Scots writing: prose, fiction and the written word

Scots is used for novels, short stories, translation, children’s books and journalism, with a prose tradition going back to the 15th century.

Contemporary writers of prose in Scots include Graeme Armstrong, Thomas Clark, Anne Donovan, Ely Percy, James Robertson, Gerda Stevenson, Shane Strachan and Yvonne Tait. Recent books written in Scots include Ely Percy’s Duck Feet (2021), set in Renfrew and Paisley, Gerda Stevenson’s short stories Cat Wumman and Thomas Clark’s translation Animal Fairm. Others use Scots alongside English, such as Graeme Armstrong’s The Young Team (2020), set in North Lanarkshire, and Anne Donovan’s Buddha Da.

Publishers of fiction and non-fiction in Scots include Luath, Tippermuir, Leith Books, Rymour Books and Doric Books. Since 2019 the Scottish Book Trust’s Scots Language Publication Grant, funded by the Scottish Government, has supported more than 70 titles. The annual anthology New Writing Scotland and the magazine Lallans publish new writing in Scots, and the Scots Language Centre and Scots Radio publish news in Scots every week.

Translation and children’s books are a large part of publishing in Scots. Itchy Coo, publishes books in Scots for children and young people, and has translated The Gruffalo into Scots. Recent award-winning children’s books written in Scots include Elaine C. Smith’s The Glasgow Gruffalo’s Wean, Scots Bairns’ Book o the Year 2021, and Matthew Mackie’s translation Guid Mornin! An Guid Nicht!, which won in 2023. Emma Grae’s The Hoolet Thit Couldnae Fly was shortlisted in 2024.

Annual awards for writing in Scots include Scots Book o the Year, Scots Writer o the Year and Scots Bairns’ Book o the Year at the Scots Language Awards, the Scottish Book Trust’s Scots New Writers Award, and the Young Scots Writer o the Year award for young writers.

History of writing in Scots

Scots has been written down since the late 13th century and by the 15th century it was the language of Scotland’s parliament, laws, burgh records and histories, as well as its poetry.

After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, writers increasingly published in English. Scots remained the spoken language of most people and continued in manuscripts, but printed texts were often “Englished” for a larger market.

In the 19th century, novelists including Walter Scott, James Hogg, John Galt and Robert Louis Stevenson commonly narrated in English and used Scots for their characters’ speech. Some of the best-known passages are tales told within novels, such as “Wandering Willie’s Tale” in Scott’s Redgauntlet and Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824).

In the 20th century Lewis Grassic Gibbon used north-east Scots in the narrative voice of A Scots Quair (1932 to 1934). In 1983 William Laughton Lorimer’s translation of the New Testament into Scots was published. Later writers, including James Kelman, Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner, used the urban and regional speech of Glasgow, Edinburgh and the West Highlands.

A more detailed history of Scots writing is available here