A Room Of Your Own

In this episode, I was joined by Abigail Horace, who runs her own Design Studio - Casa Marcelo. I joined her in her studio in lovely Salisbury, Connecticut, to talk about her early childhood influences - walking round New York City's great buildings with her father, and her young dream of becoming a librarian. If you want to find out more about Abigail’s work in design, you can follow her on Instagram @casamarcelo.co or look on her website: www.casamarcelo.co

This week I’m joined by author Stephen Ellcock to talk about his creative process, and the books and works of art that have inspired his work. Stephen has a remarkable gift for finding patterns among images. Anyone who has read his books or who has visited his Instagram page knows that it’s his attention to the subtle details of artistic works that make his observations a joy to follow.I discovered through our chat that what drives Stephen is a relentless and almost obsessive curiosity to find the patterns beneath what we see at first. For his readers, following these patterns offers a glimpse behind his eyes and offers the opportunity to follow the burrows that he relentlessly digs.I had the pleasure of recording this episode in Haven Talks Studios in Bermondsey, whose lovely owner Rachel was so so helpful, and on hand for all of our set-up. You can find them at: https://www.haventalks.co.uk/

This week I’m joined by interior designer James Mackie to talk about his journey from the world of fine art and Sotheby’s to taking on a new challenge heading his own design firm. I was lucky enough to join James in his beautiful purpose-built library in Oxfordshire, where he has created his own private reading space filled with the designers, artists and houses that he loves. After talking a bit about his early years in the art world, we jump into a really interesting discussion on the country houses that continue to inspire him, and what we mean when we talk about ‘English’ style.If you’re interested in finding out more about James’ work as a designer, you can find him on Instagram @jjamesmackie, or on his website at www.jjamesmackie.com.

This week I was joined by creative duo Duncan Campbell & Charlotte Rey. Duncan & Charlotte have been working together for almost their entire careers, and now have the very enviable task of crafting and assembling some of the finest interiors around the world.As a duo, they are fun, warm and approachable - making this episode a joy to record. In this episode, we jump straight into talking about how they met in their early days working for Acne in Paris, and what made them form such a close creative partnership. To find out more about their amazing work, give Campbell-Rey a follow on Instagram, or visit their website - www.campbell-rey.com

This week I had the pleasure of talking with interior designer Amy Dalrymple – founder of Dalrymple Studios – where she works globally with clients to create beautiful interiors. In this episode we jump straight into talking about her own journey into design – the influence of growing up in a household of designers – and the inspiration she takes from the stories and advice of other creative entrepreneurs. If you’re interested in finding out more about the amazing work of Dalrymple Studios, give them a follow on Instagram @dalrymplestudio – or check out the studio’s website at www.dalrymplestudio.co.uk

This week I was lucky enough to visit the studio of Adémidé Udoma – who is the creative director of Artisanal One – where he and his team produce wonderful clothing and objects – as well as working collaboratively with others on styling, art and creative direction. He’s creative in the truest sense of the word – thoughtful about his influences and staying true to himself and his vision with whatever he creates. In this episode we cover what he has learned from his life in the arts so far, the vast range of creative influences that he channels when producing work, and his approach to creating with authenticity and consideration.To find out more about his work, search for him @adeudo or his studio @artisanaloneAlternatively, find his website here:https://www.artisanalone.com/I hope you enjoy it!

This week I’m joined by Bibliotherapist and artist Ella Berthoud. What started out as a conversation between Ella and her friend – novelist Susan Elderkin – turned into a career of talking to clients about their lives and prescribing reading solutions. She has written a number of books all about what she does and about the power of reading to change our lives – including The Novel Cure, and The Story Cure for children.   This episode dives straight into me asking Ella exactly how she and Susan developed the idea of becoming Bibliotherapists.

This week I’m joined by interior designer Carina Harford of Harford House. I got the chance to ask Carina a bit about the aspects of her life away from design that inform her process. We delve into the experiences and the books that help her keep in touch with herself, and that have informed how she understands her clients and what they need from their space. This episode dives straight into a subject that I couldn’t wait to talk about with Carina, which is fashion, and she told me about some of the amazing pieces that she has stashed away.

