The Secret Life of Writers by Tablo

Steve Toltz is the author of A Fraction of the Whole, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Guardian First Book Award and Quicksand, which won the Russell Prize for Humour. Booklist called A Fraction of the Whole ‘a deliriously philosophical novel . . . with uproarious ruminations on freedom, the soul, love, death, and the meaning of life" and in a way that applies to Steve's work as a whole and his new book, Here Goes Nothing. The Irish Times described Here Goes Nothing as, ‘a smart social commentary on our fossil fuel-guzzling, warmongering, information-obsessed, pandemic-riddled world' and as The Scotsman said, he writes with ‘remorseless, brilliantly withering contempt', though this sits alongside a story and characters that are both affecting and strangely moving.Steve's also worked as screenwriter on shows like No Activity and Guilty Party.

Claire Messud is the author of seven works of fiction, including the bestselling books The Emperor's Children, The Woman Upstairs and The Burning Girl, as well as a book of essays, Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write. She has received Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters among many other accolades.Claire is also, one of the first writers published under new literary imprint Tablo Tales. Her novella A Dream Life, written in The American Library in Paris, launched Tablo Tales' short book series of great women writers from around the world. Helen Garner described A Dream Life as ‘A perfect frolic of a book, puffed on breezes of beauty and wit: it waltzes you through a little fear, a little darkness, and tips you out, refreshed and laughing, into the sun'. Fiction Editor of Kirkus Reviews, Laurie Muchnick chose A Dream Life as her pick on the Fully Booked podcast saying: ‘It's just so delightful to be back reading the voice of Claire Messud with its x-ray vision and her really precise writing…It's a real comedy of manners and really sharp and funny.' A Dream Life published by Tablo Tales and distributed by IPG in the US, Manda Group in Canada, Gazelle Book Services in the UK and New South Books in ANZ.

Australian novelist Hannah Kent's first novel Burial Rites, about the last woman executed in Iceland, was a bestseller internationally and translated into 30 languages. It won a mountain of awards including the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier's People's Choice Award and is being adapted for film. Her second novel The Good People set in Ireland in 1825 is also being adapted for film and was also critically acclaimed – Paula Hawkins described it ‘a literary novel with the pace and tension of a thriller' which could be applied to Hannah's work as a whole. While all of her novels are very different, they're also tied together by bringing the past alive, and writing about enigmatic people who are often outsiders - and writing about the heart of life – about love and death and suffering. Hannah's new novel Devotion is just out, and readers everywhere will be delighted to hear it's ‘a glorious love story' as Sarah Winman described. It's both lyrical and compelling and Hannah pulls you in from the first page.

Charlotte Wood is one of Australia's finest, most original writers. She is the author of six novels; a collection of interviews called The Writers' Room; Love & Hunger; and The Luminous Solution, about creativity and resilience. Charlotte's most recent novel The Weekend is funny, tender and often uncomfortable, and won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year. The Natural Way of Things was a bestseller and published internationally. It received various awards including the Stella Prize, and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction. Charlotte also has two podcast series, The Writers' Room and Eat like the Animals. The Luminous Solution is wise and filled with energy and inspiration - it isn't just for writers and artists but for anyone wanting to enrich their inner life. As Ailsa Piper describes, it is a ‘magnificent book of consolation, inspiration, completely individual observation, scholarship, honesty, wisdom and wonder. Every page contains food for the mind and spirit.' 

Sinéad Gleeson is a writer and editor, based in Dublin. Her book of personal essays Constellations: Reflections from Life, won the Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer. It explores an array of subjects from Sinéad's experience with illness, to friendship, grief, falling in love, motherhood and ghosts, and throughout these disparate yet connected pieces she weaves stories about art and artists, music and literature. As Anne Enright says ‘if you want to know where passion and tenacity are born, read this book'. Sinéad's short stories have been published widely and she has also edited four award-winning Irish short story anthologies. Her new anthology of music essays co-edited wih Kim Gordan is coming out in 2022.

