00:00Hello, my name is David Robinson and I've been reviewing and writing about books for the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday for over 25 years now.
00:09In that time I've probably interviewed about half of the authors on my shelves behind me, people like Ian McEwan, Richard Ford, Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, always in person and occasionally on different continents.
00:24I remember very fondly interviewing Alexander McCall Smith in Botswana about his number one ladies' detective agency books and visiting some of the locations.
00:36I've also spent a lot of time reviewing Scotland's many book festivals, including of course the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which every year attracts hundreds of writers to the capital.
00:48I've always been fascinated by writers, ever since I was 18 and I met the very first one, there's a man called Stan Barstow, not so famous now, but he was then, on what must have been one of the Arvind Foundation's first ever creative writing courses.
01:03On the last day, a journalist, and again the first one that I'd ever met, came along to write a feature.
01:11As he left, Stan Barstow shouted after him, and I always remember this, sort of waved his finger and said, remember lad, he said, tell it like it is.
01:20And I've always thought about that, I always thought how difficult it is to do for writers and journalists, but it's not a bad thing to aim at.
