An edition of the television programme Writers’ Stories, featuring novelist, poet and short story writer Alan Spence in an interview recorded at the 2003 Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Spence talks of the connections between writing poetry and short stories, cultural influences on his work and of writing modern Scottish poetry in the haiku form.

In a relaxed conversation with Karina Dent, he explains that he has been practising meditation for some thirty years. Initially he was concerned that there was a contradiction between writing, being ego driven and concerned with fame, and the spiritual life, which should be about living a simple, pure, life. His meditation teacher suggested that he had a God-given gift and he had to use it.

Asked about the role of the writer Spence says that you should not start out with an agenda, whether spiritual, political or social, but rather by being truthful to your own experience of your time and your society you will necessarily be writing politically and making spiritual points. He feels his own writing is about his self-discovery, trying to figure out who he actually is, if other people recognise something in it that opens up an aspect of reality for them that is a bonus. This video recording lasts 11 minutes and 20 seconds.