This Writing Life

Last year I was asked to write an introduction for a collection of modern folktales to be published by English Heritage. ----more----

The result was These Our Monsters, featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others. 

I talked to three of the authors for This Writing Life podcast. The third is Graeme Macrae Burnet, whose brilliant His Bloody Project was shortlisted for the Man Booker P...

Last year I was asked to write an introduction for a collection of modern folktales to be published by English Heritage. ----more----

The result was These Our Monsters, featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others. 

I talked to three of the authors for This Writing Life podcast. The second is Fiona Mozley, whose debut novel Elmet was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. 

Fiona's sto...

Last year I was asked to write an introduction for a collection of modern folktales, myths and legends to be published by English Heritage. ----more----

The result was These Our Monsters, featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others. 

I talked to three of the authors for This Writing Life podcast. The first is Edward Carey, the novelist and illustrator whose works include the 'Iremon...

Reading from the blog on his own website, Simon Barnes describes the close attention required and inspired by bird-watching, and the almost poetic empathy that can result. ----more----

Part two of our interview with Simon will follow. 

Read more about 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prizes here.

For 2020’s Keats-Shelley Prize, click here.

For information on 2020’s Young Romantics Prize click here.

The music on the podcast is Androids Always E...

Part two of our conversation with Simon Barnes, the award-winning sportswriter, revered birdlover and Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes. 

----more----

Our annual theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, which made Simon the perfect choice as Chair. 

In which Simon discusses the repertory singers that are skylarks...

In this first of two episodes, I talk to Simon Barnes, the award-winning sportswriter, revered birdlover and Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes. 

Our annual theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, which made Simon the perfect choice as Chair. 

We talked, among other things, about his own changing relationship wit...

Simon Barnes is unique in the world of literature. How many revered sports writers are also revered nature writers too? Off the top of my head I can think of one: Simon Barnes himself. ----more----

For many years the chief sports of the Times, he covered seven Olympics, five World Cups, a Superbowl and the World Chess Championship. His profiles included everyone from David Beckham to Red Rum, his publications range from novels abou...

Amanda Coe is an English novelist and screenwriter, whose credits include the BAFTA-winning adaptation of John Braine's Room at the Top, and her highly-praised thrillers What They Do in the Dark and Getting Colder. This Writing Life met her at Waterstones Piccadilly to talk about everything from her excellent new novel Everything You Do is Wrong to her childhood in Canada and Doncaster, her student days at Oxford, her formative lov...

Part three of This Writing Life's podcast with Leila Slimani, author of global smash-hit Lullaby, moves towards more personal territory. We talk about her family, her background and her views on everything from the French language to women wearing the veil.

Along the way, Leila discusses her role for President Macron promoting the French language and ponders whether whether it is courageous to speak out on issues like Islamic fund...

Part two of Leila Slimani's conversation with This Writing Life podcast about her new novel Lullaby begins with a discussion of objectification: in this case, of the nanny who cares for the children of the Masse family. Slimani talks about her own vexed relationship with the woman who cares for her own children, about the power struggles in that interaction and finally about the idea of tragedy in the novel. We talk Mary Poppins, M...

Leila Slimani's second novel Lullaby is a phenomenon. Having sold over 600,000 copies and won the Prix Goncourt in her adopted homeland of France, the book is now spreading around the world in various translations. A movie has begun filming in France and there are rumours of a Hollywood adaptation as well. The reason for the fuss is a plot that grips like a thriller and prose that dissects contemporary life like the most acute lite...

Lynn Shepherd was the first ever This Writing Life recorded. The final part of our conversation begins with a discussion of social media and publicity, and the part both play in her writing life. From here we zoom through the joys and trials of writing novels: bad days, bad reviews, and how her close friends and confidents help her through. We end by looking to the future, and by asking: what has Lynn learned from her writing life ...

Part three of Lynn Shepherd's This Writing Life podcast mixes business and pleasure: how did a successful city worker become a successful writer? Doctorates on Samuel Richardson, freelance copywriting, and publishing novels all flash past in quick succession. We talk unpublished novels, the challenges of finishing a book and writing for writing's sake. Lynn discusses where her own voice lies in the novels she produces, discusses ho...

Part two of This Writing Life's conversation with Oxford-based novelist Lynn Shepherd begins with some chat about her love of 'clever crime', and how it shapes her novels like Murder in Mansfield Park and Tom All-Alones. We end this edition by discussing the other prime influence on these early historical novels: her love of classic literature, above all Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. But where does Dickens end and Lynn Shepherd ...

The latest episode of This Writing Life podcast is particularly special in that it was the first ever recorded. The subject is Lynn Shepherd, a crime writer, critic, journalist, and copy writer who lives and works in Oxford. Her speciality is literary mystery fiction: each of her novels, Murder in Mansfield Park, Tom All-Alone's, A Treacherous and The Pierced Heart insert an ingenious crime into a well-known story or writer's life....

In the final part of This Writing Life podcast's conversation with Neel Mukherjee, we begin with Donald Trump before floating in a liberal bubble towards Neel's decision to stop listening to the news. We talk about the novel might cope with a 24 hour news cycle and Neel's own creative method - taking in his daily grind and his experience of studying creative writing courses.

Neel's excellent new novel A State of Freedom is out now...

In the second part of Neel Mukherjee's chat with This Writing Life podcast, he talks the influence of ghost stories on his excellent new novel A State of Freedom, about returning to India (as a visitor and writer), about the short story-novel, about surviving the Man Booker Prize shortlist for The Lives of Others, about the international trends of English literature, and finally about researching and writing about Indian bear-danci...