Eggplant.place

127d

NPR Fresh Air: Douglas Stuart

“It’s hard to tell people about grief. It’s hard to talk to people about poverty... and so I’d got very used to the silence in my own life, and my writing is the only thing that allows me to connect with myself.”

Douglas Stuart speaks to Terry Gross about Scotland, masculinity, and the isolation of secret-keeping.

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/04/nx-s1-5810167/scottish-novelist-douglas-stuart-on-the-isolation-of-secret-keeping

#Scottish #literature #novel #writing #Scotland #masculinity

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112d

“Robert Louis Stevenson was neither a medical doctor nor a dentist, but undeniably, his character and writings were significantly influenced by the medical culture of his time in Edinburgh’s Old Town, with our College having played a central role”

https://www.rcsed.ac.uk/news-resources/rcsed-blog/2026/may/dental-dean-update-incisive-ink-the-curious-connections-between-robert-louis-stevenson-and-rcsed

#Scottish #literature #Edinburgh #EdinburghUniversity #RSCEd #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson

A metal plaque attached to the wall of Number 1 Drummond Street at the University of Edinburgh. The plaque reads:

IN MEMORY OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, 1850-1894, son and student of Edinburgh.

“and when I remembered all that I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend far less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book. And then now – what a change! I feel somehow as if I should like the incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary thoroughfare, for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts are down.”

from the South Seas, September 1888

Presented on behalf of all Stevenson lovers ....... September 1995

ALT

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127d

“More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell…”

—from THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST: Facts, Figures, & Fancies from Transylvania, by the 19th-century Scottish author & anthropologist Emily Gerard (1849–1905) – born #OTD, 7 May

1/3

https://crimereads.com/the-scottish-anthropologist-who-inspired-dracula/

#Scottish #literature #Dracula #vampire #Transylvania #folklore #anthropology #19thcentury #Victorian #womenwriters

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126d

Now the soldier has come home.

He has fought his way back
To the faces of the gnome-children
With still magic in their glances…

—James Findlay Hendry (1912–1986), “The Return”

Today, 8 May, is the 81st anniversary of VE Day

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WarPoetry #WW2 #VEDay

The Return
J. F. Hendry

Now the soldier has come home.

He has fought his way back
To the faces of the gnome-children
With still magic in their glances.

Wearing the green birk in his hat
And clad in the brown earth
He has torn barbed sorrow down
With his bare hands.

He has gone out into the open fields
Superb, in final camouflage.

ALT

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125d

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…

—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 #WarPoetry #WW2 #VEDay

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.

ALT

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.

ALT

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125d

“She’s writing stories about smaller areas in the West Coast, that are not a major city – urban, rural, borderland kind of spaces, and the particular desperations of those lives”

—Novelist Kirstin Innes & artist Hayley-Jane Dawson on the life & work of Agnes Owens

https://www.greatergovanhill.com/latest/in-conversationon-writing-class-scots-and-agnes-owens

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #workingclass #AgnesOwens

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125d

Borders Book Festival 2026
11–14 June, Melrose

Tickets are available for the 2026 Borders Book Festival, which celebrates the arts and literature in Scotland and beyond.

https://bordersbookfestival.org/programme-2026/

#Scottish #literature #bookfestival #Borders #Melrose

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93d

What Lies Beneath? Pictish Monsters & the Living Frame
25 June, online – tickets £3.96–£7.21

“Medieval art is well known for its monsters but Pictish art seems to take this fascination to another level.”

Join Professor Heather Pulliam from the Edinburgh School of Art in Groam House Museum's Annual Academic Lecture

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-lies-beneath-pictish-monsters-and-the-living-frame-tickets-1986892789820

#Scottish #Scotland #history #Pictish #archaeology #arthistory #earlymedieval #medieval #monsters #carvedstones

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125d

Cantie in seaside simmer on the dunes,
I fling awa my dowp of cigarette
whaur bairns hae biggit castles out of sand
and watch the reik rise frae the parapet…

—Robert Garioch Sutherland (1909–1987), “During a Music Festival”

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW2 #VEDay #Scots #Scotslanguage

During a Music Festival
Robert Garioch

Cantie in seaside simmer on the dunes,
I fling awa my dowp of cigarette
whaur bairns hae biggit castles out of sand
and watch the reik rise frae the parapet.

