Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Paul Robichaud @pjrobichaud.bsky.social · 10h

Always pleased to get the annual volume from @asls.org.uk — this year’s looks great!

Cover of ‘Setting the Stage: New Wave Scottish Drama from the 1970s and 1980s.’

1 5

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

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

SETTING THE STAGE
New Wave Scottish Drama from the 1970s & 1980s

Featuring 5 exciting & experimental playscripts:

White Rose (Peter Arnott)
Mary (Ian Brown)
Playing With Fire (Jo Clifford)
An Island in Largo (Sue Glover)
The Way to Go Home (Rona Munro)

#drama #theatre
asls.org.uk/publications...

Annual Volume 54 (2024)

Edited by Steven Cramer and John Corbett Paperback, 346 pages Association for Scottish Literature, September 2025 Price £19.95 ISBN: 9781906841652 Order from our bookshop These five plays address…

asls.org.uk

2 7

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Nazaret Ranea @nazaretranea.bsky.social · 16h

Still buzzing that one of my favourite stories I’ve written found a home in the coolest mag 🦷

Extra Teeth @extrateethmag.bsky.social · 17h

🪹The Swallows 🪹by @nazaretranea.bsky.social

A tragedy brings our narrator closer to her unwanted companions. A story about leaving home, grief and solace in nature.

Read more in Extra Teeth Issue 9!

1 3 14

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 14h

“Iain Banks’s first novel, The Wasp Factory, is to be published the following February. Robert Crawford is still a postgraduate student […] David Kinloch is also still a postgraduate student and cites no previous publications”

Val Thornton on NWS at 40
www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2022/08/new-...

New Writing Scotland at 40 - The Bottle Imp

The timing could not have been better. The very first volume of New Writing Scotland in 1983, the purple one with the pale blue thistle on the front scattering white seeds of new writing, included my ...

www.thebottleimp.org.uk

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

commamonger 😷 (analogue writing assistant) @commamonger.bsky.social · 16h

A fellow punctuation-monger. 😍

The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 16h

After complaints about Timothy Dexter's A Pickle for the Knowing Ones (1797) being entirely devoid of punctuation, in future editions the eccentric businessman supplied a supplemental page so that people “may peper and solt as they please”: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dexter-pickle

2 7

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 14h

Zachary Boyd’s Books: Recovering a 17th-Century Scottish Library
21 Oct @uofglasgow.bsky.social & online – free

@profastreete.bsky.social has worked to reconstruct Boyd’s library, bequeathed to UofG – a new & substantial archive
#C17 #earlymodern #bookhistory
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/adrian-str...

Adrian Streete | Zachary Boyd's Books

Zachary Boyd’s Books: Recovering a Seventeenth Century Scottish Library

www.eventbrite.co.uk

3 10

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 17h

Kathleen Jamie & Don Paterson in Conversation with Chris Agee
29 Oct @byleaveswelive.bsky.social – £10

Ten years after the Independence Referendum, @irishpages.bsky.social asks Scottish writers to think about their country, & take stock of the current situation
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kathleen-j...

Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson in Conversation with Chris Agee

Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson and Chris Agee in conversation, on “Scotland”, the current brilliantly illuminating issue of Irish Pages

www.eventbrite.co.uk

1 4

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 17h

Us too!
asls.org.uk/schools/teac...

Teaching Notes

ASL Teaching Notes offer suggestions for teaching Scottish Literature and Language in the classroom. These notes are FREE to download – see the links below. Download printable versions of recent…

asls.org.uk

1 1

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

The Govan Stones @govanstones.bsky.social · 17h

This is NOT a #Christmas post, but could very well be an EXCLUSIVE CHRISTMAS CARDS post! Simon's Govan range is BACK 🎄🎅

🛒 In-store only (from late afternoon 14/10/25)

Govan Stones Christmas cards, with hogbacks and robins in winter scenes.

3 15

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 17h

When you pay your rent, ALWAYS get a receipt from your landlord! The lengths you have to go to, sometimes, honestly …

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 18h

“Stephen,” said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of voice—“Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year’s rent behind the hand—due at last term.”

—from “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, by Walter Scott: a trip to Hell, a demonic monkey, & an unreliable narrator …
#Scotstober

1 1 7

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 18h

You can read “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, along with two other short stories by Walter Scott – “My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror” & “The Two Drovers” – in our free ebook AS IT WAS TOLD TO ME, introduced by @profdanielcook.bsky.social
💙📚
asls.org.uk/publications...

As It Was Told to Me

Introduction by Daniel Cook By: Association for Scottish Literature, 2021 Published in: PDF, ePUB and Mobi Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) is chiefly remembered as one of the great historical novelists…

asls.org.uk

1 3 2

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 18h

“Stephen,” said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of voice—“Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year’s rent behind the hand—due at last term.”

