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Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

New-Cleckit Dominie

@ncdominie.bsky.social

View of a crane, a bridge, and early sun.

December 30, 2025 at 10:24 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Nasim Marie Jafry

@nmjk.bsky.social

Beautiful from The Proclaimers. Sunshine on Leith. youtu.be/fNXX_cZZq4Y?...

The Proclaimers Sunshine on Leith (Live in Leith)

YouTube video by The Proclaimers

youtu.be

December 30, 2025 at 1:34 PM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

Walking home from work one evening a woman stopped me and asked me if I was “him”. After some back-and-forth we narrowed it down to “Hugh Laurie”. I’m not Hugh Laurie, I don’t look like Hugh Laurie, & no-one before or since has ever mistaken me for Hugh Laurie

Rhodri Marsden @rhodri.biz · 7h

Please quote this with stories of your minor interactions with non-celebrities, e.g. “I once accidentally bumped into a man in the Wellingborough branch of Holland & Barrett”

December 30, 2025 at 1:48 PM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

A brilliant thread on just a handful of Scottish #WomenWriters
💙📚

Sara Sheridan @sarasheridan.bsky.social · 7h

To celebrate the new year A THREAD of successful female Scottish writers. Here's too us. Let's start here 👇 Hugely popular Mary Brunton's second novel, Self Discipline inspired Jane Austen's Emma. She sold TONS of books. I 💕 her /1

December 30, 2025 at 9:59 AM

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Sara Sheridan

@sarasheridan.bsky.social

To celebrate the new year A THREAD of successful female Scottish writers. Here's too us. Let's start here 👇 Hugely popular Mary Brunton's second novel, Self Discipline inspired Jane Austen's Emma. She sold TONS of books. I 💕 her /1

December 30, 2025 at 8:40 AM

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Murray Pittock :

@murrayp.bsky.social

Pleased to begin role of ambassador for Ellisland, 'The Home of Auld Lang Syne' from Hogmanay- interviews with BBC, ITV and Fox today. Read Joan McAlpine on the Ellisland appeal in www.scotsman.com/news/opinion...

@glasgowburns.bsky.social @iassl.bsky.social @paulinemackay.bsky.social @asls.org.uk

December 30, 2025 at 8:40 AM

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Walter Scott Prize

@walterscottprize.bsky.social

Maggie O’Farrell’s #HAMNET, shortlisted for the 2021 #WalterScottPrize, comes to screens next month. We begin our archive delve with O’Farrell telling the story behind the tragedy of the Shakespeares' son, starting with an insight into their marriage. See the full interview
https://loom.ly/oXYli3c

December 29, 2025 at 5:57 PM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Lin Anderson

@linanderson.bsky.social

★★★★★ Review - DEADLY CODE - 'Great characters, plot rattles along at a great pace and the finale is just brilliant. All in all a cracking good read' https://bit.ly/4iknq01 #CrimeFiction #Mystery #Thriller #CSI #LinAnderson #SantaMonica #Raasay #BloodyScotland

December 29, 2025 at 2:05 PM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

“The news where we are is the news. It comes first. The news where you are is the news where you are. It comes after. We do not have the news where you are. The news where you are may be news to you but it is not news to us…”

James Robertson, “The news where you are”
m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhL5...

December 29, 2025 at 1:05 PM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

When the sun was white and wintry and drained of energy
Macbeth met the witches under the rim of the sky.
Why did you confirm my evil, he said…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Macbeth and the Witches”
in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2021
#poem #Shakespeare
www.carcanet.co.uk/978180017094...

Macbeth and the Witches
by Iain Crichton Smith

When the sun was white and wintry and drained of energy
Macbeth met the witches under the rim of the sky.
Why did you confirm my evil, he said.

And the witches who were lighting thorns in the cold winter said,
There is a play that one plays when the summer is over
and you happened to be one of the cards in our hand,

a deformed king with a coat too large for him
and a crown that sizzled in the white wintry sky.
These things are after all not important

except to those who suffer, who are not important.
Feeling belongs to the spring and the ignorance of lovers.
Here in this wood it is a question of passing the time,

and the abstract intellect constructs dramas
with a queen and a pawn and the immortal joker
who faces two ways at the frosty January gates.

