Scottish writers, angry at being snubbed by a government plan to boost the arts north of the border, are demanding their own state funded academy.

Three leading members of the Scottish literary renaissance, crime writer Ian Rankin, novelist AL Kennedy and poet and playwright Don Paterson, yesterday said it was time Scotland had its own "open and less cliquey" version of the Irish Aosdana or the Academie Française to support struggling writers.

Their call follows the furore over a Scottish executive document which dismissed Scottish writers with a single line, while pages were dedicated to the future of opera and film. Their omission sparked anger because the generation of writers led by Irvine Welsh, JK Rowling, Alan Warner, Michel Faber and John Burnside have made a splash internationally.

Rankin said he was made to feel like the Invisible Man when he protested to Scottish parliamentary leaders.

"It is Milan Kundera-land, you are totally invisible, like you had been cut from the photograph."

Kennedy said strings attached to Arts Council grants and the writer in residence scheme actually stopped them working.

"To get this money you have to write on one leg, preferably for another medium, and then you have to go speak to some unfortunate people, but try not to encourage them too much in case they start writing too. It's insane."

Paterson said tax breaks similar to those in Ireland, and a self-governing writers' academy to support struggling authors, would pay dividends.

However, the veteran poet and playwright Edwin Morgan was having none of it. "Do you really think writers would be interested in joining an academy? I don't think so."