AROYO Podcast is back this week, and I'm so delighted to announce my guest Ana SampsonAna has not only worked with some of my very favourite authors - including Joelle Taylor and Amy Jeffs - but has produced numerous poetry anthologies aimed both at adults and children.Some of her most notable works include 'She Will Soar: Bright, Brave Poems About Freedom' and more recently 'Gods And Monsters' and 'Heroes And Villains' - which are accompanied by Chris Riddell.We had such a lovely chat about the state of publishing, what it means to be surrounded by books from a young age, and her dreaming reading space.

This week I’m joined by musician and artist Susan O’Neill. We had a wonderfully in-depth conversation about the creative process, and particularly the environments that have inspired her to compose music. We also dive deep into what it means to collect and gather objects around us, and how those objects – particularly the books that we pick up for ourselves or have gifted to us - come to tell a story about our lives. Susan recently released an album called Now In A Minute, which I’d thoroughly recommend finding on youtube, spotify, or on her website susanoneill.ie

This week I talked to author, podcaster and comedian Christopher Beanland. His work spans a huge range of subjects, and seems to really reflect a life spent pursuing his own interests. He’s written a number of books exploring and celebrating favourite public spaces in the city including Lidos and City Parks, as well as two novels – Spinning Out of Control and The Wall In The Head. In this conversation, we jump straight into talking about what it means to lead a ‘creative lifestyle’ and making sure that your work follows your interests, before moving on to the power of buildings to shape our lives.Check out Christopher’s work either through his website: https://christopherbeanland.com/Or on Instagram @christopherbeanland

This week I talked to poet, novelist and performance artist Joelle Taylor. Joelle is the author several works of poetry, including C+NTO – for which she won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2021 – which is both a memorial of and a tribute to the places and people that were part of the butch culture of the 90s in London. She has most recently published a novel – The Night Alphabet – which expands horizons and narratives to tell the story of violence done to women, weaving together narratives from the past with imagined futures to tell the story of the female body as the sight of experience, shared knowledge and resistance.  In this conversation, we just straight into discussing The Night Alphabet, and how she imagined drawing together the stories of different people at different times to tell a story of violence.

This week I talked to author and journalist Dominic Bradbury, whose writing over his career has focused on showcasing and exploring the world’s most inspiring architecture and design, with his recent writing particularly focusing on the Mid-Century Modern Style. We talk about his upcoming book – The Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Masterpieces , as well as his reading influences from his parents – who were both deeply bookish and who introduced him to the authors and designers from around East Anglia in the 1960s.  This is a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation about where the world of architecture and design stand now and what we can expect looking forward. It is also a fascinating look into the early reading life of someone who grew up surrounded by some of Britain’s most influential authors.

This week I talked to Bettina Farack who has spent the last few years telling the story of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin. The Higher Institute was a centre for learning and a really important cultural hub for the Jewish community in Berlin before it was looted by the Nazis during the holocaust, and its books confiscated and distributed. Remarkably, in the last few years thousands of those original books have been collected from around the world, with each one not only telling the story of its origins, but also tracing a fascinating line to the present of books lost travelling around the world to private collections, libraries and flea markets.This is a fascinating conversation with someone who is wholly engrossed in the lives of lost books.

This week I caught up with Meg Rees – who’s known as one of the most creative and expressive tattoo artists in London, and puts an element of the personal into everything that she does. People also may recognise her from her sex and relationships podcast – You’ve Gotta Be Joking – which dives deep into the trials of dating, and will be really relatable to a lot of young Londoners. I met Meg a couple of years ago when she gave me my first tattoo, and I’ve been following her work ever since. In this episode we talk making her own space in East London, the objects around her house that act as reminders of friends and family, as well as delving into the book she is in the process of writing.Find her on Instagram @bunnystattoos to see more of her tattoo work, painting, and fits from her ever-expanding wardrobe.

