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Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 5 days ago

I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍
Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍
And find the books they wrote.‍‍
Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍
Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍
Whole pages are added, re-written, revised…

—Muriel Spark, “Authors’ Ghosts”
published in COMPLETE POEMS (Carcanet, 2015)

18/18

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #poem #poetry

Authors’ Ghosts
Muriel Spark

I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍
Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍
And find the books they wrote.‍‍
Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍
Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍

Whole pages are added, re-written, revised,‍‍
So deeply by night those authors employ‍‍
Themselves with those old books of theirs.‍‍

How otherwise‍‍
Explain the fact that maybe after years‍‍
Have passed, the reader‍‍
Picks up the book – But was it like that?‍‍
I don’t remember this . . . Where‍‍
Did this ending come from?‍‍
I recall quite another.‍‍

Oh yes, it has been tampered with‍‍
No doubt about it –‍‍
The author’s very touch is here, there and there,‍‍
Where it wasn’t before, and‍‍
What’s more, something’s missing –‍‍
I could have sworn . . . — Authors’ Ghosts Muriel Spark I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍ Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍ And find the books they wrote.‍‍ Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍ Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍ Whole pages are added, re-written, revised,‍‍ So deeply by night those authors employ‍‍ Themselves with those old books of theirs.‍‍ How otherwise‍‍ Explain the fact that maybe after years‍‍ Have passed, the reader‍‍ Picks up the book – But was it like that?‍‍ I don’t remember this . . . Where‍‍ Did this ending come from?‍‍ I recall quite another.‍‍ Oh yes, it has been tampered with‍‍ No doubt about it –‍‍ The author’s very touch is here, there and there,‍‍ Where it wasn’t before, and‍‍ What’s more, something’s missing –‍‍ I could have sworn . . .

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 5 days ago

THE CROOKED DIVIDEND
Essays on Muriel Spark
ed. Gerard Carruthers & Helen Stoddart

Muriel Spark in British culture; the influence of Scottish literary traditions on her work; how she explores gender, religion, politics; & more

Also online via Project MUSE

17/18

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/occasional_papers/the-crooked-dividend/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters

Association for Scottish Literature

Occasional Papers series no. 24

Edited by Gerard Carruthers and Helen Stoddart Published in: Paperback By: Scottish Literature International, 2022 Price: £19.95 / €24.95 / $27.95 ISBN 978-1-908980-33-5 Order from Hive.co.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 5 days ago

I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍
Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍
And find the books they wrote.‍‍
Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍
Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍
Whole pages are added, re-written, revised…

—Muriel Spark, “Authors’ Ghosts”
published in COMPLETE POEMS (Carcanet, 2015)

18/18

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #poem #poetry

Authors’ Ghosts
Muriel Spark

I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍
Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍
And find the books they wrote.‍‍
Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍
Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍

Whole pages are added, re-written, revised,‍‍
So deeply by night those authors employ‍‍
Themselves with those old books of theirs.‍‍

How otherwise‍‍
Explain the fact that maybe after years‍‍
Have passed, the reader‍‍
Picks up the book – But was it like that?‍‍
I don’t remember this . . . Where‍‍
Did this ending come from?‍‍
I recall quite another.‍‍

Oh yes, it has been tampered with‍‍
No doubt about it –‍‍
The author’s very touch is here, there and there,‍‍
Where it wasn’t before, and‍‍
What’s more, something’s missing –‍‍
I could have sworn . . . — Authors’ Ghosts Muriel Spark I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍ Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍ And find the books they wrote.‍‍ Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍ Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍ Whole pages are added, re-written, revised,‍‍ So deeply by night those authors employ‍‍ Themselves with those old books of theirs.‍‍ How otherwise‍‍ Explain the fact that maybe after years‍‍ Have passed, the reader‍‍ Picks up the book – But was it like that?‍‍ I don’t remember this . . . Where‍‍ Did this ending come from?‍‍ I recall quite another.‍‍ Oh yes, it has been tampered with‍‍ No doubt about it –‍‍ The author’s very touch is here, there and there,‍‍ Where it wasn’t before, and‍‍ What’s more, something’s missing –‍‍ I could have sworn . . .