Anna Gerber is an award-winning Creative Director, working with storytelling, design and technology. For over 20 years, she's worked with global teams and companies like Google, Penguin, Mercedes and WeTransfer. Anna co-founded Visual Editions, a publishing house with refreshingly innovative book design and ideas. It won many awards and each book they made joined the permanent collection at The Art Institute of Chicago. Anna also dreamed up Editions at Play with Britt Iversen and Tea Uglow from Google Creative Lab, to tell experimental stories for the mobile phone. They made the first ever blockchain book, and published a ghost story that knows where the user is, and a book using Google Street View to travel the world. They received a Peabody Futures Award, and each Editions At Play story is part of the permanent collection at The British Library. In the pandemic Anna worked on Stories of Splendid Isolationwith voice activated stories for the home, and Anna is currently working with The Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles on making the first ever open access digital scent archive. In all of her work, Anna brings stories into the world in surprising ways, and helps make our digital experiences more thrilling and human. www.annagerber.com

Katie Kitamura's writing is taut, morally complex, beguiling, and gets under your skin. Garth Greenwell described her as ‘among the most brilliant and profound writers at work today' and as Evie Wyld said she's ‘one of the best living writers I've read, and she gives the dead ones a run for their money'. Katie has written for publications like the New York Times, The Guardian and Granta, and teaches creative writing at New York University. Her first novel was The Longshot and then came Gone To The Forest. Katie's third novel, A Separation, was a finalist for the Italian award Premio von Rezzori, was translated into sixteen languages, and is being adapted for film. Her new novel, Intimacies has just come out and was recently one of Barak Obama's summer reading selections. The narration has an elegance and deceptive distance at first, then it pulls you in til you're utterly hooked. It's a beautifully written and thought-proving book with astute observations about human nature, performance, language, and how we grapple with a world that doesn't have clear cut edges. Find Katie's novels in all good bookshops such as: Readings in Melbourne https://www.readings.com.auLRB in London https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.ukCity Lights in San Francisco http://www.citylights.com

Doireann Ní Ghríofa has published in both Irish and English and has written six acclaimed collections of poetry. Her most recent, To Star the Dark was described by The Irish Independent as ‘playful, serious, joyful, and moving'. Her book of prose called A Ghost in the Throat received Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and had phenomenal reviews across the word. Doireann has also received many other awards and accolades including a Lannan Literary Fellowship, Italy's Ostana Prize, a Seamus Heaney Fellowship and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.A Ghost in the Throat dives into all manner of subject from bees and breastfeeding to anatomy and what happens to bodies when they're given over to science. Many scenes are grounded in the minutiae of a woman's life, as Doireann both celebrates and documents motherhood, rearing children and the joy and messiness of it all.  At the heart of the story is one of Ireland's great poets, a woman named Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill and her iconic poem or keen of lament. A Ghost in the Throat is part obsession, part honouring and it is not actually classifyable, which is also part of the appeal. To use Doireann's own term, this is a female text.

Louise Adler is one of the most significant figures in Australian publishing. Born in Melbourne, Louise was educated locally and studied in Israel at the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, then in Britain at the University of Reading, and in America at Columbia University. She taught literature at Columbia for ten years and also taught at the University of Melbourne. Louise has since had a range of impressive roles that include Editor of Australian Book Review, Publishing Director of Reed Books Australia, Arts and Entertainment Editor for The Melbourne Age and Presenter of Arts Today on Radio National. More recently she was CEO and Publisher-in-Chief of Melbourne University Publishing and served on the boards of both the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art for over a decade. Louise is currently Publisher at Large at Hachette Australia and on the board of the Monash University Museum of Art. She has been awarded the Order of Australia for services to literature.

Andrew Solomon's work has had a major impact across the world. His books have made concrete changes for the better, fostering empathy and understanding in everyone who reads them. Andrew writes on politics, culture and psychology and is an activist in LGBTQ rights, mental health, and the arts. He's a Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University, a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale University and is a former President of PEN American Centre, and currently on their Board of Directors. He founded the Solomon Research Fellowships in LGBT Studies at Yale University and has written for publications such as The New Yorker, the London Times, and more. He's lectured widely and his TED talks have had over twenty million views.Andrew's first book was a study of Russian artists, called The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost. Then came his novel A Stone Boat that was described by Harold Bloom as ‘one of the authentic achievements in American fiction'. His memoir, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and was one of the London Times One Hundred Best Books of the Decade. Solomon's book, the bestselling Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity came out in 2012 and tells the stories of families raising exceptional children who find profound meaning in doing so. It received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction; the Wellcome Book Prize and many more accolades. There was also a celebrated documentary based on the book. The last book Andrew published was Far and Away: How Travel Can Change the World, a collection of his international reporting, and he has also more recently published an Audible Original called New Family Values that explores how the concept of family in America today has utterly changed, though the economic and legal structures lag behind.

