Skip to main content
Skip to primary sidebar
Skip to footer
Association for Scottish Literature
Scottish Literature's International Voice
Home
News
About
ASL Council Members
Honorary Fellowships
Publications
Author submissions
Books
Annual Volumes
Free Publications
International Companions to Scottish Literature
New Writing Scotland
Occasional Papers
Scotnotes Study Guides
Other titles
Periodicals
Scottish Literary Review
Scottish Language
The Bottle Imp
Articles
Audio
Events
ASL Book Launches
ASL Conferences
ASL Lectures
Schools
Videos
Schools Conference: 2021
Schools Conference: 2020
Schools Conference: 2019
Schools Conference: 2018
Schools Conference: 2017
Schools Conference: 2016
Schools Conference: 2015
Schools Conference: 2014
Schools Conference: 2013
Strange Tales: Three Uncanny Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson
Tally’s Blood
Free Publications
Schools Conference
Scotnotes Study Guides
Teaching Notes
Teaching Units
Voices of Scotland
Contact
Author Submissions
Join the ASL
ALISON, Jim, ‘Burns in School’
Laverock 3, 1997 | Transcript of a talk given at the International Bicentenary Burns Conference, University of Strathclyde, 11–13 January…
CONTINUE READING
ALISON, Jim, ‘Lummie’
Laverock 3, 1997 | ASLS believes that teachers will increasingly want to explore and expand the corpus of literature in…
CONTINUE READING
ALISON, Jim, ‘A Passage to Treasure Islands’
ScotLit 29, 2003 | ‘But there were still some nights when he would gaze out into the etherium and see…
CONTINUE READING
ALISON, Jim, ‘Thanks Courteous Wall’
ScotLit 33, 2005 | On 15 October 2005 the late Enric Miralles’ controversial complex of buildings for the Scottish Parliament…
CONTINUE READING
ALTUN, Ali, ‘John McGrath: an Anti-Class-based System Playwright’
A paper presented at ESSE 2012 | One of the most prolific and outstanding figures in British drama, John McGrath…
CONTINUE READING
BATEMAN, Meg, ‘Gaelic Poetry for English Classes’
Laverock 3, 1997(The text of a paper given to the ASLS Schools Conference in 1994) I have been kindly asked…
CONTINUE READING
BICKET, Linden, ‘Robin Jenkins: a Centenary Celebration’
ScotLit 42, 2012 | This year marks one hundred years since the birth of one of twentieth-century Scotland’s most prolific…
CONTINUE READING
BORTHWICK, David, ‘From Grey Granite to Urban Grit: A Revolution in Perspectives’
James Leslie Mitchell (Lewis Grassic Gibbon) Centenary Conference, 9 June 2001 A revised and updated version of this paper, along…
CONTINUE READING
BROWN, Ian, ‘The Representation of Manifold Identities in Post-war Scottish Theatre’
A paper presented at ESSE 2012 | Carla Sassi was not alone when she famously talked in 2009 of ‘the…
CONTINUE READING
BURGESS, Moira, ‘Dot Allan – a Glasgow Woman Novelist’
ScotLit 19, 1998 | A 1930s novel by a Scottish writer; theme, the contemporary Great Depression and the hardships of…
CONTINUE READING
BURGESS, Moira, ‘The Glasgow Short Story’
Laverock 2, 1996 | It’s safe enough to declare that the short story form is flourishing in Glasgow at present,…
CONTINUE READING
BYRNE, Michel, ‘Tails o the Comet? MacLean, Hay, Young and MacDiarmid’s Renaissance’
ScotLit 26, Spring 2002 | On 4 May 2002 the ASLS held a conference at the University of Glasgow to…
CONTINUE READING
CAMPBELL, Ian, ‘James Leslie Mitchell’s Spartacus’
[DIGEST OF A PAPER GIVEN TO THE ASLS GENERAL MEETING CONFERENCE, KING'S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN ON 9 JUNE 2001.] Much of…
CONTINUE READING
CORBETT, John, ‘The Current State of Scots’
Observations by John Corbett, submitted to a Scottish Executive Committee investigating Scots Language Provision 1. The current linguistic situation The…
CONTINUE READING
CORBETT, John, ‘Literary Language and Scottish Identity’
The Shape of Texts to Come: the writing of a new Scotland, 13-14 May 2000 | References are given at…
CONTINUE READING
CORBETT, John, ‘Scots: Practical Approaches’
ScotLit 25, Autumn 2001 | Advanced Higher Specifications The new Higher Still and Advanced Higher examinations in English promise (or…
CONTINUE READING
CORBETT, John, ‘The Stalking Cure: John Buchan, Andrew Greig and John Macnab’
ScotLit 30, Spring 2004 | Seivintie-ane yeir separates twa buiks that hae the selsame character, a composite pauchler, or poacher,…
CONTINUE READING
DICKSON, Beth, ‘William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw Novels’
Laverock 2, 1996 | William McIlvanney has written three detective stories featuring the same main character: Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw.…
CONTINUE READING
DUNCAN, Ian, ‘On the Study of Scottish Literature’
ScotLit 28, Spring 2003 | As someone who teaches and researches topics in Scottish literature in an English department at…
CONTINUE READING
ELPHINSTONE, Margaret, ‘Fantasising Texts’
The Shape of Texts to Come: writing a new Scotland, 13–14 May 2000References are given at the end of the…
CONTINUE READING
FLEMING, Morna, ‘Teaching Henryson’
ScotLit 33, Autumn 2005 | When writing the February Newsletter for The Robert Henryson Society, I noted that 2005 was…
CONTINUE READING
GIFFORD, Douglas, ‘Making Them Bold and Breaking the Mould: Rona Munro’s Bold Girls’
Laverock 2, 1996 | My Mummy taught me how to raise my family, how to love them, how to spoil…
CONTINUE READING
GORDON, Katherine, ‘Writing the ‘Spirit of Place’: the Poetry of Violet Jacob and Marion Angus’
ScotLit 34, 2006 | In a speech given to members of the Scottish Association for the Speaking of Verse in…
CONTINUE READING
HODGART, John, ‘Language Issues in Studying Burns for Revised Higher: Bard tae Waur?’
