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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.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · Jul 27
🎉PUBLICATION DAY!🥳

NAMING THE SNAKES
New Writing Scotland 44
Eds: Chris Powici, Allan Radcliffe & Anna C. Frater

The best new short fiction & poetry from forty-three writers who are Scottish by birth, residence, or inclination. Available now from all good bookshops!
💙📚
asls.org.uk/publications...
New Writing Scotland 44
Edited by Chris Powici, Allan Radcliffe & Anna C. Frater Published in: Paperback, 244 pages By: Association for Scottish Literature, Glasgow, August 2026 Price: £10.95 ISBN: 9781906841683 Cover image…
asls.org.uk
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
paulconnell.bsky.social
@asls.org.uk
Here's 'Home' the latest anthology from Write Club Stirling.
Available via Mayfield Library, St Ninians.
Lovely production by Palimpsest of Falkirk.
Cover of 'Home' a stylised house composed of doors.
September 20, 2026 at 9:09 PM
asls.org.uk
Congratulations @franapunk.bsky.social!
#CrimeFiction #Booksky 💙📚
www.penguin.co.uk/books/471170...
September 20, 2026 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
franapunk.bsky.social
Overwhelmed by warm kind messages after my surprise Debut and McIlvanney Awards at @bloodyscotland.bsky.social Huge thanks to @damedenisemina.bsky.social for supporting me both physically and emotionally 🥰 A weekend to remember 📸Paul Reich
Frances receives award from Denise and ready to faint with joy and surprise
September 20, 2026 at 8:14 PM
asls.org.uk
“I found more than 30 anonymous poems. So many of them immediately struck me as being by women, about female themes, & written in a female voice. And I certainly wasn’t expecting to find lesbian love poetry”

—Marie Matland’s 16th-century Scottish sapphic verse
thecoldmagazine.co.uk/theatre-lite...
Step aside, Sappho! Meet the Scottish lesbian poet hiding in a 500-year-old manuscript
Explore the life of Marie Maitland, a pioneering Scottish poet of the 1500s who defied societal norms and embraced her identity.
thecoldmagazine.co.uk
September 20, 2026 at 4:04 PM
asls.org.uk
A soup so thick you could shake its hand
And stroll with it before dinner.

The face rising to its surface,
A rayfish waiting to be stroked,

Is the pustular, eat-me face of a crofter…

—Robert Crawford, “Scotch Broth”
from MASCULINITY (Cape, 1996)
#poem #poetry
www.penguin.co.uk/books/361990...
Robert Crawford Scotch Broth A soup so thick you could shake its hand And stroll with it before dinner. The face rising to its surface, A rayfish waiting to be stroked, Is the pustular, eat-me face of a crofter, Turnipocephalic, white-haired. Accepting all comers, it’s still our nation’s Flagsoup, sip-soup; sip, sip, sip At this other scotch made with mutton That intoxicates only With peas and potatoes, chewy uists of meat. All races breathe over our bowl, Inhaling Inverness and Rutherglen, Waiting for a big, teuchtery face To compose itself from carrots and barley Rising up towards the spoon.
September 20, 2026 at 1:10 PM
asls.org.uk
One for #StandingStoneSunday
astroroyalscot.bsky.social Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 10h
NASA picture of the day today is a real 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿beauty! This is a composite image of the ~5000yo Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis. The amazing Giuseppe Petricca has only gone and photographed the Sun at noon there, every few days, for a whole year. #Dedication 🔭🧪👌
ℹ️: science.nasa.gov/image-articl...
The imposing Callanish Stones stand talk with their shadows spanning out across the glass. It's a super clear sky, but looks cold. Above the central stone is a strange figure-of-8 shape of dots. This is the location of the Sun, at noon, on various different days across the year.
September 20, 2026 at 11:40 AM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
orkneylibrary.bsky.social
Tomorrow (19th September) is #TalkLikeAPirateDay and your annual reminder that when we talk the way we talk when we're talking like a pirate, it's because of a film that was based on a book, inspired by an earlier book, inspired by a real life pirate from #Orkney!

ARRR! 🏴‍☠️👇
An illustration of a pirate with a tricorn hat and a bushy moustache
September 18, 2026 at 11:54 AM
asls.org.uk
“Dooty is dooty, mates. I give my vote—death. When I'm in Parlyment & riding in my coach, I don't want none of these sea-lawyers in the cabin a-coming home, unlooked for, like the devil at prayers.”

