Vā Stories by Women of the Moana edited by Lani Wendt Young, 2021
In this book you will travel across oceans and meet diverse and deep characters in over 50 rich stories from Cook Island, Chamorro, Erub Island (Torres Strait), Fijian, Hawaiian, Māori, Ni-Vanuatu, Papua New Guinean, Rotuman, Samoan and Tongan writers.
“THE DYNAMITER is a hugely inventive & brilliant book, at once a political thriller, a blackly comic satire, & a female adventure”
Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne married #OTD, 19 May, 1880. In this article, Prof Penny Fielding explores the dangerous #collaboration between RLS & his wife: granting female agency on the page & in life
Louise Welsh in conversation with Jenny Niven
20 May, Royal Society of Edinburgh & online – free
Delve into Scotland’s rich literary world as two iconic women come together to share insights, anecdotes, & revelations about their creative journeys. They will explore the nuances of genre, the intricacies of the creative process, & the profound influence of #Scottish#culture on their work.
Ali Smith talks about her life & work in conversation with Richard Ovenden, & receives the Bodley Medal for her outstanding contribution to literature.
Once described as ‘Scotland’s Nobel laureate-in-waiting’, Smith has been shortlisted four times for the Booker Prize & has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award & the Women’s Prize.
Haste Ye Back (again)
5 March, Glasgow University & online
Free
Dorothy K. Haynes (1918–1987) was a well-known author of horror fiction. Dr Craig Lamont discusses editing HASTE YE BACK, Haynes’s #memoir of her childhood years in Aberlour Orphanage. An orphanage, in north-east Scotland, during the Great Depression, sounds like the setting for something grim – yet Haynes shows how an orphanage can also be a home, & a happy one too.
HASTE YE BACK
by Dorothy K. Haynes
edited by Craig Lamont
A gifted writer of #gothic & #supernatural fiction, Dorothy K. Haynes (1918–1987) grew up in Aberlour Orphanage. In this memoir, she brings to life the residents & stories of the institution that shaped her
THAT PROMETHEAN SPARK
THE BOTTLE IMP – Muriel Spark Special Issue
“With a writing career that included biography, criticism, drama and short fiction as well as novels, Muriel Spark was never one to do things by halves…”
@bookstodon
“I advocate the arts of satire and of ridicule. And I see no other living art form for the future. Ridicule is the only honourable weapon we have left.”
—available on BBC Sounds: Alan Taylor & William Boyd join Mariella Frostrup to share their love of Muriel Spark’s writing
@bookstodon
“Spark had just passed on to me an unexpected gift: the gift of the future. I’m beginning to think her books are themselves a kind of fruitfulness.”
—Ali Smith on how Muriel Spark gives us the gift of the future
@bookstodon
“As far-right ideas spread, and misinformation abounds, her books are a piercing reminder of how extreme politics can appeal to the sanest-seeming people—and that half-truths and malfeasance are as intrinsic to human nature as breathing. Spark is a bard of nastiness and lies.”
—The Economist on the continuing relevance of Muriel Spark’s fiction
@bookstodon
“Muriel Spark gave me a new model for a feminist hero […] It was about loitering—about the quiet subversiveness of simply existing in public as a woman.”
—Beth Jellicoe on Muriel Spark’s LOITERING WITH INTENT
@bookstodon
“What hash Spark’s characters make of those eternal debates over unlikable characters or unlikable women. These women aren’t unlikable, these women are monstrous… Spark looks at her women like a wolf.”
@bookstodon
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