Suddenlike I am back in Libya;
yon’s the escarpment, and a bleizan plane,
the wee white speck that feeds the luift wi reik,
dirkins a horror-pictur on my brain.

And aye the reik bleeds frae the warld’s rim
as it has duin frae Babylon and Troy,
London, Bonn, Edinbro, time eftir time.
And great Beethoven sang a Hymn to Joy.

ALT

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125d

It is VE Night, Tobermory.
Cottages blaze and shimmer in the mirror of the bay.
Light is necklaced everywhere…

—Hugh McMillan, “Old Photograph”
published in AFTER THE STORM (Smith/Doorstop Books, 2005)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/old-photograph/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW2 #VEDay

Old Photograph
Hugh McMillan

It is VE Night, Tobermory.
Cottages blaze and shimmer in the mirror of the bay.
Light is necklaced everywhere,
on the cross-trees of destroyers,
on the hulls of every cockleshell and scalloper afloat,
even on the gutted snout of a U-Boat,
but there are shadows, to imagine
the black and frozen water
and the land, lonely of men,
from Sunart to Mers-El-Kebir.

Daisy chained by sailors, three WAAFs
pose for a photograph.
Her friends are grinning, wide-eyed,
but my mother’s smile is dying
and she’s turned away
to the sound of the waves,
as if she could sense my father,
whose war would never cease,
limping inexorably back to her
across the oil scarred sea.

ALT

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125d

“An officer – he must have been a new arrival, and a right clown – ran out in front of the company and shouted, with enthusiasm: ‘Men! The war in Europe is over!’”

—George MacDonald Fraser spent VE Day in 1945 waiting to attack a Japanese-held village in Burma – from his memoir QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE:

#Scottish #literature #memoir #ww2 #Burma #warmemoir #VEDay

There was a long silence, while we digested this, and looked through the heat haze to the village where Jap might be waiting, and I’m not sure that the officer wasn't waving his hat and shouting hip, hooray. The silence continued, and then someone laughed, and it ran down the extended line in a great torrent of mirth, punctuated by cries of “Git the boogers oot ’ere!” and “Ev ye told Tojo, like?” and “Hey, son, is it awreet if we a’ gan yam?”

Footnote: “Gan yam” is Carlisle dialect for “Go home”; elsewhere in Cumberland it is “Ga yem”.

ALT

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125d

“Barrie was a wounded creature, from his earliest youth, and his probing of that wound is what makes PETER PAN so enduringly painful to read […] The tensions are bald and excruciating.”

A 🎂 🧵 for JM Barrie (1860–1937) – born #OTD, 9 May

1/10

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/11/22/lost-boys

#Scottish #literature #JMBarrie #kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #PeterPan

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124d

Higher than the craw-stepped
gables of our institutes – chess-clubs,
fanciers, reels & Strathspeys –
the old kingdom of lum, with crowns agley…

—Kathleen Jamie, “The Republic of Fife”
first published in THE QUEEN OF SHEBA (Bloodaxe, 1994)

Today, 9 May, is Europe Day
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇪🇺

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Fife

The Republic of Fife
by Kathleen Jamie

Higher than the craw-stepped
gables of our institutes – chess-clubs,
fanciers, reels & Strathspeys –
the old kingdom of lum, with crowns agley.

All birds will be citizens: banners
of starlings; Jacobin crows –
also: Sonny Jim Aitken, Special P.C.
whose red face closed in polis cars

utters terrible, ridiculous
at his brother and sister citizens
but we’re no feart, not of anyone
with a tartan nameplate screwed to his door.

