scottish

36d

Rich Things with Chitra Ramaswamy
23 October, Glasgow. Free, ticketed

Mark Black History Month with an event exploring Rich Things, Chitra Ramaswamy’s new work for the Alasdair Gray Archive. Chitra will talk with Sorcha Dallas, Custodian of the Archive, uncovering stories from the Archive, the communities of north Glasgow, & Alasdair Gray’s anti-colonial thinking, legacy & enduring impact.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rich-things-with-chitra-ramaswamy-tickets-2002542250779

#Scottish #literature #BlackHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #Glasgow #AlasdairGray

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

36d

Hermes was a bad god, a shifty fellow,
a liar, a thief, a teller of the future
(with dice, of course), a musician,
herald and messenger of the gods…

—Norman MacCaig, “Hermes-Mercury”
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 #Hermes #Mercury #Wednesday #Roman #Classical

Norman MacCaig
Hermes-Mercury

Hermes was a bad god, a shifty fellow,
a liar, a thief, a teller of the future
(with dice, of course), a musician,
herald and messenger of the gods.

No wonder mercury was called after Mercury.
No wonder the Romans gave him that name:
the Trader, the Business Man.

How he must have laughed when the Romans
raised a statue to him
– god of commerce, god of profit and loss –
in the Street called Sober Street
where no shops were allowed, no pubs.

No wonder he was the conveyor of dreams.
Garden of Bliss, Vision of Hell – what did he care?
Yet I admire him. He was a survivor.

What a god, to survive among
those other gods and goddesses, those arrogant,
selfish, high-living turncoats and lechers –
too stupid to notice they were only
the blind dupes of Fate.

. . . Fate must have loved him, the black sheep,
the con man, the wide boy of Olympus.

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

35d

Today, October 8, is (naturally) Octopus Day … Hugh MacDiarmid embraced the octopus as a many-branched model of the cosmos in his epic 𝘈 𝘋𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘬 𝘔𝘢𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘦 (1926)

Extract from Hugh MacDiarmid: Selected Poetry (Carcanet, 2004)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857547566

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #modernism #modernist #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #OctopusDay

A mony-brainchin' candelabra fills
The lift and's lowin' wi' the stars;
The Octopus Creation is wallopin'
In coontless faddoms o' a nameless sea.
I am the candelabra, and burn
My endless candles to an Unkent God.
I am the mind and meanin' o' the octopus
That thraws its empty airms through a' th' Inane.

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

35d

Lorrayne
before you hit me with that object
shaped like a toblerone
let me explain…

—Hugh McMillan, “The X Files: Bonnybridge, October ’95”
published in 𝘈𝘱𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘦’𝘴 𝘈𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘬 (Peterloo, 1996)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/x-files-bonnybridge-october-95/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #XFiles #TheTruthIsOutThere

The X Files: Bonnybridge, October ’95
Hugh McMillan

Lorrayne
before you hit me with that object
shaped like a toblerone
let me explain.
We only went for a half pint and a whisky
then set off home but somehow
lost two hours on a thirty minute journey.
My mind’s a blank
but Brian clearly saw
Aliens with black eyes and no lips
leading us onto a kind of craft.
I tried to lash out, explain that I was late,
but they used some kind of numbing ray on me:
it put me in this state.
Lorrayne, don’t you see what it explains?
All the times I crawled home with odd abrasions.
Put that down Lorrayne,
don’t you see I have to go again,
for the sake of future generations?

