Podcast appearances and mentions of Alan Bissett

For the latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast - the second relating to this year's Paisley Book Festival - Ali spoke to writers Alan Bissett and Brian Conaghan, who will be at the festival alongside Graeme Armstrong as part of the Scottish Masculinities event - Sunday 28th April, 5-6pm. Alan and Brian talk in detail about their latest books; 'Lads' and 'Treacle Town' respectively, and how they relate to the theme of masculinity. They also talk about the project where they have been involved with young people in Renfrewshire and Glasgow schools, the lessons they learned from their own experiences, the generational differences they have noticed, and the importance of conversation. The three also discuss some of the novels which have helped shaped them, the work of Des Dillon, the impact of Graeme's novel 'The Young Team', and the importance of the culture which originates from towns on the national psyche. It's a cracking conversation which only scratches the surface of the subject, and which will hopefully whet appetites for Alan, Brian, and Graeme's event. For full details, including the relevant links and all the ways to listen, head over to ⁠https://www.scotswhayhae.com⁠

Episode 11 Happy Monday Joysticks This weeks guest chatting to Amelia and Jay is performer, author and playwright Alan Bissett. We discover Alan's joy for flat pack furniture, banging tunes and Bluey. We discuss Misheard lyrics, bus dj's and Amelia's hatred for the wind. Jays joyful content shout out this week is the fabulous artist Kat Connelly you can see her work @yer_awrite #comedy #podcasting #joyfulcontent #author #playwright #comedypodcast #funny #positivity #mentalhealth #selflovepodcast Alan is currently on tour with the Moira Trilogy and is stopping in at The Glasgow Comedy Festival on the 17th March. Follow Jay and Amelia on Instagram: @jayjaylaffs @ameliabayler Get tickets: Www.linktr.ee/jayjaylaffs Www.linktr.ee/ameliabayler

Live from Edinburgh, with a review of Alan Cumming's one man show, Burn, which sets out to update the biscuit-tin image of Robert Burns. Plus Counting & Cracking - the epic, multilingual life journey of four generations, from Sri Lanka to Australia. To review the Edinburgh International Festival performances, Kate Molleson is joined by Arusa Qureshi, writer and editor of Fest Magazine, and Alan Bissett, playwright, novelist and performer. Plus we speak to Scottish film director Charlotte Wells about her critically acclaimed new film Aftersun, as she returns to her home town to open this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Emma Wallace Photo: Burn - Alan Cumming; picture credit - Gian Andrea di Stefano

Alan Bissett joins Ewan Petrie for this weeks episode of "The Tracks That Take Us Back". Alan is one of Scotland's most exciting and respected talents due to his overwhelming contribution to Scottish Culture. As a novelist, playwright and performer Alan has enjoyed remarkable success. His novels "Death of a Ladies Man" and "Pack Men" were both shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Council Fiction of the Year award and in 2011 Alan won the "Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Writer of the Year" award. As a playwright, Alan's work has been performed all over Scotland. His play "Turbo Folk" was nominated for "Best New Play" at the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland and "(More) Moira Monologues" - the sequel to the hit production "The Moira Monologues" - won a prestigious Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh festival. As a performer, Alan is very in demand and he has graced the stage at festivals across the globe including New York, Toronto and Melbourne. Join us as we reminisce through the wonderful choices of Alan Bissett on "The Tracks That Take Us Back".

For the latest podcast Ali caught up with writer and performer Alan Bissett, who was one of our earliest podcast guests back in 2011. That was the year of his last novel 'Pack Men' and the two talk about his first book of published prose since, the novella 'Lazy Susan'. They discuss the character of Susie 'Q' Martin, the return to writing fiction, the novella as a format, the book's inventive structure, the relationship between author and reader, new ways to tell old stories, and so much more. It's a fascinating chat with one of Scotland's finest writers, and there's also the bonus of readings from Alan (as God!) and Rosalind Watt as 'Lazy Susan'.

