We chat with author Amita Murray about her process for writing Regency novels, getting to know your characters and the importance of filling her creative cup.
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Amita Murray's Unladylike series of Regency novels are published with Harper Collins. She has won the Exeter Novel Prize and the SI Leeds Literary Prize, been a writer-in-residence with Leverhulme, Literature Works, Spread the Word, University College London, Plymouth University and others. She has taught creative writing in the world-renowned University of East Anglia programme and her writing appears in magazines such as Red, New Scientist, Big Issue, Bookseller, Writers Digest, Diva, Ellery Queen, Wasafiri and more.
In this episode we speak with novelist Roisin Maguire about being kind to yourself, filling your well as a source of creativity and the inspiration for her wonderful book Night Swimmers. Also includes a reading from the novel.
You can connect with Roisin through her publisher Serpent's Tail
Roisin is an award-winning short story writer who lives by the sea in rural County Down. A former bouncer, diver and primary-school teacher, Roisin has been writing for many years but over the pandemic took the opportunity to actually finish something. Her novel Night Swimmers was published by Serpent’s Tail in 2024 and was nominated for the Kate O'Brien Debut Authors Award in 2025.
We chat to Orlaine Mcdonald about protecting herself as a writer, her process and what it's like to be shortlisted for an award as a debut novelist. Plus a reading from her book No Small Thing.
Please note this episode comes with a trigger warning for discussion of suicide.
Orlaine is a writer of mixed Jamaican & Irish heritage. She lives in London. No Small Thing won the 2024 Kate O'Brien Award, and was shortlisted for The 2024 Nero Book Awards for Debut Fiction, and the RSL Ondaatje Prize.
This week we speak with YA author Marisa Linton about writing fiction as a means of refuge, bringing a wealth of academic knowledge to a creative outlet and we hear a reading from her novel The Binding Spell.
Marisa Linton is an author, historian and professor emerita. She is one of the world's leading experts on the French Revolution, and taught history for many years at Kingston University, specializing in witchcraft and magical beliefs. She also works as a historical adviser, including for the TV series Dangerous Liaisons, where she was part of the writers' room. She now writes fantasy for young adults that draws on her love for ancient Celtic Britain, folklore and fascination with magic, ghost stories and the supernatural. Born in Barnes, in south-west London, into an Italian/English family, she has lived for many years in Brighton where she has raised her three children. Her novel The Binding Spell was published by Chicken House in May 2025.
We chat with prize-winning author Fiona Williams about her creative process, how it felt winning the Bridport first novel prize and giving herself time to play with different writing styles. Plus a reading from her beautiful novel The House of Broken Bricks.
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Fiona Williams is a writer of literary fiction. Her debut novel The House of Broken Bricks was the winner of the 2021 Bridport Prize, Peggy Chapman-Andrews First Novel Award and published by Faber in January 2024. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences from the University of Westminster and had a long career as a medical writer. She has since gained an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. Born and raised in South-East London, she now lives with her husband and two children in Exeter, where her writing focuses primarily on the relationships between identity, belonging, nature and landscape.
We chat to Kate Lord Brown about what it takes to write a book a year around the challenges of life, her process and honouring historic women through literature.
Kate Lord Brown was a finalist in ITV's The People's Author contest, and her novel The Perfume Garden, which has been published in nine languages, was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year 2014. Her books have been top ten bestsellers in the UK, Canada, and several European countries. In 2020 she was highly commended in the RNA Elizabeth Goudge Trophy. Kate has also written editorial, reviews and regular columns for Traveller, Conde Nast, Good Housekeeping, Blueprint, The Bookseller, Bookbag, Writers' News, Arts Business, Gulf Times, Woman, Oryx, the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Express and others. She wrote the first book club column in the Middle East for two years, introducing a host of writers to the region through the pages of Ahlan! After many years living overseas, she has returned to the wild and beautiful southwest of England, where she grew up.
We speak to author Diana Anyakwo about her fascinating route into writing, where her inspiration comes from and how she balances writing with everything in life. Plus we hear a reading from her fab YA novel My Life as a Chameleon.
Diana Anyakwo grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. She is of mixed Irish and Nigerian heritage. She moved to the UK when she was a teenager and later graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in Molecular Biology and a Masters in Bioreactor Systems. She spent three years in Athens, Greece where she taught English and worked as an editor at an educational publisher. Her debut young adult novel My Life as a Chameleon has won the Children’s Africana Book Award 2025 in the US for Best Chapter Book, it was a finalist for the 2024 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards and the Diverse Book Awards and longlisted for the 2024 Jhalak Children’s and YA prize. Her writing has appeared in The Telegraph and Black Ballad magazine. She currently lives and works in Manchester as a freelance writer and editor of English Language teaching materials.
We spend a joyful half hour talking to Frances Quinn about writing historical novels, finding out what a Titanorack is and discovering that Francis hides Abba song titles in her novels!
Frances Quinn is the author of historical novels The Smallest Man, That Bonesetter Woman and The Lost Passenger. She grew up in Forest Gate, East London and studied English at King’s College, Cambridge, then became a journalist and copywriter. She lives in Hove with her husband and three very spoilt Tonkinese cats.
In this episode we speak to the brilliant award-winning author and activist Monique Roffey. We hear a reading from her brilliant latest novel Passiontide, as well as discussing her creative writing process and gleaning some gems of advice for would-be writers.
