Modern Scottish Collections

Last week saw the launch of number 29 in the long line of New Writing Scotland the annual publication from the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. Under the experienced editorship of Carl McDougall (who has been associated with NWS many times over the years) and Alan Bissett, The flight of the turtle features new work from over 90 writers based in Scotland. This year’s title comes from a poem by Sheena Blackhall – who though very well-known for her work in Scots is here unexpectedly writing in English.

At the Edinburgh launch at Blackwell’s the line-up of readers included some familiar names plus a new poet with his first published work. Prose was represented by David Manderson and Rosa Macpherson and poetry by Fiona Ritchie Walker, Vivien Jones, newcomer Richard Cook, and Valerie Gillies who closed the proceedings.

You can remind yourself of the previous 28 volumes in a distinguished publishing history by checking
the National Library of Scotland catalogue here

Tomorrow night we welcome two of Scotland’s best writers to National Library of Scotland to celebrate Departures and arrivals the CD of Scottish writing from Scottish PEN. The CD features a roll-call of the top Scottish literary names reading their own work. Representing them on 14 September will be the poet Tessa Ransford and the short-story writer and dramatist Linda Cracknell. More details of this and other NLS events can be found here.

Just for kicks, the autobiography of Scottish international rugby player Kenny Logan was amongst the titles received by the National Library of Scotland this week. Born in Stirling in 1972, Kenny was brought up in a farming community. Despite his successful rugby career, Kenny did not learn to read or write until he was in his thirties. In Just for kicks Kenny discusses his childhood on the farm, school experiences, rugby career, dyslexia and relationships.

East Lothian cinemas are the subject of Brian Hornsey’s book Ninety years of cinema in East Lothian. Brian details the history of cinema in Dunbar, Haddington, North Berwick, Ormiston, Prestonpans, Tranent and Musselburgh, describing the experience of going to the pictures in East Lothian during the course of the 20th century. You can find more titles about the history of Scottish cinemas in Scottish Bibliographies Online.

Short stories by up and coming writers from the University of Glasgow Masters course in creative writing make up the collection in Sushirexia : 32 stories about hunger, edited by Gordon Jenkins and Robert Smith. An intriguing collection, varied in style and content, this volume is likely to contain work by new Scottish literary stars in the making.

Scottish poet Christopher Salvesen’s collection The long gallery, published by Shoestring Press, was also received this week. Christopher was born in Edinburgh in 1935 and brought up in Dumfriesshire. After studying at Oxford, he lectured in English literature at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Reading. The long gallery is Christopher’s third collection of poetry.

This week’s Scottish titles included several collections of short stories by leading contemporary Scottish authors, such as Collected stories by Janice Galloway. This volume brings together short stories from two of Janice’s previous short story collections, Blood and Where you find it. You can locate information on titles by Janice Galloway at Scottish Bibliographies Online (SBO). Similarly, you can also search for articles about Janice and her writing on SBO by clicking here.

Another short story collection received this week was the Vintage paperback edition of Reheated cabbage : tales of chemical degeneration by Irvine Welsh. This collection brings together seven short stories previously published elsewhere with one completely new story. As with Janice Galloway, there is information on items by and about Irvine Welsh on SBO.

Also newly received this week was The brothers Boswell by Philip Baruth. Set in 18th century London, this novel centres on the character of James Boswell’s brother and his jealous plot to murder the increasingly famous James. James Boswell was born in Edinburgh in 1740 and is best known for his biography of Samuel Johnson.

Another recent addition was Robert Burns and pastoral: poetry and improvement in late eighteenth-century Scotland by Nigel Leask. This volume aims to comprehensively reassess the poetry and songs of Robert Burns in the context of the developments taking place in Scottish agriculture at that time.

Also recently received was Two views of Harris / Na Hearadh bho dhà shealladh by Lesley and Alisdair Wiseman. With text in both English and Gaelic, this book shows various views of Harris as painted by Lesley and Alisdair Wiseman in their contrasting styles. You can find information on more Gaelic titles by searching Scottish Bibliographies Online.

I see that the Scots Language Centre is reporting on the winner of the David Toulmin prize for short fiction, announced recently at Aberdeen’s Word Festival. David Toulmin was the pen name of John Reid (1913-1998) who was born near Fraserburgh, and after many years working on the land published many acclaimed short stories and articles, and in 1976, a novel Blown seed . He was also the joint author of a 1989 glossary of his own local language Buchan claik. His unpublished diaries are held here at the National Library of Scotland. This year’s winner of the prize is Eleanor Fordyce and you can read more about her story and the award on the Scots Language Centre’s excellent website here.