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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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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

UHIHistory.bsky.social @uhihistory.bsky.social · 22h

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 · 20h

Ginger ginger.

juux @juux.com · 21h

omg part deux

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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 · 21h

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

Gareth Brown @garethjohnbrown.bsky.social · 22h

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 · 21h

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 · 21h

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 · 23h

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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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 · 22h

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 · 23h

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 · 23h

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 · 1d

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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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Scottish History Society @scothistorysociety.bsky.social · 1d

We've joined the blue sky! Just as the skies darken for winter too

Please let your followers know that the Scottish History Society has arrived!

Find out more about memberships, the society, and events at our website: scottishhistorysociety.com

The Scottish History Society

scottishhistorysociety.com

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

“Connection reaches into Rodge’s work not just as a responsibility, but through his writing method as well”

@snackmag.bsky.social speaks to @rodgeglass.bsky.social about moving to Glasgow, meeting Alasdair Gray, & his latest book Joshua in the Sky: A Blood Memoir
💙📚
snackmag.co.uk/rodge-glass-...

Rodge Glass looks back to moving to Glasgow, first meeting Alasdair Gray, and latest novel 'Joshua in the Sky: A Blood Memoir' (interview) - SNACK: Music, film, arts and culture magazine for Scotland

Rodge Glass has been writing in Glasgow for decades. He came to the city as an ambitious young student at ...

snackmag.co.uk

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

The future will be typeset in Eurostile Bold Extended and well you know it
typesetinthefuture.com/2014/11/29/f...

Fontspots: Eurostile

In addition to the film-specific typographic deconstructions on this site, I’m keeping track of all the times I spot classic sci-fi fonts in movies. What better way to start than with perenni…

typesetinthefuture.com

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d

‘The plot of “The Comforters” sits on that Sparky boundary between madness and conspiracy and religious transcendence and comedy – a zone that Spark was able to make fully her own over the next three decades because she had lived in it herself.’

Colin Burrow: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Colin Burrow · World-Beating Buster-Upper: Muriel Spark’s Wickedness

The characteristic flavour of Spark’s writing was that of a Catholic ironist, for whom the terrible and the laughable...

www.lrb.co.uk

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

And by the halie tree
In the leaman licht o the wuid,
Squired by a houlet, a hawk and a doo,
Wes his Euridikee…

—“Orpheus”, by Tom Scott (1918–1995)
from A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS
#Scotstober #poem #poetry
asls.org.uk/publications...

Tom Scott
Orpheus

Ye think thon wes the end?
Yon meetin in the wuids
When Thracian Orpheus heard the drum, the cries,
The whud o the bacchantes’ thrangan feet
And, seik in saul,
Mad to be jyned for aye to his Eurydikee,
Strung his harp
And gaed to meet them wi a sang.
Ye think thon wes the end?

Na. Eftir the thrang breeled on, red
Fingert, bluidie-mawed, the riven limbs
Quiveran aye amang the mairtyred gress,
There wes a lull
And throu it syne a roun
And syne as muckle’s a moan
And syne a voice,
Yon voice o his
That quietit the forest and its fowk,
That reconcilit lion and lamb,
Ordert the rain,
Spoke frae the grund
And threept in the greitan tree
‘Euridikee! Euridikee!’

And at the name
A ferlie thing wes duin.
Thir broken bits o bodie, bits o bane,
Brisket, gash, airm and droukit hair
Cam thegither as gin some will
Mair nor the merely real
Had wrocht on them.
And on yon slauchtert grund was formed
Orpheus anew,
Orpheus the singer, Orpheus the makar,
Orpheus cleansed o the auld despair.
And by the halie tree
In the leaman licht o the wuid,
Squired by a houlet, a hawk and a doo,
Wes his Euridikee.

They say he made a new sang,
A nobler nor the auld,
And sings it aye in the great haa o the warld.

They say it will nevir end.

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

St Andrew’s Book Festival London @standrewsbookfest.bsky.social · 6d

What are you up to today❓Why not book for the St Andrew’s Book Festival, London Nov 27–30!
Hear from @nicolasturgeon.bsky.social
@valmcdermid.bsky.social @irvinewelsh.bsky.social
Justin Currie of @delamitri.bsky.social
Sally Magnusson. 🌟
🎟️ Get tickets now: standrewsbookfestival.org/events

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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Shetland Library @shetlandlibrary.bsky.social · 1d

You are dead to us Jimmy Perez, you traitor. And sassermaet rules!

Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 2d

Happy publication day to regular Orkney Library visitor
@anncleeves.bsky.social. The Killing Stones has just been published and features D.I. Jimmy Perez but now he has moved from Shetland to #Orkney!

It's less sassermaet and more fatty cuttie. #IYKYK

Available now from your local library.

The cover of The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves

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

You can read William Lithgow’s (deep breath)

The Totall Discourse of The Rare Adventures & Painefull Peregrinations of long Nineteene Yeares Travayles from Scotland to the most famous Kingdomes in Europe, Asia and Affrica

online via @gutenberg.org
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www.gutenberg.org/files/61545/...

An illustration from William Lithgow's RARE ADVENTURES, showing the author in Turkish dress. He stands, wearing a cape and a very large turban, one hand on his hip and the other holding a staff. Behind hi, to the left, are some ruins, and to the right, some trees. An eagle stands on the ground to his left, as well, and in front of him are two stone-covered ancient tombs. Beneath the illustration is a short verse:

Loe here’s mine Effigie, and Turkish suite;
My staffe, my shasse, as I did Asia foote:
Plac’d in old Ilium; Priams scepter thralles:
The Grecian Campe design’d; lost Dardan falles
Gird’d with small simois: Idaes tops, a Gate;
Two fatall Tombes, an Eagle, sackt Troyes state.

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

One of Scotland’s greatest travellers, in his lifetime William Lithgow walked some 36,000 miles across Scotland, England, Ireland, much of Europe, North Africa & the Middle East. His ears, however, he lost at home, following an ill-advised romance…
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scolarcardiff.wordpress.com/2023/12/15/t...

The painful peregrinations of ‘Lugless’ Will Lithgow, a 17th century Scottish traveller

William Lithgow has been described as one of Scotland’s greatest travellers. He was born around 1582, the son of a Lanarkshire merchant, and began his explorations in his youth with walking trips t…

scolarcardiff.wordpress.com

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