Let be, let be, it was quite a nice structure.
And truth after all can be played with under the sun
which is fading slowly towards a renaissance of leaves.

Come, join us, join us, at the unimportant edge of things
wearing your coat of blood with the hole in the breast.
This is the west. The east has innocent wings.

December 29, 2025 at 11:59 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Christine Ferguson

@cferguson.bsky.social

Rarely has this nation produced a freer or more vivid imagination. How lucky I am to see his art almost ever day as I travel through Glasgow’s west end. Happy birthday to a true visionary!

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 2d

“I am a chorus in search of a tragedy, a raker of middens in the industrial North.
“I am a genius in an obscure line of business. Try me a little.
“I may have something you can use.”

The artist & writer Alasdair Gray (1934–2019) was born #OTD, 28 Dec
💙📚
1/5
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a...

BBC Arts - BBC Arts - Alasdair Gray at 80: Under the Helmet

Archive documentary from 1964 on the influential Scottish artist and writer.

www.bbc.co.uk

December 28, 2025 at 10:31 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

The Irish Pages Press

@irishpages.bsky.social

A beautiful poem by @kathleenjamie.bsky.social 🍃

We were delighted when she and Don Paterson agreed to co-edit our 'Scotland' issue earlier this year 📚
irishpages.org/product/vol-...

@byleaveswelive.bsky.social @northseapoets.bsky.social @paperboatswriters.bsky.social

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 13d

According to J. Carmichael Watson, the #Gaelic poet Màiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh (Mary MacLeod, c.1615–c.1707), was buried face-down at her own request:

“She directed that she should be placed face downward in the grave – ‘beul nam breug a chur foidhpe’” (with her lying mouth down)
#WyrdWednesday

Meadowsweet
Kathleen Jamie
Published in Jizzen (Picador, 1999)

Tradition suggests that certain of the Gaelic women poets
were buried face down.

So they buried her, and turned home,
a drab psalm
hanging about them like haar,

not knowing the liquid
trickling from her lips
would seek its way down,

and that caught in her slowly
unravelling plait of grey hair
were summer seeds:

meadowsweet, bastard balm,
tokens of honesty, already
beginning their crawl

toward light, so showing her,
when the time came,
how to dig herself out –

to surface and greet them,
mouth young, and full again
of dirt, and spit, and poetry.

December 28, 2025 at 10:03 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Jonathan Potts

@uccellolirico.bsky.social

This is a wonderful tonic

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 3d

Now mirk December’s dowie face
Glowrs owr the rigs wi’ sour grimace,
While, thro’ his minimum of space,
The bleer-ee’d sun,
Wi blinkin’ light, and stealing pace,
His race doth run…

—Robert Fergusson (1750–1774), “The Daft-Days” – the period between Christmas & New Year
#BookWormSat #C18 #poetry

The Daft-Days
by Robert Fergusson

Now mirk December’s dowie face
Glowrs owr the rigs wi’ sour grimace,
While, thro’ his minimum of space,
The bleer-ee’d sun,
Wi blinkin’ light, and stealing pace,
His race doth run.

From naked groves nae birdie sings,
To shepherd’s pipe nae hillock rings,
The breeze nae od’rous flavour brings
Frae Borean cave,
And dwynin’ nature droops her wings,
Wi’ visage grave.

Mankind but scanty pleasure glean
Frae snawy hill or barren plain,
Whan Winter, ’midst his nipping train,
Wi’ frozen spear,
Sends drift owr a’ his bleak domain,
And guides the weir.

Auld Reikie! thou’rt the canty hole,
A bield for mony a cauldrife soul,
Wha snugly at thine ingle loll,
Baith warm and couth,
While round they gar the bicker roll,
To weet their mouth.

