Q & A – The Lass and The Quine – Ashley Douglas and Kate Osmond
The Lass and The Quine is predominantly a fairytale about two young women who see the world in different ways. Can you tell us a little of the origin of the story itself, Ashley? Kate, as it’s set in a fairytale landscape what approach did you take to setting the scene?
Ashley: The origins of the story, which started life as a short poem, go back a few years!
In 2021, Scotland became the first country in the world to embed LGBT+ inclusive education across the school curriculum, following years of hard work by the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) campaign, co-founded by Jordan Daly and Liam Stevenson.
In 2023, as part of the implementation of inclusive education on the ground, TIE commissioned me to write some original poetry in Scots, with inclusive themes, for primary school pupils. The Lass and The Quine was one of the short poems I wrote for that project, and it very much introduced the contrastive characters of the shy, bookish lass and the gallus, brave quine. However, I always felt that there was more to be told about them than what I could fit into just seven stanzas — and so I eventually took that poem and developed it into a fuller, book-length story, featuring a whole cast of woodland animals, including an endearing bear!
(The original poem – and others – and classroom resources can be accessed here: https://tie.scot/)
Kate: Ashley’s words gave me a lot of ideas about the world that the Lass and the Quine would inhabit. They conjured up images in my head of a beautiful valley lined with trees, punctuated by a winding river, with a castle high on a hill looking over everything. Once I had these basic ideas, I made a photo mood board on Pinterest to give me a more solid basis to begin drafting sketches. I drew the valley and made sure that I showed the Lass and the Quine’s homes. I knew that I wanted the frontispiece of the book to set the scene before going into the first page where the main characters are introduced properly, and I also decided to include images of the valley in the photo frames that are used on the first page of the story.
With two different personalities depicted, how did the colours and illustrations used in each page spread determine the mood of each scene?
Kate: To portray the different personalities of the Lass and the Quine I tried to focus on the use of light and dark and small details in the illustrations. The Lass is described as being bookish and shy and spending a lot of time indoors, so I drew her in solitude within the shadows of the castle walls, and used darker colours to convey the mood. The Quine is the complete opposite, so I drew her outside with warmer colours, surrounded by nature and other people.
Celebrating LGBTQ+ relationships and the joy that they bring, The Lass and The Quine is a wonderful depiction of love and stepping out into the world when perhaps it’s difficult to do, to perhaps find love where you least expect it. Ashley, what did you want the reader to take away from the storyline itself? And Kate, what did you want the imagery created by your wonderful artwork to represent?
Ashley: The Lass and The Quine is, in many ways, a classic fairytale: there’s a castle and a princess, and it all ends with a wedding and everyone living happily ever after. The only real difference is that, instead of a prince, the princess marries another girl. And, in this world, that is not a big deal at all – everyone’s just happy that she found love! The story itself, meanwhile, is more about the princess learning to overcome her fears (especially of bears!) and having her preconceptions altered, through meeting and falling in love with the quine.
In choosing to write the story in that way, I wanted readers to take away that some girls fall in love with, and get married to, other girls, and that that is more than okay—that it is joyous and worthy of celebration! Happy endings take many forms, depending who you are and who you love. You can’t be what you can’t see, and I wanted to show that.
When I started primary school, in Edinburgh, section 28 was still in force. I had no opportunity to see such a story depicted in the books in my school and library; such representations were literally prohibited. Now that we are able, thankfully, to share more diverse stories, it is important that we actually do so.
As well as the love story being one between a lass and a quine, it is also really important to me that the princess and her family are Black. When people think of a “typical” Scots speaker, they will tend to think of someone who is white: not someone who looks like the princess—or like me. I was born and grew up in Edinburgh, and have spoken Scots all my life. However, because I am mixed race, I often get asked where I’m “really” from, and it is assumed that I must have learned Scots “when I got here”, because I don’t “look Scottish”, or like a “Scots speaker”. So I really hope that this book also makes Scots speakers of colour (there are many of us!) feel explicitly included, and challenges other people’s prejudices around what Scots speakers look like.
