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Host Jason Blitman sits down with Seán Hewitt (Open, Heaven) to discuss sense memories, queer representation in school growing up, and Seán's aversion to musicals—despite offering a sharp insight into The Sound of Music's film adaptation. Later, Jason is joined by Guest Gay Reader Jeffery Self, who shares what he's currently reading, talks about his book Self Sabotage, and reflects on theatre icons Cathy Rigby, Sally Struthers, and Gary Beach.Seán Hewitt's debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire, won the Laurel Prize in 2021, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times (London) as one of their “30 under 30” artists in Ireland. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, is published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and Penguin Press in the United States (2022). It was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, for the Foyles Book of the Year in nonfiction, for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and for a LAMBDA award, and won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022. Hewitt is assistant professor in literary practice at Trinity College Dublin, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.Jeffery Self is a writer and actor whose TV credits include Search Party, The Horror of Dolores Roach, Shameless, 30 Rock, Desperate Housewives, as well as co-creating and starring in the cult low-fi series Jeffery & Cole Casserole with Cole Escola. His film credits include Drop, Spoiler Alert, Mack and Rita, and The High Note. He is the author of the young adult novels Drag Teen and A Very, Very Bad Thing. He lives in New York City.SUBSTACK!https://gaysreading.substack.com/ BOOK CLUB!Use code GAYSREADING at checkout to get first book for only $4 + free shipping! Restrictions apply.http://aardvarkbookclub.com WATCH!https://youtube.com/@gaysreading FOLLOW!Instagram: @gaysreading | @jasonblitmanBluesky: @gaysreading | @jasonblitmanCONTACT!hello@gaysreading.com
This week, we're joined by Harriet Baker, winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award; and Helen Scales tunes into the sonic marvels beneath the surface of the sea.'Rural Hours: The country lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann', by Harriet Baker'Sing Like a Fish: How sound rules life under water', by Amorina KingdonProduced by Charlotte Pardy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How does Shakespeare's King Lear resonate in a world facing climate catastrophe? Novelist Julia Armfield explores this question in Private Rites, a novel set in a near-future London reshaped by rising sea levels. Following three sisters grappling with their father's death, Private Rites weaves together themes of inheritance, power, and familial wounds—echoing Shakespeare's tragic monarch while carving out a distinctly modern, queer perspective. Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea, discusses her fascination with disaster narratives, the inescapable dynamics of sibling relationships, and how Shakespeare's work inspires her storytelling. From the storm in King Lear to the watery depths of her fiction, she reflects on how queerness, horror, and the climate crisis intersect in literature. Julia Armfield is a fiction writer living in London with her wife and cat. Her work has been published in Granta, The White Review, and Best British Short Stories in 2019 and 2021. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award in 2018 and won the White Review Short Story Prize in 2018 and a Pushcart Prize in 2020. She is the author of salt slow, a collection of short stories, which was longlisted for the Polari Prize in 2020 and the Edge Hill Prize in 2020. Her debut novel, Our Wives Under The Sea, was shortlisted for the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award in 2022 and won the Polari Prize in 2023. Her second novel, Private Rites, was longlisted for the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize in 2024. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published March 11, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.
