Hollie McNish: All Back To Mine

In this episode, I’m joined by  the brilliant poet Hollie McNish, whose latest collection, Virgin, is out this week. We caught up last night in her dressing room, ahead of a sold-out gig at Glasgow’s Oran Mor, kicking off her Scottish book tour.

Virgin is a blazing, bright, riled love letter to the best of us - which is most of us - in the face of man-made constructs, expectations, blame, shame, and abuses of power. It features mashed potatoes, pomegranates, warm baths, pornhub comments, rebel yells, kissing trees, butter dishes and radical hope.

(I’m also now madly in love with Benny from Accounts, incidentally - but you’ll need to read the book to find out why.)

Anyway - we sat down for a blether, for an All Back To Mine special, where Hollie chose us a Scottish album, book and film…

We spoke about love, life, words, power; women, children, masculinity; Shirley Manson, Michael Mullen, roller-skates, and Gregory's Girl.

Hollie's live at Toppings' St Andrews tonight (October 20), at Dunkeld's Birnam Arts on the 21st, at Mac Arts in Galashiels on the 22nd, at Portobello Town Hall on the 23rd, and then she's at Push the Boat Out with Michael Pedersen in Edinburgh on November 8th.

You can also watch a very DIY film of our chat in Hollie's dressing room on YouTube, if you like!

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