—from “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, by Walter Scott: a trip to Hell, a demonic monkey, & an unreliable narrator …
#Scotstober

1 2 10

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Lari Don @laridonwriter.bsky.social · 20h

I love telling trad tales out loud! So @florisbooks.bsky.social created a video of me telling the first tale in our Celtic Folk And Fairy Tales collection. Here’s our 12 min 'How To Escape a Waterhorse' with magical artwork by @elisecillustration.com #storytelling
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv6N...

Lari Don tells the story of How to Escape a Waterhorse, from Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales

YouTube video by FlorisBooks

www.youtube.com

10 21

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

The Alasdair Gray Archive @agrayarchive.bsky.social · 20h

Continuing our timeline series: No. 44 - 2004 – Work commences on the Oran Mor mural — a project that would become the largest piece of public art in Scotland, and one that remains unfinished to this day.

3 9

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Stephen Walsh @walshythebolshy.bsky.social · 1d

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba... lovely article by the great Hugh MacDonald with typically generous assessment of my new book ‘High Ball to the Wee Man’ and Hamish MacDonald’s ‘Square Baw’ @asls.org.uk @natlibscot.bsky.social @stephenwattpoet.bsky.social @juliemcneillwrites.bsky.social

ON THE ROAD meets two poets inspired by Scottish football

There is both a rhyme and reason behind the torrent of words that form the modern Scottish fitba' poetry oeuvre, as we never tire of declaiming in the salons of Saracen Street.

www.dailymail.co.uk

2 2 3

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Scottish Book Trust @scottishbooktrust.bsky.social · 1d

We're so excited that @amalelmohtar.com will be creating an exclusive serialised short story for our newsletter during Book Week Scotland from 17 to 23 Nov 📚

Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to receive each installment!

www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-week-sc...

Book Week Scotland: Amal El-Mohtar in your inbox

Sign up to receive an exclusive serialised story from Amal El-Mohtar during Book Week Scotland.

www.scottishbooktrust.com

8 34

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

🚀Launch
A CHAOS OF LIGHT: New Writing Scotland 43
28 Oct, The Book Nook, Stirling
Pay as you please (suggested £3)

Celebrate this year’s amazing edition & hear a selection of featured authors reading from their work, in English, Gaelic & Scots. All welcome!
thebooknookstirling.co.uk/tickets/New-...

New Writing Scotland Anthology Launch - Tickets - The Book Nook Stirling

Join us to celebrate the launch of the 43rd edition of New Writing Scotland, the principle forum for poetry and short fiction in Scotland. Every year it publishes the very best from both emerging and ...

thebooknookstirling.co.uk

3

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

The Next Generation of Scottish Writers

To celebrate their first 20 years @theskinnymag.bsky.social presents their Next Generation of Scottish Writers: 12 poets, novelists & essayists who are shaping the future of Scotland's literary landscape
www.theskinny.co.uk/books/featur...

The Next Generation of Scottish Writers – The Skinny

To celebrate 20 years of The Skinny we look ahead, presenting our Next Generation of Scottish Writers: 12 poets, novelists and essayists who are shaping the future of Scotland's literary landscape. We...

www.theskinny.co.uk

2 16

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Greg Michaelson @gjmichaelson.bsky.social · 1d

I'm delighted to have a story in this collection!
@asls.org.uk
battlefieldwriters.com?fbclid=Iwb21...

Battlefield Writers

FREE EVENT Launch night at Couper Institute Library 86 Clarkston Road, Glasgow, G44 3DA from 6 pm till 7 pm. All WELCOME

battlefieldwriters.com

1 2

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

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers…

—Marjorie Lotfi, “Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)”
in THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 2023
www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/...

Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)
Marjorie Lotfi

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped
to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching

for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail,
is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down
one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells
of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy

on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around
her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm
grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her,
while his torso reels back and away; his body

is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead,
her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers
of her free hand curled into a claw, as if
to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead.

A Palestinian girl carries a child across rubble from a building that police said was destroyed by an Israeli air strike, in the Burij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, August 1, 2014. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly. Marjorie Lotfi's poem describes the picture in detail:

Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)
Marjorie Lotfi

I would like to tell her not to wear such flimsy shoes,
that rubble contains the whole spectrum of knowable
and unknowable dangers: sheets of metal ripped
to knife edge, live wires, bloated arms reaching

for light. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail,
is open to sky; remnants of buildings filter down
one concrete chunk at a time, and the midday bells
of rockets ring out above her. She carries a boy

on her still narrow hips, his legs entwined around
her yellow dungarees. Like a rodeo rider, his left arm
grips her shoulder to steady himself, or her,
while his torso reels back and away; his body

is asking to slow down, to turn back. Instead,
her eyes comb the ground for a next step, fingers
of her free hand curled into a claw, as if
to frighten off what she somehow sees ahead.

