Eggplant.place

108d

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept a forge

Who’d heat red hot the dragging links
That bound me to the past…

—Kathleen Jamie, “The Tradition”
published in THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-bonniest-companie/9781509801718

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Kathleen Jamie
The Tradition

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept a forge

Who’d heat red hot the dragging links
That bound me to the past,
Then, with one almighty hammer-blow
Unfetter me at last.

Older now, I know nor fee
Nor anvil breaks those chains
And the wild ways we think we walk
Just bring us here again.

ALT

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108d

ALT Book Fringe 2025
4–29 August, Edinburgh

Entirely run & curated by three of Scotland’s leading indie bookshops – Argonaut Books, Lighthouse – Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop, & Typewronger – ALT Book Fringe is a free, alternative August literary festival

https://www.lighthousebookshop.com/events/book-fringe-2025-alt-edition-returns

#Scottish #literature #Edinburgh #books #bookfestival

Save the Date
August 2025
Book Fringe
Argonaut
Lighthouse
Typewronger

A dynamic, inclusive, alternative, community-led book festival

ALT

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108d

Is ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net fear de dh’iomadh frithealaiche Mastodon neo-eisimeileach as urrainn dhut cleachdadh airson pàirt a ghabhail sa cho-shaoghal. Tha am frithealaiche seo ann do luchd na Gàidhlig.

https://ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net

Mu dhèidhinn: https://ailbhean.co-shaoghal.net/about
Rianachd le: @gunchleoc

#FeaturedServer #Gàidhlig #Alba #Scotland #Scottish #ScottishGaelic #Gaelic #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse

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106d

Robert Burns’s POEMS, CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT was published #OTD, 31 July 1786.

Copies are 3 times rarer than the Shakespeare First Folio: Patrick Scott & Allan Young are tracking the histories of surviving Kilmarnock Editions

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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2017/11/kilmarnock-burns-book-history/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #RobertBurns #Scots #Scotslanguage #18thcentury #BookHistory #RareBooks

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132d

It’s the cocktail hour. The air is still.
Mister gets busy on the charcoal grill.
Social-kissing women, backslapping men
has failed to break the ice. But then
Missiz appears like magic from the dusk.
Cool, ten years his junior, she smells of musk
and ‘Madame Rochas’. Two small spots of anger
high on her cheekbones linger…

—Liz Lochhead, “Fourth of July Fireworks”

Published in THREE SCOTTISH POETS, @canongatebooks 1992

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #4thofJuly #FourthofJuly

Fourth of July Fireworks
by Liz Lochhead

The guests are gathered.
Boston-Irish Nancy, half in huff
says, ‘Better help yourselves,
you all know Mister’s timing well enough.’
Aside at me she mutters.
‘Millionaires can afford to let things wait.
Honest-to-God Mister would be late
for his own funeral.’ Cigarstore Indian,
I hide behind my apron, wait and drink in all I can.

(We don’t exist. They pick our trays,
Tom Collinses, Martinis and canapés.)

Oh horror, New England night,
when I fetched the ice down and that snake
looped my feet in the kitchen garden! I still shake.
‘Harmless,’ says Nancy.
I hear her hiss, ‘Some host!
That beggar’ll only get here when he’s sure he’s last.’

Fourth of July. Cape Cod. Dead on cue,
last-man Mister comes running to his barbecue.
Arms flailing like a cricketer’s across the lawn
from his ‘so English’ house with a flame red shirt on.

It’s the cocktail hour. The air is still.
Mister gets busy on the charcoal grill.
Social-kissing women, backslapping men
has failed to break the ice. But then
Missiz appears like magic from the dusk.
Cool, ten years his junior, she smells of musk

ALT

and ‘Madame Rochas’. Two small spots of anger
high on her cheekbones linger.

When Mister says it’s done enough
the guests spread ketchup on the fatted calf.
The night hots up. Liquor flows. Listless
couples come alive. A bit apart, restless,
Missiz sways gently on her own
to Glen Miller on the gramophone.
All eyes are on the soignee cling
of this year’s leisure favourite, velvety stretch towelling
for patio-party wear. Those purples and electric pinks
‘Just far too hectic altogether,’ Nancy thinks.

(Ten years with Missiz, Nancy’s face
is quite professional, impervious.)

