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scotlit

@scotlit@mastodon.scot

ASL is an educational charity, promoting the reading, writing, teaching and study of Scotland's literature and languages, past and present.

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scotlit, to literature
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The battle of was fought , 16 April 1746. It has, unsurprisingly, left a significant imprint in the literature & culture of Scotland. A short 🧵

1/8

John Buchan called FLEMINGTON—Violet Jacob’s 1911 novel of the 1745 rising & aftermath—“the best Scots novel since The Master of Ballantrae”

@bookstodon

FLEMINGTON is available free on @gutenberg_org
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55361

scotlit, to literature
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Galilee, wind-dark sea, miracles,
there is no miracle greater

than the literature of April,
the manuscript of crocuses…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Not in Heaven”
in NEW COLLECTED POEMS, Carcanet 2011

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857549607

scotlit, to literature
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My seventy-seven-year-old father
put his reading glasses on
to help my mother do the buttons
on the back of her dress…

—“George Square”, by Jackie Kay
from LIFE MASK, Bloodaxe 2005

Listen to Jackie Kay read this poem on the Poetry Archive:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/george-square/

scotlit, to literature
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La Scala Sauchiehall Street

Currently available on BBC Sounds

“The barrier between this world & the next is thin in La Scala…”

Louise Welsh’s short story celebrates Glasgow of the 1930s, when the city boasted more cinema screens per person than anywhere else in the UK

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xvs2

scotlit, to literature
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The green wind skinkles through the schaw
And doun the gairy lea:
The bird that was sae lang awa
Sings frae its tree…

—William Soutar, “April Morning”
Published in Collected Poems of William Soutar, ed. Hugh MacDiarmid (Andrew Dakers, 1943)

scotlit, to literature
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“We owe children an apology for the state of the nation”

Dani Garavelli discusses CALEDONIAN ROAD with author Andrew O’Hagan

“The parents in CALEDONIAN ROAD are alienated from their children. They give them everything they didn’t have themselves, then resent them for their lack of gratitude. The women are the novel’s moral spine, grounded and secure… But their husbands are dissociated; lost in modern masculinity.”

@bookstodon

https://www.bigissue.com/culture/books/caledonian-road-andrew-o-hagan-children-apology/

scotlit, to literature
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A Sense of Place – The Battle for Hearts & Minds in the Scottish Landscape
Reading Scotland with John D. Burns
16 April, free online

This seminar will explore how historic patterns of land ownership & changes in land use have profoundly affected the Highlands of Scotland. The challenge for writers & artists is to capture the imagination of the Scottish people & show what our future could be.

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

scotlit, to literature
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Soutar Festival of Words 2024
26–28 April, Perth

A weekend of events celebrating the poet & writer William Soutar (1898–1943) & the Scots language – programme now online

https://www.culturepk.org.uk/event-group/soutar24/

scotlit, to literature
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Book launch
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Scottish Literature
ed. Gerard Carruthers

16 April, Glasgow University & online – free & all welcome

A COMPANION TO SCOTTISH LITERATURE offers fresh readings of major authors & periods of literary production from the first millennium to the present, presenting historical background, new critical approaches, & wider cultural & institutional contexts

@litstudies

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-the-wiley-blackwell-companion-to-scottish-literature-tickets-807806921247

scotlit, to literature
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“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 – the Hugo Award-winning novella “Equoid” by Charles Stross @cstross
🦄 🐙

@bookstodon

https://reactormag.com/equoid/

scotlit, to literature
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It steppit like a stallion,
Wha’s heid hauds up a horn,
And weel the men o’ Scotland kent
It was the unicorn…

—William Soutar (1898–1943), “Birthday”

🦄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

scotlit, to literature
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Hugh MacDiarmid at 100
Studies in Scottish Literature 49/1, 2024
Open Access

This special issue celebrates & interrogates the first appearance in print of ‘Hugh M‘Diarmid’, in 1922, & examines the long-lasting influence within Scottish literary studies of the Scottish Renaissance group Christopher Murray Grieve initiated & of the reshaping he proposed in how Scottish literary history should be viewed.