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

3d

“The multi-lingual, multi-cultural fabric of this nation is something we need to actively celebrate and explore”

Scotland’s Makar Peter Mackay explores the legacy of Scotland as a multilingual country ahead of his event at Push the Boat Out – Edinburgh’s poetry festival

https://www.theskinny.co.uk/books/features/peter-mackay-makar-interview

#Scottish #literature #poetry #language #languages #translation #multilingualism #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

3d

FOR THE LOVE OF WILLIE
by Agnes Owens

During WW2, 16-year-old Peggy falls in love with her married, older employer. 30 years later, in a psychiatric hospital, she looks to turn her teenage exploits into a romance novel…

A dramatisation of Agnes Owens’ darkly comic novella is currently available on BBC Sounds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0033z6p

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #novella #AgnesOwens #womenwriters #workingclasswriters

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

3d

Kate MacNiven: The Silent Witch of Monzie
12 November, Aberdeen: free

In the latter half of the 17th century, Kate MacNiven was accused, tried, and found guilty of witchcraft and burnt at the foot of Knock hill near Crieff, Perthshire. Her story lay silent except in legend. Writer Jess Smith brings out the scant details of her life, reminding us that ‘truth will not be silenced’.

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/news-events/events/25377/

#Scottish #history #17thcentury #EarlyModern #witchtrials

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

2d

Alastair Reid (1926-2014): The Legacy
19 November, University of St Andrews

Alastair Reid (1926–2014) was one of the major Scottish poets of the 20th century. He also became one of the leading translators, into English, of Latin American poets, notably Jorge Luis Borges & Pablo Neruda.

This event will include readings of Reid’s poetry, & a discussion of his legacy as a poet, scholar and translator.

https://poeticinnovation.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk

#Scottish #literature #poetry #translation #Borges #Neruda #StAndrews

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

34d

Imagining Scotland: Walter Scott vs Hugh MacDiarmid

Walter Scott & Hugh MacDiarmid could scarcely have had more opposing visions of Scotland’s past, present & future – or could they? James Robertson & Alex Linklater discuss these two giants of our culture & their respective projects for inventing or reinventing the nation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMXtSraI7rY

#Scottish #literature #culture #culturalstudies #WalterScott #SirWalterScott #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid #nationalidentity #ScottishIdentity

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

6h

𝘛𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘩. You would have liked that phrase,
lecturing me on how a spider’s thread
is stronger bonded than a rope of steel…

—Alison Prince, “Webs”
published in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯 (Mariscat Press, 2003)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/webs/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #winter #spiders #elegies #grief #womenwriters

Webs
Alison Prince

Tensile strength. You would have liked that phrase,
lecturing me on how a spider’s thread
is stronger bonded than a rope of steel.
Here on the frosted path, webs brush my face
and cling. Catenaries. A strange appeal
you found in these dry terms, my love. Long dead,
you are still with me. Irritating, yes,
a trifle pompous – but it was a boy’s
delight in structures that provoked you to
point out these abstract truths. The stickiness
of spider silk necklaced with frozen dew
is real to me, as is your still-heard voice,
your striding tread. Almost invisibly
these anchored threads tie leaf to white-edged leaf;
my passing breaks them, brushing them away
to nothing, but their creeping filigree
will be rebuilt. Each perfect, untouched day
renews the cobwebs of an old, sweet grief.

A photograph of "a frosted spider’s web", by Walter Barker. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_frosted_spider’s_web_-_geograph.org.uk_-_7052192.jpg

Against a dark background, a spider's web, centred near the top left-hand corner of the image. Parts of the web are torn, and the threads weighted and highlighted by frost. Thicker threads stand out, the ice on them like a fine fuzz; thinner ones are just lines of white, and the very thinnest are barely visible strings of tiny white dots.

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

6h

Uist Gaelic legendry from the 20th century
18 November, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye, & online – free

Liam Crouse will explore change & variation in Gaelic legend folklore from Uist as embodied within some of the principal 20th-century collections of oral tradition

https://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/research-seminar-liam-crouse/?lang=en

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #folklore #legends #Uist #Hebrides

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

5h

“Agnes Owens at 100: Dame of darkly comic working-class stories”
recorded on 4 November 2026

Described by Alasdair Gray as “the most unfairly neglected of all living Scottish authors”, Owens began writing in middle age after joining a local writer’s class simply “to get out of the house”. Her archives shine a new light on her work, helping secure her place in Scotland’s literary history.