Caryl Phillips was born in St.Kitts and came to Britain at the age of four months. He grew up in Leeds, and studied English Literature at Oxford University. He was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 1992 and was on the 1993 Granta list of Best of Young British Writers. His literary awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a British Council Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, and Britain's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, for Crossing the River which was also shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize. A Distant Shore was longlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize, and won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize; Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Open Book Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of the Arts. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest novel Another Man In The Street. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
KIM SHERWOOD chats to Paul Burke about A SPY LIKE ME, Double or Nothing, Ian Fleming, the Double 'O' series, loving Bond and living the dream, George Baker.A SPY LIKE MESix days.A bomb goes off at the BBC. But this is just the beginning. In six days' time, terrorists will strike again.Three agents.With James Bond captured, three of MI6's toughest Double O agents race from Venice to Afghanistan to Dubai to stop the terror.One chance to find James Bond.As the Double Os close in, they find themselves unexpectedly inching closer to 007. Now the race is on to stop the terrorists – and save Britain's finest spy.Kim Sherwood is a novelist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her award-winning debut novel Testament was released in 2018, and in 2019, Kim was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. A Wild & True Relation, following a woman who joins a smugglers' crew in eighteenth-century Devon, was published by Virago in 2023. A Spy Like Me is the second in a series of Double O novels expanding the James Bond universe.Recommends; the spy novels of Helen McInnes Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.Produced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 20242024 Slaughterfest,
Charles and Graham are joined by novelist and short story writer, York based Ross Raisin to talk about his recent triumph in the BBC National Short Story Award with Ghost Kitchen and life as a writer.Ross Raisin was born and brought up on Silsden Moor in West Yorkshire. He is the author of four novels: A Hunger (2022), A Natural (2017), Waterline (2011) and God's Own Country (2008). His work has won and been shortlisted for over ten literary awards. Ross won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award in 2009, and in 2013 was named on Granta's once a decade Best of Young British Novelists list. In 2018 he was awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Society of Literature. Ross has written short stories for Granta, Prospect, the Sunday Times, Esquire, BBC Radio 3 and 4, among others, and in 2018 published a book for the Read This series, on the practice of fiction writing: Read This if you Want to be a Great Writer.Keep in touch with Two Big Egos in a Small Car:X@2big_egosFacebook@twobigegos
Megan is one of Ireland's rising stars, according to The Times. Her novels Acts of Desperation and Ordinary Human Failings have earned huge acclaim over the past few years. Among those accolades are shortlist nominations for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Nero Prize, the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award & the Gordon Burn Prize. She's been longlisted for the Women's Prize this year and the Dylan Thomas Prize 2022. Not only is she a contributor to major outlets (including New Statesman, Frieze, The Telegraph and The Independent), Megan has been interviewed by The Guardian, The Times, Interview Magazine, Metal Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Penguin Random House, NYLON and Stylist. Get your copy of Ordinary Human Failings here or at your local seller.
This episode was first aired in March, 2022. Cal Flyn's Islands of Abandonment was one of the UK's bestselling books of 2021. It was the Sunday Times Science and Environment book of the year and won her the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. In this episode she talks with broadcaster and science communicator Helen Czerski about the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in only tiny numbers – and about what happens when humanity's impact on nature is forced into retreat. Let us know your thoughts! Take a moment to fill in our Intelligence Squared Audience Survey and be in with the chance of winning a £50 Amazon gift card. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events - Our member-only newsletter The Monthly Read, sent straight to your inbox ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series ... Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. ... Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Welcome to The Writers' Cafe! Brought to you from the award-winning indie, Sevenoaks Bookshop!This week's visitor to the cafe is the wonderful and brilliantly insightful, Noreen Masud. Noreen joins us to speak all things, A Flat Place, her debut memoir exploring complex trauma and flat landscapes. A book so lauded and acclaimed, from the shortlist of the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, to the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2024, and the Jhalak Prize! Join us as we discuss all things landscapes, trauma, politics and place, racialised perspectives, cats, cocktails, and protests in and through literature.If you are new to The Writer's Cafe pod: Inspired by our own in-shop cafe of the same name and the conversations about books, life, literature, and so much more every single day - as well as the literary salons of old where gossip thrived - this new podcast seeks to highlight and celebrate the best writers and voices every episode with a warm, detailed conversation about their work and craft.Noreen's work can purchased with us here:https://sevenoaksbookshop.co.uk/shop/a-flat-place-by-noreen-masud-2/https://sevenoaksbookshop.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Raymond Antrobus joins Kevin Young to read “A Protactile Version of ‘Tintern Abbey,' ” by John Lee Clark, and his own poem “Signs, Music.” Antrobus has received the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Ted Hughes Award from the Poetry Society, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, and a Somerset Maugham Award, among other honors.
Julia Armfield's work has been published in Granta, The White Review and Best British Short Stories 2019 and 2021. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review Short Story Prize 2018 and a Pushcart Prize in 2020. She is the author of salt slow, a collection of short stories, which was longlisted for the Polari Prize 2020 and the Edge Hill Prize 2020. Her debut novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, was shortlisted for the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award 2022 and won the Polari Prize 2023. On today's show she talks to Neil Denny about her latest novel Private Rites. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The May Art of Reading book club features Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín in conversation with writer Megan Nolan about her novel 'Ordinary Human Failings'. "Megan Nolan's novel tells the story of the Green family who move from Ireland to London in the early 1990s. 'Where Nolan really excels is in the delineation of complex, sometimes contradictory interior states, the water we all swim in and call "reality",' writes The Financial Times." - Colm Tóibín Megan Nolan was born in 1990 in Waterford, Ireland and is currently based in London. Her essays and reviews have been published by The New York Times, White Review, The Guardian and Frieze amongst others. Her debut novel, Acts of Desperation, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2021 and was the recipient of a Betty Trask Award, shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second novel, Ordinary Human Failings, was published in 2023 and is shortlisted for the inaugural Nero Book Awards, for fiction and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize. Learn more about the Art of Reading Book Club and the Laureate for Irish Fiction programme: https://www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Literature/Laureate-for-Irish-Fiction/The-Art-of-Reading-Book-Club/
In this episode, we chat to Andrew McMillan about his novel, Pity. We discuss intersections of masculinity, sexuality and class and the way the body might hold these ideas within fiction and poetry. We think about the ways in which the form of the novel can hold multiple truths and stories, and how this links to post-industrial identities. We explore the dangers of describing post-industrial towns by their lack or an absence, and consider what it would take to find new definitions of community. We chat about the need for more northern stories, and the idea that everyone's village, town or city is worthy of literature. We think about finding a new language to discuss the past, which honours its legacies and yet allows us to define ourselves on new terms, in order to move forwards. Andrew McMillan's debut collection physical was the only ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. The collection also won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award (2016), an Eric Gregory Award (2016) and a Northern Writers' award (2014). It was shortlisted the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2016, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Polari First Book Prize. It was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2015. In 2019 it was voted as one of the top 25 poetry books of the past 25 years by the Booksellers Association. His second collection, playtime, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2018; it was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2018, a Poetry Book of the Month in both The Observer and The Telegraph, a Poetry Book of the Year in The Sunday Times and won the inaugural Polari Prize. His third collection, pandemonium, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2021, and 100 Queer Poems, the acclaimed anthology he edited with Mary Jean Chan, was published by Vintage in 2022. Physical has been translated into French, Galician and Norwegian editions, with double-editions of physical & playtime published in Slovak and German in 2022. He is Professor of Contemporary Writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His debut novel, Pity, was published by Canongate in 2024. References Pity by Andrew McMillan Pandemonium by Andrew McMillan Playtime by Andrew McMillan Physical by Andrew McMillan As always, visit Storysmith for 10% discount on Andrew's work.
Kim Sherwood is an award-winning novelist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her debut novel Testament (2018) won the Harper's Bazaar Big Book of the Year Award and the Bath Novel Award, was shortlisted for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. In 2019, Kim was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Kim is currently writing a series of Double O novels for the Ian Fleming Estate and HarperCollins, expanding the James Bond universe with a new cast of Double O agents for the 21st century. The first title, Double or Nothing, was released in 2022, and the follow-up, A Spy Like Me, is just out.We loved chatting with Kim and hearing how a very last-minute decision to enter the Bath Novel Award changed her writing life, as well as talking about just how she managed to land the dream job of writing the new Bond novels. We talk about what it's like to write for a franchise that is so big and beloved, and discuss the pros and cons that can bring.Links:Buy Kim's books nowFollow Kim on Twitter/XVisit Kim's websitePage One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-oneFollow us on Twitter/XFollow us on FacebookFollow us on InstagramFollow us on BlueskyFollow us on Threads Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and journalist Megan Nolan. Her essays and reviews have been published by the Guardian and the New York Times, among other publications. Her debut novel, "Acts of Desperation", was published in 2021 and received a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second novel, "Ordinary Human Failings", was published in July. We spoke to Megan about getting started in journalism in her early twenties, balancing essay-writing with fiction-writing and about "Ordinary Human Failings". You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd, and produced by Artemis Irvine. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.
