Front Row

Nashville-based novelist Ann Patchett tells us about her tenth novel, Whistler, in which a chance encounter between a woman and her stepfather after many years leads to unexpected revelations.
As a new publisher - Conduit Books - launches with the intention of promoting work by male authors, we discuss why this might be needed, with its founder, the writer Jude Cook, and with Ellah Wakatama, Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, who has worked in the publishing industry for many years.
Pioneering photographer Wendy McMurdo's exhibition The Digital Mirror opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh this weekend, and shows a body of work which responds to how digital technology such as computers, tablets and gaming has impacted on children's lives since the mid 1990s. She joins us live in the studio.
And a new survey by the organisation Age Without Limits has found that hit movies are four times more likely to feature a talking animal than a female actor aged over 60. We ask why that might be, and how representation of older women on screen might be improved.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan

Writer and broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre, and trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed on 100 years of Miles Davis - the musician regarded as the Picasso of jazz.
Artist Keith Tyson has just donated a quarter of a million pounds for an astronomy post at Oxford University. He's joined by Professor Ken Arnold, director of the Medical Museum at the University of Copenhagen, to discuss the relationship between art and science.
Playwright Rory Mullarkey on his new play at the Royal Exchange, Even These Things, which marks the thirtieth anniversary of the bombing of Manchester by the IRA.
Jazz's "Saxophone Colossus", Sonny Rollins, remembered.
Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Live from Hay, celebrating reading and writing in many different forms, Samira is joined on stage by Jack Thorne - multi-award-winning screenwriter of the TV sensation Adolescence and his newest drama Falling, about a nun and a priest who fall in love.
Also, Tartan Noir titan Val McDermid speaks about crime fiction and her 40 years of writing.
The Ian Fleming estate has granted novelist Vaseem Khan permission to write a book in the Bond-iverse. This time, it's set in the world of Q, Bond's gadget supplier.
And Hanan Issa, the National Poet of Wales, joins us to explore Welsh/Iraqi storytelling and poetry.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Samira Ahmed is joined by writer Matt Cain and critic Suzi Feay to review:
Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart's new novel John of John, set on the Isle of Harris.
New series The Boroughs, which stars Alfred Molina and Geena Davis in a retirement community, executive produced by Stranger Things' Duffer Brothers.
And Holy Pop!, a new exhibition at Somerset House in London that celebrates fandom.
Also, film critic Tim Robey joins Samira from the Cannes Film Festival to talk through some of his highlights.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Lucy Collingwood

Canadian author Rachel Reid talks to us about the the phenomenon which has followed the publication of her books about the romantic relationship between rival ice hockey players.
We speak to author Yang Shuang-zi and translator Lin King, the author and translator of this year's International Booker Prize winning book, Taiwan Travelogue.
And Mull Historical Society's latest album In My Mind There’s A Photograph sees singer-songwriter Colin Macintyre work with lyrical contributions from a panoply of world-leading authors. He reveals his collaborative process with the likes of Irvine Welsh, Ali Smith, Irenosen Okojie, Yiyun Lee, and Sir Alexander McCall Smith, and performs a track live in the Front Row studio.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan