Eggplant.place

182d

Michael Pedersen on Muckle Flugga: Isolation, Grief & Lighthouses

Following the release of his debut novel MUCKLE FLUGGA, Michael Pedersen speaks to SNACK magazine about turning lighthouses into legends, the ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson, and why this might be his most welcoming work yet.

https://snackmag.co.uk/michael-pedersen-on-muckle-flugga

#Scottish #literature #novel

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161d

A Kick Up the Arts podcast

Nicola Meighan discusses SMALL TOWN JOY: from Glam Rock to Hyperpop: How Queer Music Changed the Sound of Scotland with musician & writer Carrie Marshall, & is joined by musician & composer Laura Jane Wilkie, whose album VENT is centred around waulking songs – women’s work songs from the Highlands and Islands.

https://www.akickupthearts.org/blog-3-1/carrie-marshall-amp-laura-jane-wilkie

#Scottish #literature #music #popmusic #queer #queermusic #Highland #worksongs #podcast

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159d

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear.
Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks.
Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring…

—Edwin Morgan, “A Home in Space”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

#OTD, 20 July, 1969, Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #MoonLanding #MoonLandingDay #poem #poetry #astronauts #scifi #scifipoem #scifipoetry

A Home in Space
Edwin Morgan

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear.
Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks.
Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together.
Together they must hatch.
Hatches let the welders out.
Out went the whitesuit riggers with frames as light as air.
Air was millions under lock and key.
Key-ins had computers wild on Saturday nights.
Nights, days, months, years they lived in space.
Space shone black in their eyes.
Eyes, hands, food-tubes, screens, lenses, keys were one.
One night – or day – or month – or year – they all –
all gathered at the panel and agreed –
agreed to cut communication with –
with the earth base – and it must be said they were –
were cool and clear as they dismantled the station and –
and gave their capsule such power that –
that they launched themselves outwards –
outwards in an impeccable trajectory, that band –
that band of tranquil defiers, not to plant any –
any home with roots but to keep a –
a voyaging generation voyaging, and as far –
as far as there would ever be a home in space –
space that needs time and time that needs life.

ALT

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182d

When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high

drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,

with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Lochan”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Picador, 2018)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/selected-poems/9781509882953

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Kathleen Jamie
Lochan

(For Jean Johnstone)

When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high

drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,

with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me. I mean

to find among the thousands
scattered in that land

a certain quiet lochan,
where water lilies rise

like small fat moons,
and tied among the reeds,

underneath a rowan,
a white boat waits.

ALT

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158d

Today, 20 July, is World Chess Day

Episode 2 of the Alasdair Gray Archive’s UNLIKELY OBJECTS MOSTLY looks at Alasdair’s chessboard & the part chess played in his practice, uncovering the game’s pivotal role in the making of his Hillhead Subway mural & the novel POOR THINGS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vbB7OeYkeo

#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #PoorThings #mural #murals #publicart #Glasgow #Chess #WorldChessDay

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161d

Belle Stewart (1906–1997) – singer, storyteller, tradition-bearer – was born #OTD, 18 July, in a bow tent on the banks of the Tay at Caputh, near Blairgowrie. She ranks alongside Jeannie Robertson in the roll of the finest Scots ballad-singers.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0sMwlevTMU

#Scottish #literature #travellers #folklore #folksong

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180d

Come all ye lovers and affairs,
singles, discrete souls, and bears,
straightest of straights, bentest of bents,
carbolic scrub, Armani scents…

—Edwin Morgan, “G.G.L.C.”

A poem composed for the opening of the Glasgow Gay & Lesbian Centre, 1995

#Pride #PrideDay 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/lgbt-history-month-poem-that-launched-gglc/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Pride #PrideDay #InternationalPrideDay #LGBTQ

G.G.L.C.
Edwin Morgan

On the opening of the Glasgow Gay & Lesbian Centre, 4th November 1995

Come all ye persons of goodwill,
from Newton Mearns to Maryhill,
rattle the chains and launch the boat
and get it properly afloat.
I bash this poem against the bow,
name it G.G.L.C., and endow
its future cruise with benedictions,
sailing past all feuds and frictions.
Come all ye lovers and affairs,
singles, discrete souls, and bears,
straightest of straights, bentest of bents,
carbolic scrub, Armani scents,
Doc Martens girls, minikilt boys,
buyers of exotic toys,
opera queens, ballet queens,
and all the hesitant in-betweens,
trendsetters and anoraks,
underdogs looking for whacks,
indomitably spring-heeled dykes
sweeping up on mountain bikes,
jessies with attitude, closet cases,
solicitors with bright red braces,
Levis with a coloured hanky
to signal the right hanky-panky,
Lurex and Spandex and other ex-es
to mix the senses and the sexes,
but if you should prefer a suit
we'll certainly no pit ye oot,
for this is where we all can meet
down by the river in Dixon Street,
and the Broomielaw rolls on to the sea
with the happy cargo of G.G.L.C.

