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Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

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Educational charity promoting the reading, writing, teaching & study of Scotland's literature & languages, past & present. https://asls.org.uk

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · Aug 27

A CHAOS OF LIGHT
New Writing Scotland 43
Ed. Kirstin Innes, Chris Powici & Niall O’Gallagher

“writing that unsettles and challenges, that questions assumptions…A rich, boisterous, tender, charming, angry, sorrowful, gleeful mix”

Available now from all good bookshops!
💙📚
asls.org.uk/publications...

New Writing Scotland 43

Edited by Kirstin Innes, Chris Powici & Niall O’Gallagher Published in: Paperback, 184 pages By: Association for Scottish Literature, Glasgow, August 2025 Price: £9.95 ISBN: 9781906841669 Cover image…

asls.org.uk

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 3h

Happy #WorldPorridgeDay to all who celebrate! 🥣

Captain of oats, braw brose, fine gruel,
you are thi Scotsman’s constant fuel
fae New Year’s Dey till end o Yule
(we don’t do Simmer)…

—WN Herbert, “TO PORRIDGE”
#poem #poetry #porridge
poetryinternationalweb.org/pi/site/poem...

WN Herbert
TO PORRIDGE
'Auld claes and parritch...'

Captain of oats, braw brose, fine gruel,
you are thi Scotsman’s constant fuel
fae New Year’s Dey till end o Yule
(we don’t do Simmer):
oan ilka morn ye bring renewal,
thi stomach’s zimmer.

Ye greet us lyk a fu-fissed mune
and guarantee tae fill wir spune
wi fushion – see, ye’re cratert roond
wi seas o bubbles –
tranquillity is aa yir tune,
and ease fae troubles.

Grey revolutionary fur guts,
jump-starter fur thi slo-mo slutz
that sends us loupin fae wir cots
intae wir sarks
(a dram in you gets slob and klutz
back tae thir wark).

When snaa faas owre thi Border’s pale
and Southron bairns can plunk aff skail
then even English journos hail
wir Northern mannah –
are sudden experts oan oatmeal
tapped wi a sultana.

Ye’re like a clood-occludit sun
that casts grey licht oan ivrywun;
thi siller ash on grieshoch; grun
ablow thi slush
that derns oat-germs that sune will wun
thru Winter’s crush.

Tho Doctir Johnson caaed ye food
fur foals – mair fulmar him – ye’ve plooed
thru Scotia’s lard-imprisoned bluid
and freed oor veins:
dae mealie puddins dae us good?
Great Oat, explain!

Hoo dae we luve ye? Some wi cream,
wi hinny, spice or jeely reamed,
while Calvin’s crew hae sauty dreams
o fare of auld,
powred in a draaer fur bothy teams
tae slice oot cauld.

‘Auld claes an parritch’ gaes thi creh
wance we hae drunk thi Daft Deys dreh
and neath a sober, saft grey skeh
we view thi year –
we’re nae whit bettir, but we’ll treh
wi sic guid gear!

Editor's Note: Fushion—wholesomeness, strength; slutz—a leap in skating; sark—shirt; grieshoch—red-hot embers; dern–hide.

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

RhiARGHnnon GriZZLY @rhiannonagrist.bsky.social · 7h

Hello! I'll be chatting with @eidyngray.scot about my books and the folklore that inspires me at @worldfantasy2025.bsky.social. I'm attending all weekend, so if you spot me feel free to come say hello 👋

A deliciously gothic graphic sharing the details of Rhiannon's appearance at World Fantasy Con. She's on the British and Irish Folk panel on Thursday, October 30th at 6pm.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 5h

“Walk in the footsteps of one of Scotland’s pioneering geologists, Hugh Miller, and you too might find fossil remnants of the Devonian ‘age of fishes’”

— @scottishgeology.bsky.social on the Black isle & the Hugh Miller Museum
#geology #FossilFriday
www.scottishgeologytrust.org/geology/51-b...

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 5h

We are delighted to announce that on Thursday 6th November, broadcaster, journalist and novelist Sally Magnusson will be coming to Stromness Library to talk about her new book The Shapeshifter's Daughter, with local historian and writer Tom Muir.

A poster for The Shapeshifter's Daughter by Sally Magnusson

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 5h

“My Schools and Schoolmaster is […] a rare and remarkably insightful book. It is a book in which boyhood is examined and displayed with all the attention Miller devoted to his geological specimens”

—David Alston: Hugh Miller & the Crucible of Childhood
4/4
www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/07/hugh...

