Transcript for #PerthshireHour 19th April 2023: Soutar Festival of Words

Hello and welcome to the Perthshire Hour podcast for the 19th of April, 2023. We took a bit of a break last week. My house is basically upside down as I’ve been doing some renovations. Probably not exactly relevant to the podcast, but hopefully that explains why there’s a missing episode in the podcast list.

What the PerthshireHour podcast is/does

To begin, I thought it’d be worth reiterating the basic idea behind the PerthshireHour podcast. Perthshire Hour started a number of years ago as a regular community event on Twitter every Wednesday between 8-9pm.

I didn’t start it. The originator of the PerthshireHour event was The Sorting Office and it was a great thing to be part of. Back then I simply contributed content and interacted using the hashtag. It was a fantastic way to highlight what you were doing as an individual if you were a creative. I write children’s books, so I used the #PerthshireHour hashtag to highlight what I was up to and get feedback.

It was also a great venue for local businesses to share what they were up to. The idea behind revamping it was to attempt to get something of this original experience back. The world of social media has changed a lot over the past five years so I’ve done a few things to try and make up for these changes.

Less people seem to be engaging on Twitter so there’s now a PerthshireHour WhatsApp group too (you can join by emailing me here). On top of this there’s the podcast which is intended to offer a weekly account of what’s being discussed in the community (among other things).

Both the WhatsApp group and the podcast are only as good as the community it engages with though. With this in mind, if you live in or around Perthshire, if you are a business owner, if you run an organization, if you are employed within an organization or business and you represent them in some way, or if you’re a creative (whether that takes the form of literary creativity, music, fine art, or whatever type of creativity you’re involved in).

The idea of this podcast is to give people a venue to discuss what they’re up to. So if you have things that are going on in your business or organization and you would like to get that out into the public there’s a place for that.

The PerthshireHour podcast has a reasonable number of regular listeners now. What’s more, your information will be listened to by people that might not be fully aware of who you are or what you do. On top of your normal social media activity, the podcast is there as a means of spreading the net a little wider. After all, it never hurts to have another place where people can find out about what you’re up to.

If you do feel inclined to tell your story or tell us about an event please get in touch.

This week’s story: The Soutar Festival of Words 2023

So for tonight’s episode, we are basically going to highlight the Soutar Festival of Words that’s going on in Perth in a couple of weeks (from the 28th till the 30th of April, 2023). The festival includes a number of different events and I have the Perth Theater and Concert Hall website to thank for most of the information shared in this week’s episode

William Soutar

However, to start with, I thought I’d maybe just do a quick summary about William Soutar. (Information gathered via the Scottish Poetry Library).

William Soutar was born in Perth in 1898. During the Great War, he enlisted in the Royal Navy primarily performing convoy and escoprt duties. He completed his service in a naval hospital as he was beginning to feel the effects of a condition that would change his life completely.

Despite his medical issues he decided to go ahead with his university studies, originally studying medicine, but settling on the study of literature instead.

His degenerative medical condition continued to trouble him and was eventually found to be a form of spondylitis (a type of chronic arthritis which troubles the joints of the spine). This got worse over the course of his life, eventually leaving him bedbound. However, while in his bed, he created a huge range of poetry, predominantly in Scots, and went on to have a massive influence on the regeneration of Scots language poetry in Scotland.

The Soutar Festival of Words 2023

As a celebration of William Soutar the Soutar festival has been named after him. Information on these events has been taken directly from the Perth Theater and Concert Hall website and is used here purely to publicise the event.

Please note that you can get a discount on tickets if you are going to five or more events within the festival. Check when booking tickets to five or more events to save 10% on the price of your tickets.

Plaid Song ‘Poems Intae Sangs’

Tickets:

Standard £11.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £6

Students/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £5

The first event within the festival is “Plaid Song ‘Poems Intae Sangs’”.This is a celebration of Scots poetry which has been adapted into song and will take part at the AK Bell Library.

Poems featured include pieces by Grizel Baillie (17th/18th century), Lady Nairne (18th/19th century), Robert Burns (18th century), and James Hogg.

This event is suitable for children. All children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.

Poetry Slam Competition and Performance by Kevin P Gilday

Tickets

Standard £11.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £6

Students/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £5

The second event that I’m gonna talk about is a mini poetry slam competition for young people aged 16 to 25, followed by a performance by the fantastic award-winning poet, writer, and performer Kevin P Gilday.

Kevin P Gilday is one of Scotland’s most celebrated contemporary poets. He has won multiple awards and has published five books of poetry. He also has extensive theatre experience, including writing, directing, and performing credits.

