This Writing Life

On 11th March, Hatchards hosted a live event bringing together four of the authors who contributed stories to These Our Monsters : Sarah, Moss, Fiona Mozley, Edward Carey and Graeme Mcrae Burnet. I chaired the event, and recorded it for posterity. ----more---- Posterity has arrived now. The event began with readings by each writer. Here, Sarah Moss reads from her story, 'Breakyneck'. Having chosen Berwick Castle as her English Heritage location, Sarah tells a ghost story that excavates the site's violent past - above all, the pitiless exploitation of Irish workers drafted to build the 19th century railway line. These Our Monsters is a collection of modern folktales to be published by English Heritage, and featuring work by Edward Carey, Graeme Mcrae Burnet, Fiona Mozley, Sarah Hall and many others - including an introduction written by me.  Sarah Moss's website is: https: sarahmoss.org For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy. The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 Prize.  Graeme's 'The Dark Thread' tackled the most infamous, and perhaps the trickiest story in the book - Bram Stoker's visit to Whitby in 1890, which is often thought to have been a turning point in the composition of Dracula.  Graeme reads an early passage in the story, which shuttles fluently between the atmospheric setting of Whitby Abbey and Stoker's inner turmoil - his exhaustion, strained marriage, and tortured relationship with the actor Henry Irving.  Our interview will follow, as will readings by and conversations with Graeme Macrae Burnet and Edward Carey.  Graeme's website is: graememacraeburnet.com For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy. The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 story in 'The Loathly Lady' was inspired by the Arthurian legend of Dame Ragnelle, supposedly the most hideous woman in the world who makes a trial of Sir Gawain's chivalry. The plot is a quest to find a different sort of holy grail: the answer to the question, 'What do women want?' Fiona reads an early passage full of puns and plays on words that establish Arthur's legendary status. Our interview will follow, as will readings by and conversations with Graeme Macrae Burnet and Edward Carey.  For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy. The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 'Iremonger Trilogy' and his fabulous novel about Madame Tussaud, Little. Edward's story 'These Our Monsters', which gives the book its title, is inspired by the legend of the Green Children of Woolpit, in Suffolk. Its extraordinary narrator is one of the villagers, whom I described (if memory serves) as two parts Gollum to one part Alf Garnet, as he attempts to make sense of this universe-altering visitation.  Edward's reading more than lives up to his prose. Our interview will follow, as will readings by and conversations with Graeme Macrae Burnet and Fiona Mozley.  Edward's website is: edwardcareyauthor.com For more information on These Our Monsters, visit the English Heritage website, where you can also buy a copy. The music on the podcast is Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 and nightingales, how and why they sing (and does this make them sexy), whether Keats' nightingale could sing and fly - and does that spoil the poem?  After this, we move onto the extinction threats looming over both birds - not to mention the planet as a whole - and whether poetry can help sharpen our awareness of humankind's mortality?  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.  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 about Hong Kong to a biography about England off-spinner Phil Edmunds. What elevated Barnes above his peers was prose that could pithily encapsulate the drama simmering underneath the surface action: ‘With Sampras the beauty was subtle, the tactics and execution obvious. With Federer, it was exactly the other way around,’ as he wrote in his 2018 career-spanning retrospective, Epic. As this reading from his excellent The Meaning of Birds, Barnes has brought similarly acute sensitivity to his accounts of the natural work - and of birds and birdsong above all.  This is one reason I approached Simon (in my other work for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association) to be the Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes - for poetry and essays. 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. I recently met Simon in London to talk to him about his love of nature, poetry, sport and writing - not to mention how this feeds into Romanticism, Keats and Shelley. Part one of that conversation is posted on this very website.  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 Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 with nature, how he fell in love with birds and birding, what birding means in the 21st century and its relationship with writing in general, and Romantic poetry in particular. We even address the question of John Keats' wonky nightingale. ----more---- 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.  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 about Hong Kong to a biography about England off-spinner Phil Edmunds. What elevated Barnes above his peers was prose that could pithily encapsulate the drama simmering underneath the surface action: ‘With Sampras the beauty was subtle, the tactics and execution obvious. With Federer, it was exactly the other way around,’ as he wrote in his 2018 career-spanning retrospective, Epic. As this reading from his excellent The Meaning of Birds, Barnes has brought similarly acute sensitivity to his accounts of the natural work - and of birds and birdsong above all.  This is one reason I approached Simon (in my other work for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association) to be the Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes - for poetry and essays. 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. I recently met Simon in London to talk to him about his love of nature, poetry, sport and writing - not to mention how this feeds into Romanticism, Keats and Shelley. Part one of that conversation is posted on this very website.  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 Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 about Hong Kong to a biography about England off-spinner Phil Edmunds. What elevated Barnes above his peers was prose that could pithily encapsulate the drama simmering underneath the surface action: ‘With Sampras the beauty was subtle, the tactics and execution obvious. With Federer, it was exactly the other way around,’ as he wrote in his 2018 career-spanning retrospective, Epic. As this reading from his excellent The Meaning of Birds, Barnes has brought similarly acute sensitivity to his accounts of the natural work - and of birds and birdsong above all.  This is one reason I approached Simon (in my other work for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association) to be the Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley and Young Romantics Prizes - for poetry and essays. Our 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. I recently met Simon in London to talk to him about his love of nature, poetry, sport and writing - not to mention how this feeds into Romanticism, Keats and Shelley. Part one of that conversation is posted on this very website.  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 Escape by Chris Zabriskie. 

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 love of George Eliot and PG Wodehouse and the challenge of being busy. Part 2 to follow.

The final part of This Writing Life podcast's chat with Leila Slimani begins with a question about racisial abuse of Muslims in France. From here we discuss her relationship with Morrocco, with sexual politics in that country, between her fiction and her activism, and finally about the future: movie adaptations of her global smash-hit Lullaby and that next novel.

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 fundamentalism that might put her in danger. During this, I accidentally stumble into terrain explored by her current work-in-progress. The final part to follow.

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, Mrs Doubtfire, and why Lullaby refuses both visions of modern childcare. Part three to follow.

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 literary novel. The nanny of the well-to-do Masse family murders the two children in her care. From this terse, shocking opening, Slimani rewinds to examine the pressures that led up to the tragedy. In Part One of our conversation at her London publishers, Slimani talks about titles, tragedy, modern parenting, the challenges of being a nanny and how families rely on women from across the world to facilitate their lives. Part two to follow.

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 so far. Lynn's website can be found: here.

As a trailer ahead of part four of This Writing Life podcast's conversation with novelist Lynn Shepherd, she offers some advice to budding writers...

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 how to information dump, and how much license to take with historical fact. We end by discussing the complex subject of her latest historical book, A Treacherous Likeness, the Romantic poet Percy Shelley. Part 4 of 4 to follow.

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 begin? In between we talk novel endings, books series, Shepherd's student days (and those of Percy Shelley), and that old work-life balance.

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. Before we talk about re-mixing Austen, Dickens, Shelley and Bram Stoker, we discuss her life, career, day jobs and love of literature. We even intrigue a little, in the style of Jane Austen. More information can be found at: lynn-shepherd.com

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-dancing. Part 3 to follow.