Hugh Miller (1802–1856) and the Crucible of Childhood - The Bottle Imp

In June 1853 Hugh Miller – geologist, folklore collector, writer, evangelical churchman and editor of the Free Church newspaper The Witness – began to publish, in serial form, his autobiographical My ...

www.thebottleimp.org.uk

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 5h

…the tar which used to boil in it to the heat, like resin in a fagot of moss-fir, was as strange a mixture as ever yet bubbled in witches’ caldron—blood of pterodactyle and grease of ichthyosaur…

—Hugh Miller, MY SCHOOLS & SCHOOLMASTERS (1854) – also on @gutenberg.org
3/4
gutenberg.org/ebooks/30737

Immediately beyond the granitic gneiss of the hill there is a subaqueous deposit of the Lias formation, never yet explored by geologist, because never yet laid bare by the ebb; though every heavier storm from the sea tells of its existence, by tossing ashore fragments of its dark bituminous shale. I soon ascertained that the shale is so largely charged with inflammable matter as to burn with a strong flame, as if steeped in tar or oil, and that I could repeat with it the common experiment of producing gas by means of a tobacco-pipe luted with clay. And, having read in Shakspere of a fuel termed "sea-coal," and unaware at the time that the poet merely meant coal brought to London by sea, I inferred that the inflammable shale cast up from the depths of the Firth by the waves could not be other than the veritable "sea-coal" which figured in the reminiscences of Dame Quickly; and so, assisted by Finlay, who shared in the interest which I felt in the substance, as at once classical and an original discovery, I used to collect it in large quantities and convert it into smoky and troubled fires, that ever filled our cavern with a horrible stench, and scented all the shore. Though unaware of the fact at the time, it owed its inflammability, not to vegetable, but to animal substance; the tar which used to boil in it to the heat, like resin in a fagot of moss-fir, was as strange a mixture as ever yet bubbled in witches' caldron—blood of pterodactyle and grease of ichthyosaur—eye of belemnite and hood of nautilus; and we learned to delight in its very smell, all oppressive as that was, as something wild, strange, and inexplicable. Once or twice I seemed on the eve of a discovery: in splitting the masses, I occasionally saw what appeared to be fragments of shells embedded in its substance; and at least once I laid open a mysterious-looking scroll or volute, existing on the dark surface as a cream-coloured film; but though these organisms raised a temporary wonder …

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 5h

I picked up a nodular mass of blue limestone, and laid it open by a stroke of the hammer. Wonderful to relate, it contained inside a beautifully finished piece of sculpture…

—Hugh Miller, THE OLD RED SANDSTONE (1841)
available as a free ebook on @gutenberg.org
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gutenberg.org/ebooks/63923

In the course of the first day's employment, I picked up a nodular mass of blue limestone, and laid it open by a stroke of the hammer. Wonderful to relate, it contained inside a beautifully finished piece of sculpture—one of the volutes apparently of an Ionic capital; and not the far-famed walnut of the fairy tale, had I broken the shell and found the little dog lying within, could have surprised me more. Was there another such curiosity in the whole world? I broke open a few other nodules of similar appearance,—for they lay pretty thickly on the shore,—and found that there might. In one of these there were what seemed to be the scales of fishes, and the impressions of a few minute bivalves, prettily striated; in the centre of another there was actually a piece of decayed wood. Of all Nature's riddles these seemed to me to be at once the most interesting, and the most difficult to expound. I treasured them carefully up, and was told by one of the workmen to whom I showed them, that there was a part of the shore about two miles farther to the west, where curiously shaped stones, somewhat like the heads of boarding-pikes, were occasionally picked up; and that in his father's days the country people called them thunderbolts, and deemed them of sovereign efficacy in curing bewitched cattle. Our employer, on quitting the quarry for the building on which we were to be engaged, gave all the workmen a half-holiday. I employed it in visiting the place where the thunderbolts had fallen so thickly, and found it a richer scene of wonder than I could have fancied in even my dreams.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 5h

Fossil hunter, folklorist, evangelist, stonemason, editor, social justice campaigner, & geologist, Hugh Miller (1802–1856) – born #OTD, 10 Oct – should be remembered in the company of Carlyle, Ruskin, Matthew Arnold & JS Mill as one of the leading moral & social thinkers of the #C19th
A 🎂🧵
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Faded 19th-century sepia photograph of Hugh Miller. He is standing, dressed in workman's overalls, his shirt-sleeves rolled up. He has bushy hair and large sideburns, and his left elbow is propped up on a carved gravestone. His right hand rests on a large stonemason's maul, and he holds a chisel in his left hand.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 5h

Smoky sky.
In autumn wind
I stroll by the quays
in the last light…

—Edwin Morgan, “Je ne regrette rien: in memory of Edith Piaf”
in THE SECOND LIFE, @edinburghup.bsky.social 1968 & in COLLECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2012

Edith Piaf died #OTD, 10 Oct, 1963
www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Edwin Morgan
Je ne regrette rien
in memory of Edith Piaf

Smoky sky.
In autumn wind
I stroll by the quays
in the last light,
my coat flaps, flaps,
wet chestnut leaves
spatter the Seine.
I glance in a window
and touch my hair, yes
I am tiny as they say,
tiny as a sparrow.
Now the lights come on.
I stand under the lamp,
turn up my collar
in a circle of rain
and wait for you.