Citizen also: the tall fellow I watched
lash his yurt to the leafy earth,
who lifted his chin
to my greeting, roared AYE!

as in YES! FOREVER! MYSELF!
The very woods where my friend Isabel
once saw a fairy, blue as a gas flame
dancing on trees. All this

close to the motorway
where a citizen has dangled,
maybe with a friend clutching
his/her ankles to spray

PAY NO POLL TAX on a flyover
near to Abernethy, in whose tea rooms
old Scots kings and bishops in mitres
supped wi a lang spoon. Citizens:

our spires and doocoots
institutes and tinkies’ benders,
old Scots kings and dancing fairies
give strength to my house

on whose roof we can balance,
carefully stand and see
clear to the far off mountains,
cities, rigs and gardens,

Europe, Africa, the Forth and Tay bridges,
even dare let go, lift our hands
and wave to the waving citizens
of all those other countries.

ALT

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124d

They are lang deid, folk that I used to ken
their firm set lips aa mowdert and agley,
sherp-tempert een rusty amang the cley…

—“Elegy” by Robert Garioch (1909–1981) – born #OTD, 9 May
from The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks 2021

1/4

https://canongate.co.uk/books/3267-the-golden-treasury-of-scottish-verse/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage

Elegy
by Robert Garioch

They are lang deid, folk that I used to ken
their firm set lips aa mowdert and agley,
sherp-tempert een rusty amang the cley:
they are baith deid, thae wycelike, bienlie men,

heidmaisters, that had been in pouer for ten
or twenty year afore fate's taiglie wey
brocht me, a young, weill-harnit, blate and fey
new-cleckit dominie, intill their den.

Ane tellt me it was time I learnt to write -
round-haund, he meant – and saw about my hair:
I mind of him, beld-heidit, wi a kyte.

Ane sneerit quarterly – I cuidna square
my savings bank – and sniftert in his spite.
Weill, gin they arena deid, it's time they were.

ALT

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53d

Argyll & Isles Online Heritage Cafe with Dr Alasdair Whyte
29 July, free online

The July online Heritage cafe will host Dr Alasdair Whyte, singer, writer & research fellow in Celtic & Gaelic at the University of Glasgow.

Dr Whyte will be speaking about the songs & music of Argyll & Bute, & how they can help us understand the history & heritage of this part of Scotland.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/july-argyll-isles-online-heritage-cafe-with-dr-alasdair-whyte-tickets-1992483260067

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #song #folksong #music #history #musichistory #heritage

Edited 53d ago

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123d

The Long Drop
5–20 June, Citizens Theatre Glasgow

Equal parts psychological thriller & pitch-black comedy… a darkly stylish descent into the heart of a city – & the haunted minds of the men who shape it.

Adapted by Linda McLean from the novel by Denise Mina

https://citz.co.uk/whats-on/the-long-drop/

#Scottish #literature #drama #theatre #DeniseMina #crimefiction #thriller #Glasgow

A horizontal image, split into two square sections. The left section shows a puddle on a dark, wet, cracked piece of tarmac. In the puddle we can see a range of reflected neon signs, and the silhouette of a man, upside-down. The right section is yellow with black text, reading

The Long Drop
Citizens Theatre – Main Theatre
06–20 Jun 2026

ALT

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122d

“Our Three-Voiced Country”: 20th-century cross-currents in Gaelic & other Scottish writing
26–28 June, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye

This conference will examine the shared influences & interconnections between Gaelic & other Scottish writing, from the Celtic Revival & the Scottish Renaissance to the beginnings of the new millennium

@litstudies

https://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/co-labhairt-bhliadhnail-asl-2026/?lang=en

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #conference #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

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122d

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 #TheXFiles #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?

ALT

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94d

Where’s Brude? Where’s Brude?
So many souls to be saved!

—Edwin Morgan, “Columba’s Song”
in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

9 June is the feast day of St Columba (c521–97 CE), who led the Irish monastic missions to Dál Riata & the kingdoms of the Picts

1/4

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #StColumba #saint

Columba's Song
by Edwin Morgan

Where's Brude? Where's Brude?
So many souls to be saved!
The bracken is thick, the wildcat is quick,
the foxes dance in the moonlight,
the salmon dance in the waters,
the adders dance in the thick brown bracken.
Where's Brude? Where's man?
There's too much nature here,
eagles and deer,
but where's the mind and where's the soul?
Show me your kings, your women, the man of the plough.
And cry me to your cradles.
It wasn't for a fox or an eagle I set sail!