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 5 days ago

AFTERWORDS: Muriel Spark
“One’s prime is elusive…”

—On BBC Sounds: writers Ian Rankin & Zoë Strachan discuss Muriel Spark’s life & work with National Library of Scotland curator Colin McIlroy, & Spark’s friend & memoirist, Alan Taylor

16/18

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018238

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Afterwords: Muriel Spark

Reflections on the work of Muriel Spark, through archive of the author and new interviews.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 5 days ago

THE CROOKED DIVIDEND
Essays on Muriel Spark
ed. Gerard Carruthers & Helen Stoddart

Muriel Spark in British culture; the influence of Scottish literary traditions on her work; how she explores gender, religion, politics; & more

Also online via Project MUSE

17/18

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/occasional_papers/the-crooked-dividend/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters

Association for Scottish Literature

Occasional Papers series no. 24

Edited by Gerard Carruthers and Helen Stoddart Published in: Paperback By: Scottish Literature International, 2022 Price: £19.95 / €24.95 / $27.95 ISBN 978-1-908980-33-5 Order from Hive.co.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 5 days ago

“knowing the challenges Spark overcame makes me doubly grateful for her”

Writing for the Royal Literary Fund, Lauren J. Joseph reflects on a quality many writers have to develop – the “sheer bloody-mindedness” Spark had in spades

15/18

https://www.rlf.org.uk/posts/the-relentless-brilliance-of-muriel-spark/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #writing

Royal Literary Fund

The relentless brilliance of Muriel Spark

Lauren J. Joseph on Muriel Spark, who applied to the RLF for a grant in 1950, seven years before the publication of her first novel.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 5 days ago

AFTERWORDS: Muriel Spark
“One’s prime is elusive…”

—On BBC Sounds: writers Ian Rankin & Zoë Strachan discuss Muriel Spark’s life & work with National Library of Scotland curator Colin McIlroy, & Spark’s friend & memoirist, Alan Taylor

16/18

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018238

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Afterwords: Muriel Spark

Reflections on the work of Muriel Spark, through archive of the author and new interviews.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 5 days ago

“It is a good thing to go to Paris for a few days if you have had a lot of trouble, and that is my advice to everyone except Parisians.”

—extracts from A GOOD COMB, by Muriel Spark, ed. Penelope Jardine – via @literaryhub

14/18

https://lithub.com/a-few-words-of-indispensible-advice-from-muriel-spark/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #advice #Paris

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 5 days ago

“knowing the challenges Spark overcame makes me doubly grateful for her”

Writing for the Royal Literary Fund, Lauren J. Joseph reflects on a quality many writers have to develop – the “sheer bloody-mindedness” Spark had in spades

15/18

https://www.rlf.org.uk/posts/the-relentless-brilliance-of-muriel-spark/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #writing

Royal Literary Fund

The relentless brilliance of Muriel Spark

Lauren J. Joseph on Muriel Spark, who applied to the RLF for a grant in 1950, seven years before the publication of her first novel.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 5 days ago

“Somehow things happened, odd things, when Muriel was around,” recalled her friend Shirley Hazzard. “Everything that happened to Muriel,” according to … Barbara Epler, “had been foreseen”, usually in her books themselves.

—The unnerving vision of Muriel Spark

13/18

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jun/15/odd-things-happened-when-she-was-around-novelist-muriel-spark

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters

‘Odd things happened when she was around’: the unnerving vision of Muriel Spark

From blackmail to burglary, the events of Spark’s life often uncannily echoed those of her novels – no wonder the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie believed she could predict the future

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 5 days ago

“It is a good thing to go to Paris for a few days if you have had a lot of trouble, and that is my advice to everyone except Parisians.”

—extracts from A GOOD COMB, by Muriel Spark, ed. Penelope Jardine – via @literaryhub

14/18

https://lithub.com/a-few-words-of-indispensible-advice-from-muriel-spark/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #advice #Paris

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 5 days ago

“Somehow things happened, odd things, when Muriel was around,” recalled her friend Shirley Hazzard. “Everything that happened to Muriel,” according to … Barbara Epler, “had been foreseen”, usually in her books themselves.

—The unnerving vision of Muriel Spark

13/18

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jun/15/odd-things-happened-when-she-was-around-novelist-muriel-spark

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters

‘Odd things happened when she was around’: the unnerving vision of Muriel Spark

From blackmail to burglary, the events of Spark’s life often uncannily echoed those of her novels – no wonder the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie believed she could predict the future

Chip Butty boosted

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 2 months ago

“Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!”

William McIlvanney (1936–2015) – author & poet (& provider, at a rally in Edinburgh in 1992, of our profile header, as quoted in Neal Ascherson’s 2002 book STONE VOICES) – was born #OTD, 25 November

A 🎂 🧵

1/9

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #Scottishness #identity

And then, in a tone of tremendous pride, he said this. “Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!” At those words, for reasons which perhaps neither he nor they ever quite understood, the crowd broke into cheers and applause which lasted on and on.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 2 months ago

Dr David Goldie discusses LAIDLAW, William McIlvanney’s first detective novel – video from our 2018 Schools Conference

3/9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOA8S5_rq2M&list=PLEP9HxY4X7WZwMUjyxVcQZ8J2K1gp3_Nh

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #CrimeFiction #TartanNoir

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 2 months ago

Tartan Noir, or, Hard-Boiled Heidegger

Prof Matt Wickman asks, What does William McIlvanney’s LAIDLAW tell us about the literary tradition within which it is embedded? & how might the novel help us conceptualise the political state of Scotland?