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

#Scottish #literature #AgnesOwens #womenwriters #workingclass #WorkingClassWriters

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

33d

Captain of oats, braw brose, fine gruel,
you are thi Scotsman’s constant fuel
fae New Year’s Dey till end o Yule
(we don’t do Simmer)…

—WN Herbert, “TO PORRIDGE”

Happy #WorldPorridgeDay to all who celebrate! 🥣

https://poetryinternationalweb.org/pi/site/poem/item/22732/auto/0/TO-PORRIDGE

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #porridge #WorldPorridgeDay

WN Herbert
TO PORRIDGE
'Auld claes and parritch...'

Captain of oats, braw brose, fine gruel,
you are thi Scotsman’s constant fuel
fae New Year’s Dey till end o Yule
(we don’t do Simmer):
oan ilka morn ye bring renewal,
thi stomach’s zimmer.

Ye greet us lyk a fu-fissed mune
and guarantee tae fill wir spune
wi fushion – see, ye’re cratert roond
wi seas o bubbles –
tranquillity is aa yir tune,
and ease fae troubles.

Grey revolutionary fur guts,
jump-starter fur thi slo-mo slutz
that sends us loupin fae wir cots
intae wir sarks
(a dram in you gets slob and klutz
back tae thir wark).

When snaa faas owre thi Border’s pale
and Southron bairns can plunk aff skail
then even English journos hail
wir Northern mannah –
are sudden experts oan oatmeal
tapped wi a sultana.

Ye’re like a clood-occludit sun
that casts grey licht oan ivrywun;
thi siller ash on grieshoch; grun
ablow thi slush
that derns oat-germs that sune will wun
thru Winter’s crush.

Tho Doctir Johnson caaed ye food
fur foals – mair fulmar him – ye’ve plooed
thru Scotia’s lard-imprisoned bluid
and freed oor veins:
dae mealie puddins dae us good?
Great Oat, explain!

Hoo dae we luve ye? Some wi cream,
wi hinny, spice or jeely reamed,
while Calvin’s crew hae sauty dreams
o fare of auld,
powred in a draaer fur bothy teams
tae slice oot cauld.

‘Auld claes an parritch’ gaes thi creh
wance we hae drunk thi Daft Deys dreh
and neath a sober, saft grey skeh
we view thi year –
we’re nae whit bettir, but we’ll treh
wi sic guid gear!

Editor's Note: Fushion—wholesomeness, strength; slutz—a leap in skating; sark—shirt; grieshoch—red-hot embers; dern–hide.

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

33d

Fossil hunter, folklorist, evangelist, stonemason, editor, social justice campaigner, & geologist, Hugh Miller (1802–1856) – born #OTD, 10 Oct – should be remembered in the company of Carlyle, Ruskin, Matthew Arnold & JS Mill as one of the leading moral & social thinkers of the 19th centuries

A 🎂🧵

1/4

#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #HughMiller #geology #historyofgeology #workingclass #workingclasswriters

Faded 19th-century sepia photograph of Hugh Miller. He is standing, dressed in workman's overalls, his shirt-sleeves rolled up. He has bushy hair and large sideburns, and his left elbow is propped up on a carved gravestone. His right hand rests on a large stonemason's maul, and he holds a chisel in his left hand.

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

33d

I want answers, but there are only the wild geese
Calling, high in the almost-dark, bearing south,
And me, stopped short, clutching a bag of groceries
On the doorstep of my not-quite home…

—Susan Mansfield, “Bearing South”
from THE ROOFTOP BUSKER (ASL, 2015)

Today, 10 October, is World Migratory Bird Day

https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/news/reasons-to-celebrate-world-migratory-bird-day

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem #wildgeese #WorldMigratoryBirdDay

Susan Mansfield
BEARING SOUTH

I want answers, but there are only the wild geese
Calling, high in the almost-dark, bearing south,
And me, stopped short, clutching a bag of groceries
On the doorstep of my not-quite home.
I feel the calm of their inner compass
And wonder if this is what we mean by certainty,
A deft arrowhead of wingbeats
In tune with the turning wind, the changing light,
A geography in their feathery breasts
Older than the names of continents.
A journey without thought of parting or arrival,
Only the press of forward motion,
The urgency and risk of it all,
A brief touch-down in stubble fields, then on,
The pulse of fellow flyers in the slipstream
And the clear voices calling in the dark:
I am here, I am alive,
I am here, I am alive.

