Previous IssuesThe Bottle Imp is published twice-yearly. If you would like to know as soon as each new edition is available, you can add your email address to our mailing list. 2012Issue 11 (May) is the current issue. 2011Issue 10 (November) Tartan makes a good blanket term to drape across Scotland, this country which it has colonised for its own. Our warps and wefts cut over and under each other, threads running down through history and across geography: green and gold, black and white, red white and blue; woven by time and far from finished yet. Bloodlines mix and mingle, peoples shuttle in and shuttle out; diasporas loom large. In this issue, The Bottle Imp takes on issues of ethnicity and notions of nationality, and looks to tease out some home truths, and waulk the line between fact and fancy. Issue 9 (May) This issue, The Bottle Imp inflates its lungs, throws back its head, opens its mouth and belts one out – or rather, several, as we wax lyrical about Scotland's songs. Music, song and literature have always intertwined, of course, and nowhere more so than here. Perhaps it's the bardic tradition, or the close-grained friction between the oral and the written cultures – Scottish writers and musicians have been crossing over each other for a very long time ... 2010Issue 8 (November) This issue The Bottle Imp seeks out strange new worlds and scans new event horizons as we boldly go in search of Scotland's speculative fictions. Who knows what we will find? Parallel worlds and multiple antisyzygies; terrifying futures and the poetry of space: it's a big universe, after all ... Issue 7 (May) For this issue, The Bottle Imp pokes its nose into the world of children's literature – that strange country where every work is in translation. Scotland's books are no strangers to controversy in this field, from accusations of racism directed at Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo to accusations of Satanism aimed at J K Rowling's Harry Potter books. There are other forms of censors, too: we shall find one peculiar to this corner of the world, planted not in a pulpit but instead behind the eyes, lodged within the heads of Scotland's children. 2009Issue 6 (November) Readers of a nervous disposition, turn away! This issue of The Bottle Imp pursues the spectre of the Gothic. Naught but ruined towers, blasted heaths, and cold wastes lie within. Scotland takes the Gothic to heart, and it is engrained in our literature. Hardly a single Scottish writer is wholly free from its cold fingers. Stevenson was so wrapped up in it he couldn't keep it out, even from his Boys Adventure stories; think of Treasure Island's Israel Hands, or the strange, disturbing 'Tale of Tod Lapraik' which lurks between the pages of Catriona, waiting to pounce on the unwary reader ... Issue 5 (May) Consciously created, maintained in the teeth of North Britishness, preserved in poetry and song, in literature and sporting rivalries, the Scottish national identity is a curious beast. It is a mixture, an amalgam, formed of lumps and lights and broken pieces, spiced and dressed and crammed around inside itself, running around the bens and glens. In this, fifth issue of The Bottle Imp, we open up the creature for a thorough investigation, warm-reekin, rich ... 2008Issue 4 (November) Thomas Carlyle called history "the true epic poem and universal divine scripture". Henry Ford called it "mostly bunk". Between these two philosophies hang the histories of literature, and the literatures of history. Scotland is steeped in one, and drenched in the other; the perfect place for The Bottle Imp to probe the debateable borderlands between the fictional, the factual and the actual. Issue 3 (May) This issue, The Bottle Imp braves thunderbolts and assaults the very jaws of Hell itself, as we roll an eye towards Religion. Perhaps here we’ll find at least one root of our distinction: undoubtedly this one runs deep indeed, and often crooked! But we’ll pull on it and see what might spring up… 2007Issue 2 (November) In this, our second issue, we range far and wide, crossing oceans and exploring literary polities both real and imaginary. Clyde-built, The Bottle Imp sails forth once more into the seething waters of the world-wide web: we hope you have a pleasant voyage! Issue 1 (May) Welcome to the first edition of The Bottle Imp, the Scottish Studies ezine of the Scottish Writing Exhibition. Why The Bottle Imp? The name, of course, is stolen from one of Stevenson's short stories. As a symbol of Scotland's ability to see beyond itself, to go outside its borders – whether for honour, or for glory, or for riches, or even just for the climate – it seemed appropriate. We hope that we, too, might contain something surprising! |