Highlights from previous Read All About It episodes, as Teddy Jamieson, Kirstin Inner, Rodge Glass, Polly Clark, Alan Bissett and Hayley Reynolds all choose their favourite teenage/formative years read. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Host John Drummond interviews writer, poet and performer Alan Bissett   https://alanbissett.com/

Alan Bissett is a playwright, a novelist, a performer and a bletherer. He has published four novels – Boy Racers, The Incredible Adam Spark, Death of a Ladies’ Man and Pack Men, while his work has also appeared in numerous anthologies.He has also written many plays, while The Moira Monologues, a one-woman show that Alan wrote and performed himself, has received widespread critical acclaim, and delighted audiences throughout Scotland and beyond, as has the sequel – More Moira Monologues. Alan has also written for TV, including River City, while he was also previously involved in academia. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

 Alan Bissett : Match 9th December 1989In this episode we take a look inside the Match magazine from 9th December 1989 with playwright, novelist and monologist (speak to Tom!) Alan Bissett. For more details on this podcast including an electronic copy of the magazine and other fascinating comments and links, please visit our website http://shootthebreezepod.co.uk/ where you can also donate for a chance to win some goodies including the original magazine from the show. Remember, 50% of all money donated goes to our charity partner, @BackOnside.with @scotsfootycards and @tombroganBrought to you in association with Celtic Matchday programmes (@Celtic_Matchday https://celticmatchday.com/) Let's Shoot! The Breeze 

Hello and welcome to EPISODE 38 of MOOD SWINGS. This week my guest is novelist and playwright ALAN BISSETT. I caught up with Alan on the night of his show in Newtonhill where he was performing his widely acclaimed one man play's 'The Moira Monologues' and 'More Moira'. Me and Alan talked about Moira, Scottish literature, Alan's novels, 'The Catcher in the Rye', 'American Psycho' and of course mental health. Thanks Alan! Keep up with Alan: Twitter: @moiramonologues  www.alanbissett.com

With author Jess Townsend Red Szell explores Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow. Robert Kirkwood looks forward to AyeWrite!, Glasgow's Book Festival with Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, Louise Welsh, Zoe Strachan and Alan Bissett. A listener recommends a tale of heroism and blindness in the face on 9/11 and Red reviews The Transition by Luke Kennard. Contact the show on readonair@rnib.org.uk

TravCast is the podcast from the Traverse, Scotland’s new writing theatre. Literary Associate, Rosie Kellagher, interviews well known playwrights and theatre-makers whose work features in the year round programme at the Traverse. In this episode, Rosie Speaks to Alan Bissett. Alan is a playwright, novelist and performer who grew up in Falkirk and now lives in Renfrewshire. His novels include Boyracers, Death of a Ladies’ Man and Pack Men and his plays, many of which have been made in collaboration with director Sacha Kyle, include The Ching Room, Turbo Folk, The Pure, The Dead and The Brilliant, Ban This Filth!, The Red Hourglass and his ‘one-woman show’ The Moira Monologues, which has just finished a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe. He was Glenfiddich Scottish Writer of the Year in 2011 and, believe it or not, has a street in Falkirk named after him. Original music by James Iremonger www.jamesiremonger.co.uk Conceived, produced and engineered by Cian O Siochain

The Dust of Everyday Life is an annual conference exploring the arts, mental health and social justice, programmed by the Mental Health Foundation and See Me, Scotland's campaign to end mental health discrimination. This session from Dust 2016, at the CCA in Glasgow on Wednesday 20 April, was a discussion around One Thinks of It All as a Dream, a new play by Alan Bissett about the life of Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. Ahead of the play's premiere at the tenth Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. psychiatrist Dr Peter Byrne and writer/broadcaster John Cavanagh discuss some of the myths and misconceptions around Syd Barrett's life, while director Sacha Kyle and actors Andrew John Tait, George Brennan and Kieran Baker preview a short extract from the show.

