Writing features H-M

Choman Hardi Interview
This interview was conducted at the Edinburgh Debut Writers Festival, 4 June 2005. CHOMAN HARDI is an established Kurdish poet who has recently completed her first English language collection, Life For Us.
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A Biographer Forever
The joys of researching for an historical biography, and in particular the discovery of the lives of William and Catherine Booth, he the founder of the Salvation Army and she the wife who made it all work. By ROY HATTERSLEY.
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Hamish Henderson Interview
The great Scottish folklorist, poet and song-writer, HAMISH HENDERSON, interviewed in 1987, by Jennie Renton.
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Well Pressed
An apprasial of Paul Hilton's Caryddwen's Cauldron and Ellis Sharp's Unbelievable Things by Scottish writer JOHN HERDMAN.
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Dancing Across the Border: An Adult Reading of Lorna Hill
Frederick Lewis considers the ballet books of LORNA HILL - the Sadler's Wells and Dancing Peel series - and the memories they awake in him.
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Matthew Hollis Interview
MATTHEW HOLLIS was at the Edinburgh Debut Writers Festival exultant about his first poetry collection, Ground Water. Interview by Benjamin Morris.
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Talking a Torrent
In 2001 Jennie Renton met Richard Horne (better known as author, illustrator and political cartoonist HARRY HORSE). He talked a torrent about his influences and sources of inspiration, not least his wife Mandy.
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Never Stop
SELINA HOSSAIN is one of Bangladesh's most prolific and vocal writers. In this short audio interview she outlines her social activist credentials.
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Slipping Through the Cracks
Jennie Renton chats with MJ HYLAND about her first novel, How the Light Gets In.
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Stitched Up
A few words on the art and craft of pamphleteering by ROBERT ALAN JAMIESON, Course Director of Creative Writing at Edinburgh University.
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Hellenic Hush
Derived from an interview between Jennie Renton and Scottish crime writer PAUL JOHNSTON, he discusses his latest novel The Golden Silence, the third involving half-Greek half-Scot private eye Alex Mavros, and muses upon the contradictions of modern and ancient Greece.
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The Beetle I Like Best
Julie Balazs muses on The Burying Beetle by ANN KELLEY, and tries to work out why it is her favourite book, and to explain why it should be our favourite too.
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Just Law
HELENA KENNEDY is one of Britain's leading lawyers. She has spent her professional life championing civil liberties, promoting human rights and stimulating open, spirited, and thoughtful public debate of issues concerning the relationship between the individual and the law.
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Poetry of Love and Death
Tasmanian poet KAREN KNIGHT reflects on her early development as a poet, influences that range from Dylan Thomas to Pink Floyd.
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Karen Knight Author Reading
Tasmanian poet KAREN KNIGHT reads from her work, opening with a poem from a sequence about Walt Whitman.
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Murder in a Landscape
ANNIE LAMB discusses the process of creating a fictional setting for a novel, in particular the effects of landscape on crime fiction.
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Aquarius Fellow
Poet EDDIE LINDEN founded and edited Aquarius, a groundbreaking literary magazine. Over a hundred writers and artists paid their respects in an amazing festschrift. Jennie Renton discovers a man still sparking with electric attitude.
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Mischief Maker
Big Word co-ordinator JENNY LINDSAY talks about gender politics, observational rants and how the theft of her keyboard helped her get into performing her own poetry.
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Maurice Lindsay Interview
Senior man of Scottish letters MAURICE LINDSAY has spent the best part of sixty years pursuing a career as a writer, poet and broadcaster. A bibliophile from an early age, he remembers early inspirations, as well as later embarrassments. This interview with Jennie Renton from the Scottish Book Collector archive took place in 2000.
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Anthologising American Poetry
You can't include all of the poets all of the time, as poetry editors know all too well. Decisions and revisions that a moment won't reverse have to be made. MICHAEL LISTER discusses the newly published The Oxford Book of American Poetry in the light of the criteria of earlier editors.