Laverock 3, 1997 | "Burns is really much too difficult for our children. They prefer Shakespeare."(a former P.T. English in…
CONTINUE READING
HUBBARD, Tom, ‘1800: Scottish Literature’s Grand Tour’
1000 Years of Scottish Literature, 18 November 2000 | The décor of the opening scene showed a wild and lonely…
CONTINUE READING
JACK, R. D. S., ‘1000 Years of Scottish Literature: 1600’
1000 Years of Scottish Literature, 18 November 2000 | I shall begin with two oddities. 1600 represents the High Renaissance…
CONTINUE READING
JAMIESON, Robert Alan, ‘Webs and Wabsters: small presses, magazines and websites’
The Shape of Texts to Come: the writing of a new Scotland, 13-14 May 2000 | References are given at…
CONTINUE READING
LINDSAY, Frederic, ‘Practising Crime for a Living’
ScotLit 24, 2001 | Writers and readers share a question about any branch of fiction: Do I want to spend time…
CONTINUE READING
MACDOUGALL, Carl, ‘Notes for a Manifesto’
Given at the launch of the Parliamentary Cross-Party Group for Scottish Writing and Publishing, 7 June 2005 | Are we…
CONTINUE READING
MACGILLIVRAY, Alan, ‘Genres in Scottish Writing: Science Fiction’
The Shape of Texts to Come: the writing of a new Scotland, 13-14 May 2000 | One hundred and seventy-five…
CONTINUE READING
MACGILLIVRAY, Alan, ‘The Jewel on the Doorstep: The Place of Scottish Literature in Schools’
An edited version of a paper given at the Education Conference of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 5th October,…
CONTINUE READING
MACGILLIVRAY, Alan, ‘Land of Brave Men: Scottish Poetry of the First World War’
Laverock 3, 1997 | Most of the poems referenced here are to be found in the ASLS collection From the Line:…
CONTINUE READING
MACGILLIVRAY, Alan, ‘Natural Loyalties: The Work of William McIlvanney’
Laverock 1, 1995 | There are acute dangers lying in wait for any critic seeking to comment on the urban writers…
CONTINUE READING
MACGILLIVRAY, Alan, ‘Obituary for Christine Guthrie (1896–1999)’
ScotLit 21, Winter 1999 | Readers who have loved the writings of James Leslie Mitchell (“Lewis Grassic Gibbon”) will be…
CONTINUE READING
MACGILLIVRAY, Alan, ‘The Worlds of Iain Banks’
Laverock 2, 1996 | If the popularity of a writer is to be gauged by the numbers of his or…
CONTINUE READING
MACLACHLAN, Christopher, ‘A Teller of Tales: Further Thoughts on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped’
ScotLit 38/39, Spring 2010 | I would like to try not to repeat here things I have said about Kidnapped in the Scotnote. Instead…
CONTINUE READING
MATHISON, Hamish, ‘Robert Burns and Tradition’
November 2007, hosted on the ASLS website | Robert Burns ‘was unfortunate not to have been born twenty years later’…
CONTINUE READING
McCLURE, J. Derrick, ‘Scottish Literature in 1400’
1000 Years of Scottish Literature, 18 November 2000 | The history of Scotland for most of the fourteenth century had…
CONTINUE READING
McCULLOCH, Margery Palmer, ‘Fantasy, Reality and the Woman Question: a re-reading of William Black’s fiction’
ScotLit 29, Autumn 2003 | An invitation earlier this year to talk on the gothic element in William Black’s fiction…
CONTINUE READING
McCULLOCH, Margery Palmer, ‘Ideology in Action: Modernism and Marxism in A Scots Quair’
James Leslie Mitchell Centenary Conference, 9 June 2001 | A revised and updated version of this paper, along with eleven…
CONTINUE READING
McCULLOCH, Margery Palmer, ‘The Novels of Neil Gunn’
Laverock 1, 1995 |(The text of a paper given to the ASLS Schools Conference in 1992.) After Edwin Morgan’s talk…
CONTINUE READING
McGONIGAL, James, ‘Multilingual Poetries Lost and Found’
ScotLit 32, Spring 2005 | In the streets and shops of Glasgow, I hear snatches of conversation between different generations of…
CONTINUE READING
MEEK, Donald E., ‘The Gaelic Literature of Argyll’
Laverock 3, 1997 (This is a revised and expanded version of a talk given at the Conference on ‘Neil Munro…
CONTINUE READING