This week I was so lucky to be joined by author, artist and academic Amy Jeffs. Amy’s work centres around the medieval world of the British Isles, and looks to capture and give in her own words the sense of wonder that she finds in the foundations of our own mythologies.Amy's writing takes you deep into the landscape - both physical and psychological - of Medieval Britain. Re-telling myths and legends from the 7th to the 14th Centuries, Amy makes these foundational stories accessible to a modern audience, and accompanies this with her own artwork and music.Her latest work - Saints - takes us through the calendar year of Saints days and feasts - re-telling the stories that inspired followers in Medieval Britain and across the world. In this episode, Amy tells me about some of the books, places and memories that have inspired her and that bring her closer to the world that she creates for her readers – as well as some of her favourite stories and characters that she came to know while writing Saints. In the second half, she builds her perfect garden writing shed, and talks about the objects and the books she would fill it with.You can pre-order Saints here: https://geni.us/saints

This week, I was joined by author and Art Historian Ferren Gipson who’s written some amazing books including ‘Women’s Work – From Feminine Art to Feminist Art’ and The Ultimate Art Museum – where she curates 4,000 years of Art History into a dream museum that tells its story – correcting some of the wrongs of the past and highlighting overlooked pioneers.We start off going into her journey into Art History and the objects, artists and books that have inspired her throughout her life. We then go on in Part 2 to discuss a little bit about what our book collections can mean to us, before building up a dream library-cum-gallery-cum-studio-loft that has all of the things she would need to keep on exploring her interests and exploring new types of creative projects.If you enjoy this episode and want to find out more about the work that I do as a Library Curator, do visit my website - www.aroyo.org

This week's episode will be an unusually personal one for me, on a topic that has been centralto my life and the lives of so many other young people.I'll be constructing an imagined library for someone suffering from depression.I recently came through one of my worst ever bouts - that took me off work for months and in the end completely changed my life. It was at times crippling, desperatley terrifying and all-consuming.Creating and imagining a private safe space filled with everything you need to pull you out of your current situation can be such a great mental tool. It was one of the things that in a small way helped me to claw my way out.I've decided to reconstruct my personal imagined space, and hopefully will demonstrate the tools you can use to create your own.I also share some of what I think is some of the best writing to approach the subject - some of it to inform, and some others that do a great job of articulating what it really feels like, so that you might be able to relate to bits and pieces and feel understood.I hope this could be useful for anyone suffering froma period of depression, or anyone that is worried about a friend or a family member.

This week, I was joined by author and comedian Rosie Wilby. Rosie through her podcast and subsequent book ‘The Breakup Monologues’ has been dubbed the ‘Queen of Breakups’. Her work brings together her own journey as a queer woman in London, the testimonies and stories of heartbroken guests, and the science of love and relationships – to create a relatable and funny approach to how we think about love in the modern world. In the following conversation we discuss some of the places and books that have inspired her writing – particularly the parks and open spaces of South London. She then guides us through some of the queer venues that were such an important facet of life and identity to so many in the nineties and noughties, and what their disappearance means to the community today. In the second half, we build what we call the ‘Heartbreak Clinic’ – a place to relax and recuperate should she ever need that kind of comfort again. I found it so interesting to consider for myself what would be my go-to comforts to set me back on track. I really enjoyed our chat, and it touches on so many things around modern relationships. If you’re interested in Rosie’s work, check out the link below where you can find her latest book, The Breakup Monologues:https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1472982282/

In this week’s episode I was joined by tattoo artist, ex-musician, bookshop owner and owner of micro-publisher Moonlight Editions – Liam Sparkes. Liam is best known for his work as a tattoo artist, having set up one of London’s most famous studios – Old Habits.Liam describes himself as a bibliophile, and in this episode we delve deep into the ways that books have influenced his approached to tattoo art. Having roamed around and explored for years, I catch him in a reflective mood, and we discuss the different stages of life, and the figures that he has looked up to and whose biographies have inspired him to live in his own way.I really enjoyed my time chatting to Liam, and he doesn’t hold back on questioning himself and really thinking through what I’m asking. If you’re interested in his work, go and visit his Instagram page @liamsparkesok, where you can also find links to old habits tattoo studio, as well as his book shop and publishing house.If you’re interested in the work that I do curating people’s home collections, please do visit my website – www.aroyo.org.