The Many Primes of Muriel Spark
First broadcast in 2018. Available on BBC iPlayer until 27 December.
Kirsty Wark celebrates the life and work of Dame Muriel Spark, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic cultural figures.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09qlx14
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #MurielSpark
“Helen Adam marched through her life to the beat of her own drum”
—Kristin Prevallet
Helen Adam (1909–1993) – fey child prodigy (published by Faber & Faber at 14) & daughter of the manse; bardic matriarch of the San Francisco Beats; Worm Queen – was born #OTD, 2 Dec.
A 🎂🧵
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https://caesuramag.org/posts/kristin-prevallet-poems-by-helen-adam
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #gothic #supernatural #ballads #SanFrancisco #BeatPoets #poetry
“He looks much older than he is, for it is not quite twenty years ago that Johnnie founded the Society for the Abolition of Christmas”
—Muriel Spark, “The Leaf-Sweeper”
in THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES, published by @canongatebooks
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https://canongate.co.uk/books/1371-the-complete-short-stories/
#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #Christmas #shortstory #shortstory #womenwriters #20thcentury
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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#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #hillwalking #mountaineering
Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof Penny Fielding explores the dangerous collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life
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https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2017/01/06/a-dangerous-collaboration/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #RobertLouisStevenson #RLS #WomenWriters
“I don’t write about people that are nice people. They’ve got to be sinners, with a wee touch of goodness here and there, you know.”
Giving “people like that” a voice: a conversation with Agnes Owens (1926–2014) – born #OTD, 24 May
A 🎂 🧵
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https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/89?lang=en
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #WorkingClass
A Restless Intellect
“Widely respected – & regularly attacked (once physically) – in her lifetime, she is now largely neglected; an intriguing aside to feminism or to agnosticism. Dixie deserves better.”
Florence Dixie (1855–1905) – novelist, poet, dramatist, war correspondent, campaigning journalist, suffragist, & more – was born #OTD, 25 May. Valentina Bold explores Dixie’s roving life
@litstudies
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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2021/12/a-restless-intellect-florence-dixie-1855-1905/
Kerri Andrews & Merryn Glover in conversation about Nan Shepherd
11 June, Pitlochry Festival Theatre – £3
Authors Dr Kerri Andrews & Merryn Glover discuss how Nan Shepherd has inspired their own walking & writing, followed by a book-signing & the matinee performance of Nan Shepherd: Naked & Unashamed
https://www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com/whats-on/merryn-glover-and-kerri-andrews-in-conversation/
#Scottish #literature #NanShepherd #walking #hillwalking #womenwriters
Helen Craik (1751–1825), Gothic novelist & friend of Robert Burns, died 200 years ago #OTD, 11 June. Craik published 5 novels but no poetry. In 1919, excerpts of her poems appeared in a newspaper, but the source – a notebook Craik presented to a family friend – disappeared…
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#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #romanticism #poetry #Gothic #WomenWriters #manuscripts
Christian Isobel Johnstone (1781–1857) – novelist, journalist, & editor – was born #OTD, 12 June.
Johnstone was editor for more than a decade of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, a journal famous for its vigorous liberal viewpoints & incisive literary reviews, & wrote some of the most remarkable Scottish novels of the #Romantic era.
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https://www.scottishwomenwritersontheweb.net/writers-a-to-z/christian-isobel-johnstone
#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #18thcentury #19thcentury #romanticism
“Annie S. Swan both requires revaluation through her own biography & calls into question easy valorisations of ‘danger’ as expressed in terms of explicit challenge & radicalism. The extent of her appeal & influence demands a more nuanced analysis of the politics of emotion & the gendering of reader response”
—Prof Glenda Norquay on Annie S. Swan (1859–1943) – born #OTD, 8 July
@litstudies
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https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/08/annie-shepherd-swan/
#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #romance #womenwriters
Brown burn water dropping
Between the grey stones,
The lapse and the murmur,
The bright overtones
Of cuckoo and curlew…
—Dorothy Margaret Paulin (1904–1982)
from Springtime by Loch Ken, & other poems (J.H. Maxwell Ltd., 1963)
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/galloway-burn-june/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Galloway #20thcentury #Womenwriters
It is a land of wee
hard men and all I
am wanted for is to
stand and cheer…
Prof Alan Riach considers the life & work of the poet & playwright Joan Ure (1918–1978) – born #OTD, 22 June
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#Scottish #literature #poetry #poet #drama #playwright #20thcentury #womenwriters
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
Elizabeth Hamilton (1756?–1816) was (probably) born #OTD, 25 July. We republished her 1808 novel THE COTTAGERS OF GLENBURNIE, edited by Pam Perkins: an entertaining & skilful dissection of 18th-century class issues, British imperialism, & war
@litstudies
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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/glenburnie/
#Scottish #literature #18thcentury #19thcentury #womenwriters
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
![THE LEAF-SWEEPER
Behind the town hall there is a wooded parkland which, towards the end of November, begins to draw a thin blue cloud right into itself; and as a rule the park floats in this haze until mid-February. I pass every day, and see Johnnie Geddes in the heart of this mist, sweeping up the leaves. Now and again he stops, and jerking his long head erect, looks indignantly at the pile of leaves, as if it ought not to be there; then he sweeps on. This business of leaf-sweeping he learnt during the years he spent in the asylum; it was the job they always gave him to do; and when he was discharged the town council gave him the leaves to sweep. But the indignant movement of the head comes naturally to him, for this has been one of his habits since he was the most promising and buoyant and vociferous graduate of his year. He looks much older than he is, for it is not quite twenty years ago that Johnnie founded the Society for the Abolition of Christmas.
Johnnie was living with his aunt then. I was at school, and in the Christmas holidays Miss Geddes gave me her nephew's pamphlet, How to Grow Rich at Christmas. It sounded very likely, but it turned out that you grow rich at Christmas by doing away […]](/proxy/post_attachment/937899/f58f178ad6.jpg "THE LEAF-SWEEPER
Behind the town hall there is a wooded parkland which, towards the end of November, begins to draw a thin blue cloud right into itself; and as a rule the park floats in this haze until mid-February. I pass every day, and see Johnnie Geddes in the heart of this mist, sweeping up the leaves. Now and again he stops, and jerking his long head erect, looks indignantly at the pile of leaves, as if it ought not to be there; then he sweeps on. This business of leaf-sweeping he learnt during the years he spent in the asylum; it was the job they always gave him to do; and when he was discharged the town council gave him the leaves to sweep. But the indignant movement of the head comes naturally to him, for this has been one of his habits since he was the most promising and buoyant and vociferous graduate of his year. He looks much older than he is, for it is not quite twenty years ago that Johnnie founded the Society for the Abolition of Christmas.
Johnnie was living with his aunt then. I was at school, and in the Christmas holidays Miss Geddes gave me her nephew's pamphlet, How to Grow Rich at Christmas. It sounded very likely, but it turned out that you grow rich at Christmas by doing away […]")