The age guidance for this event is 16 and up. As it’s a poetry slam competition for young people aged 16 to 25, you don’t know what kind of content might come up. Keep this in mind when booking tickets.

Graeme Macrae Burnet: Case Study

Fri 28 Apr 2023: 8:00pm AK Bell Library

Tickets

Standard £12.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £8

Student/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £6

Next up we have “Graeme Macrae Burnet: Case Study“. Graeme Macrae Burnet is among Britain’s leading contemporary novelists. In this event, he talks about his latest novel Case Study, which has been shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Awards, The Gordon Burn Prize, and The Ned Kelly Awards in Australia.

Case Study is a compelling novel that strikes a delicate balance between moments of sorrow and moments of levity. It tells the story of a woman who assumes a false identity in order to gain the confidence of an intriguing psychotherapist, convinced that the therapist played a role in her sister’s tragic suicide.

The age guidance for this event is 16 and up.

This event will also be available to watch via Zoom. You can find a link here to the Eventbrite website which explains how you can join this way.

Emma Grae: The Tongue She Speaks

Sat 29 Apr 2023: 11:30am AK Bell Library

Tickets

Standard £11.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £6

Student/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £5

Next up we have “Emma Grae: The Tongue She Speaks“. Join Emma Grae as she discusses her latest books and writings and what drives her to write the work that she does. This event focuses on her two bestselling novels (both in Scots); ‘Be Guid Tae Yer Mammy’ and ‘The Tongue She Speaks’. Emma will share her passion and advocacy for the Scots language and for breaking the stigma around mental illness.

Emma was recently awarded Book of the Year for her debut novel ‘Be Guid Tae Yer Mammy’ at the Scots Language Awards 2022 which was also shortlisted for the 2022 Fiction Saltire Award.

This event is suitable for Adults and Teens, 12 years and above.

Kirsty Logan: Now She Is Witch

Sat 29 Apr 2023: 3:00pm Perth Art Gallery

Tickets

Standard £11.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £6

Students/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £5

Don’t miss out on an engaging and informative hour with exceptional Scottish writer Kirsty Logan as she discusses her latest books, writings, and what drives her to write. Logan is the author of multiple award-winning books, including the Audible Original novel The Sound at the End (an ‘Arctic Ghost Story’). Her work has also been adapted for TV, stage, and other mediums.

Sara Sheridan and Kirsten MacQuarrie: Women’s Voices

The next event we’ll look at this evening is Sara Sheridan and Kirsten MacQuarrie: Women’s Voices.

Award-winning female writers, Sara Sheridan and Kirsten MacQuarrie, delve into the universality of the human condition and the challenges faced by women in their writing.

Sara’s latest book, The Fair Botanists, is a captivating tale set in 1822 Edinburgh. The story follows Elizabeth, a recent widow, as she arrives in Edinburgh in 1822 amidst the anticipation of King George IV’s visit. However, in botanical circles, a unique excitement is brewing as the newly-installed Botanic Garden prepares for the rare flowering of the Agave Americana plant, which only happens once every few decades.

Kirsten will speak about her forthcoming book and about her passion for writing about women’s stories.

The age guidance for this event is 16 and up.

There will also be a live option to watch on Zoom. In order to book an online ticket you can follow this link.

Fit’s Doric aa about?

Sun 30 Apr 2023: 4:00pm Perth Art Gallery

Tickets

Standard: £12.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £8

Student/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £6

Next up, we have “Fit’s Doric aa about?”.

Next we have “Fit’s Doric aa about?“. Award-winning poet and spoken-word artist Jo Gilbert and Scots Scriever Shane Strachan will perform a “best of” selection of their work in contemporary Doric.

This will be followed by a panel discussion with linguist Dr Dawn Leslie of the University of Aberdeen on the significance of writing in the North East dialect of Scots and its relationship to place and people today. It’s an event that promises to have the audience “…giggling and laughing alongside stimulating and insightful discussion”.

The age guidance for this event is 12 years and up

Sally Magnusson: Music In The Dark

Sun 30 Apr 2023: 5:30pm AK Bell Library

Tickets

Standard: £12.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £8

Student/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £6

Next up we have “Sally Magnusson: Music In The Dark“. ‘Music in the Dark’ tells the story of Jamesina Ross, a woman who has been scarred by the brutal Highland Clearances. One night a (seeming) stranger seeking lodgings comes knocking on her door and helps Jamesina confront her painful past, leading to an exploration of unlooked-for love in later life, resilience, and memory.

This is Sally Magnusson’s third novel and delves into the experiences of women who are often neglected by the historical record.

The age guidance for this event is 16 and up.

