Our guest is Chris Kelso, a novelist (and multi-talented artist) working in a variety of different forms, from spoken word to films, comics, illustration and more.
Hailing from Ayrshire in Scotland, his edgy, boundary-pushing, often transgressive writing has won plaudits and awards from Ginger Nuts of Horror, Weird Fiction Review, the British Fantasy Awards, and the Pushcart Prize.
We spoke about his new experimental music project Vantablack, his career in weird fiction, his upcoming film project, and much more.
Recommendations from Chris Kelso
First up, to explore Chris’ many novels, graphic novels, short films, illustrations and other work, visit visit his website, where you can read some short stories and extracts from his work, and find out about his unique approach to Scottish literature.
You should also have a listen to the self-titled album by Vantablack, which Chris created in collaboration with experimental musicians and spoken word performers, using text from his novels. More on that project below.
We begin by talking about his early days as a writer. Chris mentions Evergreen Review, a noted American journal of weird and experimental fiction. We briefly mention ‘Ideaspace’ — a term coined by comics legend Alan Moore in the fantastic documentary about his craft and legacy, The Mindscape of Alan Moore. That’s an essential watch for all kinds of reasons (and still the best Watchmen adaptation to date, with Moore himself voicing Rohrschach). Here’s the section of the film (kicking off at 1:04:40) where Moore unpacks Ideaspace, and what it means for creative practice.
I also allude to “information-rich pink lightning”, paraphrasing the description Philip K. Dick gave when he received his first spiritual epiphany that would lead to his creation of the VALIS myth. This event, and Dick’s subsequent exploration of his ‘revealed system’ of thought and culture, is explored at length in the book The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. Chris compares the notion of writing coming from some external, possibly cosmic source to remarks by William S. Burroughs, which he discusses in this archived Q&A with a literature student over at allenginsberg.org.
We go on to talk about growing up in Scotland and getting into writing, with Chris unpacking how his background as an Ayrshire lad affected his style and progression. We also briefly mention our mutual friend Ewan Morrison — check out my episode with Ewan here discussing the novel Nina X, my more recent interview with him about For Emma, for Glasgow Review of Books, and Ewan’s own excellent Substack, UNTOPIA.
Chris mentions a few other Scottish or Scotland-based authors he feels a kinship with — these are Elle Nash, Graham Rae (interviewed here for Glasgow Review of Books), Callum McSorley, Genevieve Jagger, Hal Duncan (author of the seminal dystopian novel Vellum), and Neil Williamson, who is closely involved with the Glasgow SF Writers Circle, the brilliant Scottish speculative fiction magazine Shoreline of Infinity, and who co-edited the recent SF compendium Nova Scotia 2, which features a story from Chris.
I also briefly mention a few other Scottish leading lights, including Hannu Rajaniemi and Andrew J. Wilson (also co-editor of the Nova Scotia series), with whom I was part of a writing and performance collective called Writers Bloc; crime writer-turned-speculative fiction auteur Doug Johnstone, and the late, great Iain M. Banks.
Next, we discuss William S. Burroughs in a bit more depth, and get into Chris’ plans for a nonfiction book about the Beat icon’s travels in Scotland, and his connection to the Scottish honourary Beat writer Alexander Trocchi. There’s a preview for that project below. Mike Small recently profiled Trocchi and wrote about his lasting influence for Bella Caledonia.
After the break, continuing in our discussion of the more unpalatable aspects of Burroughs’ life, we mention other writers in the Beat Generation and their ‘problematic’ legacies. Then we talk a little about the career of the late David Lynch, who had only recently passed when we recorded this episode. We also mention the brilliant John Waters, and briefly discuss the allegations against comics writer Neil Gaiman, disgraced ‘ally’ and “darling of the left”, as Chris puts it. We go on to talk a little about neoreactionary blogger (and Trumpfluencer) Curtis Yarvin, and the Dimes Square literary scene — anyone unfamiliar with the latter should check out this epic blog post from the skeptical chronicler of Dimes Square, Mike Crumplar.
We go on to talk about the wealth of talent from Scotland in the comics industry, including the two best-known figures, writers Grant Morrison and Mark Millar. We also briefly shout out superstar artist Frank Quitely, the grandfather of Scottish comics, Alan Grant (Judge Dredd), Eddie Campbell (From Hell) and indie legend Iain Laurie. I also give Morrison a shout-out for introducing me to Susan Blackmore’s The Meme Machine.
Finally, we get to a discussion of Chris’ latest project, Vantablack, whose self-titled album dropped back in 2024, with his writing front and centre in an experimental, avant garde cocktail of heavy music, atmospheric soundscapes and spoken word. You can stream it at the top of this post, and on Bandcamp, where it is available on limited edition vinyl.
A collaboration with musicians Nick Hudson and Stuart Dalquist, with readings of Chris’ texts by Elle Nash, Professor Timothy Jarvis, Graham Rae and Brian Evanson, it’s a sonically dense and deeply weird journey into darkness. You can also check out an earlier work that Chris mentions, Influence, on YouTube above. His novel Voidheads, from which some of the Vantablack texts are derived, is just one of Chris’ many novels — read more about them, and his other writing, at his website. He has more music and film projects on the way, so watch this space.
Before we finished up we talked about one of Chris’ film projects, 2019’s Strange Bird, a short film directed by Laura Lee Bahr, and co-written by Chris. Watch the full thing below. His next project with Bahr is an Ayrshire-set horror movie based on his short story Jenny Longlegs. We also briefly mention Chris’ introduction to Christopher Zeischegg’s novel The Magician (for sale on Amazon in the UK), which I thoroughly enjoyed reading after we recorded the show.
Next up: Simon Copland
My next guest is Dr. Simon Copland, a researcher at the Australian National University, and an expert in online misogyny, extremism and male violence. We’ll be discussing his excellent and deeply-researched new book The Male Complaint: The Manosphere and Misogyny Online, which documents his exploration of the manosphere, and what it means for the health, happiness and wellbeing of men, and society at large.
-Bram, Glasgow, June 2025
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