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1d

There are many dead in the brutish desert, who lie uneasy
among the scrub in this landscape of half-wit
stunted ill-will…
—“Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica”

Hamish Henderson (1919–2002) – poet, soldier, intellectual, activist, songwriter – was born #OTD, 11 November. A massive figure in Scottish culture, he fought in N. Africa & Italy in WW2. A 🎂🧵

1/10

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoem #warpoetry #WW2 #HamishHenderson #RemembranceDay

Hamish Henderson
from Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica

FIRST ELEGY
End of a Campaign

There are many dead in the brutish desert, who lie uneasy
among the scrub in this landscape of half-wit
stunted ill-will. For the dead land is insatiate
and necrophilous. The sand is blowing about still.
Many who for various reasons, or because of mere unanswerable compulsion, came here
and fought among the clutching gravestones, shivered and sweated,
cried out, suffered thirst, were stoically silent, cursed
the spittering machine-guns, were homesick for Europe
and fast embedded in quicksand of Africa agonised and died.
And sleep now. Sleep here the sleep of the dust.

There were our own, there were the others.
Their deaths were like their lives, human and animal.
There were no gods and precious few heroes.
What they regretted when they died had nothing to do with race and leader, realm indivisible,
laboured Augustan speeches or vague imperial heritage.
(They saw through that guff before the axe fell.) Their longing turned to
the lost world glimpsed in the memory of letters:
an evening at the pictures in the friendly dark,
two knowing conspirators smiling and whispering secrets; or else
a family gathering in the homely kitchen
with Mum so proud of her boys in uniform: their thoughts trembled
between moments of estrangement, and ecstatic moments
of reconciliation: and their desire
crucified itself against the unutterable shadow of someone
whose photo was in their wallets.
Then death made his incision.

There were our own, there were the others.
Therefore, minding the great word of Glencoe’s
son, that we should not disfigure ourselves
with villainy of hatred; and seeing that all
have gone down like curs into anonymous silence,
I will bear witness for I knew the others.
Seeing that littoral and interior are alike indifferent
and the birds are drawn again to our welcoming north
why should I not sing them, the dead, the innocent?

Edited 1d ago

2 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1d

Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave
On the slopes of Picardy…

—Violet Jacob, “To A.H.J.”

Violet Jacob’s only son, Harry, was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, aged twenty

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoem #warpoetry #RemembranceDay #WW1 #womenwriters

Violet Jacob
“To A.H.J.”

Past life, past tears, far past the grave,‍‍
‍‍‍‍The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave‍‍
‍‍‍‍On the slopes of Picardy.

On Angus, in the autumn nights,‍‍
‍‍‍‍The ice-green light shall lie.
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights‍‍
‍‍‍‍Slant on the belts of sky.

But miles on miles from Scottish soil‍‍
‍‍‍‍You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country’s freedman, loosed from toil.‍‍
‍‍‍‍In honour and in faith.

For Angus held you in her spell,
‍‍‍‍Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
‍‍‍‍Were half the world to you.

Yet rest, my son; our souls are those‍‍
‍‍‍‍Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close‍‍
‍‍‍‍To France’s deathless heart.

