“…on one occasion the Highland Queen was berthed by the master and a boy, the rest of the crew being quite incapable…” “Steaming drunk” & “smùid” is a concept shared in both Scots & Gaelic. Donald Meek looks at early Scottish booze-cruising #GlasgowFair #C19 meekwrite.blogspot.com/2013/04/mari...

Mmmmm

Just got notification that @hivestores.bsky.social has shipped my copy of @colsonwhitehead.com’s Cool Machine - fortunately I have the day off to reread Crook Manifesto before it arrives! 🔥 (Harlem Shuffle already reread…)

One of my NY resolutions was to eat and enjoy a prawn cocktail (after an alarming encounter at age six). This is my first go, a deconstructed version made by a friend 1/

The SGSAH July 2026 newsletter is here 📨 In this issue: ➡️ We’re hiring: Training Associate Directors ➡️ Meet our new EDI Associate Director, Blogger & Digi Curator ➡️ Host a funded PhD research intern in 2027 ➡️ Community achievements, events…and more! 🔗 Read it here: mailchi.mp/sgsah/newsle...

It was a proper dream come true moment at my sold out launch event in Glasgow on Tuesday!! I could not have asked for a better way to launch The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance ♥️🏔️ I'm so grateful to everyone who came and picked up a copy!

BBC Short Works: I Love You, Mr Demille Currently on BBC Sounds: A silent movie writer finds her voice in this new story by @sarasheridan.bsky.social – inspired by the true story of Lorna Moon & her close friendship with darling of the silver screen, Mary Pickford www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Brilliant energy infrastructures tour on the Forth today led by @ewangibbs.bsky.social & hosted by Jupiter ArtLand

Very cute, but I think the octopus snuck in, having read the weather forecast…

I'm looking for sites and collections in and around Edinburgh related to the history of cardboard and paper. Suggestions welcome!

We’re back! Next month 40 printmaking artists will be at the University of Stirling for another fantastic festival weekend! Please share and hashtag us! 😀 #printmaking #originalprints #universityofstirling #scotland #printmakersofscotland

On my way, Clacton.

🚨BREAKING🚨 More than 600 workers at Hachette Book Group just voted overwhelmingly to unionize, creating the largest union in trade publishing history! newsguild.org/hachette-boo...

MORE (SOME) PEOPLE SHOULD LIKE THIS POST

Wow! Next year’s @sharpweb.org conference will be in Pretoria, South Africa in early July 2027! 🤩 #SHARPIES26

Brilliant to be at the launch of @chiarab.bsky.social’s The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance at @waterstones.bsky.social Sauchiehall Street tonight - massive signing queue! 1/

Braw news for publishers! We're delighted to announce that the Scots Language Publication Grant is now open for applications. This funding support Scottish and UK publishers to publish and promote work written in Scots. Apply by 8 September ✍️

This is amazing; 40 women’s organizations standing in support of trans people’s human rights against this government’s targeting of trans people against the EHRC transphobic code. Trans people and cis women’s rights are not in opposition.

Hommage à Anthony Glinoer, par Denis Saint-Amand. Je ne connaissais pas personnellement Anthony Glinoer, mais j'ai toujours apprécié ces travaux. Merci pour tout ce qu'il a apporté à la communauté scientifique. www.fabula.org/actualites/1...

I mean, everyone's got a favourite brutalist concrete bridge right? Kylesku, Sutherland.

YES I went to Luss Highland Games

The Firth of Forth has been central to Scotland's energy history from coal and shale mines to power stations to Grangemouth refinery and North Sea pipelines. I'm leading a boat tour of the Forth with Jupiter Artland on 11 July, the Saturday after next. Find out more here🔽

Glasgoooooow

Huge congratulations and well done to our Year 2's whose hard work helped create another successful SGSAH Year 2 Symposium! 👏🥳 Extra shout out to our organisers: Cristina, Esther, Mhairi, Stefan and Tomas who planned and executed the entire symposium! 🎉📚 #SGSAH #PhDCommunity #ThankYou #SGSAHEvents

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

Want to see what it’s like to do a writing retreat on a train? Can get to Glasgow Queen Street and are free 18th August? Win a space on my Write-Away! On the move retreat - out your name in the hat by 8th July! #AcWri docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Loch Lomond high and low

Doubled up with RAIN & PAPERBACK REVOLUTIONS exhibitions at @natlibscot.bsky.social this afternoon 📚 ☔️

I'm of the generation which had no social media and got to wander off without parental oversight for hours on end but jeez I would have loved an online forum where I could have discussed books (etc) when I was under 16 1/ www.thebookseller.com/news/childre...