My guest on this episode is renowned author, screenwriter and playwright Alan Bissett. If you don't know him from his excellent prose and theatre work then you may know him from how active he was for the Yes campaign during the 2014 Scottish Referendum.But to me, he's a novelist first and foremost. He'd probably disagree with that, yet that's how I got into his writing so I guess that'll always be my perception of him.When I began studying Scottish Literature in first year of university, I was motivated (in no small part by some weird sense of cultural nationalism) to spend the time away from the course texts  and to absorb other Scottish writers. Trainspotting is a book we're all familiar with, and naturally that happened to be the only Scottish novel that I'd read going into uni and the relatively older age of 24. That book then turned up as a course text in my first year because, well... why wouldn't it?Re-reading it, and realising I had access to a huge library and a vast reservoir of Scots literary knowledge, I spent my time in between essays, exams and course texts pulling as many different books as I could from between the stacks of the Glasgow Uni library. I devoured Kelman, Crichton Smith, MacCaig, Gray, Spark and then moved onto more contemporary authors like Bissett, Louise Welsh and Robertson among others. Boyracers was one of the first contemporary novels I read.I went on to read Pack Men, as it was his most recent at the time, and then Death of a Ladies Man. Welsh was important to me because it demonstrated that people could write in Scots and "get away with it"; Kelman was vital to my literary development because it was the first novel I read in Glaswegian, and it contained characters the likes of which I'd met in my own scheme when growing up; but Bissett was more relevant, largely in part because I found it easier to identify with teenagers from Falkirk than I could with twenty-something heroin addicts in Leith or a blind guy in Glasgow. As I look back on that period of voracious reading, I now know it was because the community he depicts in Boyracers, and later again in Pack Men, is so similar to ones I know.This podcast is a very cerebral chat. I hope you don't find it too dense. Highlights include:Creativity always seemed natural, he kept coming back to that when he was youngCame to realise writing was a career when he was doing a PHd Being shortlisted for the Macallan Prize is when he realised writing was a thingComing from a TV household with no creative familyYou only start to realise the themes of your writing when people start to talk to you aboutScottish writing and the themes of identity of community, and how those mainly seem to come from writers who are not from the landed gentryHow Alan finds this to be more powerful and valuable than writing about rich people having drawing room affairsThe object of growing up is like to get out of your community and how that leads to a sense of guilt when you doHow current writers that he's been working with seem to reflect the difference in community now than in the generation before – Boyracers was filled with hope, but it's hope that the current generation of teenagers don't feelThere's a generation of young theatre makers like Steph Smith, Catrion Evans, Kiron Hurly, Gary McNair, Rob Drummond and Nick Green who are doing politically explicit workThe radical spirit that theatre had in the 70s with John McGrath etc feels like it's coming backYet it's harder for Scottish novelists to be political because of the global competitionIt's very difficult for political novels to get throughHow Late It Was, How Late was prophetic about the struggle people face with the DWP now, despite it being written in the mid 90sPeople want to escape reality instead of experience or read about what people actually feel say and doAmerican cultural colonisation is greater than ever despite the narratives of big media franchises like Game of Thrones or Marvel films not being culturally specificOur obsessions with these universal cultures mean that local cultures – their stories, dialects, art – are slowly being erased and neglectedBut that's not to say we should protect our cultures by allowing them to remain untouched, rather there should be cultural spaces where local culture still exist – we must preserve minority cultureIt's difficult to know what our default cultural tastes would be when entertainment is controlled by media conglomeratesThe artist's that feel that they have some kind of social responsibility at least signals that they are willing to make a stand that's bigger than just them as an individualWe get caught up in the rights of the individual above all else and it's not surprise because that's capitalism but we have to perverse the work that we doMoving to writing plays is as much about the economic reality of writing novels and how difficult it is to pay bills as a full time writer when it takes a long time to write a book Many novelists are stimulated into over production because of the fear of having their livelihood taken away from them, Alan can't work like thatThere's also an energy in Scottish theatre that wasn't quite there in Scottish literatureTheatre is more immediate but a novel is more powerful because of the mental experience is deeperYet a play can react quicker to current events whereas a novel takes timeThe full scale demolition of masculinity in Death of a Ladies ManThe alpha male pursuit to anoint great works of literatureAnd how that pursuit can be destructive, and the way that has affected the mental health of many great writes, such as James JoyceHowever ambition is required to power you through being creativeYet a lot of female writers have a completely different mindset, which often makes them better writersThe Caledonian Antisyzergy and the dual identity of Scots which is reflected in referendum resultThe referendum was Scotland finding out what it is was – Scotland doesn't know what it is or what it would spring towards whilst it's still part of the unionAlan finds that interviews aren't fun anymore because they talk about politics…So we make it fun by talking about MarvelAnd the seemingly infinite expansion of franchisesWe have a shared love for blockbuster moves despite them being more disposable than everAlan's favourite film is Jaws and compared to current CGI films, it feels so handmadeThe shift in the 70s in blockbuster films which shook everything up in terms of how big budget films are made, and how that shift would not happen now because of CGIWe agree Marvel Studios are good at retaining artists' singular vision in a big budget blockbuster settingDisney used to feel like a benign company that used to make kids films every year, and now they seem to run HollywoodThere are, however, more nourishing forms of entertainmentWHY ARE ADULTS WATCHING KIDS FILMS?! And whey to complain about them when they're not FOR adults?Society aims to keep us in a state of permanent adolescence Some Scottish Literature chat – James Robertson is a genius, he's so far ahead of every other Scottish author. Also, Louise Welsh, Kirsty Logan, John Niven, Sophie Sexton, William Letford, Richie McCafferty, Laura Marney, Rodge Glass, Zoe Strachan are all people to watchAlso James Hogg – Confessions of a Justified Sinner is ESSENTIAL literatureLots of show notes here. Apologies for the length of the post. I hope you enjoy the episode!Featured MusicIntro: Voodoo Puppets – Electric Chair Blues (used under CC licence, you can check it out here).Suede - The Next LifePink Floyd - Comfortably NumbMartyn Bennett - MoveAll music can be purchased on iTunes and the digital retailer of your choice. Or in a record store. You know they still exist, right? I make no claim to the copyright of these tracks.LinksGo buy any of Alan's books from a book store. A bricks and mortar one. That'd be well good.You can see his website here to see what he's upto in the theatre world. His twitter and facebook are also pretty cool.Thank you!My thanks are eternal to you and everyone else who has listened to the podcast and helped me get it to where it is. If you could take a second to rate and review this podcast on iTunes I'd love you forever and ever.Questions? Feedback?You can do either by dropping a comment in the comment box below.Or you can hit the contact link to show me some love by using the cool email form.Social MediaI'm on a few social media sites, so it'd be pretty handy if you could show me some love over there.Check out the Facebook page.Or you can get me on Twitter.Oh and seriously, rating and reviewing this podcast on iTunes would be amazing. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alan Bissett is the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Writer of the Year 2011. He was born in 1975 in Falkirk, Scotland. David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, re-released, was at Number One in the charts that week. He grew up in Hallglen, a housing scheme on the outskirts of the town and the setting for much of his later work, attending Hallglen Primary School, Falkirk High School, and then Stirling University, where he studied English. After graduating he worked very briefly as an English teacher, before deciding to study for a PhD, supporting himself by selling books in Waterstones. He didn’t get the PhD, but he did publish his debut novel.