Ice melts in the Martini tray. Midges
drown. The whole night edges
to a thunderstorm. Maybugs big as golfballs thud
as screendoors bounce them. But, after our blood,
divebombing mosquitoes dodge the mesh and slide
in down their own thin whine.
They bite despite insecticide.

All at sea,
white and dayglo orange fins spinnaker the bay.
Music blares
from the jazzed-up clubhouse round the Cape, Cotuit way.
The whole damn town is two thirds empty after Labour Day.
These summer people
migrate to Florida, lock, stock and barrel.
Tonight their parked cars sprawl the drive and trail

ALT

behind those his-and-hers coupled custom Cadillacs
like a comet tail.

(Oh I can see it all quite clearly, feeling small
and stone-cold sober. But I do not count at all.)

Out on the lawn the sprinklers, oddly luminous,
sputter like Roman Candles, ominous
as the sudden snap of queer clear light
from one weird streak unzips the dark.
The German Shepherd guard dogs bark.
A wind gets up. These beach-house boards
are flimsier than playing cards.

(Over the bay, like flares
odd rockets go up with a shock of stars.)

Mister drags off his box of fireworks to the shore.
Missiz drains her drink and hits the floor
with someone half her age. His snake-arms slur
around her waist. Eyes glaze. Sentence endings blur.
Missiz (‘mutton dressed as lamb’)
comes in slowly as the false-calm
lead-slow sea that slicks the beach. Sinatra sings.
The tide ravels up slowly, shelving things.

Raindrops big as bullets dent the roof we all stand under,
watching Canute’s fireworks outrage the storm,
try to steal its thunder.

ALT

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132d

Scottish Scholars & Secrets: Developments of Dark Academia in Edinburgh – from 24 June 2025

Natasha Anderson finds roots of Dark Academia running through Edinburgh’s gothic literary traditions, in works by Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, & Ian Rankin

@litstudies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahpagiSHK78

#Scottish #literature #gothic #Edinburgh #DarkAcademia #RobertLouisStevenson #MurielSpark #IanRankin

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108d

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming…

—Niall Campbell, “The Rainmaker”
from POETRY, July/August 2020

We probably don’t appreciate the rain here in Scotland as much as we should…

Today, 29 July, is World Rain Day 🌧️

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/153822/the-rainmaker

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #rain #WorldRainDay

The Rainmaker
by Niall Campbell

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming;

the bath trough in the garden listened,
white and bone dry, as he described
a bright wash across the dust fields,

the surest downpour, the flushed skin,
my soaked shirt, heavy as a bell.
Then off he went to the scorched fields,

humming, and weighing what we paid.
What did he say: prayer is moisture;
hope is a well—I didn’t care,

I wanted just the words from him—
what I couldn’t dare say—not there
beneath that sun, that blur of fire-sky.

My thoughts all thoughts of water, I
spun my head round—to hear the spill
of the word rain across the boards,

and nothing grew dark, nothing fell—
but something fell, and the ground took,
and something wild as garlic grew.

ALT

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108d

The latest issue of NORTHWORDS NOW (#46, Summer–Autumn 2025) is available free online – featuring poems, short stories, articles & book reviews, in English, Gaelic & Scots

New writing, fresh from Scotland and the wider North
Sgrìobhadh ùr à Alba agus an Àird a Tuath

https://www.northwordsnow.co.uk/Issue46

#Scottish #literature #poetry #shortstories #shortfiction #Scots #Scotslanguage #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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106d

“The plotless beauty of his writing, and its fearless look at the emptiness of his own life, put ‘the Scottish Beat’ on a par with Kafka and Camus.”

—Tony O’Neill on “The junky genius of Alexander Trocchi (1925–1984)”, born 100 years ago #OTD, 30 July – a 🎂 🧵

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/aug/23/thejunkygeniusofalexander

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #Trocchi

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118d

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 prose. Post is up to 3 years: stipend £1500 per issue.

@writingcommunity

Details 👇

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

#Scottish #Scotland #writers #writing #writingcommunity

NEW WRITING SCOTLAND

ASL is seeking applications to be a 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 prose; previous editorial experience would be an advantage. The post will run for up to three years from 2026, for volumes 44, 45, and 46, publishing in 2026, 2027, and 2028 (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 midnight on Monday 4 August 2025.

