TALES of birth, death, song and sickness have been shortlisted for this year's Saltire Literary Awards.
Works by makar Jackie Kay, forensic specialist Professor Sue Black and director Mark Cousins are amongst those shortlisted for the annual writing prizes, which celebrate fiction, poetry and non-fiction.
Newsreader Sally Magnusson is nominated in the fiction book of the year category for The Sealwoman's Gift, about an Icelandic woman taken into slavery by pirates in the 1600s.
READ MORE: Why nobody can do crime fiction quite like us
Competition comes from Irvine Welsh for Dead Men's Trousers, which includes characters from Trainspotting, and Helen Sedgwick for The Growing Season, about a woman who takes on the biotech firm that aided her birth.
Meanwhile, National columnist Calum MacLeoid is in the running for the first book of the year award –previously won by Louise Welsh and AL Kennedy – for Gaelic language thriller A'Togail an t-Srubain.
Kay's new poetry collection Bantam has also been shortlisted alongside The Long Take by Robin Robertson, which follows a D-Day veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder in post-war America, and Wristwatch by Jay Whittaker, which charts a course through cancer treatment and recovery.
Irvine Welsh has been shortlisted for Dead Men's Trousers
And Cousins made the non-fiction list for The Story of Looking, which takes on our experience of art, photography, cinema and propaganda, while fellow nominee Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh, is nominated for Waiting for the Last Bus, which includes "a positive, meditative and profound exploration of the many important lessons we can learn from death".
Essays on early cinema, poems about music and musicians and a memoir of Murial Spark also impressed judges, while Black is nominated for All That Remains: A Life in Death, about her forensic anthropology career and the science behind it.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Edinburgh on November 30.
Sarah Mason, programme director at Saltire Society, said: “Spanning poetry, fiction, non-fiction and academic research, once again the Saltire Literary Awards shortlists celebrate the diversity, quality and richness of books to come from Scotland over the past year.
"The Saltire Literary Awards have a proud history of celebrating and bringing wider attention to excellence in all literary forms and we would like to congratulate the writers and publishers who have been shortlisted this year. All of them have produced works that are testament to the wealth of talent in Scotland’s literary scene today and I wish them the very best of luck when the winners are announced in November.”
Mairi Kidd, of Creative Scotland, commented: “Past winners of the various Saltire Literary Awards include many of the best-loved names in literature today.
"The 2018 shortlists again demonstrate the wealth of established writing talent here in Scotland and the Saltire Society’s ongoing commitment to uncovering the major voices of the future.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here