Assoc for Scottish Literature

Is tu riamh an ceann do dhleastanais,
mu chòcaireachd, caoraich, leabhraichean;
a bheil fios an d’fhuair thu do dhìol
airson do dheataim is spàirn is sgìths?

—Meg Bateman, “Màthair”
from Soirbheas/Fair Wind, Polygon Books 2007

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #MothersDay

Tha a’ chlosach air ragachadh
mar gun robh e a’ snàmh,
spliadh is ceann air an togail,
sùil is bian
a’ deàrrsadh mar umha…

—Meg Bateman, “Dòbhran Marbh”
Published in THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF SCOTTISH VERSE, @canongate.co.uk 2021

Today, 3 March, is World Wildlife Day

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

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #WorldWildlifeDay #poem #poetry

“People need to hear a story like this now,” says Pinar Aksu … “We don’t always have a victory at the end of our stories, but hope is all we’ve got.”

The award-winning EVERYBODY TO KENMURE STREET premieres at the Glasgow film festival, 25 February

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/feb/24/power-pyjamas-everybody-to-kenmure-street-glasgow-immigration

#Scottish #film #cinema #KenmureStreet #Scotland #Glasgow

It’s not the crack you expect.
It’s more a soft whump,
then an elegant leaving, like
a grand piano dropped
from a silent-movie window…

—Karen Ashe, “The Sound of an Iceberg Calving”
in SOUND OF AN ICEBERG: New Writing Scotland 37 (ASL, 2019)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws37/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #globalwarming #environment

Islands Matter Public Seminar: Faroese & Shetlandic Folklore
26 February, free online

Prof Jóan Pauli Joensen (University of the Faroe Islands) on “Water Beings in the Faroese Folklore – Tradition & Change” & Prof Andrew Jennings (UHI Institute for Northern Studies) on “From Fetlar to Foula – The Norse Roots of Shetland Folklore”

https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/institute-for-northern-studies/events/islands-matter-public-seminar---faroese--shetlandic-folklore.html

#Scottish #Scotland #Shetlandic #Faroese #Shetland #Faroes #folklore #Norse

Sorrow remembers us when day is done.
It sits in its old chair gently rocking
and singing tenderly in the evening…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “When Day is Done”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781800170940

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #IainCrichtonSmith #sorrow #grief #grieving

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the School of English, University of St Andrews are offering a Joseph Bell Writer’s residency. The residency is open to writers or researchers in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, screenplay, literary and/or historical scholarship, life-writing and medical humanities.

Closing date: 12 noon, 6 March 2026

https://www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/7234/0/464724/889/joseph-bell-writer-in-residence-at-the-royal-college-of-surgeons-of-edinburgh-and-the-school-of-english-university-of-st-andrews

#Scottish #literature #writers #medicalhumanities #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #drama #screenplay #screenwriting

Escape to the tailored suit,
the pan-loaf speech,
the benefits of higher education…

—“Kailyard & After” by William Neill (1922–2010), b. #OTD, 22 Feb. He wrote poetry in all three of Scotland’s languages & was an active campaigner for Scots & Gaelic

A 🎂 🧵

1/4

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #minoritylanguage

At times, in those last few months,
he would think of a word
and he had to remember the tree, or the species of frog,

the sound denoted…

—John Burnside, “The Last Man to Speak Ubykh“
published in the London Review of Books, August 2002

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n16/john-burnside/the-last-man-to-speak-ubykh

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #MotherLanguageDay #UNESCO #linguistics

“An entire system of comharran – Gaelic navigational marks – surrounds the islands… A wealth of knowledge about the creatures which populate these fishing grounds is also encoded within the Gaelic language.”

—Alastair Cole: How Scottish Gaelic is helping protect Scotland’s seas

https://theconversation.com/how-scottish-gaelic-is-helping-protect-scotlands-seas-155660

#Scotland #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #MotherLanguageDay #UNESCO #fishing #fishingindustry #Hebrides #language #minoritylanguage

Nam sheasamh thall aig geat a’ phreiridh,
feur glan fom bhotannan,
lamhan fuar nam phocaidean,
faileadh an dup
gu fann
gu neo-chinnteach
a’ nochdadh mu mo chuinnlean…

—Anne Frater, “Aig an Fhaing”

Today, 21 February, is UNESCO International Mother Language Day

https://www.unesco.org/en/days/mother-language

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #language #minoritylanguage #MotherLanguageDay #UNESCO

Subverting the Script: Alan Bissett on Class, Masculinity, & the Telling of Tales

Playwright, novelist & performer Alan Bissett speaks to Scott Cassidy on The Creative Resistance podcast about class, masculinity, & the telling of tales.

https://thecreativeresistancepodcast.substack.com/p/subverting-the-script-alan-bissett

#Scottish #literature #class #masculinity #AlanBissett #podcast

Iain M. Banks (1954–2013) was born #OTD, 16 Feb: a 🎂 🧵
1/13

“Iain Banks… is a novelist who has his own ‘double’, an author for whom the idea of a split writing persona is emphatically not out of place”

—“Reading Double, Writing Double: The Fiction of Iain (M) Banks” – a 2010 article on Banks’s genre-busting career

@bookstodon@a.gup.pe

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2010/11/reading-double-writing-double-the-fiction-of-iain-m-banks/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

Snaw is bluffertin’ the toun,
Gurly wunds are roustin’ roun’,
Peety fowk in broken shoon
This winter nicht…

—Helen Burness Cruickshank (1886–1975), “Song of Pity for Refugees”
published in Collected Poems (Reprographia, 1971)

#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #poem #poetry #refugees #winter

Up there on that bare hill
you wouldn’t dare dream
of a summer day, of grain
ripening in the hot sun,
of the kiss of a soft wind
on the back of your neck…

—Deborah Moffatt, “That Bare Hill”
published in Crannóg Magazine

https://crannogmagazine.com/that-bare-hill/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry