Pic credit: Becky Duncan
For the latest podcast Ali spoke to writer Kirstin Innes about her acclaimed novel Scabby Queen. The two discuss the origins of the title and why it fits with the structure of the book, where the initial idea came from, who and what inspired her characters, and how the central figure of Clio Campbell drives events despite being absent for much of the book.
Kirstin also talks about how writing the novel helped her to make sense of recent and current events, the importance of close-editing in a non-linear narrative, her experience of being published while Covid19 plays out, her reaction to how the book has been received, and a whole lot more.
Scabby Queen is destined to be one of the most talked about novels of 2020 and it’s fascinating to hear about it from the author’s perspective.
Scabby Queen is available now published by 4th Estate.
You can read the SWH! review of Scabby Queen.
If you are new to the Scots Whay Hae! podcast there is quite a substantial back-catalogue for you to discover. If you aren’t yet a subscriber you can do so, (or simply listen) at iTunes, on Podbean, with Spotify, by RSS (but you’ll need to have an RSS reader to do so) or on MixCloud.
You can also download the podcast by clicking on the relevant link to the right of this post, or, if you want it right here, right now, you can listen on SoundCloud…
..or on YouTube…
We will continue to bring you many and varied SWH! podcasts in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime you can always check out our back catalogue of over 150 interviews with some of the most interesting names in Scottish culture, including our Scottish Opera series and the Glasgow Film Festival 2020 podcasts.