Podcast appearances and mentions of william letford

The Written World was the Scottish Poetry Library's London 2012 project. To mark the Olympics, we launched a scheme to find a poem for each of the 204 countries taking part, which were then broadcast on BBC Radio. In October 2012, with the project over, we took the chance to look back on The Written World with its project manager Sarah Stewart. We also talked to Richard Price, whose poem ‘Hedge Sparrows' was chosen to represent Team GB, and William Letford, who the SPL asked to write a poem marking the end of the tournament. A trio of poets is rounded out by Mariama Khan, a poet representing Gambia at Poetry Parnassus, another international event linked to the Olympics.

It's girl power this morning here at Talk Media Control. Eamonn is hopefully safe and well in Spain this week and not being chased down a cobbled street by a bull!!!!! At the end of the Show a question from Ian MacKinnon. Recommendations: Ruth Homecoming: The Scottish Years of Mary, Queen of Scots - Rosemary Goring In this book, Rosemary Goring tells the story of Mary's Scottish years through the often dramatic and atmospheric locations and settings where the events that shaped her life took place and also examines the part Scotland, and its tumultuous court and culture, played in her downfall. Whether or not Mary Stuart emerges blameless or guilty, in this evocative retelling she can be seen for who she really was. https://www.waterstones.com/book/from-our-own-fire/william-letford/9781800173439 - William Letford This prose and poetry tour de force of storytelling has the narrative punch of a novel. It is a new departure for the poet, and for poetry itself. It takes the reader into the not-too-distant future: an artificial intelligence rules the world, and a working-class family use their wits to live off the land. William Letford blends prose and his inimitable poetry: sci-fi and hunter-gatherer are merged into a coherent story in the pages of a stonemason's journal. Americast - BBC Sounds Shona Dancing for the Devil - Netflix After TikTok dancers join a management company and its associated church, unsettling details about the founder and their dark realities come to light. Catriona AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders - Netflix Follow the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders from auditions to training camp and the NFL season as they chase their dreams and a coveted spot on the squad.

Nicholas Lezard called William Letford ‘the new Scottish genius', a judgement the SPL is not inclined to disagree with. With a new collection, Dirt (Carcanet), in the shops, we thought it was a good time to catch up with him. We discussed how India changed his life and poetry, whether he's funnier in Scots, and the influence of work.

This week on The Verb we're thinking about the language of repair. Ian McMillan and guests discuss poetry's ability to heal, putting literary puzzles back together again, finding what was once lost, and the often impenetrable vocabularies of 'getting stuff fixed'. Ian is joined by Chris McCabe, poet and National Poetry Librarian. During lockdown the Southbank Centre's National Poetry Library ran the 'lost quotes' service, reuniting remembered fragments of poems with the rest of the text. His latest book is 'Buried Garden', in which he searches for the lost poets of Stoke Newington's Abney Park Cemetery, hoping to revive their forgotten words. Mona Arshi has just published 'Somebody Loves You', a poetic novel about a young girl who chooses silence as a protective mechanism when everything around her feels fragile. The poet William Letford used to be a roofer, and he's written a brand new poem especially for The Verb about returning to his old profession to help out family. And Kate Fox considers repair and the meaning of home. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Jessica Treen

Ian McMillan peers into the pop-up tent that is 'festival' writing with Murray Lachlan Young - he introduces new fiction from Louise Welsh, new poetry from William Letford and Hollie McNish joins the programme to explore, in conversation with Dr Peter Mackay, the kind of festive language and rituals associated with Scots Gaelic literature. Ian is also joined by Professor Sarah Churchwell to unpick the language of the great American novelist Philip Roth - who died this week - and to celebrate not only the meaning, but the sound and texture of Roth's sentences. Roth's best-known novels include the darkly comic 'Portnoy's Complaint' and the Pulitzer Prize winning 'American Pastoral'.

Nicholas Lezard called William Letford 'the new Scottish genius', a judgement the SPL is not inclined to disagree with. With a new collection, Dirt (Carcanet), in the shops, we thought it was a good time to catch up with him. We discussed how India changed his life and poetry, whether he's funnier in Scots and the influence of work.

A regular podcast presented by Vikki Reilly and Kristian Kerr of Birlinn Ltd. Travelling the highways and byways of Scottish literature. In the first episode of a new podcast about Scottish books, Vikki Reilly and Kristian Kerr of Birlinn Ltd discuss Robert Burns' Kilmarnock Edition of Poems, 'Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'. Helping them celebrate the work of Burns are historian, Christopher Whatley and poet William Letford. Join in the conversation on Twitter: (url for Birlinn Twitter page) And Facebook: (url for Birlinn Facebook page)

We were thrilled to open the 2016 Festival with two of the most powerful young voices in British poetry. Sarah Howe's debut collection Loop of Jade won the 2016 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry and was described as ‘original, exquisite, erudite and adventurous.’ Stirling-born William Letford has been dubbed by Guardian critic Nicholas Lezard as 'the new Scottish genius'. He launched his highly anticipated second collection, Dirt. Recorded live at the 2016 Edinburgh International Book Festival.

