On this page, you can find various links to Rodge’s recent (and less recent) work, including published pieces available online, interviews, podcasts, radio programmes, videos of previous events, Rodge’s writing about other writers & more.
JANUARY 2025
5 years ago, Rodge published a piece in The Paris Review, on the occasion of the death of Alasdair Gray. Titled, ‘Alasdair Gray: The Man and the Work’: ‘One night in summer 2015, under a vast night sky mural in the Òran Mór Arts Centre auditorium in Glasgow, there was a film showing. In fact, two. The subject of both, Alasdair Gray, once an intense, asthmatic working-class boy from northeast Glasgow and now Scotland’s most celebrated literary artist, was in the audience, fidgeting and scratching as he watched. Above us, I could see his Garden of Eden mural writ large on the ceiling, despite the low light. ‘
You can read the piece in full here.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/01/22/alasdair-gray-the-man-and-the-work
SEPTEMBER 2024
‘On Biography’ in Gutter magazine, available to read
Rodge’s essay ‘On Biography’, a slightly edited version of the chapter ‘On Telling the Truth’ from his book Joshua in the Sky, is now available to read on the Gutter magazine website. The piece was published in 2023. It looks back on years of writing about the visual and literary artist Alasdair Gray, the legacy of Rodge’s biography of Gray, and explores what he might learn from that process in writing about the short life of his nephew Joshua.
This is the start of ‘On Biography’, from Gutter’s site.
‘WHERE ARE WE FROM? LIFE IS ROOTED IN DEATH’S REPUBLIC.
WHAT ARE WE? ANIMALS WHO WANT MORE THAN WE NEED.
WHERE ARE WE GOING? OUR SEED RETURNS TO DEATH’S REPUBLIC.
ALL WHO WORK WELL HERE.
A BETTER COUNTRY. FOR EVERYONE.
The first thing I saw was those capital letters, each writ large on the auditorium’s high ceiling; each designed in his own font, Òran Mór Monumental, which is named after this place. I knew the lines, but had forgotten them. The words seemed like they could belong in any order. The door swung behind me and a quote fell into my mind, as if the room had made a present of it: ‘The world sometimes seems a chessboard where the pieces move themselves,’ says Alasdair Gray’s alter ego Thaw in his novel Lanark. ‘I’m never sure what square to go to. Yet it can’t be a difficult game, most folk play it instinctively.’ In the scene, Thaw is arriving in a new place. He’s incapable of a poker face. He’s the kind of character I can relate to. Squirt squirt, with the hand gel. Rub rub, on the hands. Hello folks, I beamed, I’m so happy to be back! Where would you like me? The director pointed in a way that could not be confused. I moved into place, thumb in my 1981 first edition of Lanark, glad to have succeeded at the first ask of the day. I love to follow orders! I said, for no reason. Then I spun on my heels, looking upward.’
You can read the piece in full here.
https://www.guttermag.co.uk/recent-writing/on-biography
Edinburgh Jewish Cultural Centre event for Joshua in the Sky – YouTube recording available now
In the week of publication for Joshua in the Sky, Rodge did an online event with Edinburgh Jewish Cultural Centre, where he was interviewed by David Ian Neville about the book. The event is now available on YouTube. You can access it here. With thanks to the Live Literature Scotland fund at the Scottish Book Trust.
AUGUST 2024
Rodge’s new children’s audio story ‘The Magic of Stories’ available NOW on BBC Sounds across the UK
Following Rodge’s first audio story, ‘A Little Light’ in 2023, Rodge was commissioned to write another audio story for children as part of the Time for a Story Series on BBC Sounds. This time, Rodge worked with his daughters, with their support and collaboration, to write about how the act of reading can help children cope with a sometimes overwhelming world. The illustration is by artist Neil Slorance. You can listen to the story here and learn more about it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0jkxrzx.
Rodge appears on Sunday Morning show on BBC Radio Scotland, hosted by Zara Janjua, discussing recent riots & the value of storytelling
Rodge is back on the Faith Forum on Radio Scotland, this time hosted by Zara Janjua, alongside Jehan Al-Azzawi & Fiona Stewart, talking about the recent riots across the UK, social media responsibility (& our responsibility to ourselves), also about the value of the arts & storytelling culture in the month of the Edinburgh Festivals. Full episode available here. Faith Forum is the second hour of the show: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0021wvb
Programme for Wigtown Book Festival announced – article in The Bookseller featuring Rodge, Irvine Welsh & the Anne Brown Prize
Rodge is confirmed to appear at the Wigtown Book Festival on October 3rd 2024 @ 15.00, whose programme has just been announced, and is available in full here.