It’s all beginning again.
Dead leaves or spring
it comes back, it begins.
How could I struggle?
When you held me, your shoulders
were a wall, I sheltered
in your shadow, it began.
They say I couldn’t count my men –
in thirty years I couldn’t count them!
But who counts years?
Count the years I was blind?
Dandled in a brothel? Taught by whores?
Count the prayers that gave me my sight at Lisieux?
Or the heartbeats of my daughter, in thousands,
when I bore her at fourteen
till she starved and died?
Count the crusts I’ve had, or those I’ve given?
The gutters I’ve sung in, or the great halls?
Count the glasses I’ve drunk? Count the beds
I’ve lain in, the lips I’ve kissed?
I can’t count the surgeons who’ve opened me –
do you think my lovers are in a book?
Do you want me to start counting tears?
Count what? The cost? What cost? I won!

No! let the men that had me go their ways.
I regret nothing, nothing. Some were kind.
But I don’t care if they were kind!
I don’t remember if it was bad.
I don’t keep the past in my pocket.

I’ve paid for it all, I’ve forgotten it all.
I’ve paid for it all, I’ve forgotten it all.
I strike a match to my memories,
they light a fire and disappear.

I warm my arms tonight
the fire begins
the stars come out
yes it begins
I am forty-five
it begins again
I hear his step
yes it begins
his broad shoulders
glisten through the rain
I can see
the dead cigarette
in his firm mouth
he throws it aside
it begins and
I regret nothing

We sway in the rain,
he crushes my mouth.
What could I regret
if a hundred times
of parting struck me
like lightning if this
lightning of love
can strike and
strike
again!

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

UHIHistory.bsky.social @uhihistory.bsky.social · 1d

Our Dr Iain Robertson & Dr @juliettedesportes.bsky.social are both delivering papers at Scottish Local History Forum's conference, ‘Popular Protest in a Scottish Local History Context’, in Paisley on Saturday 25 October! To view the full programme and to book your place, visit bit.ly/4fxbKp5

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

commamonger 😷 (analogue writing assistant) @commamonger.bsky.social · 1d

Ginger ginger.

juux @juux.com · 1d

omg part deux

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Scottish Poetry Library @byleaveswelive.bsky.social · 3d

NETTLES

5 of Scotland's Next Generation Young Makars gather at the Scottish Poetry Library to celebrate the launch of Nazaret Ranea's debut poetry collection Nettles. Published by Drunk Muse Press.

Thurs 16 Oct, 6.30pm.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nettles-a-...

Nettles: A Launch and Showcase with Scotland’s Next Generation Young Makars

To celebrate Nazaret Renea's debut collection, join us for a vibrant celebration of Scotland's young poets at Nettles: A Launch and Showcase

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Scottish Poetry Library @byleaveswelive.bsky.social · 1d

🖋️ NEW SPL BLOG:

Reflections on a Recent Collaboration between Scottish and Emirates Poets

#AliAlShaali
#JanetteAyachi
#MichaelPedersen

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2025/10/refl...

Reflections on a recent collaboration between Scottish and Emirates poets

"Scotland has been on my list for years, drawn by its beautiful nature, charming medieval architecture, unpredictable weather, and of course, its famous cultural festivals. Being invited to recite my ...

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

David Goodman @davegoodman.bsky.social · 1d

Come along to Waterstones West End next week to hear me quizzing Gareth about magic, writing and more!

Gareth Brown @garethjohnbrown.bsky.social · 1d

I’m speaking at an event at Waterstones Edinburgh next Thursday - with @davegoodman.bsky.social. Come along and listen to us waffle - tickets available at: www.waterstones.com/events/the-s....

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 1d

Why Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Sea Tales go against the tides

“Beyond technique and confidence, these tales have a savage political and moral engagement, a real-world vision, and a black humour that is more distilled here than in anything else he wrote”
💙📚
www.theguardian.com/books/2016/d...

Why Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Sea Tales go against the tides

Stevenson was famous for adventures such as Treasure Island, but his South Sea Tales reveal a savage political and moral engagement

www.theguardian.com

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 1d

Remediating Stevenson: Reframing perspectives through graphic novels
29 Oct, free online

The online launch & celebration of 3 new graphic novels inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Sea Tales: “The Bottle Imp”, “The Isle of Voices” & “The Beach of Falesá”
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/remediatin...

Remediating Stevenson: Reframing perspectives through graphic novels

Teachers are invited to the online launch of 3 graphic novels and classroom resources which take a critical literacy, decolonial approach.

