Terri White, author of Coming Undone on how the pain and visibility of her tattoos helped her.

“Each tattoo was a fresh start. The needle that pounded and pricked, the ink that was dragged down into the dermis. My skin was reimagined, quite literally redrawn. When I looked in the mirror, when others looked at me, I was no longer the girl who was pared and peeled. I was the woman who said: ‘No more, never again. You won’t claim me, you can’t, because I’ve claimed myself.’”

Terri White has started a new Coming Undone podcast, named for her memoir, which is out in paperback tomorrow! In it she talks to people about their stories of struggle, and of putting themselves back together. The first episode is an interview with the Rev. Richard Coles. Download the podcast now, or listen on Spotify.

“It’s quite volatile, the photography scene [compared to] the canon in literature… the history of photography is always having to get written.”

Geoff Dyer in the Irish Times on his new book, See/Saw.

‘“I would read an excerpt in Edinburgh and the idea of Mrs Death would be met with a cheer and a ‘yay!’. And exactly the same excerpt down in Bloomsbury [would have] everyone crying, me crying, big hugs at the end … What it has got me thinking is, I wonder if there is a geography of mourning, a geography of grief.” All the reactions are welcome, though. She still thinks one of the scariest things about death is that it is so often surrounded by silence.’

Taboo-busting poet Salena Godden talks to the Guardian about her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death, missing performing and why Brits struggle to speak about her novel’s all too timely subject.

“You should read this collection at least twice. The first time, horse it into you—then study the technique.”

Naoise Dolan reviews That Old Country Music in The Stinging Fly.

“One of the great Scottish crime writers is back”: The April Dead by Alan Parks is crime Book of the Month in The Times.

“I would think to myself, why do some people rise up and fight while others do nothing?” she said. “Are people justified in doing anything and everything possible for the sake of justice? How do we balance our desire to fight for change against our desire to protect the ones we love? These are questions the characters have to deal with. I do not have answers — I much prefer to ask questions.”

Imbolo Mbue discusses her new novel How Beautiful We Were in the New York Times.

To celebrate the first ever Gray Day – a celebration of the life and work of Alasdair Gray on 25th February 2021 – there will be a special Gray Day Broadcast, featuring guests like Ali Smith, Yann Martel, Gemma Cairney, Irvine Welsh, Ewen Bremner and more to be announced!

[update: Now that the Broadcast has run it is still available to view.]

‘It moves at an exhilarating lick, as befits its pop culture propensities, but with highbrow sensibilities, its concerns including the Kabbalah, whether the world is made of words, the origins of the alphabet, the mythopoetic nature of the hero’s journey and what angels look like … the genius of the book is that despite it seeming like an elegant orrery, all these wheels within wheels are a carapace, a psychic armour against a grief (and it’s not the grief you were expecting). Beneath this truly beautiful astrolabe is a beating human heart’