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Ashley Douglas

@ashdouglasscot

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✍️ Historian | Translator | Author
📚WITH MY OWN HAND: OUT NOW
✨@headlinebooks / @portyliterary
💕Mrs @eilidhsdouglas

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‘A really thrilling discovery - a sixteenth-century woman writing, and she’s a professional clerk, and she’s a poet, and she’s writing love letters to another woman and she’s Scots. This is a real extension of our knowledge of women of the period, engagingly told’

We couldn’t be more pleased with this endorsement from Philippa Gregory for WITH MY OWN HAND by @ashdouglasscot

Publishing 16th July, this is the remarkable story of a woman who defied all the odds in sixteenth-century Scotland. Ashley vividly brings Marie to life, combining careful research with beautiful storytelling, and in doing so rescues her from obscurity.

Available for pre-order in hardback, eBook and audio! 📚📱🎧 by @ashdouglasscot

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5 months ago

📚🙏🥂✨ With advance proofs of my book out in the world, I am immensely grateful to the *wonderful* and *illustrious* early readers who are giving so generously of their time and energy - and I am beyond OVERJOYED that the initial response to the untold story of Marie Maitland that I have uncovered and shared has been sooooo unbelievably positive!!!

Here are the words of: 👑✍️📚 truly Tudor history royalty herself, @tracy.borman OBE (!!!); magnificent writer and academic @cwbstephens (author of groundbreaking queer history book, The Light of Day); inimitable novelist, writer and national gem @sarasheridanwriter (whose stunning new novel actually also features Marie Maitland!!); and robust, articulate and thoughtful professional reviewer, Sass MacDonald (@the_sassy_reviews)!!

As an author, you spend a lot of time alone with your book. What utter joy to now be sharing it, and for it to be being received so stunningly. Thank you sooo much to my first early readers, and to all the others who I know are reading it as we speak....! And a massive thank you, too, to those of you patiently waiting to read it upon publication in July - which I hope you are now even more excited to do, given what all these fabulous people are saying about it!! 🥂🙏✨📚💞 by @ashdouglasscot

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6 months ago

In 1586, in Scotland, a remarkable woman named Marie Maitland put the finishing touches to a manuscript she had been labouring over for years. . .

This July, the extraordinary story of Marie Maitland is finally told.

A feminist icon and trailblazer, Marie lived a highly unconventional life for a woman: unmarried, well-educated and financially independent. What’s more, in secret, Marie also penned passionate lesbian love poetry and hid it within the Maitland Quarto, until now celebrated only for its preservation of the work of the male great-and-good of sixteenth-century Scotland.

Building on her initial discovery of Marie's poetry, in With My Own Hand historian and translator Ashley Douglas draws on a vast range of newly unearthed primary historical records to tell the fascinating story of Marie and her manuscript, in full, for the very first time.

Available to pre-order in hardback, eBook and audio by @ashdouglasscot

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9 months ago

Long before Anne Lister was born on the hills of Halifax or Gertrude Stein came screaming into the world along the river valleys of Pennsylvania, there was Marie Maitland. This Scottish poet of the 1500s was the daughter of an influential judge, poet and Keeper of the Privy Seal under Mary, Queen of Scots. She was also a lesbian.

In her new book, historian and Scots translator, Ashley Douglas (@ashdouglasscot), unravels the story of Marie Maitland’ secret lesbian love poetry, and even hints at a potential love affair with a fellow noblewoman. In ‘With My Own Hand: The Secret Life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s Sixteenth-Century Sappho’, Douglas takes us through the dangerous years of post-Reformation Scotland and breaks open the lesbian pantheon – adding one more fierce writer, devoted daughter, and proto-feminist icon to its ranks.

Read the full interview at the link in bio.

Words by @lexicovalsen
Cover image Imagined portrait of Marie Maitland (2021), commissioned by and copyright Ashley Douglas. by @ashdouglasscot

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10 days ago

Today on #BetwixtTheSheets, I am talking to the awesomely awesome @ashdouglasscot about her groundbreaking research into the life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s sixteenth-century Sappho

Listen wherever you get your podcasts! (And don’t forget we’re now on YouTube too!) by @ashdouglasscot

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🙏🏆 With My Own Hand: Scots Book o the Year 2026⁉️ The winning book is decided by public vote - so making that happen is entirely down to all of you lovely people out there! (Link in bio to vote!! Details at bottom of this post as well!)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 This shortlisting means a lot, because telling Marie Maitland’s story all began with my passion for the Scots language: the language historically used in our Parliament and courts, in poetry and record, and spoken by Kings, Queens and everyday people alike – although its deserved place and prestige as a language is sadly not always recognised today.