Since Evie Wyld was first published, her writing has been celebrated for its fine observations, and way of pinning down emotional nuance. Her first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award and Evie was listed as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists. Her second novel, All the Birds Singing, won the Miles Franklin Award, the Encore Award, the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, and was longlisted for the Stella Prize. Then with her third novel The Bass Rock she won the Stella Prize. It weaves together the lives of three women across different periods of time and explores male violence, in different guises. But Evie doesn't just explore male violence, she gets in deep, and leaves you reeling from the cumulative impact of this age-old misogyny. It's one of the most unsettling and artfully written novels of recent times. Evie's also written a graphic novel with illustrator Joe Sumner called Everything Is Teeth, and she co-runs Review, an indie bookshop in Peckham London.

Since Interpreter of Maladies was published in 1999, Jhumpa Lahiri has written three works of fiction in English, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and the Booker shortlisted, The Lowland. She has also written a work of nonfiction, In Other Words, which was the first book she wrote in Italian, translated into English by Ann Goldstein. In addition Jhumpa edited The Penguin Book of Short Italian Stories, highlighting a thrilling selection of Italian writers, some of whom hadn't been seen in English before. She has also translated various books from Italian including Domenico Starnone's Trick. Jhumpa received the Pulitzer Prize for Interpreter of Maladies and numerous other awards for her writing including the PEN/Hemingway Award; the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award; and a National Humanities Medal, awarded by Barak Obama. She has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Whereabouts is Jhumpa's new book, her first novel written in Italian and this time, she also translated it into English. There's a grace and a gentle precision to her pared back style as she looks at every day moments in specific places, and the solitude, frustrations and intimacies of being human. 

Nikki Gemmell is one of Australia's great writers. Since Les Murray printed Nikki's first short story in Quadrant Magazine, she's written thirteen novels. One of them, was the erotic blockbuster The Bride Stripped Bare which was published anonymously back in 2003. It was described as a ‘raw and unflinching' look at sexuality – and it's that raw and unflinching eye that makes her writing as a whole so engaging. Nikki's books have been translated into 22 languages and in France, she's been described as a ‘female Jack Kerouac'. Nikki also writes books for children, is a columnist for the Weekend Australian Magazine and she's published various non-fiction books, musing about life, love and death. In all of her work there's a sort of sinewy energy that bristles on the page, and her fine observations and sensual descriptions are a joy to read in all of their guises. Her book After has the feel of a literary detective story as Nikki investigates her mother's death, though at the heart, it's a celebration of her life and their relationship in all of its wondrous complexity. Her new novel that's just come out is called The Ripping Tree. It's a poetic thriller that's vividly imagined and confronting – a particularly Australian story, set in the time of white settlement. You can find Nikki's books at all good bookshops, and here's a Sydney-based one for starters: Kinokuniya Books https://australia.kinokuniya.com/productsis_searching=true&restrictBy%5Bauthor%5D=Gemmell+Nikki&taxon=2

Charles Yu writes playful and inventive novels and short stories, often with a kind of sly irreverence. There's warmth and wisdom at their heart, he's very funny. Charles has written two collection of stories, Third Class Superhero and Sorry Please Thank You and the novels How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and his latest Interior Chinatown that won the National Book Award and Le Prix Médicis Étranger. Charles has also received the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Award, been nominated for two Writers Guild of America awards for his work on the television series Westworld, and has written for shows on FX, AMC, Facebook Watch, and Adult Swim. He's also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine,The Atlantic and Wired. 

Andy Griffiths is one of the most loved authors in Australia. Andy and his partner in crime illustrator Terry Denton have collaborated on more than 33 bestselling books including the Treehouse series, all of which have sold over 10 million copies – which must make them some of bestselling Australian authors of all time. They've been published in over 35 countries and have had various books adapted for stage with sell out seasons at the Opera House. Andy is an ambassador for The Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the Pyjama Foundation and has received countless awards for his books and contribution to Children's Literature. * You might want to listen to this interview in a few sessions as it's much longer than usual (everything Andy said was gold so I didn't edit it down). He's incredibly humble, generous and funny (forgive my excessive laughter) and his life story is an inspiration. Enjoy.