On Tuesday, October 4, 2022, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring writer Seán Hewit. Hosted by Professor Cóilín Parsons, Director of Global Irish Studies.Seán Hewitt was born in 1990. His debut collection, Tongues of Fire, is published by Jonathan Cape. He is a book critic for The Irish Times and teaches Modern British & Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin. His debut collection, Tongues of Fire, won The Laurel Prize, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times as one of their “30 under 30” artists in Ireland. He is also the winner of a Northern Writers' Award, the Resurgence Prize, and an Eric Gregory Award. His book J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism is published with Oxford University Press (2021). His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, is published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and Penguin Press in the USA (2022).Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.
A couple of weeks ago, we were kindly invited by Ian Fleming Publications and Harper Collins to interview author Kim Sherwood on stage at the London book launch of 'Double Or Nothing.' Shortly before we went in front of the specially invited audience, we recorded this exclusive interview with Kim about her life with James Bond, how she landed the gig, what her approach to penning an expansion to the Double-O section was, and much, much more! James Bond is missing…007 has been captured, perhaps even killed, by a sinister private military company. His whereabouts unknown. Meet the new generation of spies…Johanna Harwood, 003. Joseph Dryden, 004. Sid Bashir, 009. They represent the very best and brightest of MI6. Supremely skilled, ruthless, with a license to kill, they will do anything to protect their country. The fate of the world rests in their hands…Tech billionaire Sir Bertram Paradise claims he can reverse the climate crisis and save the planet. But can he really? The new spies must uncover the truth, because the future of humanity hangs in the balance. Time is running out. Event report: https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/event-literary-double-or-nothing-launch The recording took place on August 31st, 2022 in the UK. Kim Sherwood is a novelist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her award-winning debut novel Testament was released in 2018, and in 2019, Kim was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Double or Nothing is the first in a trilogy of Double O novels expanding the James Bond universe. Vipul Patel is a co-founder of MI6-HQ.com and the magazine MI6 Confidential This podcast is copyright Pretitles LLC © 2022
Benjamin Wood has been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award and the Commonwealth Book Prize, he's a CWA Gold Dagger nominee and a finalist for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. He also lectures creative writing at King's College.His 4th novel is 'The Young Apprentice'. It looks at Charlie and Joyce, recently released from borstal and starting a new life as an architecture apprentice. Until a figure from Joyce's past creeps back into her world, trying to drag them back to their old criminal life. We talk about the separation between work and creativity, and how that's affected where he writes. Also why he uses longhand to get a different angle on a story, and what people learn in a creative writing lecture.This week's episode is sponsored by 'Waiting for Jetpacks', the new short story collection, by John Lockhart. Grab a copy here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waiting-Jetpacks-John-Lockhart-ebook/dp/B08GM4SC68Support the show at patreon.com/writersroutine@writerspodwritersroutine.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
From ghost towns to nuclear exclusion zones, what happens when nature reclaims derelict spaces?Award-winning writer Cal Flyn is On Jimmy's Farm this week to chat about her journey around the world's abandoned places, areas where nature has been allowed to take over again.Hear about the surprising ecological discoveries in different places such as Chernobyl, a ghost town in Detroit, and an uninhibited Scottish island…which has subsequently been taken over by feral cattle.Cal won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award for her book, Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape. You can read more about it here.On Jimmy's Farm: A Podcast By History Hit. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Cal Flyn's Islands of Abandonment was one of the UK's bestselling books of 2021. It was the Sunday Times Science and Environment book of the year and won her the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. In this episode she talks with broadcaster and science communicator Helen Czerski about the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in only tiny numbers – and about what happens when humanity's impact on nature is forced into retreat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, I had the great privilege of speaking to Paul Farley. Paul is a poet originally from Liverpool who has won multiple awards for his work, including the Sunday Times Young Writer of Year, is a member of the Royal Society of Literature and also had the esteemed honour of teaching me creative writing in his post as professor at Lancaster University. We discuss: Poets he believes are most worthy of study in state educated classrooms The inspiration he takes from the Northamptonshire ‘peasant poet', John Clare. The IB's decision to include musicians in their prescribed reading list as poets and whether this suggests poetry has a waning influence on newer generations. Paul's views on the changing face of form in poetry. His relationship with Liverpool now and the ways in which he includes the city or cadence of the accent in his work. And finally, advice he would give to students who find it difficult to access poetry as an art form. Thanks again to Paul for putting up with my questions so early in the morning and providing ideas that I've been considering ever since. If you haven't already, subscribe via Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts if you'd like to be made aware of when more educational chat like this becomes available! Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter by searching for @chrisjordanhk Links https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Farley/e/B001HD3K4C?qid=1627019169&ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_4&sr=8-4 (Paul's publications) on Amazon
"We were exactly the class which filled the Imperial hierarchy...sufficiently well connected to get a place with the East India Company or in the Raj Civil Service, but desperate enough economically to need to send the younger sons out... It was a guy called Stair Dalrymple who ended up in the Black Hole of Calcutta in 1756. And so, generations have been there one after another and like almost all the Brits, probably all the Brits who I'd ever met, it was assumed that colonisation was an act of bringing civilisation to poor benighted natives." William Dalrymple is a Scottish historian and writer, art historian and curator, as well as a broadcaster and critic. His books have won numerous awards including the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Kapuściński Award and the Wolfson History Prize. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the annual Jaipur Literary Festival.
Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a force of nature. Last year, she published her debut novel Stubborn Archivist, a complex and subtle examination of identity, trauma and recovery which straddles Brazil and South London, winning high praise from critics and earning nominations for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Now she is working on her next book - but if you think this is a straightforward story of a young writer achieving overnight success, think again. As we discuss in this episode, at university she found unhappiness had a detrimental effect on her creativity; later, while trying to fit writing around a full-time job, she pushed herself to the point of burnout. We talk about this, as well as the benefits that antidepressants have had in her life, the Brazilian Black Lives Matter movement, how lockdown has changed our lifestyles, subverting conventional writing styles and much much more. Twitter: @aliceazania / @yazzarf Instagram: @aliceazania / @yararodriguesfowler Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stubborn-Archivist-Yara-Rodrigues-Fowler/dp/0708899072 Edited by Chelsey Moore
Disobedience is the debut novel by British author Naomi Alderman. First published in the UK in March 2006, the novel has since been translated into ten languages. Disobedience follows a rabbi's bisexual daughter as she returns from New York to her Orthodox Jewish community in Hendon, London. Although the subject matter was considered somewhat controversial, the novel was well received and earned Alderman the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers and the 2007 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.
What a strange and unsettling time we find ourselves in. So strange that I didn't think I could post a regular episode - so instead, here is the first Sunday Salon isolation special, one of several dedicated #togetherapart episodes I will be bringing you to - I hope - offer a balm for the soul over the coming weeks. I'm so grateful to the authors Holly Bourne and Laura Freeman for coming on the podcast (remotely) at short notice to offer their advice on coping with anxiety and our new way of living. Both have written extensively about mental health before - and their contributions were super-helpful, taking in everything from the power of having a "worry window" (a sanctioned time to worry about everything you're anxious about), to why now is probably NOT the moment to embark upon a massive, ambitious work or self improvement project (whatever Instagram is leading you to believe) and how it is totally ok to feel down and to allow yourself to wallow at times. They also have some fabulous, uplifting reading recommendations. Holly is the author of the best-selling How Do You Like Me Now, as well as the brilliant new novel Pretending which has been described by none other than Marian Keyes as "magnificent". She started her writing career as a news journalist, where she was nominated for Best Print Journalist of the Year. She then spent six years working as an editor, a relationship advisor, and general 'agony aunt' for a youth charity - helping young people with their relationships and mental health. Inspired by what she saw, she started writing teen fiction, including the best-selling, award-winning 'Spinster Club' series which helps educate teenagers about feminism. When she turned thirty, Holly wrote her first adult novel, How Do You Like Me Now, examining the intensified pressures on women once they hit that landmark. Alongside her writing, Holly has a keen interest in women's rights and is an advocate for reducing the stigma of mental health problems. She's helped create online apps that teach young people about sexual consent and is an ambassador for Women's Aid. You can buy her new book, Pretending, here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-What-You-Want/dp/1473668131/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1585388974&sr=1-1 Laura is an author, freelance writer and art critic. Her first book The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite, detailed how books helped her in her recovery from anorexia. Published in 2018, it was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and for First Book and Food Book at the Guild of Food Writers Awards. The Reading Cure was a Times, Daily Telegraph and Spectator Book of the Year 2018. She is currently writing a biography Ways of Life: Jim Ede and the Kettle's Yard Artists to be published by Jonathan Cape. You can buy the Reading Cure here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reading-Cure-Books-Restored-Appetite/dp/1474604641 Twitter: @aliceazania / @holly_bourneYA Instagram: @aliceazania/ @ hollybourneya / @laurasophiafreeman Edited by Chelsey Moore
Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a novelist from South London. She is also a trustee of Latin American Women's Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe for and by Latin American Women. Her debut novel Stubborn Archivist was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and is now out in paperback. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Georgina Godwin talks to Raymond Antrobus, the winner of The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. The prize acts as a significant indicator of future greatness and gives authors a boost at the beginning of their career. The winner receives prize money, a 10-week residency at the University of Warwick and a one-year membership at the London Library.
