He has hosted several television series including Shelf Isolation and most recently The Big Scottish Book Club for BBC Scotland.

In 2018 Barr received a University of Otago Scottish Writers Fellowship, which saw him based at the Pah Homestead in Auckland, New Zealand where he edited the novel.

He is a frequent guest on BBC Radio 4 and has hosted Front Row, with interviewees including Dolly Parton, Javier Marías and Brad Pitt.

The show featured Janice Galloway, Marian Keyes, Graham Norton, David Nicholls, Jojo Moyes, Neil Gaiman and Sathnam Sanghera, among others.

Readers and writers meet through special live events and online content including interviews, podcasts and brand-new stories.

The Salon has held residencies at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, the Mondrian and the Savoy, and travelled to venues all around the world including Moscow, New York, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto and San Francisco.

Salon guests have included Tracey Thorn, Rose McGowan, Maggie O'Farrell, Yaa Gyasi, Dustin Lance Black, Caitlin Moran, Philippa Perry, and Armistead Maupin.

[4] Nicholson, a peer in the House of Lords, had voted against same-sex marriage in 2013 claiming she believed "it would lead to degrading the status of women and of girls".

[2] Shortly afterwards, it emerged that Barr used pejorative language on Twitter to describe transgender people, appearing to mock a transsexual who had attempted to take their own life, writing in April 2009: "Tittering sickly @ story of 6’5" tranny who failed to hang herself from 5 ft balcony this wknd.

[7] Barr started the campaign to save Newarthill Library in 2016 receiving support from Ian Rankin, Armistead Maupin, Val McDermid, Sathnam Sanghera among others.

Barr is a Trustee at Gladstone's Library, a Patron of the young people's writing charity Little Green Pig and a Schools Ambassador for Stonewall.