scotlit

scotlit, 11 months ago to literature

x Don’t Make Me Tap The Sign (GSV, Plate class)

#SciFiFri #Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #scifibooks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

scotlit, 7 months ago to literature

Tom Leonard, “The underfunder’s utopia”
Published in outside the narrative (etruscan books, 2009)

#Scottish #literature #poetry

scotlit, 7 months ago to Halloween

Oidhche Shamhna – a South Uist Halloween

Margaret Fay Shaw recorded a traditional Hebridean #Halloween with her images & film of South Uist in the 1930s

#Scottish #Gaelic #Hebrides #guising #folklore
https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/oidhche-shamhna-a-south-uist-halloween

scotlit, 7 months ago to Scotland

Gaelic in the North-East of Scotland
Wed 1 Nov, free online

For many, #Gaelic is associated with the western islands of #Scotland – but once it was spoken across most of Scotland, & the earliest surviving identifiably Scottish Gaelic writing actually comes from #Aberdeenshire.

Prof Michelle Macleod reflects on Gaelic’s historic presence in the North-East, & discusses what Aberdeen University is doing to promote & preserve one of Scotland’s oldest languages.

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/alumni/events/19110/

scotlit, 2 months ago to literature

In 1889, #ArthurConanDoyle & #OscarWilde sat down for dinner with J.M Stoddart, editor of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine.

There, Wilde agreed to write “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, & Conan Doyle “The Sign of Four” – one of his most famous #SherlockHolmes stories.

Now, Conan Doyle’s letters recounting that fated dinner and his sole handwritten #manuscript of “The Sign of Four” are being auctioned by Sotheby’s New York.

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/02/style/original-sherlock-holmes-manuscript-auction-intl-scli/index.html

scotlit, 2 months ago to literature

“So that’s where you look for aliens. In the course of an eclipse totality track. When everybody else is looking awestruck at the sky, you need to be looking round for anybody who looks weird or overdressed, or who isn’t coming out of their RV or their moored yacht with the heavily smoked glass.”

Where to look for #alien tourists – from Iain (M) Banks’s 2009 novel TRANSITION

@bookstodon

#Scottish #literature #IainMBanks #IainBanks #sciencefiction #totality #Eclipse #Eclipse2024

scotlit, 1 month ago to Scotland

Technical Texts & Terminology in Scottish Gaelic
Reading Scotland with Lena Krochmann
14 May, free online

With increased efforts to revitalise #Gaelic in #Scotland, it has also been promoted in areas where specialised registers & terminologies are required. This talk outlines how technical or specialised texts are produced & their relevance for the language.

https://www.scotland.uni-mainz.de/reading-scotland/

scotlit, 18 days ago to literature

What Scotsman was caught up in a civil war before the age of twenty? Wrote a book that became the inspiration for an Oscar-winning film? Met a runaway teenager in Paris and married her against the wishes of his family? Lost his ranch to raiding Apaches?

Buckle up – it’s going to be a long, wild #Scottish #literature 🧵 …

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scotlit, 4 months ago to literature

Cauld, cauld is Alnack…
Cauld is the snaw wind and sweet.
The maukin o’ Creagan Alnack
Has snaw for meat.

“Benighted in the Foothills of the Cairngorms: January”, by Olive Fraser (1909–1977) – born #OTD, 20 Jan
Published in The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks 2021

#Scottish #literature #poetry #ScotsLanguage #Cairngorms #mountains

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/benighted-foothills-cairngorms-january/

scotlit, 3 months ago to literature

INTERVIEWER: When somebody asks you to describe your book LANARK, what do you say to them?
ALASDAIR GRAY: I say it is a Scottish petit bourgeois model of the universe.
INTERVIEWER: Just like that?
ALASDAIR GRAY: Yes, I’ve rehearsed it and honed it down to as few words as possible.

From 25 Feb 2021 – the first ever #GrayDay, marking the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Alasdair Gray’s novel LANARK

@bookstodon

#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ_YoplsZxs

scotlit, 3 months ago to literature

Rediscovering the Poetry of Louisa Agnes Czarnecki, a 19th-Century Edinburgh Writer and Musician

A new blog post from Edinburgh University’s Centre for Research Collections on Louisa Agnes Czarnecki (1823–1877), a versatile & politically engaged 19th-century Scottish poet who married a #Polish political exile

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #poetry #WomenWriters

https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/edinburghuniversityarchives/2024/02/28/rediscovering-the-poetry-of-louisa-agnes-czarnecki-a-19th-century-edinburgh-writer-and-musician/

scotlit, 3 months ago to literature

The #Gaelic poet & songwriter Màiri Nic a’ Phearsain (Mary MacPherson) – known as Màiri Mhòr nan Òran (Great Mary of the Songs) was born #OnThisDay, 10 March, 1821. Much of her work was #political & was especially focused on the struggle for land rights

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#Scottish #literature #poetry #song #19thcentury

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19145415.mairi-mhor-nan-oran-celebrating-one-greatest-gaelic-poets/

scotlit, 2 months ago to literature

Iain (M) Banks: Two Authors, One Man

Never-before-seen writings & correspondence from author Iain Banks form part of an exhibit at the University of Stirling as it celebrates one of its most famous alumni.

