History

What We Do

Bella Caledonia was founded in 2007 by Mike Small and Kevin Williamson – following the idea ‘don’t hate the media become the media’ – we invite you to write for us – share us – and support us. We are open to submissions and collaborations – our whole purpose is to create a platform for new writers, artists, filmmakers (etc)

You can find us on Facebook, on Vimeo, on Instagram, on Twitter, on Storify and on Spotify.

We provide a platform for writers, filmmakers and artists.

Over the past 17 years we have published hundreds of writers including: Afua Hirsch, Amna Saleem, Neal Ascherson, Arusa Qureshi, Irvine Welsh, Vonny Moyes, Dougald Hine, Christopher Silver, Alan Bissett, Jay Griffiths, Jen Stout, Kathleen Jamie, Stuart Cosgrove, Peter Geoghegan, Katie Gallogly-Swan, George Gunn, John Warren, Iain MacKinnon, Alec Finlay, Andy Wightman, Smári McCarthy, Wilson McLeod, Cat Boyd, Darren McGarvey, Douglas Robertson, Alastair McIntosh, Dougie Strang, Laura Cameron Lewis, Kevin Williamson, Meaghan Delahunt, Jenny Lindsay, Peter Arnott, Pat Kane, Rona Dhòmhnallach, Billy Kay, Matthew Fitt, AL Kennedy, Jim Monaghan, Adam Ramsay, Hannah Lavery, Jenny Constable, Gerry Hassan, Layla-Roxanne Hill, Jenny Tsilivakou, Chloe Farand, Scott Hames, Raman Mundair, Rory Scothorne and many many others.

See our Contributors section for more detail.

Many Voices

We are contributing to changing the face of who gets represented in Scottish media by our Many Voices programme to give space to minority voices often excluded. This project aims to give editorial experience over several months to women, to people of colour and to other minority groups.

Publishing and Events

We publish in three languages, having started our Gaelic and Scots language columns in 2014. We believe that you can’t really separate culture and politics – that’s why we’ve produced an album ‘Songs for Scotland’ (you can buy it here) and a concert (watch it here).

We produced four issues of a print magazine called Closer.

You can download a copy here – or we can send you a printed copy.

We launched the magazine at our After Party in 2013.

In collaboration with a Catalan publisher Pol-len Edicions, we published ‘‘Building a New Catalonia: Self-Determination and Emancipation’ edited by David Whyte and Igansi Bernat.

You can buy it here.

We have also published a book ‘Scotland 2021’ in collaboration with Ekklesia, edited by Simon Barrow and Mike Small.

In forty chapters we explore practical radical innovation and policy challenges with contributions from Irvine Welsh, Joyce McMillan, Maggie Chapman, Kathy Galloway, Tom French, Vonny Moyes, Anuj Kapilashrami, Niamh Webster, Michael Marten, Milja Radovic, Talat Yaqoob, Jan Bebbington, Adam Ramsay and dozens more.

More details here.

We also published an ebook ‘War is Coming’ by Gordon Guthrie. It charts the last thirty years of British foreign policy failure confusion ineptitude and cowardice.

More details here.

In 2022 we published an anthology of our collected work. You can buy it here.

We hold regular live gigs and events for members and supporters, including this one with Ricky Ross, Karine Polwart, Loki and Becki Wallace and this one with Dick Gaughan, Shooglenifty and Loki:

We published a monthly print magazine on the first weekend of the month in collaboration with The National newspaper.

 

Details and a selection of back content here.

 

We Review books and poetry here – and give you a weekly Playlist on Spotify here featuring the best music from a weekly guest.

You can listen to our podcast 56 Degrees North HERE.

Help keep our journalism independent

We don’t take any advertising, we don’t hide behind a pay wall and we don’t keep harassing you for crowd-funding. We’re entirely dependent on our readers to support us.

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