Dr Valentina Bold

If Ipswich area followers fancy a folklore meet-up, then let me know.

Anyone coming to see me at this event?

Vintage postcard showing a small girl in a nightdress. She is wearing a witch’s hat and is carrying a black cat. In her other hand is a besom with a curiously manic looking anthropomorphic pumpkin on the top

Early 20th century Halloween postcards loved a verse. This one references the history behind the tradition of fancy dress at this time. This comes from guising, where people would try and avoid the ghosts and spirits of All Hallows through disguise. That fed into what we now do on October 31.

Thanks to Vikky Reilly for her lovely words about Blurred Faces in Scotland on Sunday. "Radcliffe offers readers another emotionally resonant tale of family dynamics and the complex, fragile intimacies that come from childhood shame and secrets."
Preorders available now @fairlightbooks.bsky.social

Heading there now! 😊

A closeup of two hands, playing a set of small pipes. Text overlay: SORLEY MACLEAN'S ISLAND

Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean) – one of the greatest European poets of the 20th century – was born #OTD, 26 Oct
A 🎂🧵
Watch “Sorley MacLean’s Island” via @natlibscot.bsky.social – Sorley MacLean in conversation with fellow writer Iain Crichton Smith
#poetry
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movingimage.nls.uk/film/3141

Working with Scottish Women's Institutes heritage, thanks to @heritagefunduk.bsky.social, is fascinating. This day started with SWI '70s theatrical tapestry designs. It moved on to recording the granddaughter of a friend of founder 'Cathy' Blair, and viewing her unique Mak Merry pottery. Brilliant!

We're so looking forward to this!🧡 Please RT & share widely!

'The key thing is authenticity': How the Cine4 scheme changed Irish film Director Ruán Magan and Commissioning Editor at TG4 Máire Ní Chonláin explain what’s behind Cine4′s success.

Wrote about the Cine4 scheme and how its 'risk-taking' attitude has paid off (it's how the Oscar-nominated An Cailín Ciúin was funded) - interviewed Máire Ní Chonláin, Commissioning Editor at TG4, and director Ruán Magan who made Báite under the scheme www.thejournal.ie/how-cine4-wo...

Everyone has a story. What’s yours? Join us at #DBF25 for a workshop around writing for wellbeing, led by author and poet Dearbhaile O’Hare
🎟️ bit.ly/3WkpOJT

Highlight Talk - Calum Colvin OBE on Burnsiana Free Highlight Talk in the Robertson Room at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway.

Calum Colvin on Burnsiana
5 Nov, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway
Free (booking essential)

Calum Colvin discusses BURNSIANA, a project involving a series of works, exhibitions & books born from an appreciation of the poetry, life & times of Robert Burns
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/highlight-...

I'm giving a talk this evening for @scothistorysociety.bsky.social on editing Margaret Tudor's letters at 5.30pm on Zoom. If anyone is interested in attending, you can register here:

scottishhistorysociety.com/editing-the-...

2026 ASL Annual Conference - Sabhal Mòr Ostaig ‘Our three-voiced country’: Twentieth-century cross-currents in Gaelic and other Scottish writing

Call for Papers: ‘Our three-voiced country’: Twentieth-century cross-currents in Gaelic and other Scottish writing. The 2026 annual conference of the Association for Scottish Literature will be held at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on 26–28 June.

YouTube video by IASSL 10 Minutes With... Peter Mackay (University of St Andrews)

A new addition to the video interview series '10 Minutes With' that introduce our members: this time, IASSL convenor Marie Hedon chats to Peter Mackay, Senior Lecturer at @standrewsenglish.bsky.social and Scottish Makar.

Scottish peeps! This is on at Innerpeffray Library on November 19th. What better venue could there possibly be? Be there or be, well, not haunted.

John Rattray, here on #LeithLinks, helped draw up the first rules of #golf and was the winner of the first Open in 1744. Also a doctor and a #Jacobite, he very likely escaped execution after the #JacobiteRising of 1745-6 due to the intervention of his golfing buddy, Duncan Forbes of #Culloden.

Sounds amazing! 👂 🎶 😊

Library Vans and Hidden Doors by Peter Mackay I have been lucky in the libraries in my life and can - if I were to close my eyes now -imagine many of them in intricate detail, as a smell, type of lighting, sitting and reading experience.

LIBRARY VANS AND HIDDEN DOORS

"Libraries are, of course, fantastic places to learn, to discover the world. But for me, personally, perhaps they are most exciting as places to hide."

- Peter Mackay, Scotland's Makar, on a lifelong love of libraries

www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2025/09/libr...