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1d

Chan fhaca mi Lannes aig Ratasbon
no MacGillFhinnein aig Allt Èire
no Gill-Ìosa aig Cùil Lodair,
ach chunnaic mi Sasannach san Èipheit…

—Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean) (1911–1996), “Curaidhean” (“Heroes”)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #warpoem #warpoetry #WW2 #SorleyMaclean #RemembranceDay

Curaidhean
Somhairle MacGill-Eain

Chan fhaca mi Lannes aig Ratasbon
no MacGillFhinnein aig Allt Èire
no Gill-Ìosa aig Cùil Lodair,
ach chunnaic mi Sasannach san Èipheit.

Fear beag truagh le gruaidhean pluiceach
is glùinean a’ bleith a chèile,
aodann guireanach gun tlachd ann –
còmhdach an spioraid bu trèine.

Cha robh buaidh air ‘san taigh-òsta
’n àm nan dòrn a bhith gan dùnadh’,
ach leòmhann e ri uchd a’ chatha,
anns na frasan guineach mùgach.

Thàinig uair-san leis na sligean,
leis na spealgan-iarainn beàrnach,
anns an toit is anns an lasair,
ann an crith is maoim na h-àraich.

Thàinig fios dha san fhrois pheilear
e bhith gu spreigearra ’na dhiùlnach:
is b’ e sin e fhad ’s a mhair e,
ach cha b’ fhada fhuair e dh’ùine.

Chùm e ghunnachan ris na tancan,
a ’ bocail le sgreuch shracaidh stàirnich
gus an d’ fhuair e fhèin mun stamaig
an deannal ud a chuir ri làr e,
beul sìos an gainmhich ’s an greabhal,
gun diog o ghuth caol grànda.

Cha do chuireadh crois no meadal
ri uchd no ainm no g’ a chàirdean:
cha robh a bheag dhe fhòirne maireann,
’s nan robh cha bhiodh am facal làidir;
’s co-dhiù, ma sheasas ursann-chatha,
leagar mòran air a shàillibh
gun dùil ri cliù, nach iarr am meadal
no cop sam bith à beul na h-àraich.

Chunnaic mi gaisgeach mòr à Sasainn,
fearachan bochd nach laigheadh sùil air;
cha b’ Alasdair à Gleanna Garadh –
is thug e gal beag air mo shùilean.

Heroes
Translator: Sorley MacLean

I did not see Lannes at Ratisbon
nor MacLennan at Auldearn
nor Gillies MacBain at Culloden,
but I saw an Englishman in Egypt.

A poor little chap with chubby cheeks
and knees grinding each other,
pimply unattractive face –
garment of the bravest spirit.

He was not a hit ‘in the pub
in the time of the fists being closed,’
but a lion against the breast of battle,
in the morose wounding showers.

His hour came with the shells,
with the notched iron splinters,
in the smoke and flame,
in the shaking and terror of the battlefield.

Word came to him in the bullet shower
that he should be a hero briskly,
and he was that while he lasted,
but it wasn’t much time he got.

He kept his guns to the tanks,
bucking with tearing crashing screech,
until he himself got, about the stomach,
that biff that put him to the ground,
mouth down in sand and gravel,
without a chirp from his ugly high-pitched voice.

No cross or medal was put to his
chest or to his name or to his family;
there were not many of his troop alive,
and if there were their word would not be strong.
And at any rate, if a battle post stands,
many are knocked down because of him,
not expecting fame, not wanting a medal
or any froth from the mouth of the field of slaughter.

I saw a great warrior of England,
a poor manikin on whom no eye would rest;
no Alasdair of Glen Garry;
and he took a little weeping to my eyes.

