Eggplant.place

“It was the time of year when things could change their nature. […] And already, my true love said taking my arm, we're past the shortest. Light is shaving the darkness off already, a couple of minutes a day. Have you noticed?”

—from 2008: “Do you call that a Christmas present?” – a short story by Ali Smith

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/ali-smith-do-you-call-that-a-christmas-present-1203321.html

#Scottish #literature #shortstory #Christmas #AliSmith

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307d

Poetry Workshops with Rebecca Sharp
17 & 24 January, Arbroath – free, ticketed

Led by poet & playwright Rebecca Sharp, these workshops will explore the ways stories are preserved, forgotten, or reinvented – from history to legends & folklore. No experience needed.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-workshop-with-rebecca-sharp-tickets-1977268333813

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poetryworkshop #history #legend #folklore

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325d

“Of old, Edinburgh University was the scene of heroic snowballing; and one riot obtained the epic honours of military intervention.”

—Robert Louis Stevenson, PICTURESQUE NOTES: EDINBURGH (1878)

🎨 : “Snowballing Outside Edinburgh University”, by Samuel Bough (1822–1878). Watercolour on paper, 1853

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Download PICTURESQUE NOTES as a free ebook from @gutenberg_org

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/382

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #Edinburgh #winter

“Snowballing Outside Edinburgh University”, by Samuel Bough (1822–1878). Watercolour on paper.

A mid-nineteenth-century street scene in Edinburgh. At a street corner, on either side of the road, two groups of youths are throwing snowballs at each other. Some people watch from windows; other onlookers stand by. On one side of the street two women and a child hurry past.

ALT

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307d

An Evening of Scottish Speculative Fiction
22 Jan, Waterstones Argyle Street, Glasgow. Tickets £5.

A trio of fantastic Scottish writers of spectacular speculative fiction – Christopher Caldwell, Angie Spoto, & Lorraine Wilson – in a discussion chaired by Elaine Gallagher.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-of-scottish-speculative-fiction/glasgow-argyle-street

#Scottish #literature #ScienceFiction #Fantasy #SFF #SpeculativeFiction #SpecFic #Glasgow

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307d

Snaw is bluffertin’ the toun,
Gurly wunds are roustin’ roun’,
Peety fowk in broken shoon
This winter nicht…

—Helen Burness Cruickshank (1886–1975), “Song of Pity for Refugees”
published in Collected Poems (Reprographia, 1971)

#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #poem #poetry #refugees #winter

Song of Pity for Refugees
by Helen Burness Cruickshank

Snaw is bluffertin’ the toun,
Gurly wunds are roustin’ roun’,
Peety fowk in broken shoon
This winter nicht.

Peety help the weary auld,
Claes nor fire to fend aff cauld,
Hoose nor ha’ them safe to hauld
This winter nicht.

Peety wham in a’ the warld
Fortune fell through hell has harled,
Hungert, hameless, broken, marled,
This winter nicht.

Peety men withooten kin,
Ne’er a freend to cry them ben,
Nane their deein’ sauls to sain
This winter nicht.

ALT

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285d

“I love winter… I love the peace of the nature reserve with its labyrinths of bare branches and its startling sunsets. I love the blitz of wee birds at the feeders in the garden. I’m not so keen on the damp grey days, I admit. So It’s no hardship to stay at my desk.”

—Val McDermid on how winter fuels her creative process – via @literaryhub

@writingcommunity

https://lithub.com/ice-and-inspiration-an-ode-to-writing-in-winter-from-val-mcdermid/

#Scottish #literature #writing #winter #creativity #crimefiction

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307d

Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly…

—“Up in the Morning Early”, by Robert Burns – poet of the people 🫡

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/morning-early/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #18thCentury #RobertBurns #winter

Up in the Morning Early
by Robert Burns

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shrill I hear the blast,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

CHORUS
Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

The birds sit chittering in the thorn,
A’ day they fare but sparely;
And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

CHORUS
Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

ALT

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307d

Book launch
Ali Smith: GLYPH
29 Jan, Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh, & online – ticketed

Ghosts don’t exist.
They don’t. End of.
Story, however.
It is haunting.
Everything tells it.

GLYPH is Ali Smith’s most soulful, playful & vital novel yet, a work of lightness that goes deep to counter the forces currently flattening the modern world. Smith will be in conversation with Jess Orr.

https://www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/ali-smith-glyph

#Scottish #literature #novel #AliSmith

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209d

the rain has stopped
but still it’s falling
under the trees

—Alan Spence
published in CLEAR LIGHT, @canongatebooks 2012

https://canongate.co.uk/books/94-clear-light/

#Scottish #literature #InternationalHaikuPoetryDay #poem #poetry #haiku #HaikuDay

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1y

Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889–1982)—author, poet, film-maker, botanist, #arctic explorer—was born #OTD, 30 May. A 🎂 🧵

WalkHighlands shares an extract from PEAK BEYOND PEAK, describing how she tackled the Corrieyairack Pass between the #Cairngorms & Loch Ness

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https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/peak-beyond-peak-the-unpublished-scottish-journeys-of-isobel-wylie-hutchison/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #hillwalking #mountaineering

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244d

In order to help you overcome your fear
of what the Chinese call the Lord of Distress,
I suggest you try confrontation therapy…

—Brian McCabe, “Triskaidekaphobia”
published in ZERO (Polygon, 2009)

Happy Friday the 13th to all who celebrate

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Fridaythe13th #triskaidekaphobia

Triskaidekaphobia
Brian McCabe

In order to help you overcome your fear
of what the Chinese call the Lord of Distress,
I suggest you try confrontation therapy.