From The Bookseller: ‘Lee Randall, the festival’s programmer, said: “I hope this year’s programme, with all its range and reach, proves a hit with our regular visitors while also enticing first-timers into the fold.”
The festival will also see the announcement of the winners of the annual international Wigtown Poetry Prizes for poems in Scotland’s three indigenous languages: English, Scots and Gaelic.
The former BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor will present the third Anne Brown Essay Prize for Scotland. Last year’s winner, Rodge Glass, will return to the festival with his memoir, Joshua in the Sky (Taproot Press).’
JUNE 2024
Rodge on BBC Radio Scotland’s Sunday Morning Faith Forum with Cathy MacDonald – discussion of A House in Jerusalem by Rami & Muayad Alayan
Rodge appears back on the Sunday Morning show on BBC Radio Scotland hosted by Cathy MacDonald as part of their Faith Forum. Alongside Edinburgh Central Mosque Imam Yahya Barry & Dr Rosa Murray of the University of Edinburgh, Rodge discusses Carlo Acuti, the Catholic Church’s first Millennial Saint, the idea of a new Celebration Day, as well as interrogating the new film A HOUSE IN JERUSALEM by brothers Rami & Muayad Alayan, which explores the complex legacies of Israel-Palestine and the 1948 war through the eyes of two children on either side of a ‘divide’ neither of them recognises. You can listen back tot he episode below. Rodge, Yahya & Rosa in conversation in the second hour of the show.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001ztkz
MAY 2024
Anne Brown Brown Essay Prize 2024 launched, Rodge interviewed about winning in 2023
In 2023, Rodge won the Anne Brown Essay Prize for ‘On the Covenant’, a chapter from his forthcoming book, Joshua in the Sky (Taproot Press, 5th September 2024, forthcoming). Next year’s competition has just been announced here, with leading Scottish journalist Brian Taylor announced as this year’s judge as part of the Wigtown Book Festival.
This from the Wigtown Book Festival website: ‘Brian Taylor, one of the best-known figures in contemporary Scottish journalism, will lead the judging panel for this year’s Anne Brown Essay Prize. The annual award, which champions Scottish writing talent, carries a £1,500 prize. Mr Taylor, who is a commentator, columnist and former BBC political editor, has a close interest in essays as a means of offering fresh perspectives on contemporary life. He said: “Now more than ever it is vital to attempt to make sense of our confused and confusing world. A succinct essay can do just that, getting to the core, providing insight and enlightenment.” The competition, organised by Wigtown Book Festival is for the best literary essay by a writer in or from Scotland.
Last year’s prize was won by Rodge Glass, for On The Covenant, and will be included in his forthcoming book Joshua in The Sky: A Blood Memoir, published this September. He said: “I’d encourage anyone in Scotland interested in writing nonfiction to enter the Anne Brown Prize. “It was wonderful to be able to share the work publicly and raise awareness of the issues I discussed – one of which is HHT, the rare blood condition shared across my family, which is so little understood. “Last year’s shortlist was full of writers I really admire like Kirsty Logan and Jen Stout, and I’m convinced nonfiction in Scotland is strong. It’s essential to have a home for the essay that gives it more of a profile.”
Rodge’s essay ‘On the Covenant’ is available here.
‘Strange and Complex Love’: Rodge interviews Kirsty Logan for the Glasgow Review of Books
Ahead of her Boswell Book Festival appearance on 12th May, alongside Len Pennie and Jen Stout, Rodge (who will be Chairing that event) interviews Kirsty Logan about her queer motherhood memoir, THE UNFAMILIAR. You can find the interview in full here.
‘You and your partner want a baby. But your two bodies can’t make a baby together.’
‘Kirsty Logan’s memoir, ‘The Unfamiliar’ has been described as “Cold, hard, raw writing that somehow sets your heart on fire”. In this new, exclusive interview with Rodge Glass for The Glasgow Review of Books, Kirsty shares her insights into the process of writing memoir, the constraints and limits of trying to capture complex, real-life on the page and what the experience of motherhood has taught her about love.’