MENZIES, David, ‘Salute to an Adventurer’
ScotLit 35, 2007 | The great writers, those who still resonate down the generations, do so because their vision was…
CONTINUE READING
MORGAN, Edwin, ‘The Contribution of Iain Crichton Smith’
ScotLit 23, Winter 2000 | I’d like to begin with a brief sketch of the man, just to place him…
CONTINUE READING
MORGAN, Edwin, ‘James Bridie’s The Anatomist and John Byrne’s The Slab Boys’
Text of a talk given to a conference on Scottish literature organised by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, University…
CONTINUE READING
MORGAN, Edwin, ‘Scottish Drama: an overview’
ScotLit 20, Spring 1999 | The general assumption in the past has tended to be that an overview of Scottish…
CONTINUE READING
MURRAY, Isobel, ‘Gibbon’s Chris: A Celebration With Some Reservations’
James Leslie Mitchell (Lewis Grassic Gibbon) Centenary Conference, 9 June 2001 | A revised and updated version of this paper,…
CONTINUE READING
MURRAY, Isobel, ‘Jessie Kesson: Writing Her Self’
Laverock 3, 1997 | Jessie Kesson sharply dismissed suggestions that she was a feminist writer. Understandably, she wanted to be…
CONTINUE READING
MURRAY, Isobel, ‘Robin Jenkins’ Fiction’
Laverock 2, 1996 | Robin Jenkins was thirty-eight when he published his first novel, So Gaily Sings The Lark in 1950. He…
CONTINUE READING
NORQUAY, Glenda, ‘The Far Side of Lorna Moon’
ScotLit 27, Autumn 2002 | The life story of ‘Lorna Moon’ – flight from the confines of a Buchan village, a…
CONTINUE READING
PETRIE, Elaine, ‘Sing Us One of the Old Songs – Why Teach Ballads?’
Laverock 3, 1997 | Anyone who contemplates teaching the ballads is quickly going to ask – or be asked a…
CONTINUE READING
RAVENHALL, Chris, ‘Sixteenth-century agit-prop: Sir David Lyndsay’s Ane Satire of the Thrie Estaitis’
ScotLit 22, 2000 | We have no text of any Scottish play before Lyndsay’s The Thrie Estaitis1 and for that reason alone…
CONTINUE READING
REID, George, ‘Edwin Morgan, 1920–2010: a eulogy’
Given on 26 August 2010, at the University of Glasgow | ScotLit 40, Winter 2010 | Today, in this great university…
CONTINUE READING
ROBB, David, ‘Sing til the warld we loo’d’: Alexander Scott’s War Poems’
ScotLit 35, 2007 | During his lifetime, it was well known that not only was Alexander Scott (1920–89) a prominent Scottish…
CONTINUE READING
ROBERTSON, James, ‘Scott, Hogg, and Stevenson, and their Influence on Scottish Literature’
ASLS Schools Conference, 5 October 2013 | When I sat down to write this paper, I began with two questions:…
CONTINUE READING
ROYAN, Nicola, ‘The Poetry of Sir David Lyndsay’
ScotLit 22, Summer 2000 | In the late sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a literate household in Scotland was likely…
CONTINUE READING
SAADI, Suhayl, ‘Infinite Diversity in New Scottish Writing’
The Shape of Texts to Come: the writing of a new Scotland, 13-14 May 2000.A bibliography is given at the…
CONTINUE READING
THORNTON, Valerie, ‘Workshop Writing and Beyond’
The Shape of Texts to Come: the writing of a new Scotland, 13-14 May 2000 | First, I’ll give you a…
CONTINUE READING
TROUSDALE, Graham, ‘Language Matters’
ScotLit 31, Autumn 2004 | On March 1st 2004, the Scottish Executive announced that it was investing an additional £4 million…
CONTINUE READING
WATSON, Seosamh, ”N Linnet Mhor: Some Linguistic Evidence from a Nineteenth Century Easter Ross Poem’
Scots and Gaelic - at home and abroad, 17 November 2001, Glasgow | The village in the Nigg peninsula where…
CONTINUE READING
WHITEFORD, Eilidh, ‘Immortal Memories: The Mysterious Case of Catherine Carswell’
ScotLit 24, Spring 2001 | Some literary characters seem to achieve immortality. In his rooms in Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes contemplates why…
CONTINUE READING
WILSON, Neil, ‘Fiction Opportunities: the 11/9 project’
The Shape of Texts to Come: the writing of a new Scotland, 13-14 May 2000 | Neil Wilson Publishing Why…
CONTINUE READING
Follow Us