When merry Yule-day comes, I trow,
You’ll scantlins find a hungry mou’;
Sma’ are our cares, our stamacks fou
O’ gusty gear,
And kickshaws, strangers to our view,
Sin’ fairn-year.

Ye browster wives, now busk ye braw,
And fling your sorrows far awa’;
Then come and gie’s the tither blaw
O’ reaming ale,
Mair precious than the well o’ Spa,
Our hearts to heal.

Then, though at odds wi a’ the warl’,
Amang oursels we’ll never quarrel;
Tho’ Discord gie a canker’d snarl
To spoil our glee,
As lang’s there’s pith into the barrel
We’ll drink and ’gree.

Fidlers, your pins in temper fix,
And roset weel your fiddle-sticks;
But banish vile Italian tricks
Frae out your quorum,
Not fortes wi’ pianos mix—
Gie’s Tulloch Gorum.

For nought can cheer the heart sae weel
As can a canty Highland reel;
It even vivifies the heel
To skip and dance:
Lifeless is he wha canna feel
Its influence.

Let mirth abound, let social cheer
Invest the dawning o’ the year;
Let blithesome innocence appear
To crown our joy;
Nor envy, wi’ sarcastic sneer
Our bliss destroy.

And thou, great god of aqua vitae!
Wha sways the empire o’ this city—
When fou we’re sometimes capernoity—
Be thou prepar’d
To hedge us frae that black banditti,
The City-Guard.

December 28, 2025 at 9:52 AM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

“I am a chorus in search of a tragedy, a raker of middens in the industrial North.
“I am a genius in an obscure line of business. Try me a little.
“I may have something you can use.”

The artist & writer Alasdair Gray (1934–2019) was born #OTD, 28 Dec
💙📚
1/5
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a...

BBC Arts - BBC Arts - Alasdair Gray at 80: Under the Helmet

Archive documentary from 1964 on the influential Scottish artist and writer.

www.bbc.co.uk

December 28, 2025 at 9:54 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

The Alasdair Gray Archive

@agrayarchive.bsky.social

Born in Riddrie on this day in December 1934, Alasdair Gray became one of Scotland’s most visionary writers and artists, his words and images continue to shape our civic life. We honour his enduring legacy & are proud to continue to champion his legacy and creative spirit ❤️

December 28, 2025 at 9:09 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

This Is My Glasgow

@thisismyglasgow.bsky.social

A fine example of a wally close in the Broomhill area of Glasgow. A wally close is a tiled a commununal stairwell a Glasgow tenement, with the word wally being a Scots word for anything made from ceramics or china.

Cont./

#glasgow #broomhill #tenements #tiles #ceramics #tenementtiles #wallyclose

December 28, 2025 at 9:41 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Dr Andrew McInnes

@drbeard79.bsky.social

Let mirth abound: let social cheer
Invest the dawning o' the year;
Let blithesome innocence appear
To crown our joy;
Nor envy, wi' sarcastic sneer
Our bliss destroy.

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 3d

Now mirk December’s dowie face
Glowrs owr the rigs wi’ sour grimace,
While, thro’ his minimum of space,
The bleer-ee’d sun,
Wi blinkin’ light, and stealing pace,
His race doth run…

—Robert Fergusson (1750–1774), “The Daft-Days” – the period between Christmas & New Year
#BookWormSat #C18 #poetry

December 28, 2025 at 7:53 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Save Redland Library

@saveredlandlibr.bsky.social

“That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed.”

📖 “The Hound of the Baskervilles” ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902

#BookchatWeekly #BookwormSat

📺 “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, 2002
9pm TODAY on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social

December 27, 2025 at 8:26 PM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

How I’m walking out of 2025

December 27, 2025 at 9:16 PM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

London Review of Books

@lrb.co.uk

‘No king before or since has written so thoughtfully about the nature of kingship. His “manual on kingcraft”, 𝘉𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘰𝘯 𝘋𝘰𝘳𝘰𝘯 (‘The King’s Gift’), became a bestseller.’