Kirsty Logan, Glasgow Review of Books interview: ‘None of the characters in my fiction are me, but also they’re very much me. I’ve never danced on a circus boat with a bear, or performed as a mermaid on a haunted island, or been a teenager in the Middle Ages, like the characters in my novels. But I have confessed so much in my fiction. It feels safe to do so, because no one knows which parts are true and which parts you’ve made up. And although this memoir is the most raw and honest thing I’ve ever written, I don’t recognise myself in it. The ‘Kirsty Logan’ in the book is me, in that everything in the book is something I experienced, thought, said or felt – but also I feel like I don’t know her. She’s very distant to me now, like someone I knew in another life.’
APRIL 2024
Rodge appears on Sunday Morning show on BBC Radio Scotland with Connie McLaughlin, alongside Rupa Mooker & Amanullah De Sondy
Rodge joins Rupa Mooker, Employment Lawyer and columnist, and Amanullah De Sondy, Head of Religions at University College, Cork, to discuss news, culture and religion on their Sunday Morning show. You can listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001y9m5. The episode also features poet and disability activist Nuala Watt discussing her new book of poems, The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish.
From BBC Sounds: ‘To pour over some of the stories that are making the news, digging a little deeper to reveal what they tell us about ourselves, our faith and spirituality, and the communities we live in, Connie is joined by Aman de Sondy, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Islam at University College, Cork, writer Rodge Glass, who grew up in the Jewish faith, and lawyer and member of the Sikh community in Glasgow. Rupa Mooker. They discuss the uncomfortable rub between military conscription and religious or moral conviction, as Israel tries to overturn a previous conscription exemption for Haredi Jews. In light of outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins recent comments about being culturally Christian, what does being culturally religious mean. The consequences of being ‘the other’, as they look at Channel 4 series ‘Defiance: Fighting The Far Right’, about how Asian communities in the UK stood up to Far Right factions in the late 1970s and early 80s.’
Rodge’s essay on HELLSANS by Ever Dundas published via Open Access in French & English, in Special Disability Studies Issue of ETUDES ECOSSAISES
Rodge’s extended essay on the work of the Scottish ‘queer-crip’ writer Ever Dundas is now published in the open access journal Etudes Ecossaises, in a special Disability Studies issue edited by Arianna Introna and Gavin Miller. The Special Issue is titled: ‘Les imaginaires de la maladie et du handicap dans la littérature et la culture écossaises’. (Photo of Ever Dundas, below, by Cinn Curtis).
Rodge’s essay, ‘Moving from “the Realm of Hospital Room to the Realm of Political Minority”: Ever Dundas’ HellSans and the Radical Contemporary Disability Novel’ is available in full here. The other contributors to the Issue, in English titled ‘Recovering Imaginaries of Illness and Disability in Scottish Literature and Culture’, are: Lorna MacBean on R.D. Laing, Laura MacDonald on Nasim Marie Jafry, Fred Spence on Andrew O’Hagan, Mathieu Bokestael on Tamsin Calidas, Gabrielle Fath on Muriel Spark, and Dana Graham & Holly Faith Nelson on Elizabeth Storie. You can access their work below.
- Lorna MacBean Disabling States of Surveillance: R. D. Laing’s The Divided Self (1960) and James Kelman’s How Late It Was, How Late (1994) [Texte intégral]La « schize de l’identité » dans How Late It Was, How Late de James Kelman (1994)
- Laura MacDonald Temporalities in Nasim Marie Jafry’s The State of Me [Texte intégral]Les différentes temporalités dans The State of Me de Nasim Marie Jafry
- Fred Spence Illness beyond the Scottish National Imaginary: Anorexia and Scots-Italian Historical Trauma in Andrew O’Hagan’s Personality [Texte intégral]La maladie au‑delà de l’imaginaire national écossais : anorexie et traumatisme historique scoto-italien dans Personality d’Andrew O’Hagan
- Mathieu Bokestael Insular Iconicity and Utopian Immunity: Inoculating the Self in Tamsin Calidas’ I Am an Island (2020) [Texte intégral]Iconicité insulaire et immunité utopique : l’inoculation du soi dans I Am an Island de Tamsin Calidas (2020)
- Gabrielle Fath The Satire of Gerontophobic Ableism in Muriel Spark’s Memento Mori: A “Salutary Scar” [Texte intégral]La satire du validisme gérontophobe dans le roman Memento Mori de Muriel Spark : une « cicatrice salutaire »
- Dana Graham Lai & Holly Faith Nelson “There Was Death in the Powder and He Knew It”: Dis/ability and Tactics of Resistance in the Autobiography of Elizabeth Storie [Texte intégral]« There was death in the powder and he knew it » : handicap, validité et stratégie de résistance dans l’autobiographie d’Elizabeth Storie
Intro by Arianna Introna & Gavin Miller:
‘Since the 1980s Scottish literary and cultural studies have expanded beyond a concern with nation to attend to the imagination of gendered, classed and racialized subjects. Disability studies and the medical humanities are though yet to be brought fully into critical dialogue with Scottish literature and culture—a fundamental step for the theorisation of the many illness and disability representations to be found there.