Submission to New Writing Scotland is free and open to all. You can find our submission instructions here.

ALT

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106d

We who loved sincerely; we who loved sae fiercely.
The snow ne’er looked sae barrie,
Nor the winter trees sae pretty.
C’mon, c’mon my dearie – tak my hand, my fiere!

—Jackie Kay, “Fiere”
fron FIERE (Picador 2011)

30 July is International Friendship Day 🤝

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #friend #friends #friendship #InternationalFriendshipDay

Fiere
Jackie Kay

If ye went tae the tapmost hill, fiere
whaur we used tae clamb as girls,
ye’d see the snow the day, fiere,
settling on the hills.
You’d mind o’ anither day, mibbe,
we ran doon the hill in the snow,
sliding and singing oor way tae the foot,
lassies laughing thegither – how braw,
the years slipping awa; oot in the weather.

And noo we’re suddenly auld, fiere,
oor friendship’s ne’er been weary.
We’ve aye seen the wurld differently.
Whaur would I hae been weyoot my jo,
my fiere, my fiercy, my dearie O?
Oor hair micht be silver noo,
oor walk a wee bit doddery,
but we’ve had a whirl and a blast, girl,
thru the cauld blast winter, thru spring, summer.

O’er a lifetime, my fiere, my bonnie lassie,
I’d defend you – you, me; blithe and blatter,
here we gang doon the hill, nae matter,
past the bracken, bonny braes, barley,
oot by the roaring sea, still havin a blether.
We who loved sincerely; we who loved sae fiercely,
the snow ne’er looked sae barrie,
nor the winter trees sae pretty.
C’mon, c’mon my dearie – tak my hand, my fiere!

ALT

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107d

A bird’s voice chinks and tinkles
Alone in the gaunt reedbed –
Tiny silversmith
Working late in the evening…

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

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

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem #NormanMacCaig

July evening
Norman MacCaig

A bird’s voice chinks and tinkles
Alone in the gaunt reedbed –
Tiny silversmith
Working late in the evening.

I sit and listen. The rooftop
With a quill of smoke stuck in it
Wavers against the sky
In the dreamy heat of summer.

Flowers’ closing time: bee lurches
Across the hayfield, singing
And feeling its drunken way
Round the air’s invisible corners.

And grass is grace. And charlock
Is gold of its own bounty.
The broken chair by the wall
Is one with immortal landscapes.

Something has been completed
That everything is part of,
Something that will go on
Being completed forever.

ALT

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131d

July. Summer on the island
muffles in scarves.
Merino-socked, Berghaus-booted,
swap cocoon of car
for hilly slither. Pilgrim-trail
with sodden strangers,
step in time to the cadence of rain…

—Nikki Robson, “The Callanish Stones”
published in Other Worlds: An Anthology of Scottish Island Poems (Birlinn, 2022)

https://birlinn.co.uk/2022/06/20/poem-of-the-week-the-callanish-stones-by-nikki-robson/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Hebrides #Lewis #Callanish #StandingStones #tourism

The Callanish Stones
Nikki Robson

July. Summer on the island
muffles in scarves.
Merino-socked, Berghaus-booted,
swap cocoon of car
for hilly slither. Pilgrim-trail
with sodden strangers,
step in time to the cadence of rain.
White-trainered Americans patter: there isn’t a bus,
Earl, I can’t believe there isn’t a bus.
Even taped seams leak. Cold as
Lewisian gneiss, circle
the circle of Neolithic ritual.
Reach out, for Callanish grants
what Stonehenge forbids:
it feels like wet stone.
On the downhill squelch,
the final syllable’s a sneeze.
I buy a fridge magnet.

ALT

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103d

Collecting The Most Beautiful Books
22 Aug, Mount Stuart House, Rothesay – £8.50–£11

Kelsey Jackson Williams will explore armorial bookbindings in the Bute Collection & tell how aristocratic pride, the bookbinders' art, & subsequent tastes in collecting came together to form an exceptional but unknown assemblage of book-art in the Mount Stuart libraries.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/collecting-the-most-beautiful-books-august-talk-tickets-1529153030879

#Scottish #literature #books #bookbinding #bookhistory #Bute #Rothesay

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102d

The hill is tossing high, frail wisps of
rosy cloud to glide in steady gale
along a turquoise sky, around, above the
perpendicular and slightly askew columns,
above the triangular gap
between crown and crag…

—Tessa Ransford, “August 3rd”
published in Shadows from the Greater Hill (Ramsay Head Press, 1987)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/august-3rd/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #naturepoem #naturewriting

August 3rd
Tessa Ransford

The hill is tossing high, frail wisps of
rosy cloud to glide in steady gale
along a turquoise sky, around, above the
perpendicular and slightly askew columns,
above the triangular gap
between crown and crag.