Kate: In my illustrations I tried to convey the joy that the characters experienced from being with each other and the joy that their families experienced because they knew their daughters were happy together. I hope that portraying LGBTQ+ relationships in a positive way helps young readers to feel represented and encourages them to be inclusive and think inclusively as they grow up.
Ashley, you’ve written this in Scots, can you give us an insight into that? Kate, your art work is incredible, what appealed to you about illustrating this particular story?
Ashley: As well as being a Scots speaker, I studied history and languages at university and, since graduation, I have developed a successful career as a writer and translator, working in Danish, German and Scots, with a specialism in Scots. In the children’s book context specifically, it’s an honour to have been invited by renowned Scots language publisher Itchy Coo to contribute translations to three beautiful recent fairytale collections in Scots: Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales in Scots, Grimms’ Fairytales in Scots, and Aesop’s Fables in Scots.
For many centuries, Scots was the official written and spoken language of the nation, including of Scotland’s Parliament and the royal court. Although the place of Scots in national life has changed in more recent times, it has always continued to be spoken and written by countless people across the country—but it’s not always as understood or as appreciated as it should be.
In writing this book in Scots, I wanted to build on my translation of classic fairytales into Scots by writing an original modern story in the language. I also wanted to show Scots speakers that what they speak is a unique and rich language, and that it is valid; that they are valid.
Kate: Thank you, I’m glad you like the illustrations! I wanted to illustrate this story for a few reasons. Firstly, because I liked the imagery that Ashley’s words conjured up in my head and I thought that illustrating the world and characters would be exciting. I also chose to illustrate the book because positive representations of LGBTQ+ characters are really important, especially for young readers who are learning to understand the world. I also thought that illustrating a story that is written in the Scots language sounded like a fun challenge!
What are you both working on now?
Ashley: I am predominantly finalising a historical biography of Marie Maitland, entitled “With My Own Hand: The secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s sixteenth-century Sappho”, which I have been researching and working on for the past five years!
Marie was a Scottish woman who lived a truly remarkable, and actually pretty well attested, life in the 1500s – and yet, her story has never before been told. A member of the historically important family, the Maitlands of Lethington, the twist offate that changed Marie’s life was when her father — judge, poet and Keeper of the Privy Seal to Mary, Queen of Scots—went blind. Instead of preparing for marriage, Marie became his secretary, a role in which she served for decades. This gave Marie substantial relative freedom, including to fall in love with and write powerful love poetry (in historical Scots) to another woman. This poetry is staggering in its own context (we’re talking about the time of John Knox and Mary, Queen of Scots!) — but it also ranks as among the earliest known lesbian love poetry in Europe since Sappho herself, the Ancient Greek poet who wrote in the centuries BCE and gave us the very words “sapphic” and “lesbian”. Marie also lived some two hundred years before Ann Lister (or ‘Gentleman Jack’) and her now iconic diaries.
I am really excited for this book being published on 16 July 2026, and you can already pre-order it, wherever you get your books!
Kate: I’m currently doing a few commissions for different clients, building up my portfolio and reaching out to prospective clients to try and get more work. I’d love to illustrate another children’s book!
Website: https://ashleydouglas.scot
Pre-orders for WMOH: https://www.waterstones.com/
Kate is an illustrator based in Edinburgh who creates narratives and characters using a mixture of analogue and digital techniques. Her illustrations place emphasis on atmosphere by focusing on lighting, scale and detail.
Kate’s work is aimed at both children and adults and her favourite things to illustrate are nature, buildings, people and food. She uses realistic motifs coupled with imagination to evoke mood and emotion in the viewer. Her illustrations have featured in a range of magazines, on posters, in zines and most recently, she has illustrated a children’s book with a publisher based in Scotland.
Link to my website: https://www.
Link to my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