Freedom Road (by Langston Hughes, 1944, after Indra Rios-Moore, 2022) multi-tracked with Audacity

Freedom Road (instrumental). Words by poet/activist Langston Hughes and music by Emerson Harper (1942). Recorded by Josh White in 1966 and adapted by Indra Rios-Moore in 2022.
on.soundcloud.com/5OiRHNAFUTrf...

#folk #protest #spiritual #cover #instrumental #inspirational #guitar #LangstonHughes

Librarian Salary: £36,650 per annum | Open Ended | Full Time/Part time | Closing Date: 28th September 2025

Amazing opportunity for a specialist librarian at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. The Crawford Collection really is outstanding #histSTM 📜🔭 fa-evzn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Old Photographs Whiting Bay Isle Of Arran Scotland

Old Tour #Scotland #Ancestry Travel Visit #Genealogy #Scottish Family #History Blog #photography of Whiting Bay, Isle of Arran. The village is approximately 3 miles south of the village of Lamlash and is the third largest village on the island tour-scotland-photographs.blogspot.com/2012/02/old-...

Other expectations: some arts and or craft activities; lashings of cakes and tea / coffee; bus pass outing optional on a sunny day but walking and gardening compulsory. Books optional. But that just might be me glamourising times still to come! 😢

Jack Zipes

‘The role of the storyteller is to awaken the storyteller in others.’
— Jack Zipes
writingforwellbeing.co.uk
#writing #WritingCommunity #WritersCommunity

Poster with a collage background of colourful feminist and activist badges, presented as a jigsaw puzzle. Text reads: October at Glasgow Women’s Library. Events listed: 01–31 October: Then & Now; Re-membering Scottish BME Works and Lives Thursday 02: Story Café Thursday 02: Tell Her Story: Giving Voice to Silence: Uncovering the Realities of Honour-Based Abuse Tuesday 07: Open Book Wednesday 08: Conversation Café Thursday 09: Sara Ahmed Book Launch: No is Not a Lonely Utterance Thursday 09: Readers of Colour (In-person) Glasgow Women’s Library logo at the bottom, with contact details for booking.

Poster with the same collage of colourful feminist and activist badges, shown as a jigsaw puzzle. Text reads: October at Glasgow Women’s Library. Events listed: Friday 10: Women Making It Saturday 11: Readers of Colour (Online) Wednesday 22: Conversation Café Thursday 23: Story Café Special: The mysterious case of the Victorian female detective with Sara Lodge Friday 24: Women Making It Friday 24: Herland: A Celebration of Women in Music Monday 27: Reading Group for Muslim Women Thursday 30: Preview – To Build a Home: Martha Orbach Friday 31: The Maud Sulter Annual Lecture with Pratibha Parmar Glasgow Women’s Library logo at the bottom, with contact details for booking.

This October at Glasgow Women’s Library: Sara Ahmed book launch, Herland, two new exhibitions, plus the Maud Sulter Annual Lecture with Pratibha Parmar. And much more! womenslibrary.org.uk/events/

Just had my first Folklore Agony/Household Lore submission! 🥳 Btw, you can also submit anonymously... #HouseholdLore

Hi @clearchanneluk.bsky.social wondering if you ask your drivers to block cycle lanes by parking on them? This is in Stirling right now. I asked if he knew he was on a cycle lane. He shrugged

Volume IV of the OUP edition of William Godwin’s letters, now at press, includes an extensive description of his 1816 visit to Abbotsford, together with four letters to Sir Walter Scott (d. OTD 1832), all written in 1824, the same year that Edwin Landseer painted this portrait of Scott at home.

Amazing to meet so many diverse and brilliant artists in person as we kicked off the Century of Sounds project with @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social with an artist meetup. Can't wait to hear the creative results in a few months!

New Writing Scotland Submission Manager New Writing Scotland publishes works by writers resident in Scotland or Scots by birth, upbringing, or inclination. Prose (fiction and nonfiction); poetry; drama; screenplays; and graphic artwork (mon...

#WritingCommunity!
Submissions invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, #Gaelic, & #Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct!

Submit free via Submittable 👇
nws.submittable.com/submit

Lunch in Library: what could be better!

Over a photo of a table laid for Christmas Lunch is the same text as is written in the caption. Plus www.gladstoneslibrary.org | enquiries@gladlib.org | +44 (0)1244 532350

A menu reading: 2 courses: £28.95 (under 12s: £15), 3 courses: £31.95 (under 12s: £18). It lists starters, mains, desserts and beverages. You can find this information at www.gladstoneslibrary.org/bistro/

🎄Book your table for our two- or three-course Christmas Lunches from 1st to 21st December 2025!🎁

Every day from 12pm to 2:30pm (1st-21st December only), tuck in to a delicious menu of starters, mains, desserts and beverages in our Food for Thought restaurant.

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