1859–1918). He has short, curly hair and a thick moustache, and is wearing an elaborate acrobat's leotard covered in tassels, braid, and frogging. He has a thick neck and stands half-facing us, his head turned to look directly at the camera. His left arm is cocked on his hip; his left elbow rests against a cannonball which sits on top of a stone plinth beside him.

ALT

Cinquevalli
Edwin Morgan

Cinquevalli is falling, falling.
The shining trapeze kicks and flirts free,
solo performer at last.
The sawdust puffs up with a thump,
settles on a tangle of broken limbs.
St Petersburg screams and leans.
His pulse flickers with the gas-jets. He lives.

Cinquevalli has a therapy.
In his hospital bed, in his hospital chair
he holds a ball, lightly, lets it roll round his hand,
or grips it tight, gauging its weight and resistance,
begins to balance it, to feel its life attached to his
by will and knowledge, invisible strings
that only he can see. He throws it
from hand to hand, always different,
always the same, always
different, always the
same.
His muscles learn to think, his arms grow very strong.

Cinquevalli in sepia
looks at me from an old postcard: bundle of enigmas.
Half faun, half military man; almond eyes, curly hair,
conventional moustache; tights, and a tunic loaded
with embroideries, tassels, chains, fringes; hand on hip
with a large signet-ring winking at the camera
but a bull neck and shoulders and a cannon-ball
at his elbow as he stands by the posing pedestal;
half reluctant, half truculent,
half handsome, half absurd,
but let me see you forget him: not to be done.

Cinquevalli is a juggler.
In a thousand theatres, in every continent,
he is the best, the greatest. After eight years perfecting
he can balance one billiard ball on another billiard ball
on top of a cue on top of a third billiard ball
in a wine glass held in his mouth. To those
who say the balls are waxed, or flattened,
he patiently explains the trick will only work
because the spheres are absolutely true.
There is no deception in him. He is true.

ALT

Cinquevalli is juggling with a bowler,
a walking-stick, a cigar, a coin.
Who foresees? How to please.
The last time round, the bowler
flies to his head, the stick sticks in his hand,
the cigar jumps into his mouth, the coin
lands on his foot—ah, but
is kicked into his eye
and held there as the miraculous monocle
without which the portrait would be incomplete.

Cinquevalli is practising.
He sits in his dressing-room talking to some friends,
at the same time writing a letter with one hand
and with the other juggling four balls.
His friends think of demons, but
‘You could do all this,’ he says,
sealing the letter with a billiard ball.

Cinquevalli is on the high wire in Odessa.
The roof cracks, he is falling, falling
into the audience, a woman breaks his fall,
he cracks her like a flea, but lives.

Cinquevalli broods in his armchair in Brixton Road.
He reads in the paper about the shells whining
at Passchendaele, imagines the mud and the dead.
He goes to the window and wonders through that dark evening
what is happening in Poland where he was born.
His neighbours call him a German spy.
‘Kestner, Paul Kestner, that’s his name!’
‘Keep Kestner out of the British music-hall!’
He frowns; it is cold; his fingers seem stiff and old.

Cinquevalli tosses a plate of soup
and twirls it on his forefinger; not a drop spills.
He laughs, and well may he laugh
who can do that. The astonished table
breathe again, laugh too, think the world
a spinning thing that spills, for a moment, no drop.

Cinquevalli’s coffin sways through Brixton
only a few months before the Armistice.
Like some trick they cannot get off the ground
it seems to burden the shuffling bearers, all their arms
cross-juggle that displaced person, that man
of balance, of strength, of delights and marvels,
in his unsteady box at last into the earth.

ALT

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22d

Rǫgnvaldr Kali Kolsson (c. 1100–1158), Earl of Orkney, died #OTD, 20 August.