So, on Black Friday, the day of Christ’s death –
and yes, the thirteenth apostle betrayed him –
which also, as you have said, happens to be

you and your wife’s thirteenth anniversary,
of which you live in so much dread,
we really have the ideal opportunity.

I want you to reserve a room in the Pyramid Hotel.
Unlike many, it has the floor – before you go in,
you must count them, from the ground –

and a room number 1313. On that date it is free
– I have checked – and you will find the rates
to be very reasonable indeed.

You must invite eleven guests – no more, no less.
The centrepiece at dinner should be a pineapple –
count the rows of scales sloping up to the right.

I want you to request that any flowers sent
have the requisite number of petals:
black-eyed Susans; corn marigolds, ragwort.

Read the Cabala to your guests – the section
about Paradise, the Heavenly Fountains,
the Gates of Mercy, the Rivers of Balsam.

This will be your phobia’s last supper.
I’m afraid I can’t – I’ll be away.
Good luck and happy anniversary.

ALT

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209d

Songs from the Last Page
25 April, Musselburgh. £18

Written & performed by composer and songwriter Gareth Williams. Each song in the collection is inspired by the final lines of iconic Scottish literature – from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to Ely Percy’s DUCK FEET – transforming these into new pieces of music.

https://www.thebrunton.co.uk/whats-on/songs-from-the-last-page/

#Scottish #literature #music #song

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1y

The City is of Night; perchance of Death…

James “B.V.” Thomson (1834–1882) – poet, journalist, translator, anarchist, atheist – was born #OTD, 23 Nov, in Port Glasgow. Best known for his long poem THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT, he influenced TS Eliot & is seen as a progenitor of Modernism

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https://psychogeographicreview.com/the-city-of-dreadful-night/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Victorian #19thCentury #modernism #TSEliot

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208d

Beneath a Mona Lisa smile you’re splayed
for pinning. I recall the callipered
shadow of Vitruvian Man, from caverns
and hollowed trees to this small page…

—Morag Smith, “Renaissance Bat”
from DON’T. EVEN. ASK. TOO. HOT. New Writing Scotland 42 (ASL, 2024)

Today, 17 April, is Bat Appreciation Day 🦇

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws42/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #bats #BatAppreciationDay

Morag Smith
RENAISSANCE BAT

(From a watercolour, circa 1790, Asian Lesser False
Vampire)

Beneath a Mona Lisa smile you’re splayed
for pinning. I recall the callipered
shadow of Vitruvian Man, from caverns
and hollowed trees to this small page.
Notice the artist’s worship of your thumb-claws
– they hold up sails of wings that can make
the air water for swimming in. Deep time
echoes in those downy caves of ears.
We drew pyramids and squares, you listened,
carried the pox for fifty million years,
ate our locust plagues and held within
your matchstick bones what’s near forgotten:
that God’s an insectivorous vertebrate
thirty-four grammes in weight.

ALT

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305d

Reading Scotland’s Witches
20 Jan, 6–7:30 German time (5–6:30 GMT), free online

Dr Cordula Lemke looks at witchcraft in Scottish literature, & how Geillis Duncan – one of the first Scottish witches to die in the early modern witch-hunt frenzy – is remembered in literature & popular culture today

@litstudies

https://www.scotland.uni-mainz.de/reading-scotland/

#Scottish #literature #history #witchcraft #popularculture

READING SCOTLAND
with Cordula Lemke

Scotland’s Witches

Tuesday, 20th January 2026
6:00–7:30pm (German time) on MS Teams

www.scotland.uni-mainz.de

ALT

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285d

Lochhead’s Mary
26 March, Perth. £7.50/£5

Liz Lochhead’s Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off is one of the most iconic plays in modern Scottish theatre. This special event will reflect on Lochhead’s enduring influence on Scottish writing & identity

https://www.culturepk.org.uk/event/lochheads-mary/

#Scottish #literature #theatre #drama #LizLochhead #MaryQueenofScots #history #identity #ScottishIdentity

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305d

Lourd on my hert as winter lies
The state that Scotland’s in the day.
Spring to the North has aye come slow
But noo dour winter’s like to stay
For guid,
And no’ for guid!

—Hugh MacDiarmid, “Lourd on My Hert”
published in SELECTED POETRY (New Directions, 1993)

https://www.ndbooks.com/book/selected-poetry/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #HughMacDiarmid #Scots #Scotslanguage #winter

Lourd on My Hert
by Hugh MacDiarmid

Lourd on my hert as winter lies
The state that Scotland’s in the day.
Spring to the North has aye come slow
But noo dour winter’s like to stay
For guid,
And no’ for guid!

O wae’s me on the weary days
When it is scarce grey licht at noon;
It maun be a’ the stupid folk
Diffusin’ their dullness roon and roon
Like soot
That keeps the sunlicht oot.

Nae wonder if I think I see
A lichter shadow than the neist
I’m fain to cry: “The dawn, the dawn!
I see it brakin’ in the East.”
But ah
– It’s juist mair snaw!

ALT

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208d

In dusk, from in among the walnut tree
and its bearing down upon the damaskina,
although we never see the bat unwrap
like a sticky sweet from the paper…

—WN Herbert, “The Bat”
from OMNESIA (Bloodaxe, 2013)

https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-22731_THE-BAT

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #bats #BatAppreciationDay