Alan Warner: Nothing Left To Fear From Hell

Sun 30 Apr 2023: 6:45pm AK Bell Library

Tickets

Standard: £12.50 (inc £2.50 booking fee per ticket)

Disabled £8

Student/Unwaged/Young Scot/Under 26s £6

Lastly, we have “Alan Warner: Nothing Left To Fear From Hell“. Alan Warner, an acclaimed Scottish novelist, will discuss his latest historical novel Nothing Left to Fear From Hell, published by Polygon as part of their Darkland Tales series. Warner is known for his award-winning novels including Morvern Callar and The Sopranos. The former has already been adapted to film and the latter will soon be adapted for the screen too.

The event is also going to be available to watch via Zoom. And as I said in previous events, in order to book an online ticket simply follow this link and follow the instructions.

Getting the Podcast episodes shorter again

I’m trying to get the episodes back down to a more manageable length. With the exception of special episodes like the ‘Perthshire Poetry Special‘, and the ‘Perthshire Mums in Business‘ episodes, I’ll try and keep future episodes within the twenty to thirty-minute mark. The idea is so that you could listen to it during a lunch break or you could pop on during a commute.

We all listen to podcasts in different ways and for different reasons but the hope would be that this will make for an easier, and more enjoyable listen. I will make exceptions for bigger feature topics but we should be back to shorter episodes (for the most part) for the time being.

I’m always on the lookout for new things to talk about in the podcast so please think of letting us know what you’re up to.

Often when you’re caught up in your own social media, promoting your own endeavours, it can be really easy to think everybody’s seeing that. However, the podcast offers you access to a potentially different audience than who you’re normally speaking to in your social media channels. With this in mind, please remember to let me know if there’s something you’d like to share in the podcast.

I personally find that the people that I’ve come into contact with as a result of the podcast are so different from the ‘usual suspects’ that I typically interact with on my social media channels. This has been really nice and offers me a chance to talk to new people.

What’s more, the idea of this podcast was to give PerthshireHour a kind of central nexus. A lot of social media networks, including Facebook and Instagram, allow you to use hashtags, but the performance of hashtags in these is very limited.

The original PerthshireHour ran almost exclusively on Twitter, and the idea basically was every week on a Wednesday from eight o’clock until nine o’clock all these different Perthshire people would jump onto Twitter. They would use the hashtag #PerthshireHour and they would promote what they were up to, but they would also just catch up with each other, and chat with one another.

You would see people that took pictures of wildlife. You’d see people that were doing creative bits and pieces. You’d find out about promotions at different local businesses or new menus at local restaurants. It was just a nice opportunity to find out some new things about what’s going on in our area.

It was also a chance to kind of chat with some new faces so I certainly don’t wanna sort of pull aside from that social aspect of what Perthshire Hour is supposed to be about. But the idea with the podcast is to just give it something solid that we can all kind of point towards. We’re not all on Twitter, we’re not all on Facebook, and we’re not all on Instagram.

Some participants (myself included) might be on a bunch of social media networks jumping from one to the next. This can be particularly hard to keep track of and create a network of people.

For a long time, Twitter was a great way to keep in touch but I’ve found that the tone on Twitter has changed a little bit. There are also a lot of people leaving Twitter. This combination means that my posts on Twitter don’t get seen as much that I don’t get as much back and forth.

With this in mind, I’ve tried to adapt a bit by making a WhatsApp group for PerthshireHour participants. If you are based in Perthshire and would like to be involved in this in some way, message me using this link.

I start recording each Wednesday in line with the old PerthshireHour tradition of 8pm till 9pm. If you want your story included, you’ll need to get it to me before then. It’s still intended to be a social get-together so please interact during the event itself as well (I’ll try to keep up and include it in the podcast).

By doing something like the podcast, there’s a nice additional benefit. Not everyone can be involved every week but if something’s mentioned in the course of the podcast (from chat on WhatsApp or on Twitter) they’ll be able to still catch up.

From there, you can get involved in the conversation at a later point. You might hear about something in the podcast which you might want to talk more about later in the week. It’s not like we’ve all disappeared until the following Wednesday, so we’ll all chat away when we can as well.

Thanks again for listening in/ reading and apologies for the kind of odd wee breaks that we’ve had in the episodes of the last few weeks.

I’m actually looking for a new idea for next week’s episode and I’m open to ideas. Even if you’d simply like a chance to tell people about what you do that’s fine. In previous episodes, we’ve done quick little interviews with people that can be done via text. Just let me know if you’re interested.

Thanks again for listening to this week’s episode and I hope you found it interesting.

See you again next week. All the best, John