CHOOSE LIFE. CHOOSE LEITH

CHOOSE LIFE. CHOOSE LEITH

I’m spending my last weekend as an unpublished author. The final proof is away to the printer, the launch party is on Thursday – come if you can – and August will be busy with three Trainspotting tours a week. If you’ve been on a tour you’ll recognise the front cover....
Of tours and books.

Of tours and books.

Well, wasn’t that a good Leith Festival? It’s lovely to see everyone out and enjoying the cosmopolitan community that Leith is. On a personal note, thanks to everyone who came on the Trainspotting tours, about forty over three evenings. The tours are...

Drafting drafts…

On a tour with some young Americans the other day I told them that The Scotsman wonders if Welsh can repeat the trick of changing national discourse in the field of American gun culture (see previous blogs). One bright young girl said she wasn’t sure if it was...

Plugspotting

Slightly to my surprise, The Scotsman published my letter and here: In your editorial Gunspotting (24 March) you credit Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting with as much influence on public discourse in its subject areas as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Grapes of Wrath and 1984 were...

Gunspotting

The “authorities”, or the “establishment”, are really changing their tune about Irvine Welsh. Twenty years ago he was a flash-in-the-pan author with a foul mind who celebrated hard drugs. Now that he has said his next work of fiction is to be...