📚 It was in the course of contributing to @natlibscot’s “Wee Windaes” project, which showcases historical Scots texts in the library’s archives, that I first discovered Marie’s name and her Sapphic poetry - and became determined to learn and share everything I could about this remarkable woman. The rest, as they say, is history.

🔎 My research into Marie Maitland took me into the archives, uncovering and decoding many records in historical Scots, which have been unseen for centuries. Because Scots was still the language of the Scottish nation in the 1500s, when Marie lived, all of the original records relating to her life, documentary and poetic, were written in historical Scots, which I share in the book, with English translations throughout.

🩷 I am immensely proud that ‘With My Own Hand’ therefore not only validates and showcases lesbian and women’s history, but also the Scots language and its rich history - all parts of our history that are unsung, but which deserve to be better known and celebrated.

🗳️ VOTE HERE (and you dinnae have to vote in every category, by the way - you can just vote in the book category!): https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SLAVoting2026

@headline_press @headlinebooks @portyliterary @handsupfortrad

📸 Thanks to Aly Wight (@alywight) for the accidentally perfect photo, taken at EIBF! by @ashdouglasscot

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19 days ago

Talking about Marie Maitland, Scotland’s 16th-century Sappho, with @ashdouglasscot - author of the first ever biography of Maitland. by @ashdouglasscot

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25 days ago

🍁🍂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿📚 It's fast turning into the season for snuggling up inside with a good book - and here is my next round of events, where I'll be talking all about "With My Own Hand" at fantastic bookshops and festivals up and down the country!

🌊⛪️ First up this month, a beautiful chapel venue in Dunbar with @night_owl_bookshop, where I'll be in conversation with wonderful @rebecca_roberts_writes!

🚂🌈Then down to the Scottish Borders and the brilliant @wedalebooks!

🚗🎃 October brings a roadtrip to Scotland's Book Town of Wigtown, where I'll be chaired by the inimitable @mairidhonn as part of the 2026 @wigtownbookfest programme!

🎸🤩 Swiftly followed by a roadtrip north, to Aberdeen, where I and the dazzling Josie Duncan (@josieduncansong) are the Friday night headliners for @waywordabdn, with a combination of music, song and chat about the book! Josie will perform some of her songs, inspired by Marie Maitland's life and poetry 😍 All expertly chaired by the brilliant @shanestrachan 🥰.

🎓🏰📚❄️ Last but not least for 2026, a return to my beloved university town of St Andrews in November, where I'll be showcasing my book at the gorgeous @toppingsstas.

@headline_press @portyliterary by @ashdouglasscot

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25 days ago

🍷😍As well as an author girl summer, it was really very much also a natural wine summer. Especially loved helping out at Edinburgh's (and the fabulous @alovelycupoftea's!) fantastic @wild_wine_fair, with my girl!!! (Also love our merch!!) taken in Timberyard by @ashdouglasscot

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🍷😍 In our most natural habitat: at the natural wine bar.

📸 Thank you for snapping this gorgeous pic, @lizziej_thomson 🩷🙏

Oh look, it's Liz herself being gorgeous in said wine bar! 😍🍷

Us gazing at each other, again, in the wine bar, again. How do our friends stand hanging out with us?!

Celebratory post-event orange natty wine, just us two 🫶

A very late one, in the best of company! by @ashdouglasscot

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a month ago

Marie Maitland was the sixteenth-century Scottish Sappho - a queer woman writing poetry, and gathering other writers around her. This week on the podcast, historian @ashdouglasscot explains who Marie was, why this story has been untold until now, and Marie’s importance to history.

Listen to Vulgar History wherever you get podcasts, and pick up Ashley’s book “With My Own Hand” to learn more about Marie Maitland! by @ashdouglasscot

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🏆🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 As if being on the programme @edbookfest to showcase With My Own Hand wasn't huge enough, in the final week of the book festival, I also found out that I had been shortlisted for 'Best Rising Scottish Author' in @thelistuk's 2026 Festival Awards!

📚 To be recognised in this way, as one of just three (!!!) authors shortlisted out of so many on this year's programme, by such a prestigious publication, is a massive honour. I am so grateful to the team at The List for this recognition - and also for their brilliant feature of my event with @drkatelister and @jeansthoughts right at the outset of the festival!

👏 Congratualations to my fellow nominee @natajayne and to winner @alyciap_ - also of @portyliterary (there must be something in that jam, @caroniclarke! 😍) taken in W Edinburgh by @ashdouglasscot

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