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

remotecore @remotecore.bsky.social · 1d

You know what? Now seems a good day remind people that Gallus exists. A collective anthology by members of the @gsfwc.bsky.social community, put together for the Glasgow Worldcon. My story is about the end of the world, and witches looking for hope. #gallus #gsfwc40
gsfwc.wordpress.com/gallus/

GALLUS

Gallus celebrates Glasgow’s third home turf Worldcon and showcases brand new work from our authors. Some of the writers featured here have been around since the beginning, some are brand new. Some …

gsfwc.wordpress.com

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities @iashedinburgh.bsky.social · 1d

Book launch: "Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Colonial History, 1750-1820" (Yale UP)

Wed 29 Oct, 16:45-20:00, including drinks

Featuring a host of IASH alumni, this event celebrates the new volume by Linda Andersson Burnett & Bruce Buchan.

raceandthescottishenlightenment.eventbrite.co.uk

Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: Book Launch and Discussion

Join authors Bruce Buchan and Linda Andersson Burnett to celebrate "Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Colonial History 1750-1820".

raceandthescottishenlightenment.eventbrite.co.uk

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 1d

In conversation with @sarasheridan.bsky.social, @damianbarr.bsky.social discusses his novel THE TWO ROBERTS, which reimagines the lives of Scottish artists Robert MacBryde & Robert Colquhoun. Recorded at the @nationalgalleries.bsky.social on 7 October
www.youtube.com/live/T44S_tn...

Author talk | Damian Barr: The Two Roberts

YouTube video by nationalgalleries

www.youtube.com

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 1d

Jenni Calder wrote a good piece for us about Helen Cruickshank back in 2020:
www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2020/12/hele...

Helen Cruickshank: ‘Bide the storm ye canna hinder’ - The Bottle Imp

Jenni Calder on Helen Cruickshank (1886-1975), a significant poet who also supported and nurtured many of Scotland's most noted writers.

www.thebottleimp.org.uk

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Leslie Hills @skylinefilm.bsky.social · 1d

Been singing the mezzo line of this since I was 15. Helen Burness Cruikshank was a suffragette, a committed Scottish nationalist, and a founder member of the Scottish branch of the writers’ organisation PEN.
1886-1975. Good Bio here www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/helen-c...

Helen Cruickshank

The poet Helen Cruickshank did much to promote, popularise, and chronicle the Scottish Literary Renaissance movement in the middle years of the 20th century.

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 1d

Daith an’ dule will stab ye surely,
Be ye man or wife,
Mony trauchles an’ mischances
In ilk weird are rife;
Bide the storm ye canna hinder,
Mindin’ through the strife,
Hoo the luntin’ lowe o’ beauty
Lichts the grey o’ life.

—Helen Cruickshank, “Sea Buckthorn”
#Scotstober
asls.org.uk/publications...

Sea Buckthorn
by Helen Cruickshank

Saut an’ cruel winds tae shear it,
Nichts o’ haar an’ rain –
Ye micht think the sallow buckthorn
Ne’er a hairst could hain;
But amang the sea-bleached branches
Ashen-grey as pain,
Thornset orange berries cluster
Flamin’, beauty-fain.

Daith an’ dule will stab ye surely,
Be ye man or wife,
Mony trauchles an’ mischances
In ilk weird are rife;
Bide the storm ye canna hinder,
Mindin’ through the strife,
Hoo the luntin’ lowe o’ beauty
Lichts the grey o’ life.

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Lesley McDowell @lesleymcdowell.bsky.social · 1d

My story of a shocking real-life Victorian woman accused of murder is on special offer on Kindle for the whole of October! 'Enthralling' The Scotsman 'Gripping...memorably disturbing' The Herald

Green and black book cover with title Love and Other Poisons

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Project ERSKINE | Radical Gaelic Magazines 1900s – 1930s @erskineproject.bsky.social · 1d

Great to see the new Scotnote Study Guide on 'The Gaelic Writings of Dòmhnall Mac na Ceàrdaich' by Aonghas MacLeòid, published by @asls.org.uk. Dòmhnall Mac na Ceàrdaich | Donald Sinclair (1885–1932) was one of the most prolific and innovative contributors to Erskine's periodicals.

Scotnote 46

Aonghas MacLeòid Published in: paperback, 128 pages By: Association for Scottish Literature, 2025 Price: £6.95 ISBN 9781906841645 Order from Hive.co.uk Dòmhnall Mac na Ceàrdaich (Donald Sinclair…

asls.org.uk

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 2d

It didn’t happen to me, but I got to watch The Last Good Thing to Happen on Twitter unfold for @amalelmohtar.com & @maxgladstone.bsky.social back in 2023
amalelmohtar.com/letter-of-ne...

The Twelve Days of Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood

Dear Friends, Previously, on Amal Content: A lot has happened since then. I truly struggle with how to talk about the past 12 days, during which a viral tweet from an anime fan account with an exce...

amalelmohtar.com

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