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Billy Kay (writer)
Billy Kay (born 1951) is a Scottish writer, broadcaster and language activist. He developed an early interest in language, studying English, French, German and Russian at Kilmarnock Academy and English literature at the University of Edinburgh.Smith, Graham R., "Billy Kay", in Parker, Geoff (ed.), ''Cencrastus'' No. 20, Spring 1985, pp. 2 - 7, His study of the history and status of the Scots language, ''Scots: The Mither Tongue'', his most notable work, was later adapted for a television series, and an audiobook, recorded after setting up a home studio during the COVID-19 lockdown. Kay thought that many people would not have heard 'how the language sounds' in major Scots literature such as Barbour's ''Brus,'' R.L. Stevenson's ''Thrawn Janet'', works by MacDiarmid and Burns or the Border Ballads covered in his book: a sound version, he said, would 'fill a big gap' in people's 'knowledge and appreciation of a great tradition'. ''Odyssey'' Kay's popular radio series, ''Odyssey'' ...
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Galston, East Ayrshire
Galston ( Lowland Scots: ''Gauston'', Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile nan Gall'') is a municipality in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which has a population of 5,001 (2001) and is at the heart of the civil parish of the same name. It is situated in wooded countryside four miles up-river from Kilmarnock and is one a group of the small towns located in the Irvine Valley between the towns of Hurlford and Newmilns. To the north of the town is the ruin of Loudoun Castle, the site of Loudoun Castle theme park from 1995 to 2010. In 1874 the population was 4,727. Etymology The name Galston means "place of the strangers" from the Gaelic word ''Gall'' (a stranger), and the ''Toun'' or ''Ton'' was a farm and its outbuildings. The word ''baile'' was anglicised in more recent history as toun like many other place names in Scotland which were originally "bal".Warrack, Alexander (1982)."Chambers Scots Dictionary". Chambers. . Churches * Galston Parish Church, church designed by John Brash of Glasgow, ...
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Shetland
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the northeast of Orkney, from mainland Scotland and west of Norway. They form part of the border between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. Their total area is ,Shetland Islands Council (2012) p. 4 and the population totalled 22,920 in 2019. The islands comprise the Shetland (Scottish Parliament constituency), Shetland constituency of the Scottish Parliament. The local authority, the Shetland Islands Council, is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. The islands' administrative centre and only burgh is Lerwick, which has been the capital of Shetland since 1708, before which time the capital was Scalloway. The archipelago has an oceanic climate, complex geology, rugged coastline, and many low, rolling hills. The lar ...
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Cencrastus
''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a lecturer in the English Department, with the express intention of perpetuating the devolution debate. It was published three times a year. Its founders were Christine Bold, John Burns, Bill Findlay, Sheila G. Hearn, Glen Murray and Raymond J. Ross. Editors included Glen Murray (1981–1982), Sheila G. Hearn (1982–1984), Geoff Parker (1984–1986) and Cairns Craig (1987). Raymond Ross was publisher and editor of the magazine for nearly 20 years (1987–2006). Latterly the magazine was published with the help of a grant from the Scottish Arts Council. It ceased publication in 2006. Contributors included Christopher Harvie, Duncan Macmillan, Stephen Maxwell, Brian Holton, Craig Beveridge, Ronald Turnbull, Colin McArthur, Randall Stevenson ...
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Mark Twain Readers Award
The Mark Twain Readers Award, or simply Mark Twain Award, is a children's book award which annually recognizes one book selected by vote of Missouri schoolchildren from a list prepared by librarians and volunteer readers. It is now one of four Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL) Readers Awards and is associated with school grades 4 to 6; the other MASL Readers Awards were inaugurated from 1995 to 2009 and are associated with grades K–3, 6–8, 9–12 and nonfiction. The 1970 Newbery Medal winning book '' Sounder'', by William H. Armstrong, was the inaugural winner of the Mark Twain Award in 1972. Peg Kehret has won the Mark Twain Award four times, once in 1999 for '' Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio'', a memoir of her childhood, and three times in six years from 2007 to 2012 for novels. Nomination guidelines * Books should interest children in grades four through six. * Books should be an original work written by an author living in the United States. * Book ...
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Audible (service)
Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receives "credits" that can be redeemed for content monthly and receive access to a curated on-demand library of content. Audible is the United States' largest audiobook producer and retailer. The service is owned by Audible, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. History The company's first product was an eponymous portable media player known as the Audible MobilePlayer; released in 1997, the device contained around four megabytes of on-board flash memory storage, which could hold up to two hours of audio. To use the player, consumers would go online to the official Audible website, download the audiobook, and put it onto the player. In 1999, Microsoft invested $11 million into the company. On Octob ...