Rǫgnvaldr was a skilled poet (& after his death – slightly surprisingly – canonised as St Ronald of Orkney – f.d. 20 August). Ian Crockatt has translated many of his poems; this one is from CRIMSONING THE EAGLE’S CLAW: The Viking Poems of Rǫgnvaldr Kali Kolsson (Arc Publications, 2014)

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https://www.arcpublications.co.uk/books/rognvaldr-kali-kolsson-crimsoning-the-eagles-claw-the-viking-poems-of-rgnvaldr-kali-kolsson-earl-of-orkney-518

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney #medieval #Viking #Norse

He laments his wife’s illness, seeks comfort in shaping words

Akr verðk opt fyr sjúkri
eyfitja þó sitja
– rjð es mér in mæra
menbrik – Njǫrun síka;
heiðis fylgjask hauðri
(hauk tínik svá) mínu,
(setrs leitandi sútar
slœgr á hverju dœgri).

I brood at her bedside
– I've brought lace, necklaces,
bone combs – who lies, limbs and
lips feverish – wishing
back our glad hours hawking
low-sled water-meadows.
I shape grave words – heart-deep,
honed, brief – to imprison grief.

ALT

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58d

I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door;
Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar.
Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds
O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons…

—“Da Clearance”, by Rhoda Bulter (1929–94), born #OTD, 15 July

A 🎂🧵 – 1/3

Listen to Rhoda Bulter reading “Da Clearance” here:

https://www.shetlanddialect.org.uk/da-clearance

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Shetland #Shetlandic #Scots #Scotslanguage

Da Clearance
Rhoda Bulter

I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door;
Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar.
Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds
O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons.

I see eens sittin roond da fire, an twartree mair oot by;
Sookin infants at da breest, an weemen gjaan ta cry.
Da tochtfil, tried faces o dem at’s lived ower lang;
Fractious bairns feytin sleep, an sensin somethin wrang.

I hear a lood, lood knockin, an da crump o monny feet;
Men's voices raised in anger, an da bairns start to greet.
I see da fok aa girded oot afore da laandloard’s men;
An aa da bits a things dey hed, fired ower da briggy-stane.

I see da bare waas staandin, an aa da laand lie green;
Lang syne da fire wis slokkit, an monny a year is geen.
Noo dey aa hae equal portions o aert ta tak dir sleep.
Tell me, wis it wirt it aa for twartree extry sheep?

ALT

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65d

“Annie S. Swan both requires revaluation through her own biography & calls into question easy valorisations of ‘danger’ as expressed in terms of explicit challenge & radicalism. The extent of her appeal & influence demands a more nuanced analysis of the politics of emotion & the gendering of reader response”

—Prof Glenda Norquay on Annie S. Swan (1859–1943) – born #OTD, 8 July

@litstudies

1/3

https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/08/annie-shepherd-swan/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #romance #womenwriters

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58d

“I was born in 1962. There’s been an environmental crisis for as long as I’ve lived. To step outside that constant culpability was one of the many delights of RING OF BRIGHT WATER”

—Kathleen Jamie in the London Review of Books on Gavin Maxwell (1914–1969) – born #OTD, 15 July

1/3

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n14/kathleen-jamie/diary

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #GavinMaxwell #naturewriting #otter #RingofBrightWater

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53d

Edinburgh Poetry Tours
Various dates in August, Edinburgh. Pay-what-you-can tickets, from £4.50

Poet Ken Cockburn presents, on & around the Royal Mile, an Edinburgh alive with literature. If you’re new to Edinburgh you’ll see some key sights, & if you know the city you’ll experience it afresh by slowing down & listening to the words of poets writing across the centuries.

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/embro

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Edinburgh

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57d

“If you are Scottish, on the old side, the sort of person who was in an upper stream at school, it’s probable that SUNSET SONG already holds a place in your mental closet. If you aren’t, you may never have heard of it”

—Jenny Turner on Lewis Grassic Gibbon, for the London Review of Books

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n13/jenny-turner/hated-and-loved-in-a-breath

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #LewisGrassicGibbon #SunsetSong

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57d

A Stewed Rhubarb Online Poetry Reading
28 July, online. Tickets £1.50

Join Stewed Rhubarb Press for an evening of contemporary Scottish poetry with Siún Carden, Craig Aitchison & Biff Smith. Three distinctive voices, three acclaimed publications, & an hour of live readings & conversation hosted by Charlie Roy.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-stewed-rhubarb-online-poetry-reading-tickets-1993255644289