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.

In this edition of Book Talk host Ryan Van Winkle takes us on a literary trip around the world, stopping off in Roman Britain, on the River Nile and in the Middle East.Charlotte Higgins is the author of Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain. Having travelled around Britain in a campervan, Charlotte talks to Ryan about how the idea of Roman Britain has resonated throughout British culture since the end of Roman rule and what it means to us now.If you'd like to head out on your own journey of discovery, she gives some suggestions of where to find some of the best Roman remains in Scotland and where you can find out more about the Roman history in Scotland.We then move to Eqypt to talk to Robert Twigger, author of Red Nile: The Biography of the World's Greatest River. Robert talks about the challenges of writing an autobiography of an inanimate object and, given the phenomenal history of the subject, how to decide what to focus on. Robert tells some of the stories associated with the Nile, including Caliph Al-Hakim's unconventional approach to keeping his neighbourhood quiet and free of dogs.Finally, we head to the Middle East to look at two new anthologies of Palestinian and Kurdish/Iraqi contemporary poetry translated into Scots and English. Poet Liz Niven discusses A Bird is Not a Stone, featuring Scots and English translations of Palestinian poetry from some of Scotland's most acclaimed poets and Iraqi Kurdish poet Awezan Nouri and Scottish poet William Letford discuss This Room is Waiting is an anthology of contemporary poetry from Iraq.Podcast contents00:00-01:04 Introduction01:04-11:06 Charlotte Higgins interview 11:06-18:52 Robert Twigger 18:52-22:56 Liz Niven interview 22:56-29:12 Awezan Nouri and William Letford interview

In January this year Reel Festivals http://reelfestivals.org organised a series of events and translation workshops in Erbil, Iraq with Scottish and Iraqi poets. They then came over to Scotland in March (with one exception) and gave readings of the translations they had worked on earlier in the year. This podcast features all of the participants talking about their experience and reading from a selection of the translations and includes the following poets: John Glenday, Jen Hadfield, Ghareeb Iskander, William Letford, Krystelle Bamford, Awezan Nouri, Sabreen Kadhim, Zaher Mousa with support from Dina Mousawi and Lauren Pyott. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable. Produced by Colin Fraser @kailworm of Culture Laser Productions http://culturelaser.com @culturelaser. Music by Khyam Allami.

The Written World is the Scottish Poetry Library's London 2012 project. To mark the Olympics, we launched a scheme to find a poem for each of the 204 countries taking part, which were then broadcast on BBC Radio. With the project over now, we take the chance to look back on The Written World with its project manager Sarah Stewart. We also talk to Richard Price, whose poem 'Hedge Sparrows' was chosen to represent Team GB, and William Letford, who the SPL asked to write a poem marking the end of the tournament. A trio of poets is rounded out by Mariama Khan, a poet representing Gambia at Poetry Parnassus, another international event linked to the Olympics. Photo of Richard Price performing at the Written World closing party courtesy of Chris Scott. Music by William Campbell.

With Mark Lawson. Sheridan Smith takes the lead role in the new ITV1 drama series Mrs Biggs, which focuses on the story of Charmian, the wife of notorious train robber Ronnie Biggs. It follows her as she falls in love with Ronnie, discovers his role in the Great Train Robbery, and then secretly emigrates to Australia with him. Sarah Crompton reviews. The American author Joyce Carol Oates discusses her prolific writing career, and how her memoir about becoming a widow brought new readers with different reactions to her work. She also reflects on America's great post-war writers. Toby Jones (Frost/Nixon, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games) stars in the film Berberian Sound Studio, directed by Peter Strickland. Jones plays a mild-mannered sound effects specialist, whose work on a 1970s Italian horror film finds him stuck in a small room with only the grisly and sinister sounds for company. Critic Mark Eccleston gives his verdict. William Letford discusses his debut poetry collection Bevel, and how his work as a roofer since the age of 15 has inspired his writing. Letford often inscribed poems onto the joists of the roofs he worked on. Producer Ella-mai Robey.

In an eclectic episode, we talk to exciting new poet William Letford, recent winner of the Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary, about memorising your work and the art of roofing. We also catch up with SPL podcast favourite Jim Carruth, who tells us about his 1959 jazz project. And we speak to My Kappa Roots and discuss poetry and music, as well as get the chance to listen to his track "Fleeting Like Etain". Presented by Ryan van Winkle. Produced by Colin Fraser. Music by Ewen Maclean. Twitter: @byleaveswelive & @anonpoetry. Mail: splpodcast@gmail.com