Melissa Harrison is an award-winning novelist, nature writer and podcaster. Melissa's podcast The Stubborn Light of Things has the same title as her book that was named the Sunday Times Nature Book of the Year. In the book it feels like she's taking us by her side as she walks through the greens of London and the English countryside, sharing warm and poetic observations of the natural world. There's a joy in her lush descriptions, with the magic of frogspawn, seahorses in the Thames, murmurations of starlings, elfin dog violets and more. Melissa's writing is finely observed, musical and intimate and she echoes this in her podcast with her soothing voice and recordings of the fields and birds. Melissa also contributes a monthly nature column to The Times, which the book was based on, and writes for various other publications. Her most recent novel, All Among the Barley, was described by Jon McGregor as “a masterpiece”. Her other novels are Clay and At Hawthorn Time and she's written a non-fiction meditation called Rain: Four Walks in English Weather, and edited four anthologies of the seasons. 

Janine di Giovanni is an author of various award-winning books and one of the world's great foreign correspondents. She has had a thirty year career in war zones, reporting on conflicts from the first Palestinian intifadato the siege of Sarajevo, the Rwandan genocide and many other wars across the world. She was a long-time Senior Foreign Correspondent for The Times of London and a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, and now writes for the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, Harpers and more. Janine has received countless awards for her work including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award, the Courage in Journalism award, and the Blake Dodd, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  She's also a Senior Fellow and lecturer at Yale University.  Janine has written nine books including Ghosts by Daylight: A Memoir of War and Love and more recently The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria. Each book of hers should be required reading. In addition to contextualising the conflicts, Janine shares the human stories – and in a way, she sheds light on what many people choose to remain in the dark about. She exposes what we find so hard to confront about humanity and ourselves. Follow Janine on twitter @janinedigi.

Jenny Hewson is a literary agent based in London. She worked for 13 years as an agent at one of England's best agencies, Rogers Coleridge and White or RCW as it's known, representing authors across fiction and non-fiction. A year ago she joined the prestigious Lutyens & Rubinstein agency, bringing her list of authors with her, including Sarah Perry, Melissa Harrison, Amy Sackville and Alexander Macleod.Lutyens and Rubinstein was the first literary agency to own an independent bookshop when they opened their doors in Notting Hill in 2009. The bookshop itself has a beautifully curated selection which makes it a pleasure to browse – and of course having a bookshop means the agents can witness the appetite of readers daily.

Lang Leav is a poet and novelist whose work has a rare and powerful way of connecting with readers. Lang was born in a refugee camp, grew up in Sydney's Cabramatta and now lives in New Zealand. She has received various accolades including a Churchill fellowship and a Goodreads Readers' Choice Award. Her first book, 'Love & Misadventure' was self-published and became a runaway success. Her following poetry books and novels have all been international bestsellers. Lang also shares her writing on Instagram and other social networks to a combined audience of over 2 million people. There's something intimate, even diary-like in her tone as though she's sharing her innermost thoughts, exploring themes from love and loss to feminism and the nature of writing. She celebrates the female spirit, her heritage and craft. Lang's new book is 'September Love'. In the forward Lili Reinhart describes her words as ‘individually plucked with precision and purpose' and ‘like looking straight into her heart and seeing my own heart silhouetted underneath'.

James is an old-fashioned farmer based in England's The Lake District where his family have lived and worked for over 600 years. He's the author of the bestselling memoir The Shephard's Life which won the Lake District book of the year, was shortlisted for the Wainwright and Ondaatje prizes and translated into sixteen languages. It speaks of his life's work and his profound connection to the land. It resonated around the world, as have his photos and words on social media where he's become a sensation.James' new book is called English Pastoral and as with the first, it feels like a kind of love song to his father and grandfather. It continues the conversation from The Shephard's Life sharing personal anecdotes and observations but also looks at the big picture and the consequences of large scale industrial farming and the loss of ancient rhythms of work. It's about what farming was like in James' childhood and what it has become, not just in England but across the world. It's devastating to read about this ‘total war on nature' and while there's a lot of grief about what has been lost, there's also hope, showing what we can learn from the old ways to reinvigorate our natural landscapes. And James' writing, his descriptions of the wilds, the animals and his farm is luminous – the book really is a revelation.

