Local Legends

Whether she's writing letters to her younger self, advocating for women's rights or adapting fairy tales to process an abusive relationship, Len's voice is bold, unashamedly frank and unmistakably hers. The poems in this collection, both funny and fiercely feminist, announce a formidable new tale...

Azzy Williams is ready. Ready to smoke, pop pills, drink wine and ready to fight. But most of all, he's ready to do anything for his friends, his gang, his young team. Round here, in the schemes of the forgotten industrial heartland of Scotland, your mates, your young team - they're everything. A...

Wendy has always been a misfit ever since Nuala Brennan called her Weirdo once at school and it stuck. But then Ginger turns up on the bus she's driving one day and they become firm friends - Wendy's first real friend. And Wendy is going to get a second friend too because Diane Weston and her are...

Ross Raymond and Johnny McLaughlin are two fanboys dedicated to the Airdrie post-punk scene of the early '80s - the glory years - when anything and everything seemed possible. Looking back on that time - the people, the bands, the underground legends - they piece together a story which has at its...

Liz Lochhead is one of the leading poets writing in Britain today. Her debut collection, 'Memo for Spring' (1972), was a landmark publication. Writing at a time when the landscape of Scottish poetry was male dominated, hers was a fresh, new voice, tackling subjects that resonated with readers - a...

The closing down of the steelworks meant the end of being in work - but John and his pal don't intend it to be the end. 'Keep hens! That's the answer@.

This is a rhyming story of a mouse and a monster. Little mouse goes for a walk in a dangerous forest. To scare off his enemies he invents tales of a fantastical creature called the Gruffalo. So imagine his surprise when he meets a real gruffalo. Here, the story is translated into Glaswegian.

Just shy of 18, Deborah Orr left Motherwell - the town she both loved and hated - to go to university. It was a decision her mother railed against from the moment the idea was raised. Win had very little agency in the world, every choice was determined by the men in her life. And strangely, she w...

Thirteen-month-old Lily Hamilton is abducted from Ayr beach in Scotland while her parents are just yards away. Three days later the distraught father turns up at private investigator Charlie Cameron's office. Mark Hamilton believes he knows who has stolen his daughter. And why. Against his better...

It is 12 October 1984. An IRA bomb blows apart the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Miraculously, Maggie Thatcher survives. In small-town Scotland, eight-year-old Damian Barr watches in horror as his mum rips her wedding ring off and packs their bags. He knows he, too, must survive. Damian, his sister an...