ALT

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180d

Queerness in Scotland has always existed, hidden in medieval manuscripts, coded in Jacobite poetry, or expressed through the arts. In the first of a 3-part series, the National Galleries of Scotland explores queer artforms & artists from Scotland, past & present

#Pride #PrideDay 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

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

#Scottish #literature #poetry #art #manuscripts #medieval #18thcentury #history #jacobites #queerhistory #queerness #Pride #PrideDay #InternationalPrideDay #LGBTQ

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157d

Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.

—“Speaking of Scotland” by Maurice Lindsay (1918–2009) – born #OTD, 21 July
Published in COLLECTED POEMS 1940–1990 (AUP 1990)

1/2

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/speaking-scotland/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Speaking of Scotland
Maurice Lindsay

What do you mean when you speak of Scotland?
The grey defeats that are dead and gone
behind the legends each generation
savours afresh, yet can’t live on?

Lowland farms with their broad acres
peopling crops? The colder earth
of the North East? Or Highland mountains
shouldering up their rocky dearth?

Inheritance of guilt that our country
has never stood where we feel she should?
A nagging threat of unfinished struggle
somehow forever lost in the blood?

Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.

ALT

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180d

Oh ye, wha in your oors o ease, ‍‍
‍‍Are fashed wi golochs, mauks, an flees,
Fell stingin wasps an bumble bees,
Tak tent o this:
There’s ae sma pest that’s waur nor these
To mar your bliss…

—W.R. Darling, “The Pest”
published in Oor Mither Tongue: An Anthology of Scots Vernacular Verse (Alexander Gardner, 1937)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #midge #midges

The Pest
W. R. Darling

Oh ye, wha in your oors o ease, ‍‍
‍‍Are fashed wi golochs, mauks, an flees,
Fell stingin wasps an bumble bees,
Tak tent o this:
There’s ae sma pest that’s waur nor these
To mar your bliss.

They hing ower hedges, burns, an wuds, ‍‍
‍‍An dance at een in dusky cluds;
Wi aw your random skelps an scuds,
They’re naeweys worrit:
Gin there’s a hole in aw your duds,
They’ll mak straucht for it.

I’ve traivled wast, I’ve traivled east; ‍‍
‍‍‍I’m weel aquaint wi mony a beast;
Wi lions, teegers, bears – at least
I’ve kent their claw:
I’ve been the fell mosquito’s feast –
But this cowes aw.

Auld Scotland, on thy bonnie face, ‍‍
‍‍Whan Mither Nature gied ye grace,
Lown, birken glens an floery braes,
Wild windy ridges,
To save ye frae deleerit praise,
She gied ye midges.

ALT

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180d

We were oot for oor usual dauner roond the toun, Tam and me, and had stopped for a pech at the tap o the hill, whaur they’re plannin tae build eichty new hooses if naebody objects, and probably even if they dae …

—James Robertson, “Bible Talk”
published in THE BOTTLE IMP 3, 2008

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2008/05/bible-talk-by-james-robertson/

#Scottish #literature #shortstory #FlashFiction #bible

Too long for ALT-text, but the whole story is available via the link.

ALT

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179d

At the Canongate Wall

“Stone suits the poetry. Or perhaps it’s the other way round. I think poetry suits stone, more than it suits paper, certainly more than it suits a screen. The poetry releases something latent in the stone.”

Kathleen Jamie visits the Canongate Wall in Edinburgh.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/june/at-the-canongate-wall

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #scottishparliament #publicart

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157d

“When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father.”
—from MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF, Robert Louis Stevenson’s uncompleted (indeed, barely begun) autobiography

Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887), lighthouse engineer & father of Robert Louis Stevenson, was born #OTD, 22 July

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#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #lighthouse #engineer #engineering #RobertLouisStevenson

Sepia photograph of Thomas Stevenson – a pensive-looking head-and-shoulders portrait of a Victorian gentleman, balding, clean-shaven with side-whiskers, his left hand raised to touch his face. A ring is visible on the pinkie of his left hand.