—Long John Silver plans a political career in TREASURE ISLAND
#TalkLikeAPirateDay #Booksky 💙📚
September 19, 2026 at 4:45 PM
asls.org.uk
“Newton had a way of making everyone in the movie react to him like astonished children, agog at the snarling, bug-eyed, peg-legged creature in their midst”

Today is #TalkLikeAPirateDay – but really it’s #TalkLikeRobertNewtonPlayingLongJohnSilverDay 🏴‍☠️🦜
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/f...
This Film Version of 'Treasure Island' Gave Us Our Image of Pirates
Avast, you lubbers!
www.smithsonianmag.com
September 19, 2026 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
ntsonline.bsky.social
Weel done to the company of Through the Shortbread Tin, who wrap up the tour this evenin in Drumnadrochit 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

It’s been an extra guid day as the show has jist won Scots Stage Production o the Year at the Scots Language Awards 👏 We’re deid chuffed!
September 19, 2026 at 3:03 PM
asls.org.uk
Today, 19 September, is Batman Day. You’d think there would be a signal or something but

Anyway, here’s “Batman’s Aff His Nut”, by Robert Florence
#poem #poetry #Batman #BatmanDay
mothdancepoetry.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/b...
Batman’s aff his nut Robert Florence Batman’s aff his nut Have you seen the way he cuts aboot Dressed up as a mad fuckin bat Batterin guys I was lit at: “Mate, I’m worried aboot ye I know your ma and da died But everybody’s ma and da dies And we’re no aw runnin aboot Hookin muggers and Kickin psychopaths in the baws.” And that was when Batman went “Aye, but do ye ever feel like it? Do you ever look at the world and feel like it? Like having a big mad base under your hoose? Do you ever feel like drivin a big mad motor that turns intae a tank? And leatherin fuck oot of guys aw night? Scarin the fuckin shite oot of them?” And that’s when I was lit at: “Aye. Fuck it. Ah dae.” And that’s the Secret Origin of Robin And everyone else. Blurry photo of a man (possibly a stunt-double?) in a (partial? certainly no cape) Batman costume, in daytime, on a wet Glasgow street – probably taken during the filming of the 2022 movie THE BATMAN, where Glasgow was a stand-in for Gotham City. Text: She’s turned the Waynes against us… She’s turned the Waynes against us
September 19, 2026 at 3:08 PM
asls.org.uk
Sir David Lyndsay’s masterpiece of #Renaissance #theatre 𝘈𝘯𝘦 𝘚𝘢𝘵𝘺𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘦 𝘌𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘴 was first performed for James V in 1540, & is “probably the most dramatically & politically radical piece of theatre produced in 16th-century Britain”
#BookWormSat
doinghistoryinpublic.org/2025/08/12/d...
David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estatis
By Kate McGregor (@ks_mcgregor) David Lyndsay is perhaps Scotland’s best, but least well known, poet and playwright.[1] Yet his work both reflects the vibrant culture of early modern Scotland and t…
doinghistoryinpublic.org
September 19, 2026 at 2:52 PM
asls.org.uk
On leaving
you playfully punched
my left
shoulder.

The sensation
remains

But your
voice fades

The sensation
remains
But your
image fades

I
short of breath
tremble

I think
you’ve
cracked
a
rib.

—“Gone but Not Forgotten”, by Maud Sulter (1960–2008), born #OTD, 19 Sep – a 🎂🧵
#poem #poetry
A colour photograph in a gold frame of Maud Sulter represented as Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. She is a Black woman, with bare shoulders. Her face is in profile, turned to the left, her chin raised, with red lips. She draped in dark fabric, seated by a table with a small cased photograph on it. The background resembles crushed velvet in a dark purplish-black.
September 19, 2026 at 1:55 PM
asls.org.uk
THE MEDICI SEAL, by @carnegiemedals.bsky.social -winning author Theresa Breslin, is a #YA #HistoricalFiction novel set amid the deadly intrigues of Renaissance Italy. Can Matteo survive the bloody feuds of the Borgias & Medicis?
#BookWormSat #KidLit #Booksky 💙📚
www.theresabreslin.com/books/the-me...
The Medici Seal - Theresa Breslin
A gloriously rich and authentic story of the Renaissance, "The Medici Seal" is also both the personal story of Matteo, a boy becoming a man, and a fascinating glimpse into the world of Da Vinci.
www.theresabreslin.com
September 19, 2026 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
davecook.bsky.social
Our cyberpunk comic Killtopia: Phantoms has 24 hours of funding left on Kickstarter.

This is your last chance to preorder your copy for launch. Digital copies are just £4.

Thanks to all our backers so far 🙏

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bus...
September 19, 2026 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
michaelshallcross.bsky.social
Cosy sofa scenario offsetting entirely non-cosy novel
A black cat cosying up on a sofa, next to a hardback copy of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟 by Muriel Spark
September 18, 2026 at 8:42 PM
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billykayscot.bsky.social
Twa weeks the nicht, Scots leid, Burns sangs an stories fae ma memoir Born in Kyle. Ma frien @RobynStapleton has ane o the brawest singin vyces ye’ll ever hear, sae dae yersel a treat an jyne us in Inverness.
September 18, 2026 at 6:41 PM
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uofgfantasy.bsky.social
The second European Conference on the Fantastic, Fantastic Spaces and Places, will take place at the University of Karlstad in Sweden from June 15th to 17th 2027.

CfP here (deadline Nov 1st): www.kau.se/kufo/aktivit...