Alice Hunt on James VI and I:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Alice Hunt · Out of Rehab: Two Kings or One?

The 400th anniversary of James VI and I’s death has been marked by several new approaches to the reign that gave us...

www.lrb.co.uk

December 27, 2025 at 6:03 PM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

“I am trying to make a start at the Diary the English have challenged me to write. There is no call to begin tonight, for as yet not a flake has fallen…”

JM Barrie’s “Farewell Miss Julie Logan”: an uncanny romance between a minister & a mysterious young woman, set in a snow-locked glen
#BookwormSat

I am trying to make a start at the Diary the English have challenged me to write. There is no call to begin tonight, for as yet not a flake has fallen in this my first winter in the glen; and the Diary is to be a record of my life here during the weeks ('tis said it may be months) in which the glen is 'locked,' meaning it may be so happit in snow that no one who is in can get out of it, and no one who is out can get in. Then, according to the stories that crawl like mists among our hills, where the English must have picked them up, come forms called the 'Strangers.' You 'go queer' yourself without knowing it and walk and talk with these doolies, thinking they are of your world till maybe they have mischieved you.

It is all, of course, superstitious havers, bred of folk who are used to the travail of out of doors, and take ill with having to squat by the saut-bucket; but I have promised with a smile to keep my eyes and ears intent for tergiversations among my flock, and to record them for the benefit of the English when they come back next August.

My name is the Rev. Adam Yestreen; and to be candid I care not for the Adam with its unfortunate associations. I am twenty-six years of age and, though long in the legs, look maybe younger than is seemly in my sacred calling, being clean-shaven without any need to use an implement; indeed I may say I have desisted for two years back.

I took a fair degree at St Andrews. but my Intellectuals suffered from […]

December 27, 2025 at 7:01 PM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Admirable Women

@admirablewomen.bsky.social

Scottish mathematician, astronomer & polymath Mary Somerville was born #OTD in 1780. #WomenInSTEM

William Whewell coined the term "scientist" in a review of Somerville's book, 𝘖𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴. Used as gender-neutral term as the common term at the time was "man of science."

An oil portrait painting of Mary Somerville, the renowned 19th-century Scottish mathematician, astronomer, and science writer, by Thomas Phillips (1834). She is depicted as a poised woman in her fifties, facing slightly to the left with a calm, intelligent expression. Her dark hair is elegantly styled, parted in the center and drawn up into intricate braids with soft ringlets framing each side of her face. She wears a formal dark blue or black off-the-shoulder gown with puffed sleeves, draped in a luxurious brown fur stole over her shoulders. A wide, elaborate white lace ruff collar frames her neck, and at the center of her chest is a prominent emerald-green brooch set in gold, fastened to the gathered fabric. The background is a dramatic, dark gradient with subtle warm highlights, employing chiaroscuro lighting to emphasize her serene face and the textures of lace, fur, and fabric, evoking a sense of dignified intellect and refinement typical of Regency-era portraiture.

December 26, 2025 at 11:47 PM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Dr Kate Laity 🎂

@katelaity.bsky.social

December 27, 2025 at 9:32 AM

Association for Scottish Literature

@asls.org.uk

Now mirk December’s dowie face
Glowrs owr the rigs wi’ sour grimace,
While, thro’ his minimum of space,
The bleer-ee’d sun,
Wi blinkin’ light, and stealing pace,
His race doth run…

—Robert Fergusson (1750–1774), “The Daft-Days” – the period between Christmas & New Year
#BookWormSat #C18 #poetry

December 27, 2025 at 10:44 AM

Reposted by Association for Scottish Literature

Lin Anderson

@linanderson.bsky.social

★★★★★ Review - DRIFTNET - 'This is a thrilling, captivating and utterly put-downable tale which held me from the first age to the last. Read it - you won’t be disappointed' https://viewBook.at/Driftnet #BestSeller #LinAnderson #BloodyScotland #Thriller

December 26, 2025 at 7:25 PM

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