ALT

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179d

This photo’s saying nothing, is black and white, opaque.
A frozen moment, not a memory.
The boyfriend with the Pentax took it for the sake
Of taking it…

—Liz Lochhead, “Photograph, Art Student, Female, Working Class, 1966”
published in FUGITIVE COLOURS (Birlinn, 2016)

29 June is #NationalCameraDay

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/fugitive-colours/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #1960s #photograph #photography #womenwriters

Photograph, Art Student, Female, Working Class
Liz Lochhead

Her hair is cut into that perfect slant –
An innovation circa ‘64 by Vidal Sassoon.
She’s wearing C&A’s best effort at Quant
Ending just below the knicker-line, daisy-strewn.
Keeping herself in tights could blow her grant
Entirely, so each precious pair is soon
Spattered with nail varnish dots that stop each run.
She’s a girl, eighteen – just wants to have fun.

She’s not ‘a chick’. Not yet. Besides, by then
She’ll find the term ‘offensive’. ‘Dollybird’ to quote
Her favourite mags, is what she aspires to when
Her head’s still full of Honey and Petticoat.
It’s almost the last year that, quite this blithely, men
Up ladders or on building sites wolf-whistle to note
The approval they’re sure she will appreciate.
Why not? She did it for their benefit, looks great.

Nor does she object. Wouldn’t think she has the right.
Though when that lech of a lecturer comments on her tits
To a male classmate, openly, she might
Feel – quick as a run in nylon – that it’s
Not what ought to happen, is not polite,
She’ll burn, but smile, have no word that fits
The insult, can’t subject it to language’s prism.
In sixty-six there’s plenty sex, but not ‘sexism’.

ALT

Soon: The Female Eunuch and enough
Will be enough. Thanks to newfound feminism and Greer,
Women’ll have the words for all this stuff,
What already rankles, but confuses her, will seem clear
And she’ll (consciously) be no one’s ‘bit of fluff’
Or ‘skirt’ or ‘crumpet’. She’ll know the rule is ‘gay’ not ‘queer’,
‘Ms’ not ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ – she’ll happily obey it
And, sure as the Pill in her pocket, that’s how she’ll say it.

This photo’s saying nothing, is black and white, opaque.
A frozen moment, not a memory.
The boyfriend with the Pentax took it for the sake
Of taking it, a shot among many others, randomly,
To see how it would develop. Didn’t imagine it’d make
An image so typical it’d capture time so perfectly.
How does she feel? Hey, girl, did it feel strange
To be waiting for the a-changing times to change?

ALT

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146d

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie…

—Robert Burns, “Corn Rigs”
pages from Robert Burns: Selected Poems & Songs (OUP, 2013)

Today, 1 August, is Lammas Day

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/selected-poems-and-songs-9780199682324?cc=gb&lang=en&

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #song #18thcentury #folksong #RobertBurns #Lammas #LammasDay #romanticism #Scots #Scotslanguage

SONG
Tune-Corn Rigs are bonie

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie:®
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed,
Till 'tween the late and early;
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed,
To see me thro' the barley.

The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley:
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;
I kiss'd her ore and owre again,
Amang the rigs o' barley.

I lock'd her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly!
She ay shall bless that happy night,
Amang the rigs o' barley.

ALT

I hae been blythe wi' Comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu gath'rin gear;
I hae been happy thinking:
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubl'd fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.

CHORUS
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.

ALT

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146d

WRITERS!

Submissions are invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, Gaelic, & Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct!

@writingcommunity

Submit free via Submittable 👇

https://nws.submittable.com/submit

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

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179d

The Secret Commonwealth
30 June, online – ticketed

Dr Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart looks at The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies, compiled in the 17th century by minister, Gaelic scholar & folklorist Robert Kirk (1644–1692 – unless he’s still alive…)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/secret-commonwealth-of-elves-fairies-domhnall-stiubhart-zoom-tickets-694148796737

#Scottish #literature #folklore #Gaelic #Gaidhlig

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178d

so we’re doing the 1960s and leah who’s eleven
nearly twelve says what’s vietnam sir and scott
who has already turned twelve but looks about eight
says it’s in korea isn’t it sir…

—Mark Russell, “Drama”
published in With Their Best Clothes On: New Writing Scotland 36 (ASL, 2018)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws36/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #drama #teaching #teachers