Penny Hueston is the co-owner with Michael Heyward of Text Publishing, one of Australia's great independent houses. Text publishes some of the world's most loved writers including Helen Garner, Graeme Simsion, Elena Ferrante and J.M. Coetzee. They've done a lot for Australian writing in general, championing books internationally and their Text Classics series has brought back many important Australian books into print, including those by Elizabeth Harrower. Penny herself is an incredibly skilled editor and translator. Her translations are by authors such as Nobel prize-winning Patrick Modiano, Sarah Cohen-Scali, Emmanuelle Pagano and Marie Darrieussecq. She's translated six books of Marie's including Being Here: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker for which she just received the 2020 Medal for Excellence in Translation. 

Jane Harper is one of the rare authors whose books are so successful that they've carved out a whole new genre – it's called Outback or Rural Noir, and it has taken the world by storm. Jane is the author of international bestsellers The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and the new book that's recently come out called The Survivors which sold an extraordinary 20,000 copies in the first week it was released in Australia, immediately going to no. #1 on the bestseller lists. Jane does many things to weave her particular magic. She captures the hostility as well as the beauty of the Australian landscape, and she writes characters you're invested in, with pacey stories you can't put down. Her books have been published in over 40 territories and have won numerous awards including the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year, The Sunday Times Crime book of the year, Amazon's Best Mystery and Thriller Novel - the list goes on. The film adaptation of The Dry, made by Reese Witherspoon and her production company, will be released next year.

Emily St John Mandel grew up in Canada and now lives in New York. She has written various prize-winning books including The Singer's Gun that won the 2014 Prix Mystère de la Critique in France and Station Eleven, which one reviewer likened to ‘Cormac McCarthy seesawing with Joan Didion'. It's a story that moves between the night a particular strain of flu starts spreading like wildfire and the future 20 years later following a band of itinerant musicians and Shakespearean actors. It won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award and The Toronto Book Award and is of course even more prescient now than when it came out in 2014. Emily's brilliant new novel, The Glass Hotel, is as The Guardian said ‘a portrait of everyday obliviousness … a tale of Ponzi schemes, not pestilence'. The thing about this novel and all of Emily's books really is that they're not just absorbing stories that are beautifully written – there's also so many big hearty ideas within them, and musings about humanity, about who we are in the dark and about our dreams and the ghosts that haunt us. And all of this makes her books resonate long after you've put them down.

Alison Bell is the co-creator, co-writer, producer and star of the award-winning ABC and Netflix series 'The Letdown'. It explores the early years of motherhood in a way that's honest and moving as well as very funny - there's the mothers' group, the sleep training, the non-existent sex life and much more. Like the best writing, there's something universal, in which we can recognise our own experience. Alison and her co-writer Sarah Scheller won an AACTA Award for Best Television Screenplay, and for Best Comedy Program for both seasons one and two, and Alison herself won the AACTA award for best comedy performer for season two. Before 'The Letdown' Alison performed in various stage productions and television shows. You might have seen her in the series 'Laid', 'The Leftovers', 'No Activity' and Steven Spielberg's 'Amazing Stories'. Alison has also worked as a script editor and screenwriter for production companies such as Revolver and Madman. And she's got lots of exciting projects coming up which you'll hear about here.

Inua Ellams is many things – he's a poet, playwright, a creator of community, graphic artist and designer. He's moved, entertained and challenged audiences around the world, on stages from Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Sydney Opera House to the Glastonbury Festival. Inua is an ambassador for the Ministry of Stories, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has published various prize-winning books of poetry. His most recent book is ‘The Half-God of Rainfall' that ‘The Guardian' described as ‘a playful, epic contemporary retooling of Greek mythology…a story of feuding gods and journeys to the edge of the universe'. As with his poetry, his plays have been critically acclaimed. ‘The Barber Shop Chronicles' for example, sold out two runs at The National Theatre and was recently one of the special selection of works live streamed and made accessible for a period during the pandemic. Inua is also the founder of Midnight Run, a nocturnal urban excursion. He's undertaken several commissions, for places like the Tate Modern, Soho Theatre and the BBC and he also runs a R.A.P. Party for poets to read work inspired by hip-hop.Inua's new book of poetry is called ‘The Actual', and as Bernardine Evaristo said 'This is what poetry looks like when you have nothing to lose, when you speak from the heart, when you have spent years honing your craft so that you can be free. This is what poetry looks like when you are a word sorcerer, a linguistic swordsman, a metaphor-dazzler, a passionate creator of poetry as fire, as lament, as beauty, as reflection, as argument, as home. I was blown away by this book'.www.inuaellams.comListen to the audio documentary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000m5lt