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

32d

A Home in Space: Edwin Morgan’s Concrete, Visual & Sound Poetry

Recorded on 6 October at the National Galleries, Edinburgh

Former Scottish Makar Edwin Morgan (1920–2010) is remembered as a lyric poet of extraordinary breadth & verve. Poet & critic Greg Thomas discusses Morgan’s experiments in dadaist visual & sonic poetics, his concrete ‘poem-objects’ & surrealist collages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBpFurM925k

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

watch?v=KBpFurM925k

Edited 32d ago

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

31d

Flinching in my hands
this soiled and studded but good heart,
which stippling my cupped palms, breathes –

—Jen Hadfield, “Hedgehog, Hamnavoe”
published in NIGH-NO-PLACE (Bloodaxe, 2007)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/hedgehog-hamnavoe/

#Scottish #literature #Shetland #hedgehog #hedgehogs #poem #poetry

Hedgehog, Hamnavoe
Jen Hadfield

Flinching in my hands
this soiled and studded but good heart,
which stippling my cupped palms, breathes –

a kidney flinching on a hot griddle,
or very small Hell’s Angel, peeled from the verge
of a sweet, slurred morning.

Drunk, I coddle it like a crystal ball,
hellbent the realistic mysteries
should amount to more than guesswork

and fleas.

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

31d

WRITERS!

Submissions are invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 45! We want poetry & prose in English, Gaelic, & Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 13 December!

@writingcommunity

Submit free via Submittable 👇

https://nws.submittable.com/submit

#Scottish #literature #writing #WritingCommunity #IAmWriting #poetry #shortfiction #shortstories #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

31d

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: in 2023, we republished her long out-of-print childhood memoir, 𝘏𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘠𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬

🎂 🧵

1/5

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/haste-ye-back/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #horror #weird #weirdfiction #weirdtales #memoir #childhood #Aberlour

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

31d

Agnes Owens: dame of darkly comic working-class stories
4 Nov, National Library of Scotland, Glasgow – free

Alasdair Gray called her “the most unfairly neglected of all living Scottish authors”. Owens began her writing career after attending a writer’s class in her middle-age “just to get out of the house”.

Agnes Owens’ archives can secure her status as a major Scottish literary figure.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/agnes-owens-dame-of-darkly-comic-working-class-stories-tickets-2003294557950

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #workingclasswriters #archive

Edited 30d ago

1 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

30d

“[TV detective Columbo is] a socialist figure,” Rankin says. “He comes into these very rich people’s lives and tears them apart, and they don’t know he’s doing it until he’s already done it. I just thought that was extraordinary.”

—“The crime fiction I’m interested in is political”: Ian Rankin on his new novel about the super-rich

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/oct/11/the-fiction-im-interested-in-is-political-ian-rankin-on-his-new-novel-about-the-super-rich

#Scottish #literature #crimefiction #detectivefiction #novel #IanRankin

the-fiction-im-interested-in-is-political-ian-rankin-on-his-new-novel-about-the-super-rich

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

30d

WRITERS!

New Writing Scotland seeks a new co-editor for English- & Scots-language work. Applicants should be currently based in Scotland & have a strong publishing record, with a focus on poetry. Post is up to 3 years: stipend £1500 per issue.

Please share! 👇

https://asls.org.uk/new-writing-scotland-seeks-co-editor/

#Scottish #Scotland #literature #poetry #poet #poets #writingcommunity

ASL is inviting applications for the role of co-editor of New Writing Scotland, from writers currently based in Scotland. Applicants should have a strong publishing record of their own, with a focus on poetry; previous editorial experience would be an advantage. The post will run for up to three years from 2027, for volumes 45, 46, and 47, publishing in 2027, 2028, and 2029 (dependent on funding).

Our editors jointly select approximately 50 pieces – poetry and prose – from the English- and Scots-language submissions we receive each year. The submissions are anonymised, and we provide editors with paper copies to read. As an editor, we’d ask you to attend launches in Edinburgh and Glasgow (travelling expenses would be paid). Editors receive an annual £1500 stipend and full editorial credit.

We encourage applications from all backgrounds and particularly welcome applications from people who are under-represented within the sector, including from BPOC applicants (Black people and People of Colour), disabled people, LGBTQIA+ applicants and those from a low socioeconomic background.

Please send a CV and a one-page application letter, outlining your qualifications for the position, to admin@asls.org.uk by 6 p.m. on Sunday 8 November 2026.

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

Previous Page Next Page