Why do Labour politicians seem to have forgotten that when wee Jack does well at his A Levels and goes to uni, his mum who works in Tesco is super-proud and pleased this has happened?

Are you interested in book history around the globe? Check out the SHARPIES online, global book history festival, taking place July 7th-9th. Free for SHARP members (and membership is between 55–100USD). Time is running out, so register today! events.zoom.us/ev/Ap9iEZwmC...

Behind every hero, there’s a historian. Holding my UK and US author copies in my hands, yet I still can’t believe The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance will be out in the world soon!! Coming July 7th 🦌🏔️♥️

The role these spaces have played in fostering reading habits, building literary communities and creating unprecedented opportunities for book discovery and reader engagement (esp among young people!!!) shouldn't be overlooked in a reductive online vs offline framing.

Plenty to say on the social media ban, but for now: it's interesting to see parts of publishing championing a retreat from social media after spending years benefiting from books that became bestsellers largely because of social media communities...

Excellent thread on the -16 social media ban on the bogus argument that it will get children reading.

“What do you mean, your playground has a Tesco on it?”

The quote 'Less time on screen means more time playing outdoors, taking part in sport and cultural activities' particularly screamed 'citation needed' to me!

I'm of the generation which had no social media and got to wander off without parental oversight for hours on end but jeez I would have loved an online forum where I could have discussed books (etc) when I was under 16 1/ www.thebookseller.com/news/childre...

I don't need to expose my age by pointing out how important Neopets and Bebo and MSN messenger was to my teen years while living in a backwards town but here we are. I'm not as optimistic as the trade seems to be. Banning YouTube being particularly egregious. www.thebookseller.com/news/childre...

Seagull on #StirWilly

okay but what if a 10-year-old thinks moby dick is better than middlemarch, what then. where are they supposed to go

Are you interested in reading and readers? Join us July 7-9 for the SHARPIES, our inaugural global book history festival! Registration is free for SHARP members. events.zoom.us/ev/Ap9iEZwmC... And if you aren't a SHARP member, joining is easy! sharpweb.org/membership/

Really insightful interview with Shady Lewis, who, as some of you may have seen, won the James Tait Black Prize this year - in somewhat complicated circumstances that he reflects on generously in the piece. Loved the discussion of comedy and power. Thanks to @pastachips.bsky.social for the heads-up!

A wee group of angry balaclava and mask-wearing anti-immigration guys tried to stop the good people of Glasgow showing solidarity with migrants and standing up to racism and fascism. Well, the far right are far outnumbered... #RefugeesWelcome #MigrantsWelcome #NeighboursNotStrangers #Glasgow

When I left @sgsah.bsky.social the amazing team gave me vouchers for The Bookmonger in Bearsden and today I used some of them while being served by excellent mongerer for the day @sarasheridan.bsky.social, who was bookselling as part of of Independent Bookshop Week…

It's Independent Bookshop Week so I'm putting in a shift at the Bookmonger in Bearsden today from 11.30, selling books & also crucially, cheese. Excellent notion, right? If you're in Glasgow pop along & I'll tip my favie reads and sign my own books too... it'll be a brie-ze (get it?) 😂🧀📚

how many cars are on fire

Stirling’s map offers 6 literary routes tracing the steps of Scotland’s great writers & the sites that inspired them, from the Golden Lion Hotel, where Robert Burns etched his “Stirling Lines” on a window, to the Trossachs of Walter Scott’s “The Lady of the Lake” www.stirling.gov.uk/news/step-in...

Furious about what has happened in Glasgow tonight. Nae pasaran