I realised the other day that I'd never retold the story of the barque Levenside for this website. It is neither important nor edifying, but I'm fond of it.

Two children lost. The wrong one found. The award-winning author of #TheMidnightKing, @tariqashkanani.bsky.social, returns with #TheHollowBoys. A dark and haunting thriller about lost children in a dying rust-belt town, coming May 2026. www.waterstones.com/book/the-hol...

It's always sad to see a church sold, but maybe this piece will encourage a few new readers of A Scots Quair @asls.org.uk www.bbc.com/news/article...

ICYMI here's a wee reminder: our Cameron Johnston's on BBC Radio Scotland! His new tale's Upload of the Month on The Arts Mix. Check it out, plus a wee interview with Len Pennie and Anna Welander, on the 29th October show -- which you can stream at the link below. @cameronjohnston.bsky.social

Velvetine Verses: Scotland’s Young Makars Poetry Evening 11 Dec, Edinburgh. Free, ticketed An evening of poetry & music showcasing poets from four years of the @byleaveswelive.bsky.social’s Next Generation Young Makars mentoring scheme. Curated by Ria Smart. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/velvetine-...

Next instalment of @univ-amu.fr @uofg-civis.bsky.social seminar on Scottish Literature due on 13 November on Poetry and Public Life in Scotland @sahavoice.bsky.social @asls.org.uk @iassl.bsky.social lerma.univ-amu.fr/contemporary...

🇯🇲 Poets Read for Hurricane Melissa Relief Fundraiser: November 19th. Organised by @outspokenpress.bsky.social hosted by Leone Ross with an introduction from Akala, such an amazing line up, please show solidarity, donate and share and repost! Thank you! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poets-read...

AYE WRITE FESTIVAL Another Aye Write event this weekend that might appeal to poets: an Open Mic night at the Mitchell Library on Friday 7th Nov orgainsed by the Federation of Writers (Scotland). FREE although tickets should be booked through Aye Write website (£1.50)

Missed it the first time? Good news — the event below has been rescheduled for Thursday 13 November! You can still register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/david-who-...

Poetic Gems for Topaz: Verses for the Bicentenary of McGonagall 19 Nov, Dundee – free, ticketed The Wyvern Poets will celebrate the life, works & legacy of William Topaz McGonagall, which have spread far beyond the city he called home #C19th #poetry 1/4 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetic-gem...

"Be lucky. Yes, do the hard thinking work, the due diligence, the research, reading widely, asking unexpected questions. And then be lucky." Thank you to Scottish makar Pàdraig MacAoidh (Peter Mackay) for these answers. See him at @ptbopoetry.bsky.social on 23 Nov. www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

Publishing Scotland are hosting the Christmas Book Fair in Book Week Scotland. @georgepaterson.bsky.social and @gillianshirreffs.bsky.social will both be signing their books. It's the perfect opportunity to buy Into Books titles to gift this Christmas! www.publishingscotland.org/event/scotti...

I have really limited promotional energy right now, but wanted to mention that I will be at Aye Write with my absolute fav, the brilliant Kat Hill. Mitchell Library, Glasgow. 13th November, 6pm. Tickets at link below. It'll be good. www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/both...

Walking in a waking dream I watched nineteen deer pour from ridge to glen-floor, then each in turn leap, leap the new-raised peat-dark burn… —Kathleen Jamie, “The Hinds” from THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015) #poem #poetry www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kath...

Nan Shepherd & her friends 21 Nov, Aberdeen – free, ticketed Dr @timothycbaker.bsky.social looks at the importance of female friendship in Nan Shepherd’s writing & life, placing her as part of a much larger network of Aberdonian women writers & thinkers aberdeencity.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spyd...

The brilliant Scottish Book Trust's Xmas campaign. Donate here: www.scottishbooktrust.com

This @natlibscot.bsky.social event at the Kelvin Hall on 12 Nov should be a cracker. www.nls.uk/whats-on/lib...

Glasgow loves please join me & @benpester.bsky.social at Mount Florida Books on the 6th of November to talk about the marvel that is The Expansion Project. Everyone* is saying it’s going to be the real fireworks night *No one is saying that. But it will be good mountfloridabooks.com/products/the...

New interview! Ahead of his #AyeWrite2025 panel, @russeldmclean.bsky.social (pub'd @bwpublishing.bsky.social) talks about his writing, his fave #CrimeFiction characters &his bookmark use - "Everything in the world comes down to stories. They’re all around us, and I’m obsessed with them" #BookSky

Available now: An Odious Campaign: the Ross & Cromarty be-election 1936 One of the most controversial and vituperative by-elections in British history fought by 2 sons of Prime Ministers, amid snow, car crashes, hospitalisation, the King's death, rampaging deer and much more tinyurl.com/1936RossC

It's Pictcon this weekend, a one day science fiction convention in Perth, Scotland. Guest of Honour is @lunapress.bsky.social's Francesca Barbini. The chair is @effjayem.bsky.social . We're really looking forward to it. See you there? www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pictcon1-t...

A new special issue of English Studies I'm really keen to put together! Please consider submitting and circulate widely! @drchrislouttit.bsky.social bookshoplit.com/cfp-booksell...

Sporting headlines from 1949 collected in a scrapbook in our #SportingHeritage collections. #Athletics @sportingheritage.bsky.social #StirScanStudio

Read 'Mary Shelley and the Scottish Gothic Tradition' > www.nls.uk/collections/... #MaryShelley #Scottish #Gothic #Dundee #Frankenstein #NLS100

Mary Shelley's time living near Dundee on the "blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay" fired her imagination 💭 It was here her "true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born." Discover how Scotland shaped her novel, Frankenstein, in our article by Professor Daniel Cook.

Celebrating Thirty Years of Tuath is Tighearna (‘Tenants & Landlords’), 1995–2025 21 Nov @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social – free, ticketed Dr Martin Macgregor assesses the impact of Donald Meek’s anthology of #C19th #Gaelic verse, TUATH IS TIGHEARNA, thirty years on www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/canna-lect...

Stoat Poetry, a new magazine edited by Ingrid Leonard. www.stoatmagazine.co.uk/about

The mighty Mavors, jealous to behold A Mars more mighty nor himself below, Did once resolve his rivall to ore’throw… —Sir Robert Ayton (1569–1638), “Upon the 5th of November” in JACOBEAN PARNASSUS: Scottish Poetry from the Reign of James I (ASL, 2022) #BonfireNight #C17 asls.org.uk/publications...

The Books Are My Bag Readers Awards are curated by booksellers & winners are chosen by readers – many congratulations to Donna Ashworth (Poetry) – TO THE WOMEN Elle McNicoll (YA Fiction) – WISH YOU WERE HER Catherine Rayner (Picture Book) – OTTO THE TOP DOG 💙📚 www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cul...

🔴 Muriel Spark to be honoured in first ever memorial dedicated to a woman in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cul...

Fog shroud and clouds (when the clock chimed late in the heavy November night- time) lifting the mystery for a greater… —Edwin Morgan, “Guy Fawkes Moon” published in COLLECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 1997 #poem #poetry #GuyFawkes #BonfireNight www.carcanet.co.uk/978184777965...

"One green light squinting over Kidd's Creek, which is near the mouth of the pirate river, marked where the brig, the Jolly Roger, lay, low in the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her detestable, like ground strewn with mangled feathers."

“Fire must be put out & created afresh or it, too, grows old & full of trouble & sin” In Neil Gunn’s 1941 novel THE SILVER DARLINGS, set in the early #C19th, a cholera outbreak prompts villagers to kindle a need-fire – where all fires are extinguished & re-lit from a new flame 💙📚 #WyrdWednesday

We have lots of student notebooks containing sketches on anatomy, diseases etc, however, this one is by far our favourite. It shows Joseph Lister, father of antiseptic surgery, disappearing through a trapdoor after his lecture in Glasgow in 1868. Now that's how to make an exit! #Museum30 #Sketchbook

The runner up of the #PollardPrize 2025 is Niall Gray for his paper on '“The Burns Connection”: the Scotland-USSR Society and Cold War cultural diplomacy'. Congratulations to our winners and thanks to @Oxfordacademic.bsky.social for sponsoring the prize!