Hope to see many of you there!
Fantastic Spaces and Places | Karlstads universitet
The second European Conference on the Fantastic Karlstad, Sweden 15-17 June, 2027
www.kau.se
September 18, 2026 at 6:30 PM
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regretteruane.bsky.social
Was royally ruined by every excellent, atmospheric story in these & when I finally tracked them down as an adult, it was all the sweeter finding they were created by someone who wrote most of Trumpton.
I will never stop going on about them until they’re back in print, so republish them you cowards!
Cover of a spooky children's book called haunted children with two white dark haired children in school uniform looking shit scared against a green wall with the title above them in pink writing and above that authors name Alison Prince Cover of a children's book called the ghost within by Alison Prince with a dead looking white girl in a cream ruffled nightie and cala lilies in both hands, her long brown hair laid out on the earth behind her
September 18, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
discoverkelpies.bsky.social
And we're rolling! Join us live at the Kelpies Prize for Writing and Illustration 2026 Award Ceremony: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_mP... #KelpiesPrize
September 18, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
krishughes.bsky.social
One of my favourite novels of all time. I often want to tell people to read it, but not sure how it would land with a lot of younger people, or those far removed from the culture, as there are so many things that might not make sense to them. But if you're not frightened off by that, then read it!
asls.org.uk Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 2d
“George Mackay Brown is as connected to the world as any of us. He has retreated to a point where he can see the world in an internal reflection, a very clear & penetrating simplification that he could never have achieved in the midst of the hurly-burly”
—Ted Hughes
💙📚
birlinn.co.uk/product/gree...
Greenvoe | Birlinn Ltd - Independent Scottish Publisher - buy books online
Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations, but Operation Black Star requires the island for unspecified purposes and threatens the isla...
birlinn.co.uk
September 18, 2026 at 5:53 PM
asls.org.uk
Sar Sgeoil: GREENVOE
Currently on BBC iPlayer. In Gaelic with English subtitles

George Mackay Brown’s 1972 novel GREENVOE imagines an Orkney island community threatened by a mysterious defence project. Cathy MacDonald investigates the story & its themes.
#Booksky 💙📚
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC ALBA - Sar Sgeoil, Greenvoe
Cathy MacDonald on George Mackay Brown’s prophetic novel, Greenvoe.
www.bbc.co.uk
September 18, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature
lizbethmyles.bsky.social
Since I'm trying to self-promote more, I guess I'll take this as an opportunity to link to my essay? But, yeah, I'm really quite upset. Afaik I've not been plagiarised before. www.uncannymagazine.com/article/doct...
Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with AI Slop 1969 AD - Uncanny Magazine
One of the joys of Doctor Who is when decades after first broadcast, a story’s themes are suddenly painfully relevant again, and you can marvel at the timelessness of the world’s greatest Science Fict...
www.uncannymagazine.com
September 18, 2026 at 8:41 AM
asls.org.uk
A Blether o Books: Scotland through Literature
7–8 November, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway

Tickets are on sale for the third annual Blether o Books, held at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/a-blether...
A Blether o Books: Scotland through Literature by Robert Burns Birthplace Museum | Eventbrite
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum is proud to present the third annual Blether o' Books, where we are joined by some of Scotland's finest literary minds. With an exciting and varied programme of authors, we are given a window into modern Scottish society.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
September 18, 2026 at 4:30 PM
asls.org.uk
The bell that tolls my syllables can tell
An underwater tale, clang how there fell
Suddenly out of a surface shouting world
Into dumb calm doomed children…

—George Sutherland Fraser (1915–1980), “S.S. City of Benares (Drowned refugee children, 1940)”
#poem #poetry #WarPoetry #WW2
George Sutherland Fraser S.S. City of Benares (Drowned refugee children, 1940) The bell that tolls my syllables can tell An underwater tale, clang how there fell Suddenly out of a surface shouting world Into dumb calm doomed children, and there curled (Currents’ sick fingers whispering at their hair) Round them a coiling clutch, was our despair. Sea’s soft sad pressure, like the sprawl of love, Darkly spreadeagled, so they could not move, The wide wet mouth was heavy, they would choke, Till in that cold confusion pity spoke: “This is a nightmare and one is asleep. This is a dream, my brave one, do not weep, Often may drown in dreams and not be dead: Such weight is mother leaning on your bed.” But having thought of this to cheat my pain, That woe and wonder harrows me again, Fat clouds seem bulked like whales, while through the green Grave tons of twilight, in a submarine Solidity of air like sea I move, Pressure of horror how our hate hurts love. Deeper than grief can plummet, mercy lies, But not so deep as trust in children’s eyes, Justice is high in heaven, but more high Blood of the innocent shall smear the sky— Or think that red the flame of seraph wings, See stained-glass heaven, where each darling sings In God’s dark luminous world of green and gold As lovely as death’s waters, but less cold: Think what you will, but like the crisping leaf In whipped October, crack your thoughts to grief. In the drenched valley, whimpering and cold, The small ghosts flicker, whisper, unconsoled.
September 18, 2026 at 1:22 PM