And all is milky, secret, female. Angels are hushed and plain straws shine. And kittens miaow in circles, stalking With tail and hindleg one straight line. —Norman MacCaig, “Byre” From THE MANY DAYS (Polygon, 2022) #poem #poetry birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...

The deadline for abstracts for 'The Victorian Short Story' VPFA Study Day has been extended to 16th January! We would love to see your proposal in our inbox at [email protected]

“[EDINBURGH: PICTURESQUE NOTES] suggests alternative means of mapping the city through the visceral, physical intensity of Stevenson’s descriptions” —Kirsti Wishart on Robert Louis Stevenson & the psychogeography of #C19th Edinburgh www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2025/06/like...

As a student at @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social Robert Louis Stevenson was arrested for taking part in a 2-day snowball riot between the university & Surgeons’ Hall… but as he was only a spectator (he claimed, successfully) he was let off with a warning #C19 1/3 www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-arti...

The Scotch dialect is singularly rich in terms of reproach against the winter wind. Snell, blae, nirly, and scowthering, are four of these significant vocables… PICTURESQUE NOTES: EDINBURGH, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1878) – Ch. IX, Winter & New Year #C19 #Edinburgh 💙📚 1/9

“It was the time of year when things could change their nature… Light is shaving the darkness off already, a couple of minutes a day. Have you noticed?” —from 2008: “Do you call that a Christmas present?” A short story by Ali Smith, via @the-independent.com 💙📚 www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Spotted in Govan. Spotter: Maura Currie

A good read for the shortest day, with @ruthaylett.bsky.social from @stairwellbooks.bsky.social www.stairwellbooks.co.uk/product/sols...

From J. G. Campbell’s “Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland”, on Feill Fionnain/ St Finan’s Eve. The winter solstice is also known as “Oidhche nan Seachd Suipearan” - Night of the Seven Suppers, so don’t hold back…

He has gone down into darkness at the wrecked end of the year And is lying, gaberlunzie, in the needled nest of frost… —Gerry Cambridge, “Processional at the Winter Solstice” from Notes for Lighting a Fire (HappenStance Press 2012) #poem #poetry #midwinter happenstancepress.com/index.php/sh...

“I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.” 📖 “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892 #BookchatWeekly 📺 “The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes” s1 Ep 6, “The Speckled Band” 10:20am TODAY on @ITV4

“You are standing in a high, dim stone vault. There is a thick soundlessness, as in a recording studio, or a strongroom.” —Kathleen Jamie visits Maeshowe chambered cairn at midwinter, for the @lrb.co.uk, 2003 #midwinter #solstice #Orkney #archaeology #prehistory 1/5 www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v2...

Our January tours of AGA and @aowensarchive.bsky.social are now available to book via Eventbrite!

Angus at midwinter or near as makes no odds – faint shadows raxed over fields of dour earth, every fairmer’s fenceposts splashed with gold. —Kathleen Jamie, “Solstice II” in SELECTED POEMS (Picador 2018 #poem #poetry #midwinter www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kath...

#Orkney. 20th December. Sunrise 9.03am Sunset 3.15pm Tomorrow is the #WinterSolstice. In 2 days the sunset will be a minute later than today. In 2 months it will be 2 hours later. By June we'll have 18 and a half hours of daylight in #Orkney. 💡

“All bureaucracies obey certain iron laws, and one of the oldest is this: get your seasonal leave booked early, lest you be trampled in the rush.” —Have yourself a Laundry little #Christmas with @cstross.bsky.social’s “Overtime” on @reactorsff.bsky.social #BookWormSat 💙📚 reactormag.com/overtime//

Anette Degott’s talk ‘“No Extra Words” – The Scottish Poet Norman MacCaig (1910–1996)’, recorded on 16 December #poetry www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3OG...

“He looks much older than he is, for it is not quite twenty years ago that Johnnie founded the Society for the Abolition of Christmas” —Muriel Spark, “The Leaf-Sweeper” in THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES, @canongate.co.uk #BookwormSat #Christmas 💙📚 1/2 canongate.co.uk/books/1371-t...

Christmas at Sea by Robert Louis Stevenson www.youtube.com/watch?v=586-...

There's worse views from a departure lounge at an airport 😄 #Kirkwall #Orkney #FlyingHomeForChristmas

Trying to be kind and honest seems an affair too simple and too inconsequential for gentlemen of our heroic mould… But the task before us, which is to co-endure with our existence, is rather one of microscopic fineness, and the heroism required is that of patience.

Thought I'd share a poem, written earlier this year for an academic project on #censorship of thought and ideas. Seems a timely subject for this #redacted age #poems #poetry

‘It is no wonder that this clever boy grew up to be watchful, or that he thanked God for his miraculous deliverances and chose to shore up monarchy, or that he learned to dissemble and feign acquiescence.’ Alice Hunt on James VI and I. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say ‘give them up,’ for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people.” —Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Christmas Sermon” #BookWormSat #C19 #Christmas 💙📚 1/4

Is the phrase "to open your mouth and let your belly rumble" used everywhere or only in Scotland?

[REDACTED] www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2015/11/edit...

The @newscientist.com Book Club is reading the #scifi masterpiece THE PLAYER OF GAMES by Iain M. Banks. In this video, Iain’s friend & fellow author @amendlocke.bsky.social discusses Iain’s schooldays, his literary influences, & his idea for a final Culture novel 💙📚 www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7OW...

Christmas has come early for 100,000 young people in the U.K. who will participate in #ErasmusPlus from 2027. We should never have left the world’s greatest learning exchange programme. But let’s not look back, instead we celebrate that we are now returned to this fantastic programme.

If I don’t live through to night in this hotel, ask these guys what happened

If you are a) in the US and b) on NetGalley, you can request a copy of THE INN AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT VENGEANCE now! My debut cozy fantasy novel, inspired by misadventures in academia, glorious adventures in D&D, and tentative adventures in Scotland's mountains: www.netgalley.com/catalog/book...

“there is something in this which refuses the sentimentality of most ghost stories” Dr @anneelliot.bsky.social sees Margaret Oliphant’s “Old Lady Mary” as a Scottish #gothic response to Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” #PhantomsFriday #C19th reveriesunderthesignofausten.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/m...

Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights… —Edwin Morgan, “Trio” published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020 #poem #poetry #Christmas #Glasgow www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

Enjoyed the clip of Roderick Watson reading the title poem of his new collection, The Silver of Old Mirrors? Watch the entire book launch, filmed and edited by Helena Ohman (of Rare Bird video) at www.imaginedspaces.org/conversation.... @asls.org.uk

PLEASE KEEP SHARING - the press are listening "Dear BBC Radio Scotland, We are musicians from Scotland... there is one thing we share. It was BBC Radio Scotland late-night shows that gave our music a chance." Full letter: tr.ee/9uKS89 @angusrobertson.bsky.social @thesmia.bsky.social

How do you celebrate Burns Night? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 UofG's @glasgowburns.bsky.social has launched The Burns Supper at 225 Years: Scottish Tradition, Global Reinvention. Help us build a crowdsourced archive of Burns Suppers worldwide for the 225th anniversary next July. Learn more: gla.ac/44Veysf

Last week Roderick Watson launched his poetry collection, The Silver of Old Mirrors, at the University of Dundee Main Library. Here's a short clip from the event: Watson reading the title poem. @asls.org.uk youtu.be/XddI30Q1JxE

Came across this beautiful #Christmas #poem on the @asls.org.uk Facebook feed today.

Five years of editing SCOTTISH LITERARY REVIEW with the fab @rhonabrown.bsky.social and more exciting issues to come in 2026. The latest bumper issue is out now. Get yours by joining @asls.org.uk here: share.google/P8K28t8SNfWU...

You will be visited by three spirits

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill, The sun looks from the hill Helmed in his winter casket, And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky… —Edwin Muir, “Scotland’s Winter” from ONE FOOT IN EDEN (Faber, 1956) #poem #poetry

I have a lot of affection for this film. I prefer it slightly to Local Hero, mainly for cast reason. “But that’s my story”

‘“I’ve been a fool in most things,” said Mortimer quietly, “but I'm not such a fool as not to believe in Pan when I'm down here. And if you're wise you won't disbelieve in him too boastfully while you're in his country.”’ — ‘The Music on the Hill’ (1911) ‘Saki’ (H.H. Munro) was born #OTD in 1870.

Christmas is a time of giving, a perfect excuse to head over to BfS to read David Robinson's review of Fred Bridgland's memoir, From Scotland with Love, on his work with Edinburgh Direct Aid. booksfromscotland.com/2025/12/davi...

We are delighted to be working with @creativeaccess.bsky.social to recruit for our new marketing, data and events assistant trainee! If you are from an under-represented background and want to join our team, we’d love to hear from you: opportunities.creativeaccess.org.uk/job/marketin...

If you missed our IASSL webinar that marked the centenary of Finlay J Macdonald, the recording is now available on YouTube. Mhairi Brennan discusses Finlay J's BBC documentaries, Rob Dunbar focuses on the humour of his Gaelic writings, and I'm adding my bit on Finlay J's interest in drama.

“In story after story, epicene young men, difficult children, or wild beasts set out to shake up the stifling complacency around them” @hekale.bsky.social on Saki’s fierce, funny, & wicked fiction Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916) – Saki – b. 18 Dec 🎂🧵 💙📚 1/8 www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/4360...

We're now welcoming abstracts for our 2026 conference, on the theme of 'Violence in the Medieval and Early Modern North'! The deadline is 15 January.

This year we completed a full-color 266 page graphic novel. Thousands of hours of work! We loved every minute of it! Next year is gonna be even busier. Wilomina: The Land of Dreams and Nightmares will be published by @scholasticuk.bsky.social in Aug 2026 & we’ll be working on the sequel. #KidLitUK

✨GIFCon is back for 2026! ✨ We’re very excited to launch the Call for Papers for GIFCon 2026, with the theme “Technologies of the Fantastic” You can find out more here: fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...