4/9

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/free-publications/tartan_noir/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #CrimeFiction #TartanNoir #Heidegger #philosophy #politics

Book cover, resembling a 1950s pulp.

The image shows Heidegger's face; we can only see one of his eyes as he stares out of the shadows. The words

TARTAN NOIR

are written above his head, in a yellow-and-brown plaid pattern. Below his chin the text reads

or, HARD-BOILED HEIDEGGER

The author's name is Matthew Wickman — Book cover, resembling a 1950s pulp. The image shows Heidegger's face; we can only see one of his eyes as he stares out of the shadows. The words TARTAN NOIR are written above his head, in a yellow-and-brown plaid pattern. Below his chin the text reads or, HARD-BOILED HEIDEGGER The author's name is Matthew Wickman

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 2 months ago

The real deal: How William McIlvanney transformed Scottish fiction

“If there is a direct line from the so-called ‘Kailyard’ writers of the late 19th century […] to the playful savagery of Irvine Welsh and the still rising body-count of ‘tartan noir’, then at its midpoint stands William McIlvanney.”

Brian Morton profiles William McIlvanney for BBC Arts

2/9

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1yvXjdWM7lsQNjpNB024ZPC/the-real-deal-how-william-mcilvanney-transformed-scottish-fiction

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #CrimeFiction #TartanNoir

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 2 months ago

Dr David Goldie discusses LAIDLAW, William McIlvanney’s first detective novel – video from our 2018 Schools Conference

3/9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOA8S5_rq2M&list=PLEP9HxY4X7WZwMUjyxVcQZ8J2K1gp3_Nh

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #CrimeFiction #TartanNoir

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 2 months ago

“Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!”

William McIlvanney (1936–2015) – author & poet (& provider, at a rally in Edinburgh in 1992, of our profile header, as quoted in Neal Ascherson’s 2002 book STONE VOICES) – was born #OTD, 25 November

A 🎂 🧵

1/9

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #Scottishness #identity

And then, in a tone of tremendous pride, he said this. “Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!” At those words, for reasons which perhaps neither he nor they ever quite understood, the crowd broke into cheers and applause which lasted on and on.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 2 months ago

The real deal: How William McIlvanney transformed Scottish fiction

“If there is a direct line from the so-called ‘Kailyard’ writers of the late 19th century […] to the playful savagery of Irvine Welsh and the still rising body-count of ‘tartan noir’, then at its midpoint stands William McIlvanney.”

Brian Morton profiles William McIlvanney for BBC Arts

2/9

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1yvXjdWM7lsQNjpNB024ZPC/the-real-deal-how-william-mcilvanney-transformed-scottish-fiction

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #CrimeFiction #TartanNoir

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 2 months ago

“Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!”

William McIlvanney (1936–2015) – author & poet (& provider, at a rally in Edinburgh in 1992, of our profile header, as quoted in Neal Ascherson’s 2002 book STONE VOICES) – was born #OTD, 25 November

A 🎂 🧵

1/9

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #WilliamMcIlvanney #Scottishness #identity

And then, in a tone of tremendous pride, he said this. “Scottishness is not some pedigree lineage. This is a mongrel tradition!” At those words, for reasons which perhaps neither he nor they ever quite understood, the crowd broke into cheers and applause which lasted on and on.

Chip Butty boosted

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

Naomi Mitchison (née Haldane, 1897–1999) was born #OTD, 1 Nov, & saw almost every day of the #20thcentury. A hugely influential writer, with 80+ books—poetry, politics, historical novels, #ScienceFiction, #Fantasy, #ChildrensLiterature & more—to her credit

A 🎂🧵

“She liked to challenge, she liked to shock, she liked to deliver the unexpected, she liked to experiment”

—Jenni Calder looks at Mitchison’s life & work

@litstudies
1/9

https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/25/naomi-mitchison/

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters

Chip Butty boosted

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

“In the year C.S. Lewis published THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE, 1950, Naomi Mitchison published a very different fantasy novel for children”

—Prof Rob Maslen on how Naomi Mitchison’s THE BIG HOUSE mixes folklore, class war, global conflicts, & the supernatural

7/9

https://thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/naomi-mitchison-the-big-house-1950/

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #Kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #fantasy

Chip Butty boosted

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

CROSSROADS & COINS

“Where might I have gone if, instead of a middle-aged Hobbit enamored of his pantry, I had embraced a girl who lost three homes before choosing the open road?”

