A complete recording of the opening seminar of the second season of the Emerging Critics programme is now available. Held at the National Library of Scotland on April 25th, 2018, the seminar saw a group of sixteen new participants and mentors gather for panel discussions on the present and future of...

A Scottish Review of Books podcast with live recording of 'Muriel Spark: The Crème de la Crème' at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh

From the wider world of literary podcasts: Listen to author Alan Taylor and critic Philip Hensher as they talk about Spark’s life, legacy, special strengths as a novelist – and the mystique that continues to surround the Scottish-born, Tuscan dwelling author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. ...

From time to time we at Scottish Review of Books like to point you in the directions of strong podcasts from across the literary scene in Scotland. Try this one for size: A regular podcast presented by Vikki Reilly and Kristian Kerr of Birlinn Ltd. Travelling the highways and byways of Scottish literature. ...

Editor Alan Taylor talks with Kristian Kerr about the August 2017 issue of the Scottish Review of Books, published on the eve of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. They talk Douglas Dunn’s new poetry collection, James Kelman as a short-story writer, Louise Welsh, Jessie Kesson and more.

Kristian Kerr talks with Emerging Critics mentor Dave Coates about expanding review coverage to include a variety of voices, challenging our conscious and unconscious biases as readers and writers, connections between academic and journalistic literary criticism, and the knotty issue of money. Listem...

In this episode David Robinson tells Kristian Kerr about his first meeting with his four mentees, who have been writing reviews of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Discussion topics include writing for the public, keeping a reader’s attention, reading each other’s work and being confident without...

Kristian Kerr talks with Emerging Critics mentor and Creative Scotland Literature Officer Kaite Welsh. Kaite offers perspectives on reviewing for print and online platforms and the complementary relationship between the two. Other areas of conversation include pitching to editors and the editorial process;...

This conversation with Literary Editor Rosemary Goring offers perspective on the current practice of reviewing. Rosemary and Kristian discuss criticism as surgical and precise as well as being more broadly diagnostic of the health of a culture. The conversation ranges across the health of the profession...

Editor Alan Taylor and Kristian Kerr discuss the Emerging Critics Programme, a partnership between the SRB and Creative Scotland, established to mentor new voices in cultural criticism. Topics include the state of criticism in Scotland today, the centrality of newspapers to cultural commentary, how...