This special issue of Études écossaises provides a space for exploration of this richness and diversity. Contributors reflect on what recovering imaginaries of illness and disability in Scottish literature and culture might involve. Contributors engage with the imagination of experiences of illness and disability in Scottish culture, or reflect on why we might want to embrace illness and disability as legitimate categories of analysis within Scottish cultural interpretation and critique. Contributions deal with a number periods of Scottish culture, and a wide variety of sources and media.’
You can find the whole issue for free here.
MARCH 2024
Audio of Rodge’s interview with Sara Sheridan (and of Rodge discussing Alasdair Gray) via Jewish Cultural Centre, Edinburgh
Following Rodge’s event with Sara Sheridan and Eleanor Thom at the Edinburgh Jewish Cultural Centre in February 2024, audio is now available of both Rodge’s interview with Sara, also Rodge being interviewed on Alasdair Gray as part of the event, by David Neville.
NOVEMBER 2023
Rodge’s audio story for children, ‘A Little Light’, available across the UK on BBC Sounds
Rodge’s audio story for children about the Jewish festival of Chanukah, ‘A Little Light’, is available to listen to across the UK on BBC Sounds here: ‘Lucia and Cora have fun learning more about Chanukah (Hanukkah) from their Dad, and learn the lesson of making do with less than you think you will need.’ From Series 4 of the Time for a Story series.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0grgvnr
SEPTEMBER 2023
Rodge on BBC Radio Scotland Afternoon Show with Janice Forsyth, discussing Michel Faber
Rodge discusses his new book on Michel Faber, writing about the lives of others, his years working with Alasdair Gray, and the new Poor Things film, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, 2023 (from 44.44). You can listen here.
AUGUST 2023
Interview with Rodge about his residency at Cove Park, 19/8/23 (After the residency, May-June 2023)
To mark the end of his 8-week residency, Glasgow based author Rodge Glass spoke to Cove Park’s Director, Alexia Holt, about his experience at Cove Park and the work he was able to do with support from Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Individuals.’
You can read the full interview here.
Rodge’s event with Mat Osman, author of The Ghost Theatre, at Edinburgh Book Festival, available online
Rodge Chaired Mat Osman, author of new novel set in Elizabethan London THE GHOST THEATRE, at Edinburgh Book Festival on 15/8/23. Mat is also the bass player in British rock band Suede. This was one of the festival’s selected events that is available for people to watch online on a pay what you can basis (it’s also possible to watch for free). You can watch here.
‘How This Book Came To Be’ blog at Liverpool University Press website, August 2023
Rodge discusses how his book MICHEL FABER: THE WRITER & HIS WORK came to be, over a period of twenty years, as well as his relationship with Michel Faber, over at the LUP blog
JULY 2023
Rodge appears on BBC Radio comedy quiz The Third Degree presented by Steve Punt, hosted by University of Strathclyde
Rodge joined the panel of ‘dons’ against Creative Writing students at Strathclyde in Series 13 of the Radio 4 quiz, which was hosted in the Strathclyde Union back in February. You can find the programme here
Text from the BBC page:
‘Coming this week from the University of Strathclyde, The 3rd Degree is a funny, upbeat and brainy quiz show. The specialist subjects this week are creative writing, management science and civil and environmental engineering so there’ll be questions involving words like “babok”, “chiasmus” and “vug”. Also, a chance to find out about the fascinating Mavis Grind. The show is recorded on location at a different University each week, and pits three undergraduates against three of their professors in this fresh take on an academic quiz. The general knowledge rounds include a quickfire bell-and-buzzer finale and the Highbrow and Lowbrow round cunningly devised to test not only the students’ knowledge of history, art, literature and politics, but also their Professors’ awareness of TV, music and sport. Meanwhile there are the three specialist subject rounds, in which students take on their professors in their own subjects, and where we find out whether the students have actually been awake during lectures. In this series, the show goes to Exeter, Strathclyde, Keele, King’s College London, Portsmouth, and Somerville College, Oxford.’