Featuring: the beauty and mysticism of Paris, witnessing the fire at Notre Dame, what Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier did for France and publishing, the illustrious writers who've been associated with the shop, Sylvia's father George Whitman, taking in strangers and the tumbleweed tradition, the man who stayed seven years in the rare books room, buying book collections across Paris, finding an unpublished novel by Gregory Corso stuffed behind the loo, wonderful reading recommendations and a poem in the morning like a shot of espresso. Sylvia Whitman started running the iconic Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Company in 2004 when she was 23 years old and now co-manages it with her partner David Delannet. She took up the reins from her father, George Whitman, who founded the bookshop in 1951. Sylvia breathed freshness, energy and new life into the shop while also continuing its most loved traditions such as having writers, called tumbleweeds sleeping amongst the shelves. She's had many creative ventures over the years – she's launched a festival, opened a café, grown the bookshop and created a contest for unpublished novellas – but the beating heart of everything is, of course, the beautiful bookshop itself. Since it first opened it has been a haven for everyone who's walked through its doors. There's been many descriptions of it over the years: Henry Miller called it ‘a wonderland of books', James Baldwin described it as ‘The old curiosity shop' and Anaïs Nin wrote it was ‘a house of gentle warmth, with walls of books and tea ceremonies'.

Featuring: when stories shapeshift, separation of the beloved, the Cassandra myth in #metoo, performance as a test of character and ecstatic poetry. Daniel Morden is one of the world's most popular tellers of traditional stories. He's been telling stories to adults and children for over thirty years, in venues great and small from palaces to prisons, from The National Theatre, to the Barbican and Broadway. Daniel's repertoire ranges from fairytales and myths of love and loss to classics like 'The Odyssey'. He's written or co-written eleven books, and is also part of a longstanding storytelling and musical collaboration called 'The Devil's Violin'. Daniel has been awarded the Hay Festival medal and a Welsh Books Council award and is currently a visiting fellow at the University of South Wales. As BBC radio has said ‘To experience Daniel Morden in full flight is an amazing thing'.

Featuring: the history of language, living in Italy, getting published for the first time, the role of mentors, and the joy of writing 'The Dictionary of Lost Words'. Pip Williams was born in the UK, grew up in Sydney and now calls the Adelaide Hills home. She has written the memoir 'One Italian Summer' and 'The Dictionary of Lost Words' a novel that's only recently come out in Australia and has already sold over 50,000 copies in just a few months. Later this year it will be released in many other territories throughout the world. The novel is a beautiful, all-engrossing tale, imagining another story behind the Oxford English Dictionary. It's also the story of a young woman growing into herself and a story about finding and pursuing your life's work and passion. If you haven't yet read it, order it immediately at your local independent bookshop.

Featuring: novels that make her cry, how to get through acquisitions, the joyous dance of editing and publishing books that have the rare combination of being both commercial and literary. Catherine has worked in publishing for many years, including with Penguin Books, Pan Macmillan, Allen & Unwin, and since 2012, with HarperCollins, where she is Head of Fiction. She has an eclectic list, publishing across fiction and non-fiction. Recent standouts include Julia Baird's bestselling 'Phosphorescence'; Vicki Laveau-Harvie's Stella Prize-winning memoir 'The Erratics'; Catherine McKinnon's Miles Franklin-shortlisted 'Storyland'; Stan Grant's acclaimed 'Talking to My Country'; and Trent Dalton's phenomenal 'Boy Swallows Universe'. Her rule of thumb in publishing is that a book has got to make her feel something – she wants to feel passionately invested in everything she publishes. It's all about heart, soul, meaning and joy.