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B & W Publishing
Black & White Publishing is an independent publishing house based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland. Since 1999, the company has produced a range of titles, with more than 350 in print, including over 50 in the award-winning ''Itchy Coo'' imprint, and their new imprint for young adult fiction, Ink Road. Books published include biography, sport, humour, general non-fiction, fiction, young adult fiction and children's books. Black & White Publishing is the publisher of authors such as Daniela Sacerdoti, Ann O'Loughlin, Caroline Grace Cassidy, Estelle Maskame, SJI Holliday, Anthony O'Neill, Andrew Nicoll, Margaret Thomson Davis, Maureen Reynolds, Andrew Cotter, James Robertson, Matthew Fitt, Val McDermid, Elaine C. Smith, Jessie Kesson and Gary Maclean. Set up in 2002 with initial funding from the Scottish Arts Council, the ''Itchy Coo'' imprint began as a partnership between the publisher and a group of three writers (Matthew Fitt, James Robertson and Susan Rennie). ...
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Mercat Press
Mercat Press is an imprint of the Edinburgh, Scotland-based publishing company Birlinn Limited. It was established in 1970 as a subsidiary of the bookseller James Thin, and published facsimile editions of out-of-print Scottish works, such as the five-volume ''The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland'' by MacGibbon and Ross. Mercat was bought out by its management after James Thin went into administration in 2002, becoming an independent publisher. In 2007 Mercat Press was taken over by Birlinn Limited Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1992 by managing director Hugh Andrew. Imprints Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprints, including: *Birlinn, which publishes Sc ..., another Edinburgh-based publishing house, who now publish outdoor books, such as walking, climbing and cycling guides, under the Mercat imprint. Notable authors and works Martin C. Strong * ''The Great Scots Discogra ...
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Mainstream Publishing
Mainstream Publishing was a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1978, it ceased trading in December 2013.Charlotte WilliamsMainstream to cease publishing 1 March 2013, The Bookseller.com' (Retrieved 30 December 2016) It was associated with the Random House Group, who bought Mainstream in 2005. Notable publications Its publications include Magnus Magnusson's ''Fakers, Forgers and Phoneys'' (2005), Trevor White's '' Kitchen Con: Writing on the Restaurant Racket'' (2006), Gordon Haskell 's Autobiography The Road to Harry's Bar: Forty Years on the Potholed Path to Stardom (2006), Gordon Brown's '' Britain's Everyday Heroes'' (2007), Henry Allingham Henry William Allingham (6 June 1896 – 18 July 2009) was an English supercentenarian. He is the longest-lived man ever recorded from the United Kingdom, a First World War veteran, and, for one month, the verified oldest living man in the w ...'s ''Kitchener's Last Volunteer'' (2008) (with Denis Goodwin), an ...
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Claret
Bordeaux wine ( oc, vin de Bordèu, french: vin de Bordeaux) is produced in the Bordeaux region of southwest France, around the city of Bordeaux, on the Garonne River. To the north of the city the Dordogne River joins the Garonne forming the broad estuary called the Gironde; the Gironde department, with a total vineyard area of over 120,000 hectares, is the largest wine growing area in France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world. The vast majority of wine produced in Bordeaux is red (sometimes called "claret" in Britain), with sweet white wines (most notably Sauternes), dry whites, and (in much smaller quantities) rosé and sparkling wines (Crémant de Bordeaux) collectively making up the remainder. Bordeaux wine is made by more than 8,500 producers or ''châteaux''. There are 54 appellations of Bordeaux wine. History Viticulture ...
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Stewart Conn
Stewart Conn (born 1936) is a Scottish poet and playwright, born in Hillhead, Glasgow.''Galaxy 2'' Maryhill Writers Group (2004) His father was a minister at Kelvinside Church but the family moved to Kilmarnock, Ayrshire in 1941 when he was five. During the 1960s and 1970s, he worked for the BBC at their offices off Queen Margaret Drive and moved to Edinburgh in 1977, where until 1992 he was based as BBC Scotland's head of radio drama. He was Edinburgh's first makar or poet laureate in 2002–05. Works As well as several collections of poetry, his books include a collection of essays and memoir poems, ''Distances'' (2001), from Scottish Cultural Press. Most recently he edited ''100 Favourite Scottish Poems'' (SPL/Luath Press, 2006), a TLS Christmas choice, and ''100 Favorite Scottish Love Poems'' (Luath Press, 2008). He has won three Scottish Arts Council book awards, travel awards from the Society of Authors and the English-Speaking Union, and the Institute of Contemporary Scotlan ...
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Polygon Books
Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1992 by managing director Hugh Andrew. Imprints Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprint (trade name), imprints, including: *Birlinn, which publishes Scottish interest books, from biography to history, military history and Scottish Gaelic. (Its name comes from the old Norse word , meaning a long boat or small galley with 12 to 18 oars, used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages.) *Polygon Books, which publishes literary fiction and poetry, both classic and modern, from Scottish writers such as Robin Jenkins, George Mackay Brown, and the author of ''The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'', Alexander McCall Smith. It was founded in the late 1960s by students of the University of Edinburgh. *Mercat Press, founded in 1970 and acquired by Birlinn in 2007, which publishes walking and climbing guides. (''Mercat'' is the Scots language word ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ...
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