FEBRUARY 2023
Rodge appears on Scots Wha Hae podcast with Alistair Braidwood to talk Gray Day, February 2023, and forthcoming book on Michel Faber
Test from Scots Wha Hae
‘For the latest SWH! podcast we welcomed back previous guest Rodge Glass (right) to talk about Gray Day 2023 (Saturday 25th Feb) – the third annual celebration of the life and work of Alasdair Gray.
This year the inspiration is his 1992 novel ‘Poor Things’, and Rodge talks about the novel, how it fits into the Gray canon, the event at Glasgow’s Oran Mor on the evening of the 25th and who will be appearing, the importance of the Alasdair Gray Archive, discusses the forthcoming film adaptation by Yorgos Lanthimos & starring Emma Stone, and a lot more. It’s always a pleasure to talk to Rodge Glass, biographer to, and one of the leading authorities on, Alasdair Gray, and Gray Day – Poor Things promises to be a very special night indeed.
You can listen to the podcast here.
AUGUST 2020
Rodge appears on Read All About It podcast with Paul Cuddihy
Read All About It: is ‘a podcast celebrating the wonderful world of books. In every episode, writer and journalist, Paul Cuddihy, takes his guests on the literary journey of their lives. They will choose their favourite book from childhood; their teenage/student (formative) years; a book they’d recommend to anyone; a book they couldn’t be paid to read again, and the book they’re currently reading.’ Rodge appeared in August 2020, and you can find the interview here, via Amazon.com.
Text from ‘Read All About It’:
‘Rodge Glass is a novelist, biographer and an academic. He has published three novels, a collection of short stories and a graphic novel, as well as a highly-acclaimed and award-winning biography of the great Scottish writer, Alasdair Gray. Describing himself as ‘a bit of a Strathclyde University addict’, Dr Rodge Glass, to give him his academic title, is returning to the university for his fourth time – having previously been a student, a writer in residence and also a part-time lecturer. His new role will be as a senior lecturer in creative writing, with his main specialism in fiction, and also creative non-fiction.’
2013
Rodge appears on Open Book, BBC Radio 4
From the Radio 4 Books & Authors page:
‘Harlan Coben talks to Mariella Frostup about his new thriller novel Six Years. We report from the London Book Fair which this year has given prominence to Turkish publishing. And author Rodge Glass takes a wry literary look at the impact of cheap flights.’
You can download this episode here.
2012
Being Jewish in Scotland: Archive events with SCoJeC, 2012
Recently, Ephraim Borowski of SCoJeC shared this article and interview with Rodge from a series of ‘Being Jewish in Scotland’ events from 2012, including a first Jewish event in Inverness in fifty years, where Rodge appeared alongside fellow Jewish authors Annemarie Allan and J David Simons. You can find the article and links here. With thanks to SCoJeC for sharing.
A Pod of Two Halves: An Interview With Rodge Glass plus Extra Time…Rodge on Scots Wha Hae!, April 2012, discussing his book Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs
Text from Scots Wha Hae site, here:
The latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast is out now and has Ali interviewing writer Rodge Glass. The original attempt to record him was before the launch of his latest novel Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs at Mono in Glasgow but that was lost to the Matrix so we eventually reconvened and recorded at Scots Whay Hae! Towers a couple of days later. Ian did manage to record Rodge’s reading from the night at Mono which we give to you as a podcast bonus extra. There’s a little interference but what you do get is a better taste of the novel than any review or interview could possibly offer. But, as everything is indeed for the best in this best of all possible worlds, the new interview with Rodge is considerably longer, more relaxed, and just damned better than the one that got away. He talks fully about his life as a writer, and how the different forms of writing; fiction, biography and graphic novel, have helped to free him from worrying about the expectations of others, and himself, and to write in his own voice. Anyone interested in pursuing a life as a writer, or who are simply fascinated by how a creative process can develop, will be interested in what he has to say.’
Edinburgh International Book Festival, reading, 2009
Video of Rodge reading his story ‘After Drink You Can Turn Earth Upside Down’ at Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2009
‘Rodge Glass reading After Drink You Can Turn Earth Upside Down. Part of an engaging series of podcasts of leading authors reading their stories, poems or essays on the theme of ‘Elsewhere’ – each one exclusively available online, commissioned by Edinburgh International Book Festival and supported by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund. Read or download the Elsewhere stories, listen to more Elsewhere podcasts or watch the videos of events filmed live at the Book Festival.’
Rodge Glass 