Luchd-labhairt
Anne Ciecko is an Associate Professor of international cinema in the Department of Communication & Interdepartmental Film Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (U.S.), where she also directs the Graduate Film Studies Certificate. A maker of DIY poetry film/videopoetry/multimedia poetry, her work has been screened at festivals worldwide.
Dr Hilary Clydesdale is currently working on an RSE-funded project, A Light in the Dark, to examine Walter Scott’s Lighthouse Yacht Journal (1814) and its editorial, cultural, and material afterlives. A Light in the Dark runs in partnership with Abbotsford, The Home of Sir Walter Scott, and the Northern Lighthouse Board. She is also a Research Associate at the University of Aberdeen’s Walter Scott Research Centre.
John Corbett is an Adjunct Professor at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University, and a Visiting Professor at Glasgow University. Alone and in collaboration, he has edited and written numerous articles and books on Scottish literature, the Scots language, translation studies and corpus linguistics. He is Publications Convener of the ASL.
Emma Dymock gained her PhD in Celtic in 2008 and teaches classes in Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is co-editor (with Christopher Whyte) of Caoir Gheal Leumraich/White Leaping Flame: Sorley MacLean Collected Poems (2011) and editor of Naethin Dauntit: the Collected Poems of Douglas Young (2016).
Gabrielle Fath is a PhD scholar at the University of Limerick in Scottish and Irish literature, where she researches how older women are represented in twentieth-century Scottish and Irish short stories, in Scottish Gaelic, Irish and English. She was awarded the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship by Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland for the project.
Ayrshire born and bred, John Hodgart is a retired English teacher, Hon Fellow of the ASL, secretary of the Association’s education committee, Scots Language Champion 2021, joint winner or runner up of the McCash Scots Poetry prize, winner of the Burns Federation’s Habbie Simpson poetry prize and author of play about Bessie Dunlop, the witch of Dalry.
A Doonhamer, John/Iain Howieson had a 35-year career in secondary education. After retiring, he was awarded his PhD from Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in 2021, his thesis challenging assumptions about nineteenth-century Gaelic township poetry. Now settled back doon hame in Dumfries, he teaches Gaelic locally, as well as short courses for Sabhal Mòr.
Nigel Leask is Regius Chair in English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow. He has published widely on Scottish romantic literature and culture, with a special emphasis on empire, travel writing, and the Gaelic world. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literature.
Daisy, Li Li: Professor of Translation Studies at Macao Polytechnic University. Her research interests include children’s literature, Translation Studies and Scottish Literature. She has published over 50 refereed journal articles in Chinese, English and Portuguese, and her monograph Production and Reception: Translated Children’s Literature in China 1898-1949 is the first book to conduct a systemic study on the translation of children’s literature in China. She co-edited and contributed to Scotland and China: Literary Encounters (Brill, 2025). She is a translator of many books, such as Waking Sleeping Beauty: Feminist Voices in Children’s Novels, The Last Battle, The Poetry of Edwin Morgan, and Sottish Ballads. She was the recipient of 2026 Tannahill Fund, 2025 Glasgow University Library Fellow and 2023 Edwin Morgan Translation Scholarship.
Murdo Macdonald is Emeritus Professor of History of Scottish Art at the University of Dundee, and is author of Scottish Art in Thames and Hudson’s World of Art series. His research interests include Robert Burns and art, the art of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd, and the cultural milieu of the Celtic Revivalist and ecologist Patrick Geddes. He was appointed honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture in 2009, and honorary fellow of the Association for Scottish Literature in 2016.
Aonghas MacLeòid was brought up in Inverness and now lives in Glasgow. He earned a PhD at the University of Glasgow looking at the long poem in 20th Century Gaelic literature. He has also researched sea imagery in Scottish Gaelic poetry and wrote a dissertation on the works of Dòmhnall Mac na Ceàrdaich.
Tha An Dotair Caoimhin MacNèill na sgrìobhaiche agus na òraidiche. Rugadh agus thogadh e ann an Leòdhas. Bha e na Sgrìobhaiche-air-Mhuinntireas Chomhairle Bhreatainn aig Oilthigh Uppsala anns an t-Suain agus roimhe sin na Chaidreach-Sgrìobhaidh Iain Crichton Mhic a’ Ghobhainn air a’ Ghàidhealtachd. Tha e air teagasg a dhèanamh aig diofar oilthighean, nam measg Oilthigh Kingston agus Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann. Tha e a-nis a’ teagasg aig Oilthigh Shruighlea. Tha MacNèill air sgrìobhadh a dhèanamh airson rèidio, telebhisean, film, agus an àrd-ùrlair. Am measg nan leabhraichean aige tha The Brilliant & Forever agus Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides. Dheasaich e sgeulachdan goirid Beurla Iain Mhic a’ Ghobhainn ann an 2001 agus taghadh dhen h-aistean agus sgeulachdan aig Raibeart Louis Stevenson ann an 2017.
Catherine MacPhee serves as the Archivist at the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre, which operates under the Highland Archive Service. Her professional expertise encompasses the preservation, collection, conservation, and facilitation of access to archival records that document the history and cultural diversity of Skye, Lochalsh, and their inhabitants. These efforts are dedicated to the benefit of both present and future generations. In addition to her archival duties, Catherine has developed and led community-focused archival projects and curated exhibitions that actively engage with local cultural heritage. Her research interests focus on the role of archives in shaping cultural identity and understanding social history within Highland communities.
Anne Morrison is Principal Teacher of English at Tain Royal Academy. Born in Harris, she graduated from Edinburgh University in 1992. In 2008, she completed her MA Highlands and Islands Literature with the UHI. Anne has won a number of awards for short story writing, including the Neil M Gunn Award for prose in 2007.
Elaine Morrison is a teacher, writer and independent researcher, based in the Highlands. She has a MLitt in Scottish Literature and Creative Writing from Stirling University and has published work in Scots and English. When not teaching, she is trying to learn Gaelic and slowly writing a book about Scottish poet, Helen B Cruickshank.
From the Isle of Lewis, Donald S Murray now lives in Shetland. A teacher for 30 years, his poetry collection ‘Achanalt’ won the Callum MacDonald award and the novel ‘As the Women Lay Dreaming’ received the Paul Torday Award. His play ‘Sequamur’ has been chosen as a Higher English text by the SQA.
Petra Johana Poncarová (Charles University, Prague) focuses on modern Scottish Gaelic literature. She is the author of Derick Thomson and the Gaelic Revival (Edinburgh UP, 2024). Her edition of Thomson’s Gaelic prose, An Staran, came out in 2025 (Acair) and won the Donald Meek Award for the Best Non-fiction Book.
Professor Boyd Robertson has had a distinguished career in education serving as Principal Teacher of Gaelic at Oban High School, as Lecturer in Gaelic at Jordanhill College of Education, as Reader in Gaelic at the University of Strathclyde before becoming Principal of the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig UHI in 2009. A pioneer of Gaelic-medium education, he specialised in teacher education, curriculum development, lexicography and the production of language learning resources and also played leading roles in numerous Gaelic bodies and public agencies.
Smilla Steiner is a doctoral assistant at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and works on the reception of medieval texts in recent Scottish historical fiction and drama under the supervision of Prof. Kirsten Stirling. She received a BA and an MA in English and History from the University of Lausanne (2020 and 2023) and an MPhil in English Studies from Trinity College, Cambridge (2024).