Featuring: the life-changing literary award, healing through mentoring, standing inside your story, where 'Ruby Moonlight' came from, Australia's first Aboriginal writers' retreat and poetry readings. Ali Cobby Eckermann is a poet and artist from South Australia whose work has been published and celebrated around the world. Her poetry collections include 'little bit long time', 'Kami' and the award-winning collection 'Inside My Mother'. Her verse novels are 'His Father's Eyes' and 'Ruby Moonlight' which won the first black&write! Indigenous writing fellowship, the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, a Deadly Award and was named the New South Wales Book of the Year. She's also written the memoir 'Too Afraid to Cry'. In 2013 Ali toured Ireland as Australia's Poetry Ambassador and in 2017 she received the Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University which is only given to a select group of the world's greatest writers. She's described herself as ‘a dreamer, a gardener, a reader and a nomad'.

Anna Funder is one of Australia's most acclaimed and celebrated writers. Her multi-award winning novel All That I Am wasan homage to four extraordinary German anti-Hitler activists in exile in London in the 1930s. It won the Miles Franklin Prize, spent over one and a half years on the bestseller list, and is being made into a feature film. Anna's Stasiland tells true stories of people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for the Stasi. A contemporary classic, Stasiland won the 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize for best non-fiction in English. Tom Hanks called it ‘fascinating, entertaining, hilarious, horrifying and very important'. Both books are international bestsellers, published in over 24 countries. In 2016 Anna published The Girl with the Dogs, a poignantly beautiful short story inspired by Chekhov's The Lady with the Dogs. Anna is a former DAAD Fellow in Berlin, Australia Council Fellow, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. She lives in Sydney.

Leanne is an extraordinary artist and writer. She is the author of 'Was She Pretty' which looks at jealousy and how we fixate on our partner's exes; 'Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry' which tells the demise of a relationship in a way no one else would think of; 'Native Trees of Canada'; 'Swimming Studies' which won the National Book Critic's Circle Award Award; and 'Women in Clothes' that Leanne wrote with Sheila Heti and Heidi Julavits. Her latest is 'Guestbook', a book about ghosts that isn't just about ghosts. Leanne's also written a picture book called 'Toys Talking', and she's done many other things – art director of the New York Times op ed page, cover designer, co-founder of the publisher J&L Books and judge of The Booker Prize. And she's a mum to Tomasina. Leanne's Canadian but has lived in New York for many years.You can find Leanne's work here: http://www.leanneshapton.com 

Featuring the bestselling Phosphorescence, forest therapy and moonbows, Rachel Carson on wonder, the rafts that keep you afloat, love of cuttlefish and a mother's grace.

http://www.michaelchristie.net

Featuring the invisible work of mothering, the dark and light of creativity, unhooking reality, Kangaroo Island post-fires, audio firsts, experimentation and expressing your inner weird. As well as writing prize-winning fiction, Ceridwen Dovey writes thought-provoking essays and profiles which have appeared in publications like Wired and The New Yorker. She has written a collection of short stories, Only the Animals, and the novels Blood Kin, In the Garden of the Fugitives and Life After Truth. A selection of her profiles were published in the collection Inner Worlds Outer Spaces and she has written a literary biography of J.M.Coetzee that's also a memoir of sorts. Her recent audio-only novel, Once More with Feeling, is now available on Audible. www.ceridwendovey.com Subscribe to The Secret Life of Writers for new episodes every second Thursday. Hosted by Jemma Birrell, and presented by Tablo Publishing.

Featuring filming Catch 22 in Italy, the allure of Paris, how Lion was career-changing, a dinner with Philip Seymour Hoffman, how not to be pigeonholed and working with Woody Harrelson on The Most Dangerous Man in America. Luke Davies, poet, novelist and screenwriter, adapted his semi-autobiographical novel Candy for the screen in 2006. His other novels are Isabelle the Navigator and God of Speed which was inspired by the life of Howard Hughes. He's written five volumes of poetry, the latest, Interferon Palms, won the Prime Minister's Literary Award in 2012. Luke has written screenplays for film and television in both the US and Australia. His feature films include Life, Beautiful Boy, Angel of Mine and Lion, which went on to win BAFTA and AACTA awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Luke is also the creator of TV series Catch-22 and is currently working on The Most Dangerous Man in America. It was recently announced that Luke will write the next script for Steven Spielberg's Amblin, adapting Colum McCann's novel Apeirogon (this was one of the things we couldn't talk about at the time the episode went to air).