Iain (M) Banks: Two Authors, One Man launches at a free event in the University of Stirling library on Thursday, April 4 from 4pm to 6pm, & will run until August 30.

#Scottish #literature #IainBanks #IainMBanks

https://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2024/march-2024-news/iain-banks-personal-archives-on-exhibit-as-university-of-stirling-shares-work-of-its-famous-alum/

scotlit, 2 months ago to literature

“What the hell do the love letters of that old fraud H. P. Lovecraft have to do with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs?”

A slight departure for #NationalUnicornDay – the Hugo Award-winning novella “Equoid” by Charles Stross @cstross
🦄 🐙

@bookstodon

#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #lovecraftian #horror

https://reactormag.com/equoid/

scotlit, 3 months ago to 13thFloor

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

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

@bookstodon

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

scotlit, 16 days ago to literature

Mister Timeless Blyth: An evening with Prof Alan Spence
A Japan Society of Scotland seminar
10 June, in-person & online

Alan Spence will discuss his new book MISTER TIMELESS BLYTH – A Biographical Novel: R.H. Blyth’s Life of Zen & Haiku, Bridging East & West

@bookstodon

#Scottish #literature #Japan #Zen #haiku #20thcentury #historicalnovel

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mister-timeless-blyth-an-evening-with-prof-alan-spence-online-tickets-909364482647

scotlit, 20 days ago to literature

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was born #OTD, 22 May, at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh – a 🎂 🧵

Bridget Kendall on BBC Sounds explores the life & work of the doctor & literary superstar who changed #CrimeFiction forever

1/11

#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #SherlockHolmes #SherlockHolmesDay

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p054419v

scotlit, 15 days ago to literature

Ian Rankin Investigates: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Currently on the BBC iPlayer: Ian Rankin investigates Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde”. Rankin traces the roots of this story, which stretch back to Stevenson's childhood. Grave-robbers, drugs & prostitution all play their part, as Rankin's journey takes him into the dark streets of the city that inspired the tale: Edinburgh.

#Scottish #literature #RobertLouisStevenson #Victorian #JekyllandHyde

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qyzv

scotlit, 13 days ago to sciencefiction

A Dalek, a set of original sketches by #Scottish #ScienceFiction writer #IainMBanks & a handwritten inscription by #Galileo are among items on display in ALIEN WORLDS – a new exhibition at the University of St Andrews’ Wardlaw Museum that explores #exoplanets & how they have been understood, dreamt of & imagined by scientists, musicians, artists & writers

#Scottish #literature #science #astronomy

https://news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/new-wardlaw-exhibition-seeks-answers-from-the-great-beyond/

scotlit, 17 days ago to literature

A Restless Intellect: Florence Dixie (1855–1905)

“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 – novelist, poet, dramatist, war correspondent, campaigning journalist, suffragist, & more – was born #OTD, 25 May. Valentina Bold explores Dixie’s roving life

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #womenwriters
@litstudies
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https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2021/12/a-restless-intellect-florence-dixie-1855-1905/

scotlit, 9 days ago to literature

“I have warned thee before, dame, and I now warn thee again, that all thy mischief meditated against me will fall double on thine own head”

–“The Brownie of the Black Haggs”, by James Hogg (Blackwood’s, 1828)

Sun 2 June, BBC Radio 4 Extra (& thereafter on BBC Sounds)

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #shortstory #shortfiction #supernatural #folklore

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ck4fs

scotlit, 3 months ago to literature

Edwin Morgan is one of Scotland’s foremost love poets. Here’s a short selection for #ValentinesDay ❤️ & #LGBTHistoryMonth 🏳️‍🌈

VALENTINE WEATHER
Edwin Morgan

Kiss me with rain on your eyelashes,
come on, let us sway together,
under the trees, and to hell with thunder.

#Scottish #literature #poetry #EdwinMorgan #lovepoetry #lovepoem #LGBTQ

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