Culture Laser

We talk to poet, novelist, sailor and storyteller Ian Stephen about one of his unfinished projects on today's episode as well as revisit a vintage interview with the poet and activist Mandy Haggith about her book on the paper industry, Paper Trails. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable and produced by Colin Fraser @kailworm of Culture Laser Productions @culturelaser http://www.culturelaser.com

To mark the retirement of one Scotland's last full time literary critics, we're featuring short interviews with Lesley Glaister, Francis Bickmore, Jenny Brown and Claire Stewart on the future of criticism. And we're also including one of our favourite interviews from the CL archives - with playwright Jo Clifford. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable and produced by Colin Fraser @kailworm of Culture Laser Productions @culturelaser http://www.culturelaser.com. We acknowledge Creative Scotland funding for our 2014 season.

We're at StAnza this weekend and caught up with two Poet Laureates about some of the projects they have abandoned - Glasgow Makar Jim Carruth and Edinburgh Makar Christine De Luca. We also feature our interview with writer & theatre maker Hannah Silva that we recorded at StAnza a couple of years ago. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle @rvwable and produced by Colin Fraser @kailworm of Culture Laser Productions @culturelaser http://www.culturelaser.com We acknowledge the financial support of Creative Scotland for our 2014 season,

We decided to try something new on the Laser this week and so invited two artists - musician Billy Liar www.billyliarmusic.com/ and designer Emily Millichip http://www.emilymillichip.com - to discuss their unfinished projects with us. Also we're featuring our interview with novelists Ben Marcus and Mark Z Danielewski that we recorded last year in the stacks of the Mitchell Library at the Aye Write festival in Glasgow. Culture Laser acknowledges the financial support of Creative Scotland for its 2014 season. Presented by Ryan Van Winkle and produced by Colin Fraser of Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

We revisit our chat with Helen Feng of Nova Heart on CL2. Helen talks music, politics, disco and happiness. Featuring tracks from their EP Beautiful Boys. Check out their new album on their website: http://www.nova-heart.com Culture Laser acknowledges the generous assistance of Creative Scotland in the production of this episode.