#Scottish #literature #poetry

Edited 57d ago

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64d

Watershed
Rivers, Rights, Explorations & Conversations
24 July, The Briggait, Glasgow – free

The conversation will begin with reflections on Jude & Louise's citizen investigation into ownership, privatisation & access to Glasgow's river explored through their podcast Who owns the Clyde? Plus the launch of the Saltire Society pamphlet ‘Who Owns the Clyde?’.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/watershed-launch-with-louise-welsh-jude-barber-tickets-1989915290200?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

#Scottish #literture #Glasgow #Commonwealth #CommonwealthGames #rivers #Clyde

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64d

NAMING THE SNAKES
New Writing Scotland 44
Ed. by Chris Powici, Allan Radcliffe & Anna C. Frater

The best new short fiction & poetry from forty-three writers who are Scottish by birth, residence, or inclination, writing in English, Gaelic, & Scots. Available for preorder now from all good bookshops! (And the evil one too.)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws44/

#Scottish #literature #NewWriting #shortstories #shortfiction #poetry #poems #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #Scots #Scotslanguage #writingcommunity

Book cover:

Naming
the
Snakes

New
Writing
Scotland
44

Edited by Chris Powici and Allan Radcliffe
Gaelic Editor: Anna C. Frater

The cover image shows a mix of overlapping yellow, orange, and purple fabrics, semi-transparent, on top of a drawing of a hand holding a disc which rests on top of a pillar. The head of a snake coils up from below to rest on the disc.

ALT

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64d

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn't stop.

He wasn't trying to fill the sea.
He wasn't trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but…

—Norman MacCaig, “Small boy”
published in THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #NormanMacCaig

Small boy
by Norman MacCaig

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn't stop.

He wasn't trying to fill the sea.
He wasn't trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practising for the future

when there'll be so many things
he'll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.

ALT

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64d

That was when I threw the stone and then ran after;
splashing into Smallholm burn I made the colours
of a summer’s day cascade around me…

—Ron Butlin, “Histories of Desire”
published in HISTORIES OF DESIRE (Bloodaxe, 1995)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/histories-desire/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Histories of Desire
Ron Butlin

At Carsethorn, Solway Coast

That was when I threw the stone and then ran after;
splashing into Smallholm burn I made the colours
of a summer’s day cascade around me.
That was when the water stilled to rowanberries,
clouds and dark green leaves I could never reach
before. I tried to pick one up –
that was when the earth and sky first slipped
between my finders.

All histories are histories of desire, they tell me
how my life begins and ends: a stretch of water,
a stone a child sends skimming
to the other side.

ALT

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64d

“He was an advocate of the new, & that made him stand out in a Scottish modernist literary milieu where there was a kind of gruff, backwards-looking impulse”

—Greg Thomas on A HOME IN SPACE, a new collection of Edwin Morgan’s concrete, visual & sound poetry

https://list.co.uk/news/greg-thomas-on-edwin-morgan-he-nudged-scottish-literature-into-the-modern-world-48514

#Scottish #literature #poetry #concretepoetry #soundpoetry #visualpoetry #EdwinMorgan

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93d

“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 died #OTD, 9 June, 2013

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the-final-interview

#Scottish #literature #IainBanks #IainMBanks

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63d

Scots Whay Hae! speaks to the five shortlisted authors for this year’s Scottish Crime Debut of the Year award: May Rinaldi (Liar Thief); Zoë Rankin (The Vanishing Place); Linda Duncan McLaughlin (Original Sins): Frances Crawford (A Bad, Bad Place); and Kirsty Lockwood (We Know What You Did)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXlAe5b0R5c

#Scottish #literature #podcast #CrimeFiction #BloodyScotland

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62d

BBC Short Works: I Love You, Mr Demille

Currently on BBC Sounds: A silent movie writer finds her voice in this new story by Sara Sheridan – inspired by the true story of Lorna Moon & her close friendship with darling of the silver screen, Mary Pickford

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ym80

#Scottish #literature #screenwriting #Hollywood #cinemahistory #filmhistory #womenwriters #20thcentury

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