Mark Russell
Drama

so we’re doing the 1960s and leah who’s eleven
nearly twelve says what’s vietnam sir and scott
who has already turned twelve but looks about eight
says it’s in korea isn’t it sir and stephanie laughs
well sort of snorts and looks like she might pee herself
and i say no but it is in the far east like korea
and we look on the map i bought and tacked to the wall
and see why north vietnam was supported by china
but not quite why south vietnam was supported by the usa
and then rab whose name is robbie but he prefers rab
spots korea and says look there’s a north and a south
just like that vietnam hingy and thomas says
wasn’t there a war there too and aiden says shut up
twatface and I have to send him out to mrs lennon
and thomas says it again and we see that north korea
was supported by china and that the americans found
another way of fighting another war a long way from home
and then katie who is very quiet most of the time
says no that wasn’t in the past because it’s happening
today it’s happening now she saw it on her phone
and that we’re all going to die tomorrow or the day after
and both rebeccas stand up waving their hands shouting
we’re not are we sir we’re not are we we’re not going to die
tomorrow are we sir and I say no but what would we do if
we thought we were going to die tomorrow how would we feel
maybe we can make a play about it let’s get into groups

ALT

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156d

Afro-Scottish Poetry Event 2025
25 July, Glasgow. Tickets £0–£10

A multicultural evening of poetry, music, & storytelling that celebrates African & Scottish identities through powerful performances. Created & curated by Chisom Okoronkwo with U Belong Glasgow

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/afro-scottish-poetry-event-2025-tickets-1396145632169

#Scottish #African #literature #poetry #storytelling #performance #identity #Glasgow #AfroScottish

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178d

From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides…

—“Canadian Boat-Song” (Anon.)
published in the Noctes Ambrosianæ, Blackwood’s Magazine Sept 1829

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#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #CanadaDay 🇨🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Canadian Boat-Song (from the Gaelic)

Listen to me, as when ye heard our father
Sing long ago, the song of other shores—
Listen to me, and then in chorus gather
All your deep voices, as ye pull your oars:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

We ne’er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley,
Where ’tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream,
In arms around the patriarch banner rally,
Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

When the bold kindred, in the time long-vanish’d,
Conquer’d the soil and fortified the keep—
No seer foretold the children would be banish’d,
That a degenerate Lord might boast his sheep:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

Come foreign rage—let Discord burst in slaughter!
O then for clansman true, and stern claymore—
The hearts that would have given their blood like water,
Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic roar:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.

ALT

Edited 178d ago

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177d

Summer 1945, just after VE Day: a group of young women brace for the future as the shattered world is put back into place. Neither they, nor Britain, will ever be the same again.

—currently on BBC Sounds: a new dramatisation of Muriel Spark’s THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f6p6

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #drama #radiodrama #audiodrama

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155d

“To anyone reading this who is just starting out or feeling unsure, I want to say: keep going. Poetry needs your voice”

Nazaret Ranea on her journey from being one of the Scottish Poetry Library’s Young Makars to publishing her first poetry collection with Drunk Muse Press

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2025/07/my-journey-from-scotlands-next-generation-young-makar-to-published-poet/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #writingcommunity

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155d

John Buchan: the master storyteller
4 Sept, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh – free

2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of John Buchan. Ursula Buchan, John Buchan’s granddaughter & biographer, will talk about the range of his fiction & its subject matter

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/john-buchan-the-master-storyteller-tickets-1480628713339

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #JohnBuchan

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177d

The First Battle of the Somme began #OTD, 1 July, 1916. Violet Jacob’s only child, Harry, was killed in action in the battle. Jacob’s war poems are some of the most poignant & affecting works from the Home Front.

“To A.H.J.”, from MORE SONGS OF ANGUS & OTHERS (1918)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoem #warpoetry #Somme #WW1 #FirstWorldwar

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.

ALT

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177d

A Blether and a Bevvy – Denise Mina
29 July, Aberdour. Tickets £8.83.

Aberdour Festival will feature Denise Mina in the week her latest novel THE GOOD LIAR is published. Mina will give a sneak preview of her new book, share where she finds her inspiration for her best-selling crime novels, & reveal how her Glasgow University Law degree helps with fiendishly complex plot lines.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-blether-and-a-bevvy-denise-mina-tickets-1390633495219

#Scottish #literature #crimefiction

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