Author2Author with Layla Josephine

Bill welcomes award-winning slam poet Layla Josephine to the show. Leyla is a performance poet, theatre maker, screenwriter, facilitator and project leader. She won the 2014 UK National Poetry Slam at The Royal Albert Hall with Hammer and Tongue.  In 2019 she performed for the First Minister of Scotland and supported John Cooper Clarke on his Scottish tour. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4, BBC The Social, The Guardian Online, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Upworthy, The National and The Scotsman and the anthology Choice Words: Writers On Abortions alongside the likes Margaret Atwood, Audre Lorde and Gloria Steinem. The Scottish Poetry Library named her poem 'Good with our Hands' in The Best Scottish Poems of 2020. 

Her solo shows Hopeless and Daddy Drag have taken the UK by storm, with sold out shows across the country; Hopeless was runner up for Saboteur’s Best Spoken Word Show 2018. Daddy Drag won the Autopsy Award 2019, which celebrates artists making ground-breaking work in Scotland. It was also shortlisted for Filipa Braganca Award 2019, which honours solo female artists creating important work at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Her short film, Groom, was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA in 2022 (under Leyla Coll-O'Reilly).