“We’re born with a bit of creosote in our blood.” The Burning of the Clavie is a Scottish New Year fire festival. The “Clavie Crew” carry a flaming barrel of tar through Burghead Clip from BBC Scotland’s HIDDEN LIVES, with @peteralanross.bsky.social #WyrdWednesday www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

Hello Glasgow ! AyeWrite is back! I'll be appearing on Sat 15th Nov with @lesleymcdowell.bsky.social & chaired by Zoe Venditozzi. I heard tickets are selling well & we'd love you to join us to chat all things Glasgow women's history. Details below 👇 www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/love...

Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay, But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin Through the great glen o’ the warld the day… —Hamish Henderson, “The Freedom Come-All-Ye” Published in The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongate.co.uk #poem #poetry

News | Tributes paid following death of Scotland’s ‘powerhouse’ curator Elspeth King – social historian remembered for her work to expand working-class collections at People’s Palace in Glasgow

Hugh Miller’s Birthplace Cottage and Museum in Cromarty, telling the story of the town’s most famous son, the geologist and writer Hugh Miller, who lived from 10 October 1802 to 24 December 1856. More pics and info: www.undiscoveredscot... #Scotland #HughMiller #Cromarty #BlackIsle

I came across this absolutely stunning example of a painted glass window today in the communal stairwell of a red sandstone tenement in the Langside area of Glasgow. #glasgow #architecture #architecturephotography #stainedglass #paintesglass #langside #tenement #glasgowtenements

🇯🇲 Poets Read for Hurricane Melissa Relief Fundraiser: November 19th, 7-9pm UK and 2-4pm EST organised by @outspokenpress.bsky.social hosted by Leone Ross with and introduction from Akala, amazing line up, please join us and please donate and please share! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poets-read...

My wonderful illustrator Dotty Sutton spent today painting this amazing window art at the @edinburghbookshop.bsky.social and it just makes me so happy that a silly story idea I came up with has such talented people working on it and is now all over a shop window. Please go check it out if you can.

Wan o the 1%: Ian Hamilton Finlay FOX see me wan time ah wis a fox an wis ah sleekit! ah gaed slinkin heh an snappin yeh the blokes aa sayed ah wis a GREAT fox aw nae kiddin ah wis pretty good had a whole damn wood in them days hen

Did you know Mary Shelley once had to correct Sir Walter Scott for crediting her novel, Frankenstein, to her husband? 🔍 For one day only, see this story on paper at the National Library: ➡️ Mary Shelley's letter to Sir Walter Scott ➡️ Rare early editions & items from our archives ➡️ and more!

Mind that night in November, the pair of us bursting from Mareel like late-comers to the cinema-dark of the evening. How we nearly missed it, the other show that night… —Roseanne Watt, “Mareel” from MODER DY (Polygon, 2019) #poem #poetry #Shetland #auroraborealis birlinn.co.uk/product/mode...

The @edbookfest.bsky.social has added videos of 60 additional events from the 2025 festival to watch online on a donate-what-you-can basis – joining hundreds of recordings of past events going back to 2015, from authors from Scotland & around the world www.edbookfest.co.uk/look-and-lis...

📣PLEASE SHARE 📣 Call for Writers! Two 8-month residencies (2026) at AGA & @aowensarchive.bsky.social exploring Neglected Voices. Supported by Creative Scotland. £12k fee, flexible structure. Apply by 4 Dec 2025 👉 [email protected], Link on website to application brief & criteria✍️

From Graeme Macrae Burnet, the Booker-shortlisted author of HIS BLOODY PROJECT, comes the dark, psychological thriller, BENBECULA. Out now from @textpublishing.bsky.social in Australia & New Zealand!📚 www.booktopia.com.au/benbecula-gr...

“There is more than a spiritual congruence between Glasgow and Pittsburgh, as [James] Kelman’s ‘yins’ would indicate, the s that ends that word so perilously close a sibilant to the z in yinz and the words so nearly used identically” Some Americans sound Glaswegian … lithub.com/the-yinzers-...