—Amal El-Mohtar on discovering Naomi Mitchison’s strange children’s fantasy TRAVEL LIGHT, for @NPR

8/9

https://www.npr.org/2014/01/01/258384937/crossroads-and-coins-naomi-mitchisons-travel-light

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #fantasy

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

CROSSROADS & COINS

“Where might I have gone if, instead of a middle-aged Hobbit enamored of his pantry, I had embraced a girl who lost three homes before choosing the open road?”

—Amal El-Mohtar on discovering Naomi Mitchison’s strange children’s fantasy TRAVEL LIGHT, for @NPR

8/9

https://www.npr.org/2014/01/01/258384937/crossroads-and-coins-naomi-mitchisons-travel-light

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #fantasy

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot replied · 3 months ago

“Correction: January 20, 1999, Wednesday An obituary on Saturday about Naomi Mitchison, the British writer and early feminist, misspelled the surname of the Labour Party leader at whom she once threw a half-plucked partridge. He was Hugh Gaitskell, not Gaitskill.”

—Essential correction to Mitchison’s obituary in the NEW YORK TIMES

9/9

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury

Correction: January 20, 1999, Wednesday An obituary on Saturday about Naomi Mitchison, the British writer and early feminist, misspelled the surname of the Labor Party leader at whom she once threw a half-plucked partridge. He was Hugh Gaitskell, not Gaitskill.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

CROSSROADS & COINS

“Where might I have gone if, instead of a middle-aged Hobbit enamored of his pantry, I had embraced a girl who lost three homes before choosing the open road?”

—Amal El-Mohtar on discovering Naomi Mitchison’s strange children’s fantasy TRAVEL LIGHT, for @NPR

8/9

https://www.npr.org/2014/01/01/258384937/crossroads-and-coins-naomi-mitchisons-travel-light

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #fantasy

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

“In the year C.S. Lewis published THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE, 1950, Naomi Mitchison published a very different fantasy novel for children”

—Prof Rob Maslen on how Naomi Mitchison’s THE BIG HOUSE mixes folklore, class war, global conflicts, & the supernatural

7/9

https://thecityoflostbooks.glasgow.ac.uk/naomi-mitchison-the-big-house-1950/

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #Kidlit #ChildrensLiterature #fantasy

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

“The first time I read Memoirs of a Spacewoman, I felt relief so strongly that it registered as a kind of digestive ache. Here was a woman who had thought about birth in terms I instinctively understood but rarely recognized in the world around me.”

—Jenni Quilter on reproductive possibility in Naomi Mitchison’s speculative fiction

6/9

https://lithub.com/the-optimistic-expansive-visions-of-pregnancy-and-motherhood-in-the-1962-novel-memoirs-of-a-spacewoman/

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #sciencefiction

Assoc for Scottish Literature

@scotlit@mastodon.scot · 3 months ago

“Throughout her life, Mitchison was fascinated with the relationship of the ‘real’ & the ‘not real’—of history & fantasy, science & magic, reality & fiction.”

—Exploring Mitchison’s concept of the historical novel as a means of promoting social change

5/9

http://www.readingsjournal.net/2015/06/real-and-not-real-naomi-mitchisons-philosophy-of-the-historical-novel/

#Scottish #literature #womenwriters #20thcentury #HistoricalFiction

Real and Not Real: Naomi Mitchison’s Philosophy of the Historical Novel
June 15, 2015
by Rob Hardy, Carleton College

In a long and varied career as a writer and activist, Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) wrote novels, poetry, and memoirs; helped establish the first birth control clinics in London; toured the Soviet Union with Doris Lessing; proofread The Fellowship of the Ring; and was adopted as the member of an African tribe. But it was as a historical novelist that she established her reputation in the 1920s and 30s. Focusing on The Corn King and the Spring Queen, her 1931 novel set in the world of Hellenistic Greece, this essay explores Mitchison’s concept of the historical novel as a vehicle for promoting social change. — Real and Not Real: Naomi Mitchison’s Philosophy of the Historical Novel June 15, 2015 by Rob Hardy, Carleton College In a long and varied career as a writer and activist, Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) wrote novels, poetry, and memoirs; helped establish the first birth control clinics in London; toured the Soviet Union with Doris Lessing; proofread The Fellowship of the Ring; and was adopted as the member of an African tribe. But it was as a historical novelist that she established her reputation in the 1920s and 30s. Focusing on The Corn King and the Spring Queen, her 1931 novel set in the world of Hellenistic Greece, this essay explores Mitchison’s concept of the historical novel as a vehicle for promoting social change.

https://www.readingsjournal.net

Real and Not Real: Naomi Mitchison’s Philosophy of the Historical Novel

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