Sally Rooney’s award-winning and critically lauded debut novel, Conversations with Friends, introduced her as a fiercely intelligent new voice in literary fiction and set the book world buzzing. Praised by the likes of Zadie Smith, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Celeste Ng, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award–winning author has been hailed as “the first great millennial novelist for her stories of love and late capitalism.” Now, Rooney brings her remarkable psychological acuity and sharp, exacting prose to her highly anticipated second novel, Normal People. Marianne and Connell grow up in the same small town in Ireland, but they live in different worlds. Connell is the school’s top football player, a star student, popular and admired. Marianne is a stubborn outcast, uninterested in winning the affection of her peers. Unbeknown to their classmates, Marianne’s family employs Connell’s mother as a cleaner. Despite the gulf separating their social and economic lives, the teenagers share an undeniable connection, and the two embark on a relationship that will test the limits of what they know about each other—and themselves. When Connell and Marianne are both accepted to study at Trinity College, their dynamic is turned upside down. Marianne thrives in the rarefied social life she finds on campus, while Connell hovers on the periphery, fumbling to find his footing. As they confront the power and danger of intimacy throughout their years in college, they are forced to find out how far they will go to save each other. Rooney is in conversation with Karolina Waclawiak, author of How to Get Into the Twin Palms and THE INVADERS.
My guest this week is Laura Freeman, author of The Reading Cure - an incredibly moving but also totally life-affirming memoir about how reading helped her enjoy food again after suffering anorexia. Last year the book saw her shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and it was named one of books of the year by the Times, the Telegraph and the Spectator – and it has just been released in paperback. As well as being an author, Laura is also a successful journalist and arts critic - and one of my best friends! In this episode, we talk about the dangers of the clean eating movement, the emotional challenge of writing (and talking) about mental health and anorexia, and why on earth she tried to real ALL of Charles Dickens' work in 2012. She's amazing. Totally amazing. Buy The Reading Cure here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-reading-cure/laura-freeman/9781474604659 Twitter: @aliceazania @LauraSFreeman Instagram: @aliceazania @laurasophiafreeman Edited by Chelsey Moore
Andrew McMillan's debut poetry collection, Physical, was the first ever poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award. It also won a Somerset Maugham Award, and Eric Gregory Award and a Northern Writers Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Award, the Costa Poetry Award, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2016, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Roehampton Prize and the Polari First Book Prize. His second collection, Playtime, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2018 and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2018. A doctor of neuroscience by training and a former Royal Society fellow at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Rachel Genn's debut novel The Cure was published by Corsair in 2011. Her second novel, What You Could Have Won, is due for publication in 2019 by Sheffield-based publisher And Other Stories. She teaches creative writing MA programmes at Sheffield and the Manchester Writing School.
