Welsh promised that if any producer proved brave enough to take on the filming of Filth (2013), he would get a tattoo of a pig dressed as a police officer on the book's cover. The making of Filth took 15 years, and halfway through shooting Welsh proved true to his word and got the pig tattoo on his arm.
He did not start writing until his early thirties.
He is a great admirer of Hubert Selby Jr. and believes that Selby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn" influenced his literary style of writing about his own surroundings.
I am a great fan of Iggy Pop.
He completed the writing of 'Skagboys', the prequel to 'Trainspotting' and 'Porno'.
My Chemical Romance took the band's name from the title of his short story collection 'Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance'.
Some of his books were banned in many countries, chiefly Russia and Greece, and Senator Bob Dole criticised Trainspotting during his vice-presidential campaign. In the English cities of York and Southampton, police raided High Street bookshops to remove giant posters advertising copies of Filth featuring the pig's head, which police officials considered offensive.
He created the character Freddy Royle in his 1996 story Lorraine Goes to Livingston, inspired by Sir Jimmy Savile. Royle is a children's TV presenter described as the country's "favourite caring, laconic uncle", who turns out to be a child abuser and necrophiliac and who raised millions for the hospital where he committed his crimes. After his death in 2011, it emerged that Savile, a children's television presenter and prolific fundraiser, was a prolific sexual abuser who committed most of his crimes in hospitals.
He left school at 16 and returned to it in his twenties.
He wrote an introduction to ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'', which he claims is one of his favourite books.
From a series of arrests for petty crimes to a suspended sentence for demolishing a community centre in North London, he had many brushes with the law in his youth, which inspired him to mend his ways.
He is a supporter of Hibernian Football Club in Edinburgh, Scotland.
He appeared in the film adaptations of his own books Trainspotting and The Acid House.
He is a partner in the British film production company 4 Ways, alongside Antonia Bird, Robert Carlyle and Mark Cousins.
He is a great fan of house music and features it prominently in his novels.
He began writing through music, as he found song ideas that turned into short stories.
He does readings of his work around the world and ran into controversy while attending a reading in Australia.
He has lived mainly in London and Edinburgh, later lived in Amsterdam, San Francisco and Dublin, and now lives in Chicago and Miami Beach.
He holds an MBA and is a marathon runner.
He greatly loves the works of Jane Austen and George Eliot.
Before he began writing, he was a property developer.
His wife Elizabeth is from Chicago.
His first play written in this form, "You'll Have Had Your Hole", premiered in February 1998 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, with Kirsty Mitchell taking the role of "Laney".
He left school at 16.
He initially considered becoming a TV repairman before he received an electric shock from a socket.
He spends most of his time between Edinburgh and London.
While living in Dublin, Ireland, he regularly attended Bohemian FC matches.
He played guitar and sang in the band The Pubic Lice and Stairway 13, a reference to the 1971 Ibrox disaster.
He has lived in Miami, Florida since 2018.
Chicago, Illinois, USA: Living and working.