4 6

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

SETTING THE STAGE
New Wave Scottish Drama from the 1970s & 1980s

Featuring 5 exciting & experimental playscripts:

White Rose (Peter Arnott)
Mary (Ian Brown)
Playing With Fire (Jo Clifford)
An Island in Largo (Sue Glover)
The Way to Go Home (Rona Munro)

#drama #theatre
asls.org.uk/publications...

Annual Volume 54 (2024)

Edited by Steven Cramer and John Corbett Paperback, 346 pages Association for Scottish Literature, September 2025 Price £19.95 ISBN: 9781906841652 Order from our bookshop These five plays address…

asls.org.uk

2 7

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Nazaret Ranea @nazaretranea.bsky.social · 1d

This Thursday, I’ll have the honour of reading from Nettles at the Scottish Poetry Library @byleaveswelive.bsky.social

Ahead of it, I want to celebrate the four incredible poets who’ll be reading alongside me. Tickets are still available so come and join us!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nettles-a-...

1 2 13

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

We fecht to lowse oursels, we coup and skar
and joater menseless in the foazie grun,
feart to bide still, and fusionless to rin,
we plouter on, forfeuchan, through the haar…

—Robert Garioch, “The Bog”
in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2017)
#Scotstober #poem #poetry
asls.org.uk/publications...

Robert Garioch
The Bog

The lyft is lourd abuin the hechs and howes,
peat-bog and mist hae left nae space atween;
the puddock cours doun frae the wecht abuin,
here is nae leevin-space for men or yowes.

We fecht to lowse oursels, we coup and skar
and joater menseless in the foazie grun,
feart to bide still, and fusionless to rin,
we plouter on, forfeuchan, through the haar.

We rax doun, seeking rock, wi feet grown nesh
frae clatchin in thae never-ending clarts,
ettlin to traipse on stanes, to thole their scarts,
and win to some green haugh, kind to the flesh.

Tho weill we ken it's aye the same auld place,
we fuil oursels to pech and plouter on
frae this black oily puddle-hole to thon,
that gies the meisor of our hirple-pace.

Our thochts are aye on skinklan burns, dour rocks,
clean waters we cuid loup frae stane to stane,
bricht in the sun or weet wi dounricht rain,
dazzlit wi licht and stoun'd by solid shocks.

But maist we think of gangin ither airts,
whaur we micht hae faur distances in sicht,
think lang to traivel til a warld of bricht
pure colour in outlandish foreign pairts.

Sae we jalouse some howff juist owre the brae,
some hevin abuin the sterns, juist out of sicht,
whaur we cuid gae the morn, gin we micht
loup owre the muin, as did the famous quey.

Wanting some yirdlie hevin for Almains,
the Fuhrer maks a furore in our lugs;
we bield in ivory touers or Luftwaffe-skugs,
while bummlan boomers threaten broken banes.

Thae men that fetch us boombs frae yont the seas,
heich in their Heinkels, ken the same despair;
they maun skite flat-out on the slidder air,
forever doomed, like us, to future ease.

Nou the impassioned banshees, in F-moll,
screich out wi siren voices, anger-riven,
Beethoven's chord of Opus 57,
the same that skeiched us in the Usher Hall.

The causey street we staund on shaks and shogs,
freestane fore-storey housses flee in air;
real super-realism everywhere
maks grand pianos mate wi clarty bogs.

The bog—I ken the feel o't weill eneuch,
tak its conditions, staund and dinnae fecht
to lowse my feet, and find it tholes my wecht
ablow the haar, gin but my heid be leugh.

And here are colours braw as onie shroud:
broun and dark broun, black and mair black, an aa
the fud or hint-end of the watergaw,
whaur I hae fand my forpit-met of gowd.

4 7

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Scottish BPOC Writers Network @scotbpocwriters.bsky.social · 1d

Do you write:

• SFF/speculative fiction
• Games - digital, RPGs, tabletop, etc
• Scripts for film, TV, radio, or podcasts
• Comics - print or digital

...and want some inspiration? Then check out this Saturday's workshop on (super)heroic worlds!
scottishbpocwritersnetwork.org/building-sup...

Building (Super) Heroic Worlds with Etienne Kubwabo

An in-person writing workshop about turning ordinary surroundings into superheroic worlds.

scottishbpocwritersnetwork.org

1 13 12

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 2d

Dental Phantom, c.1898. Or, what it feels like to live in 2025.

The dental phantom was first created by the Glaswegian dentist Eduard Oswald Fergus a few years earlier as a tool for students to practice their craft before working on human subjects.

A metal head with a mouth wide open as if it is screaming. Inside are a full set of dentures.

9 59 300