The moon, full at midnight,
is now high and faded
almost a lazy eyelid:
day’s eye opening
or night’s eye closing.

Birds chase and ride the wind
reeling, wheeling,
aware that in a moment
ordinary flight of day will have to be resumed.

The hawk alone is steady,
keeps position despite the gale
to pinpoint a victim

and far below
grasses tinge in flower:
harebell, yarrow, lady’s yellow bedstraw
Among the rangy thistles and fatted doves.

ALT

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101d

Whaur’s yer Willie Shakespeare noo?
11 Sept, Royal Society of Edinburgh – free, ticketed

How does Scots language come alive on stage – and what does it say about us?

Playwright Ian Brown & linguist Jeremy Smith explore the Scots & English language varieties woven into THE SCOTCH PLAY (1990) – Brown’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/whaurs-yer-willie-shakespeare-noo-tickets-1489136991829

#Scottish #literature #drama #theatre #Scots #Scotslanguage #Shakespeare #Macbeth

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101d

Cuil-lodair, is Briseadh na h-Eaglaise,
is briseadh nan tacannan –
lamhachas-làidir dà thrian de ar comas;
’se seòltachd tha dhìth oirinn…

—“Cruaidh?” (“Steel?”), by Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson, 1921–2012) – born #OTD, 5 Aug. A 🎂 🧵

1/6

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

#Scottish #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Cruaidh?
le Ruaraidh MacThòmais

Cuil-lodair, is Briseadh na h-Eaglaise,
is briseadh nan tacannan –
lamhachas-làidir dà thrian de ar comas;
‘se seòltachd tha dhìth oirinn.
Nuair a theirgeas a’ chruaidh air faobhar na speala
caith bhuat a’ chlach-liomhaidh;
chan eil agad ach iarann bog
mur eil de chruas nad innleachd na ni sgathadh.

Is caith bhuat briathran mìne
oir chan fhada bhios briathran agad;
tha Tuatha Dè Danann fon talamh,
tha Tìr nan Og anns an Fhraing,
‘s nuair a ruigeas tu Tìr a’ Gheallaidh,
mura bi thu air t’ aire,
coinnichidh Sasannach riut is plion air,
a dh’ innse dhut gun tug Dia, bràthair athar, còir dha anns an fhearann.

ALT

Steel?
Translator: Derick Thomson

Culloden, the Disruption,
and the breaking up of the tack-farms –
two-thirds of our power is violence;
it is cunning we need.
When the tempered steel near the edge of the scythe-blade is worn
throw away the whetstone;
you have nothing left but soft iron
unless your intellect has a steel edge that will cut clean.

And throw away soft words,
for soon you will have no words left;
the Tuatha Dè Danann are underground,
the Land of the Ever-young is in France,
and when you reach the Promised Land,
unless you are on your toes,
a bland Englishman will meet you,
and say to you that God, his uncle, has given him a title to the land.

ALT

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100d

CFP: 39th Annual Conference of the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society
9–11 April 2026, Philadelphia, USA

Papers are invited on any aspect of 18th-century Scottish history, thought, & culture, especially the notable 250th anniversaries in 2026, e.g. the role of Scots in the American Revolution, the publication of the Wealth of Nations, & the death of David Hume

Deadline: 10 Sept. Details in ALT-text

@litstudies

#Scottish #literature #history #culture #18thcentury #CulturalStudies

ECSSS will sponsor its own panels at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies meeting. Papers are invited on any aspect of eighteenth-century Scottish history, thought, and culture, but we would particularly encourage proposals for papers and panels relating to the 250th anniversaries of relevant events that occurred in 1776, such as the role of Scots in the American Revolution (especially in regard to Philadelphia), the publication of the Wealth of Nations, and the death of David Hume.