Sailors Fighting In The Dancehall The Braveheart Myth With Linda McLean, Kieran Hurley, Jenny Lindsay, Fiona Watson, Alan Bissett, Colin McGuire, Seafieldroad.

Thrawn Janet by Robert Louis Stevenson is read by Alan Bissett

This is a special edition of the podcast featuring some music, some opinions from the crowd and some of the speeches from the Independence Rally in Edinburgh on 21st September 2014.The idea is to give those of you who were there a nice little keepsake of it, and for those like me who were unfortunate enough not to be able to make it, to give an idea of what went on.I'm well aware of course that the best thing about going to this type of political event is not the speeches, but rather the people you meet and the camaraderie. However, it's quite difficult to put that onto an MP3 so this is the best I can do for the podcast!There are many speakers featured including four who have featured on the podcast before (Carolyn Leckie, Patrick Harvie, Colin Fox, Alan Bissett). There were also contributions from Elaine C Smith, Hardeep Singh Kholi and many others.Songs include work by Citizen Smart, as well as someone playing in the street!Hope you enjoy...

In the 1990s, author Alan Bissett was a lad and women were 'birds'. In a frank and personal account, Alan talks about why he turned to the work of the late American radical feminist Andrea Dworkin after becoming concerned over his use of internet pornography. He dissects elements of what he describes as our "sex saturated culture" and argues that men need to start engaging with feminism for the good of all. Four Thought is a series of talks which combine new ideas and personal stories. Recorded during the Edinburgh festival, speakers explain their thinking on the trends and ideas in culture and society in front of a live audience. Producer: Caitlin Smith.

Yesterday, for episode 21 of the Scottish Independence Podcast I spoke with Scottish writer Alan Bissett.Alan is the author of numerous books and plays but made an entrance onto the political scene, and in particular the debate surrounding the Independence Referendum, with the publication of his poem Vote Britain, which almost immediately went viral.Since then he has been speaking at many campaign events as well as writing for websites such as Bella Caledonia and National Collective.In our conversation we mulled over why Alan supports Indy, how Vote Britain was written and the reaction to it and about the difficulties that expressing things in a way that might be considered too Scottish might bring for a writer or artist. This neatly led us on to the manufactured hullaballoo regarding Alasdair Gray's comments on the lack of Scots leading Scottish cultural institution and some ideas on James Kelman too.Furthermore, we talked about Alan entering into some debates on the subject of feminism and how this can be tricky territory for those born with a y chromosome.Finally, we talked about what Alan has coming up at the Edinburgh festival in the summer.Hope you enjoy…LINKShttp://alanbissett.com/http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.comhttps://twitter.com/mgreenwellhttps://twitter.com/alanbissett

This episode is a mix of the speeches from the Rally For Independence in Edinburgh on the 22nd September 2012

The fifth Scots Whay Hae! podcast is an hour of interview with novelist, playwright, and performer Alan Bissett...

The young men of Scottish literature are growing up and taking us with them! Both talk about their latest books in this event: Alan Bissett about Death of a Ladies? Man where his boy racer discovers a life of work, sex and love; and Ewan Morrison picks apart the complexities of contemporary relationships in his latest, Menage.