Claim OwnershipCollected: The Podcast
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© 2025
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Welcome to our fortnightly podcast, where we delve into the vibrant world of contemporary writers and the literary life they lead. Offering a deeper and more nuanced perspective on the writing journey, we go beyond the surface often presented in the media.
This season, we're thrilled to feature an exceptional lineup of special guests, including best-selling author and Women's Prize founder Kate Mosse, poet and artist Ella Frears, Royal Court Associate Playwright Ishy Din, WritersMosaic Director Colin Grant, and the award-winning author Deepa Anappara. Plus, enjoy extracts from our archive, showcasing our writers reflecting on their creative processes.
Join us for honest and heartfelt discussions about the triumphs and challenges of putting words to the page. Whether you're a reader, writer, or simply curious about the art of storytelling, find solidarity, and inspiration with the Royal Literary Fund's Collected podcast.
© 2025. All rights reserved. Charity No: 219952
This season, we're thrilled to feature an exceptional lineup of special guests, including best-selling author and Women's Prize founder Kate Mosse, poet and artist Ella Frears, Royal Court Associate Playwright Ishy Din, WritersMosaic Director Colin Grant, and the award-winning author Deepa Anappara. Plus, enjoy extracts from our archive, showcasing our writers reflecting on their creative processes.
Join us for honest and heartfelt discussions about the triumphs and challenges of putting words to the page. Whether you're a reader, writer, or simply curious about the art of storytelling, find solidarity, and inspiration with the Royal Literary Fund's Collected podcast.
© 2025. All rights reserved. Charity No: 219952
28 Episodes
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In her first conversation about her hotly anticipated new erotic novel Wet Ink, written under the pen name Abigail Avis, RLF Fellow Abigail Mann tells presenter Ann Morgan about the importance of portraying a diversity of experiences in sex scenes, the perils of the productivity mindset and the fear of combining writing and motherhood. Abigail will be writing a series of articles for Collected following the process of Wet Ink's publication this year. Follow her journey on the RLF's Substack: https://royalliteraryfund.substack.com © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Collected's Caroline Sanderson is joined by author and broadcaster Vanessa Collingridge to discuss writing about neurodiversity, chronicling the adventures of her distant relative Captain Cook, tackling fake news and democratising knowledge, and a career that has spanned seven continents. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
International bestseller and RLF trustee Paula Hawkins joins Collected host Sonia Faleiro to reflect on her journey to success, how she deals with criticism, and the way each book comes to her differently. Paula's renowned thrillers include The Girl on the Train, A Slow Fire Burning and Into the Water. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Presenter Juliet Gilkes Romero is joined by playwright Satinder Chohan to discuss what it means to be a dramastorian, how telling more stories about the dark side of empire would improve our understanding of immigration, and how you balance writing and caring for family members. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Elif Shafak, the internationally acclaimed Turkish-British author of 21 books joins host Doug Johnstone on a deep dive into the RLF sound archive. Responding to other writers' observations, she reflects on her approach to structure, the role of activism in her writing, what it means to write a book that won't be read for 100 years, and her love of heavy metal music. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Presenter Paul Dodgson is joined by Matt Carr, whose wide-ranging curiosity has led him to write books on topics as diverse as the history of terrorism, the conquest of Patagonia and Charles Darwin. As a lifelong Hispanophile, Matt also writes fiction and nonfiction often focused on themes from Spanish and Latin American culture, history, and politics. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
French-Rwandan writer Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse joins host Sonia Faleiro and responds to clips from the RLF archives, using them as ways into her creative process. This moving discussion, which features frank descriptions of violence, reveals how the will to survive can inspire storytelling, the importance of sharing survivors' accounts, and how this can build fellowship and community in the wake of profound trauma. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Host Jonathan Tulloch is joined by award-winning poet, translator, short-story writer, essayist and editor Ian Seed, to explore what makes a prose poem, how translating can influence writing and the power of redrafting. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Blake Morrison joins Julia Copus to respond to material from the RLF archives, and reflect on his work and process. They discuss how he grew into being more confessional in his writing, how he encourages students to overcome their fears when writing memoir and how he has come to write in such an extraordinary range of genres. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Presenter Doug Johnstone is joined by Marianne Colbran, whose work explores how media presentations of crime and the police differ from reality. They discuss finding your voice in academic writing, the pressures of TV writers' rooms and how an unexpected stint as a magazine sex expert launched Marianne's writing career. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Academic Pragya Agarwal joins host Sonia Faleiro on a deep dive into the Royal Literary Fund archives, using the recordings to reflect on her work drawing attention to the spaces where women have been rendered invisible, the role that science writing can play in combatting climate change and the inequalities embedded in the publishing industry. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Ann Morgan is joined by Associate Editor of The Bookseller, critic, non-fiction author and regular Collected presenter Caroline Sanderson, whose new book Listen With Father has just hit the bookshop shelves. Together, they discuss programming literary festivals, finding a new way of writing about music and bereavement, and how books journalism has changed over the past 25 years. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Award-winning poet Jonathan Edwards delves into the Royal Literary Fund's sound archives with host Julia Copus, using other writers' reflections to explore his views on the role of teachers, what happens when a poem really lives and why rejection hits writers so hard. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Host Jonathan Tulloch is joined by short-story writer, playwright, poet, essayist, memoirist and cultural commentator Rosemary Jenkinson, who writes edgy work often based on people she meets in the pub, and has braved intimidating situations to record untold stories from the Northern Irish Troubles. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Celebrated author Tessa Hadley, in conversation with presenter Caroline Sanderson, delves into the Royal Literary Fund's sound archives, using the recordings to reflect on the challenges of the writing life and her work spinning psychologically astute domestic dramas. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Julia Copus is joined in the studio by Alex Wong, a literary critic and poet who writes without being able to visualise images. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Internationally bestselling author Laura Barnett delves into the Royal Literary Fund's sound archives with presenter Ann Morgan, exploring writer's block, the perils and perks of publication day, and how swapping the city for the countryside affects writing. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Presenter Doug Johnstone is joined in the studio by fellow crime writer Howard Linskey to chew the fat about the writing life and share his surprising, non-linear approach to storytelling. © Royal Literary Fund www.rlf.org.uk
Edgar award-winner Deepa Anappara delves into the Royal Literary Fund archives with presenter Sonia Faleiro, and shares how she battled self-doubt, discrimination and grief on the journey to and through publication. © Royal Literary Fund. All rights reserved. www.rlf.org.uk
Presenter Juliet Gilkes Romero is joined by playwright and screenwriter Ishy Din, who reflects on how his upbringing on Teesside and work as a cab driver shaped his instinct for storytelling. You can find more of Ishy's work on WritersMosaic. © Royal Literary Fund. All rights reserved. www.rlf.org.uk
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