@litstudies

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol49/iss1/

scotlit, to literature
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“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 tourists – from Iain (M) Banks’s 2009 novel TRANSITION

@bookstodon

scotlit, to literature
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Treasures: Byron’s life in letters
24 April, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, & free online.

Prof Andrew Stauffer discusses his new biography BYRON: A LIFE IN TEN LETTERS with Sir Drummond Bone.

@litstudies

Tickets for livestream here (see link for in-person bookings):

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-of-treasures-byrons-life-in-letters-tickets-849314210667

scotlit, to literature
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“It is difficult to read a collection of Scottish stories without becoming aware of the spoken voice and the power of first-person narration. It is absolutely crucial. It establishes the tone and direction of the story by forming an immediate and firm pact with the reader, appearing in every instance to take him or her into the writer’s confidence.”

Carl MacDougall (1941–2023) – born , 5 April – looks at

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2022/08/scottish-short-stories/

scotlit, to literature
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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

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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.

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/

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Recovering Imaginaries of Illness & Disability in Scottish Literature & Culture: Sources, Contexts, Theory

Études écossaises 23 | 2024 – open access

This special issue of Études écossaises looks at what recovering imaginaries of illness & disability in & might involve. Contributions deal with a number periods of Scottish culture, & a wide variety of sources & media.

@litstudies

https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/4419

scotlit, to literature
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The Story of a Recluse

“The Story of a Recluse”, a 1985 TV play by Alasdair Gray, is based on an unfinished tale by Robert Louis Stevenson. Starring Peter Capaldi, Stewart Granger, Cristina Higueras, & Andrew Keir, & featuring Alasdair Gray as himself, is now available on the Alasdair Gray Archive’s YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bg_5DheTBg

scotlit, to literature
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George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) – author, historian, journalist, screenwriter – was born , 2 April, 1925

“His dedication to strongly researched stories, built firmly on a bedrock of historical fact, but always with an eye to the humour of a situation, was the core of what appealed to me”

Historical novelist Michael Jecks discusses George MacDonald Fraser’s writing for the Royal Literary Fund:

https://www.rlf.org.uk/showcase/not-a-serious-writer/

@bookstodon


1/5

scotlit,
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“QUARTERED SAFE OUT HERE … provides insight into what it takes an individual to survive, both (with luck) physically and, more importantly, ethically”

– retired Australian Army officer Jason Thomas on George MacDonald Fraser’s memoir of the Burma campaign

https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/special-series/dusty-shelves/quartered-safe/

2/5

scotlit,
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“At one moment when President Richard Nixon was taking part in his inauguration ceremony, he appeared flanked by Lyndon Johnson and Billy Graham […] it was one of those historical coincidences which send a little shudder through the mind…”

– George MacDonald Fraser, THE STEEL BONNETS (1971)

3/5

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scotlit,
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“There is a story they tell in Breadalbane:
Gordon of Achruach was at feud with Campbell of Kentallan, who hired certain Gregora, landless men, who took the Gordon unawares while he was hunting in the Mamore. And they cut off his head and put it in a bag to show the Campbell that the work was done. That was the way of it…”

– From “The Gordon Women”, by George MacDonald Fraser. Published in THE SHEIKH AND THE DUSTBIN (1988)

4/5

scotlit,
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George MacDonald Fraser on Desert Island Discs in 2001 – available to listen to on BBC Sounds

5/5

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009498m

scotlit,
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@Thebratdragon Flashman can be difficult, I agree. He is such an awful character, on any level: his only redeeming feature is his complete honesty (albeit only in his secret memoirs). In many respects he is an embodiment of the British Empire: a magnificent outward show concealing something greedy, lecherous, & utterly self-centred, lurching from crisis to crisis & prepared to do absolutely anything to save his own skin. There is at least some schadenfreude to be had in watching him suffer…

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