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Writing Young
Michael Lister gives a retrospect on MURIEL SPARK, a writer of genius, pioneering novelist and short story writer.
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StAnza 
StAnza celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. Running over five days in St Andrews, it focuses on the two themes of homeland and exile and poetry and the moving image. In this audio interview Artistic Director, ELEANOR LIVINGSTONE, discusses the programme of events.
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Norman MacCaig: An Interview
The very first interview to appear in Scottish Book Collector, in August 1987, features Textualities editor Jennie Renton in conversation with NORMAN MACCAIG, whose condensed lyrical poetry marked him out as one of the most significant and enduring poetic voices of the twentieth century.
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Colin MacKay 1951-2003
An obituary of COLIN MACKAY, written by Jennie Renton following his suicide in 2003.
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Shena Mackay Interview
SHENA MACKAY discusses her formative influences with fellow writer Ruth Thomas.
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Love, Loss and Language
Author and dermatologist ANNE MACLEOD in conversation with her editor Jennie Renton about her new novel, The Blue Moon Book.
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Alistair MacLeod Interviewed
Margaret Atwood has described ALISTAIR MACLEOD as a wonderfully talented writer. His short stories, which have appeared in every English speaking country, and his novel No Great Mischief draw from the well of Scots-Canadian experience. In this archive interview, he speaks with Jennie Renton.
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Aonghas Macneacail in Interview
AONGHAS MACNEACAIL was born in Uig in 1942 and currently lives in Edinburgh. Poet, journalist, researcher, broadcaster and scriptwriter, he writes both in English and Gaelic. Here, in conversation with Robert Mullally in May 1994, he talks mainly about the genesis of his identity as a Gaelic poet. He was later to win the Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year with Oideachadh Ceart (A Proper Schooling), his third poetry collection, in 1997.
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Supporting the Arts
Writer and stand up comedian IAN MACPHERSON takes a wry look at arts subsidy.
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Yann Martel Interview
YANN MARTEL was interviewed by Textualities editor Jennie Renton a few months before his debut novel Life of Pi won the Man Booker Prize.
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Glyn Maxwell Interview
Jennie Renton interviews GLYN MAXWELL at Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2005. They discuss his new poetry collection, The Sugar Mile, which comprises a series of narrative voices comparing the attack on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 with the first daylight raid of the London Blitz in September 1940.
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Numbercrunching
The poet BRIAN McCABE on numbers and words, on the importance of mathematics and those who obsess over numbers.
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Philistinism and Cultural Revolution
Teacher and educational activist TONY MCMANUS made an incisive analysis of the failings of the Scottish education system. His argument for cultural renewal was informed by a deep knowledge of and engagement with Scottish and wider European culture.
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Walking the Walk
There are plans to bring more of the wonderful poetry of TONY MCMANUS into print. In this audio interview, his niece Catherine Murray reads one of his poems and discusses the significance of his work.
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Wigtown Ploughman
Rosemary Baker takes a retrospective look at JOHN McNEILLIE's often shocking novel of Scottish rural life, Wigtown Ploughman, his first book, published when he was only 22.
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When Naomi met Doris
Greg Michaelson discusses the lives and works of NAOMI MITCHISON and DORIS LESSING, and the friendship that sprang up between them.
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Remebering El Otro Lado
Creative writing student AMANDA MOODY gives her thoughts on Edinburgh's El Otro Lado conference, a celebration of work by contemporary Latina and Chicana writers, which took place between Thursday 23 and Saturday 25 March 2006. As an inheritor of this nascent literary legacy - a member of the next generation of the Chicana movement - the conference had a special resonance for Amanda.
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A Punt on the Solway
Moved to reprint the scarce nineteenth title, Annals of the Solway, MICHAEL MOON unexpectedly finds himself straying into the seedy world of Soho bookselling.
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Les Murray Interview
Textualities editor Jennie Renton interviews Australian poet LES MURRAY. They discuss his new book, Hell and After, a collection of poems by four nineteenth century Australian poets. Murray also gives his views on Scottish literature and the state of Australian publishing.
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