Adam Weymouth's work has been published by a wide variety of outlets including the Guardian, the Atlantic and the New Internationalist. His interest in the relationship between humans and the world around them has led him to write on issues of climate change and environmentalism, and most recently, to the Yukon river and the stories of the communities living on its banks. He lives on a 100-year-old Dutch barge on the River Lea in London. His first book, Kings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River Journey won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2018. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Welcome to Ctrl Alt Delete! My guest today is one of my favourite authors, the incredibly inspiring force of nature that is Naomi Alderman! She is the multi-award-winning novelist of Disobedience and The Power. Disobedience has been adapted into a film directed by Sebastián Lelio, based on the novel of the same name by Naomi and stars both Rachael McAdams and Rachel Weiz. It is out in cinemas now. And The Power is one of Obama's favourite books! No big deal.Speaking of cinemas: I'm excited that this episode is in partnership with Curzon Cinemas. http://bit.ly/2P1WwKZFor nearly a century, Curzon has been pioneering ways to bring audiences exclusive access to a brilliant selection of award winning, classic and contemporary independent films from around the world. I'm excited to tell you about Curzon Home Cinema. By registering you get access to a selection of the latest cinema releases available now to watch from the comfort of your own home. I love going to the cinema but I also love staying in (especially during this dark winter months). So wherever you are in the UK and Ireland, you can watch new films at home! So the choice is yours: watch your films at the cinema, or instantly at home, Curzon offers you both choices. Why not try out watching Disobedience at home?So, a bit more about the iconic Naomi Alderman. Her literary début came in 2006 called Disobedience, a well-received yet slightly controversial novel about a North London rabbi's lesbian daughter living in New York, which won her the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers, the 2007 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and a feature as one of the Waterstones 25 Writers for the Future.Her other novel, The Power, won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017. The Power was THE book of the year last year, an incredible sci-fi/dystopian novel about gendered violence and the fetishisation of power. The premise of the book is that women are more powerful than men. God becomes a “she”; and men are frightened to walk alone at night.We discuss life as a polymath, what it's like having Rachel Weisz ring you up and want to turn your book into a film and how to know whether something is a good or bad idea when it comes to creating stuff. Thank you, Naomi. Such an inspiring episode. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this podcast, I interview Francis Spufford. Francis is a former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (1997) and has authored five highly praised books of non-fiction. His first book, 'I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination' was awarded the Writers Guild Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 1996 and a Somerset Maugham Award. His second book 'The Child That Books Built' gave Neil Gaiman “the peculiar feeling that there was now a book I didn't need to write”. In 2007, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and his first novel, 'Golden Hill', was published in 2016 and won the Costa First Novel Award. He’s also a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths University, and for this podcast, I visited his office to speak about his deeply funny and profound 2012 book 'Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense.'
Naomi Alderman grew up in London and attended Oxford University and UEA. Her first novel, Disobedience, was published in ten languages; like her second novel, The Lessons, it was read on BBC radio's Book at Bedtime. In 2006 she won the Orange Award for New Writers. In 2007, she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, and one of Waterstones' 25 Writers for the Future. Her prize-winning short fiction has appeared in Prospect, on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies. In 2009 she was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. Naomi broadcasts regularly, has guest-presented Front Row on BBC Radio 4 and writes regularly for Prospect and the Guardian. Her third novel, The Liars' Gospel, was published by Penguin in August 2012. This episode of Little Atoms was first broadcast in February 2013. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Naomi Alderman is the author of four novels. In 2006 she won the Orange Award for New Writers, and in 2007 she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, as well as being selected as one of Waterstones' 25 Writers for the Future. All of her novels have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime. In 2013 she was selected for the prestigious Granta Best of Young British Writers. Naomi's latest novel is The Power. Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her debut story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Prize in 2009. She is the author of a novel, The Book of Memory, and now a second short story collection Rotten Row. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Ross Raisin’s first novel, God’s Own Country, about a disturbed adolescent living in the Yorkshire Dales, won him the 2009 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Guardian First Book Award, a Betty Trask Award and numerous other prizes. His second novel, Waterline, about a former shipbuilder grieving the death of his wife in Glasgow, was published to critical acclaim in 2011. His short stories have been published in Prospect, Esquire, Dazed & Confused, the Sunday Times, on BBC Radio 3 and in Granta. In this podcast, he spoke to Yuka Igarashi about how he evokes place and inhabits characters in his writing; the difference between his approaches to short stories and novels; and what it means to him to be part of the Best Young British Novelist list. He also discusses his work on a new novel, which began as a story published in Granta: Britain.