Details of the ECSSS-sponsored plenary speaker and the evening reception will follow in due course, along with information on any other aspects of the programme in which ECSSS are involved.

Because the programme for the ASECS meeting goes to press at the beginning of October, we have to put together the ECSSS programme by the end of the summer. Please act quickly in order to help us organize the programme in time.

Please email a title and brief abstract of your proposed 20-minute paper, along with a one-page CV, to Rachel Bani (rachel.bani@converse.edu) by 10 September 2025. Those submitting proposals for 3- or 4-paper panels should send the panel title and abstract as well as titles and abstracts of the individual papers and CVs of the presenters by the same deadline. Please ensure that any proposal include ‘2026 conference proposal’ in the email subject line.

ALT

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100d

In the Enola Gay
five minutes before impact
he whistles a dry tune

Later he will say
that the whole blooming sky
went up like an apricot ice…

—Alison Fell, “August 6, 1945”
published in The New British Poetry, 1968–88 (Paladin, 1988)

Hiroshima was hit by an atomic bomb on this day, 6 August, 1945

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Hiroshima #HiroshimaDay #atomicbomb #EnolaGay

August 6, 1945
Alison Fell

In the Enola Gay
five minutes before impact
he whistles a dry tune

Later he will say
that the whole blooming sky
went up like an apricot ice.
Later he will laugh and tremble
at such a surrender, for the eye
of his belly saw Marilyn’s skirts
fly over her head for ever

On the river bank,
bees drizzle over
hot white rhododendrons

Later she will walk
the dust, a scarlet girl
with her whole stripped skin
at her heel, stuck like an old
shoe sole or mermaid’s tail

Later she will lie down
in the flecked black ash
where the people are become
as lizards or salamanders
and, blinded, she will complain
Mother you are late. So late

Later in dreams he will look
down shrieking and see

ladybirds
ladybirds

ALT

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99d

BBC World Book Club: Arthur Conan Doyle
20 August, Toppings Booksellers, Edinburgh: free, ticketed

Harriett Gilbert is joined by international bestselling crime writer Val McDermid & leading Holmes expert Dr Mark Jones – Commissioning Editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal and Co-Host of The Doings of Doyle podcast – to discuss Conan Doyle’s masterpiece and its powerful influence on crime and detective fiction.

https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinburgh/world-book-club-arthur-conan-doyle/

#Scottish #literature #SherlockHolmes #ArthurConanDoyle

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99d

#OTD, 7 Aug, 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson boarded the SS Devonia to make the ten-day passage from Greenock to New York to pursue his thwarted relationship with Fanny Osbourne. In THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT he gives a vivid, sharp, & engaging account of his (impoverished) travels to & in America – read the first 5 chapters free 👇

1/2

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/the_amateur_emigrant/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #travelwriting #RobertLouisStevenson #emigration

Alt text

Book cover

Robert Louis Stevenson
The Amateur Emigrant
From the Clyde to Sandy Hook
Chapters I to V

On a blue-grey background, fading from dark to light from bottom to top, horizontal lines of blue-green spirals representing waves cover the bottom half of the page. The top line of spirals are coloured white.

ALT

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98d

All Back to Mine with Val McDermid
A Kick Up The Arts podcast

Recorded live in the Portobello Bookshop, Nicola Meighan talks to folk singer, football fan, & Fun Loving Crime Writer Val McDermid about life, love, reading, & writing

https://www.akickupthearts.org/blog-3-1/all-back-to-mine-with-val-mcdermid

#Scottish #literature #podcast #ValMcDermid #crimefiction

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98d

It gets late early out here
in the lacklustre places,
wind in the trees and the foodstalls’
ricepaper lamplight, fading and blurred with rain…

—John Burnside, “Travelling South, Scotland, August 2012”
published in BLACK MIDDENS: New Writing Scotland 31 (ASL, 2013)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JohnBurnside

John Burnside
Travelling South, Scotland, August 2012

“Necessity is not the mother of invention; play is”
—Ian D. Suttie

It gets late early out here
in the lacklustre places,
wind in the trees & the foodstalls’
ricepaper lamplight, fading & blurred with rain,
the wire fence studded with fleece
& indelible traces
of polythene wrapping; marrowfat clogging the drains
on the road that runs out to the coast
then disappears.
A last bleed of gold in the west, like a Shan Shui painting,
then darkness.