ALT

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122d

On Queer Creativity with Allan Radcliffe, Zoë Strachan & Louise Welsh
4 June, Edinburgh – £3/£5

Porty Pride, in partnership with Portalibri, welcome three Scottish novelists as they read from their work & discuss what it means to be a queer writer, both in a creative sense, & in the world, touching upon the specific challenges faced by LGBTQ+ writers in hostile times.

https://www.outsavvy.com/event/35975/on-queer-creativity-with-allan-radcliffe-zo-strachan-and-louise-welsh

#Scottish #literature #queer #queerwriters #LGBTQ #Edinburgh

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122d

Dundee Book Festival 2026
19–21 June

Tickets are now on sale for the 2026 Dundee Book Festival, a celebration of Scotland’s writers, storytellers, & people

https://dundeebookfestival.com

#Scottish #literature #Dundee #books #bookfestival

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122d

You told me the brightest flowers grow on sand.

By the breakwater, a frayed nest of fishers’ rope
twined into a bouquet: pale blue, green, teal,
and peach; a twisted tale of what growth is…

—Jane McKie, “Rope”
published in nobody remembers the birdman: New Writing Scotland 40

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws40/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Jane McKie
ROPE

You told me the brightest flowers grow on sand.

By the breakwater, a frayed nest of fishers’ rope
twined into a bouquet: pale blue, green, teal,
and peach; a twisted tale of what growth is.
But you are right – they are flowers in the way
of any weathered thing, unpicking itself,
or hollowing itself into something eye-catching,
essential: a split egg of rock, a breaking wave.

ALT

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121d

An Evening of Poetry with Scottish Carcanet
30 July, Topping Books, Edinburgh – from £5

A special collaborative event between three Scottish Carcanet poets – Jay Gao, Anthony V. Capildeo, & Colin Bramwell – celebrating their latest bodies of work, ranging from a book-length sequence told in the language of trees, to a vibrant selection of essays that explore a life in poetry, to a bold reimagining of Fernando Pessoa's poetry in Scots.

https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinburgh/an-evening-of-poetry-with-scottish-carcanet/

#Scottish #literature #poetry

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84d

They crashed among the spider-nets
spluttering and breathing hoarsely,
chasing fish out of the water,
calling one another and disappearing…

—“Dolphins at Cochin” by poet, playwright & novelist Tom Buchan (1931–1995), born #OTD, 19 June

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/dolphins-cochin/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #naturepoetry #dolphins #Kochi

Dolphins at Cochin
Tom Buchan

They crashed among the spider-nets
spluttering and breathing hoarsely,
chasing fish out of the water,
calling one another and disappearing.

Lime-green bellies and smiling mouths
sliced upwards obliquely;
calm humorous eyes regarded us for a moment
and splashed back.

Sea-marks of dolphins
moved among the dozens of jockeying sails:
a mile out, in the breaking waves,
we could see the flash of more dolphins.

On the bridge of our tanker
the grey paint blistered in the heat; above us
the siren mooed to come in at the jetty:
the water green and translucent.

The smell of crude oil, of ginger
drying in the yards; piles of coloured fish;
the creak of a wooden capstan,
monkeys quarrelling on top of the parked cars.

And suddenly there was a dolphin
inside our slow bow-wave: revolving, amused,
not realising our incomprehension
of his vivid thoughts.

Two dolphins came skidding round the point,
screeched to a standstill
blowing vapour and circling each other;
then they raced on again, leaping.

We watched them helplessly
from our primitive element
able only to think up cold metaphors
or to anthropomorphize.

But they wheeled – dolphins!
their liquid backs, their arched fins
moving steadily out from the shore
towards the hilarious ocean.

ALT

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121d

“It was one of those days when you felt God had forgotten the city…”

The opening line of a 1930s novel of Depression-era Glasgow: not Blake’s THE SHIPBUILDERS or Barke’s MAJOR OPERATION, but HUNGER MARCH by Dot Allan – born #OTD, 13 May 1886 – which preceded them both.

A 🎂 🧵

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https://asls.org.uk/dot-allan-a-glasgow-woman-novelist/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #Glasgow #novel

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