Audio & podcasts
A Good Read
23 June 2020 – 28 mins
Released On: 23 Jun 2020 – Available for over a year
Crime writer Val McDermid and businesswoman Martha Lane Fox talk to Harriett Gilbert about books they really love. Val’s choice is This Is Shakespeare: How to Read the World’s Greatest Playwright by Emma Smith, Martha’s is How to be Both by Ali Smith and Harriett’s is The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton.
Producer Beth O’Dea
The Tartan Noir Show
1 April 2020 – 51 mins
Val McDermid: Scotland’s Queen of Crime
What better way to begin The Tartan Noir Show than with The Queen of Crime, Val McDermid? Theresa Talbot talks to Val about her new book, which is not about crime and death, but about hope! ‘Imagine a Country’ is a collection of essays by prominent Scots, edited by Val and geographer, Jo Sharp.
Ex Libris Podcast
14 January 2020 – 47 mins
Val speaks to Ben not at the library but from within a cosy nook of her favourite indie bookshop – Topping & Company in St Andrews. It’s a beautiful shop. Val is old pals with founder Robert Topping. She loves this place so much that she even arranged for her home bookshelves to be handcrafted by the shop’s go-to joiners.
BBC Radio 4 – Only Artists
6 February 2019 – 27 mins
Crime writer Val McDermid meets graphic artist Vin Deighan.Val McDermid: Scotland’s Queen of Crime
BBC Radio 4 – One to One
28 August 2018 – 14 mins
Unexpected stories of education: The journalist Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to the crime writer, Val McDermid, about an unusual educational experiment she was part of in the 1960s.
Val McDermid: On Orlando by Virginia Woolf (BBC Queer Icons)
Val chooses Virginia Woolf’s novel for Queer Icons, BBC Radio’s celebration of LGBTQ culture.
Written in 1928, Orlando is about a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting the key figures of English literary history.
Interview link…
The Danny Baker Show
Danny Baker meets crime writer and Raith Rovers fan Val McDermid. Former England, Liverpool and Everton goalkeeper Rachel Brown-Finnis plays the Sausage Sandwich Game.
Val McDermid: Extended Interview
Val McDermid talks to Shereen about the freedom she found as a child growing up in Fife, breaking the mould and moving to Oxford University, here she developed an impressive English accent, complete with Oxford stammer.
She tells Shereen how feminism, football and left wing Fife politics have shaped her view on life and crime writing.
Val McDermid: Jane Austen’s equal? – books podcast
John Crace digests Val McDermid’s update of Northanger Abbey, and asks if her attempt to square up to Austen’s gothic melodrama is fine or foolhardy
History of the lesbian novel part 1 2008
History of the lesbian novel part 2 2008
Open Book – BBC Radio 4
Mariella Frostrup talks to Val in this episode of Open Book on BBC Radio 4
Desert Island Discs…
Val talk to Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. Sunday 14th July 2013
22 April 2011 – Val In Paris
Val McDermid a tout d’une grande dame du polar! Vous ne connaissez pas encore cette sympathique écossaise ? C’est le moment de lire son dernier thriller “Sans laisser de traces” chez Flammarion.
08 February 2007 – Book Club BBC Radio 4
Val McDermid joins readers to discuss The Mermaids Singing, the story of a serial killer who stalks the gay subculture of a northern town. James Naughtie presents.
2 October 2012 – BBC Radio 4 – A Good Read
Harriett Gilbert is joined by the Scottish crime writer Val McDermid and comedian and neologist Alex Horne in the first of a new series of the paperback discussion show.
Among the books under discussion are Andre Agassi’s revealing autobiography of life lived centre stage at Centre Court, Jeanette Winterson’s acclaimed memoir of her childhood, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, and Remembering Babylon, David Malouf’s prizewinning 1993 outsider novel set in Australia.
8 March 2012 – Interview From Bookotron.Com
Val McDermid is just as no-nonsense as any copper she might imagine — or write about in one of her novels, including her latest, ‘The Retribution.’
Val McDermid and Laurie R. King
Her schedule in Santa Cruz was going to be complicated and mostly filled, but she was hanging out with Laurie R. King, who was kind enough to help Val arrange an hour over at KUSP, in the big meeting room where the three of us sat down to talk about Val’s work and the mystery genre.
Go to www.bookotron.com for more…