The animals are gone
that hunted here:
wolves coming down from the hills, that
immaculate hunger,
rumours of bear & cat, quick
martens & raptors.
The rain is darker now,
though not so black,
oil-iridescent, streaked with the smell of lard
– it gets late early out here; though late, out here,
has a different meaning:

stars in the road
& the absence of something more
than birchwoods or song,
pallet fires, tyre-tracks,
grubbed fields clouded with grease
& palm oil, hints
of molasses and lanolin, tarpaper,
iron filings.
A narrow band of weather on the road,
then houses; though we scarcely think of them
as that.

ALT

I remember a meadow at dusk
in another rain
(and this is nostalgia now); I remember
I stood in a wind like gossamer and watched
three roe fawns and a doe
come quietly, one by one, through the silvering grasses,
wary, but curious, giving me just enough space
to feel safe,
their watchfulness reminding me of something
lost, a creaturely
awareness I could only glimpse

in passing.
That meadow is gone, and dusk
isn’t dusk any more
– or not out here –
just miles of tract and lay-by on the way
to junkyards and dead allotments,
guard dogs on tether,
biomass, factory outlets,
the half-light of ersatz dairies petering out
on rotting fields
of rape and mustardseed.

We’ve been going at this for years:
a steady delete
of anything that tells us what we are,
a long
distaste for the blood warmth and bloom
of the creaturely: local
fauna and words for colour, all the shapes
of ritual and lust
surrendered where they fell, beneath a fog
of smut and grime and counting-house
as church, the old gods

ALT

buried undead beneath the rural sprawl
that bears their names, or wandering the hills
of Lammermuir and Whitelee, waiting out
the rule of Mammon, till the land returns
– with or without us –
chainlink going down
to bindweed, drunken
thistles in a sway
of wind and goldfinch on the dead estates, fat
clusters of moss
and gentian, broken

tarmac with new shoots
of coltsfoot breaking through
like velvet, till the darkness of the leaf
unfurls into a light we could have known
but failed to see
by choosing not to find
the kingdom-at-hand:
this order;
this dialectic;
this mother of invention,
ceaseless play.

ALT

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97d

“[I]f you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat.”

—Nancy Hawkins, the majestic narrator of Muriel Spark’s A FAR CRY FROM KENSINGTON, on why a writer should own a cat

Today, 8 August, is International Cat Day (don’t tell them) 🐈‍⬛

1/3

#Scottish #literature #writing #cats #InternationalCatDay #MurielSpark

So I passed him some very good advice, that if you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work, I explained, the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk-lamp. The light from a lamp, I explained, gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquillity of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.

ALT

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96d

Call for papers:
Irish & Scottish Women Writers for Children, c. 1750–1940
12 Dec, University of Edinburgh – free

Although significantly overlooked, Irish & Scottish women wrote children’s literature across various genres & forms. Papers on the symposium themes are invited by 31 August.

@litstudies

#Scottish #Irish #literature #womenwriters #ChildrensLiterature #18thcentury #19thcentury #20thcentury #CallforPapers

Paper presentations of 20 minutes in length are welcomed and may be on the following writers:

Catherine Sinclair, Elizabeth Hamilton, Isabella Fyvie Mayo, Ethel Forster Heddle, Annie S. Swan, Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Robina Hardy, Jessie Saxby, the Findlater sisters, the Mulholland sisters, Lady Gregory, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Leadbeater, Violet Finney, Katharine Tynan, Sophia Rosamond Praeger.

Or, the focus of the paper might be tied to one of the following themes:

Irish/Scottish women writers or editors of children’s periodicals.
Irish/Scottish women writers or illustrators of fairy tales or folktales.
Writing partnerships and the social networks of women writers.
The local, national and international in Irish/Scottish children’s literature.
Children’s literature written in Scots, Irish, or Scottish Gaelic.
Religion and politics in Irish/Scottish children’s literature.
Collections research and archival recovery of children’s literature.

Selected papers from this symposium will be invited to be expanded and collected in an edited volume of essays.

Please email a 200-word abstract and a 50-word bio to Lois Burke at v1lburk3@ed.ac.uk by 31st August.

The symposium will be free to attend, and catering will be provided.

ALT

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