Monique Roffey, FRSL, is an award-winning Trinidadian born British writer of novels, essays, literary journalism and a memoir. Her latest novel, Passiontide, was published in June 2024. The Mermaid of Black Conch, won the Costa Book of the Year Award, 2020, and was nominated for eight other awards. Her other Caribbean novels, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle and House of Ashes have also been nominated for awards. Archipelago won the OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature in 2013. Her work has been translated into many languages and adapted for screen. She is a co-founder of Writers Rebel within Extinction Rebellion and a member of the Hard Art collective. She is also a Professor of Contemporary Fiction and a member of the Centre for Fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.
This week we speak with the absolute force of nature that is author Marcia Hutchinson. From Zumba, yoga and spin to writing brilliant books. We hear a reading from her new novel The Mercy Step, plus talk about the process of co-authoring The Blackbirds of St Giles - plus an absolute lightbulb moment tip for hitting your daily word count!
Marcia Hutchinson was born to Windrush generation Jamaican parents in the UK in 1962. She was the first pupil from her comprehensive school to go to Oxford, where she gained an MA in Law. She worked as a lawyer before founding the educational publishing company Primary
Colours, which she ran until 2014. She was awarded an MBE in 2011 for services to Cultural Diversity. Moving to Manchester in 2012, she became a community activist and was eventually elected as a Labour Councillor in 2021. She is now a full-time writer. She is the co-author with Kate Griffin (under the pseudonym Lila Cain) of the historical fiction novel The Blackbirds of St Giles, which was published by Simon and Schuster in January.
The Mercy Step is her literary debut as a solo writer. Now that she has started there is no stopping her. Her next two novels are with her agent. She has two others in the works. When she is not writing Marcia teaches Zumba, yoga and spin and has a dedicated following at gyms around Manchester. When not doing all of the above she works on her garden and renovates her house.
We hope you enjoy our conversation with author, podcast host and psychotherapist Jennifer Cox. We hear a reading from her phenomenal book Women Are Angry and get the lowdown on how the book came about and how she writes.
Jennifer Cox is a UK psychotherapist and author of Women Are Angry, The Times and Sunday Times Best Self-Help Book of the Year. She co-hosts the hit global podcast Women Are Mad, and is the go-to voice on mental health and feminism.
We speak to the wonderful Kia Abdullah about how to write a page turner, being a travel writer and the threat of AI.
Kia Abdullah is a bestselling author and travel writer. Her novels include Take It Back, a Guardian and Telegraph thriller of the year; Truth Be Told, which was shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards; and Next of Kin, which won the Adult Fiction Diverse Book Award, and was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Those People Next Door was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month pick, and Kia has also been selected for The Times Crime Club.
Kia has written for The New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times, The Times and the BBC, and is the founder of Asian Booklist, a non-profit that advocates for diversity in publishing and helps readers discover new books by British Asian authors.
Her new novel What Happens in the Dark was freshly out in the world as of 19th June.
Listen to this bonus festive episode with Jo Middleton author of Happy Bloody Christmas! We talk about her incredibly speedy novel writing process, challenges going from blog to book, and her brilliant advice to just get cracking!
Follow Jo @jomiddletonauthor
Jo Middleton is a writer, bookshop manager, creative writing teacher and mum of two daughters. She lives in Somerset with her three cats, all named after fictional detectives, and a goofy golden retriever. Happy Bloody Christmas is her second novel.
This week we are in conversation with brilliant Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, on all aspects of her creative writing process, watching reality TV as research and fitting the writing in around everything else.
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Lizzie Damilola Blackburn is a British-Nigerian charity worker turned author who grew up in south London and now lives with her husband and young son in Milton Keynes. Her bestselling debut novel, Yinka, Where is your Huzband? was selected by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai as a Literati book club pick and was one of Oscar-nominated actress Taraji P. Henson's top five books that made a difference – she still pinches herself to this day. Lizzie was a runner-up for a Diverse Book Award in 2023. The Re-Write is her second novel.
This week Anna and Sam chat creative writing with wonderful author Rosanna Amaka. Tune in for our conversation about writing to a deadline (or not), finding inspiration in unexpected places and writing your way out of a creative block.
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Rosanna Amaka is a writer from London, and is of African and Caribbean heritage. Her debut novel ‘The Book of Echoes’, was shortlisted for The Authors’s Club First Novel Award, The RSL Christopher Bland Prize and The HWA Debut Crown Award. Her second novel ‘Rose and the Burma Sky’ was inspired by a conversation with her grandmother and follows the journey of an African soldier fighting in WW2.
In this episode Anna and Sam chat with fabulour author Reshma Ruia. We talk about her writing from poetry, to short stories to novels and not forgetting her PhD. Reshma shares her wisdom on the writing process.
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Dr. Reshma Ruia is a Manchester based British writer of Indian origin. She has a PhD and Master’s in Creative Writing from Manchester University. Her first novel, Something Black in the Lentil Soup, was described in the Sunday Times as ‘a gem of straight-faced comedy’. She has published a poetry collection, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties, winner of the 2019 Word Masala Award and a short story collection, Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness, shortlisted for the 2022 Eastern Eye ACTA Awards. Her new novel, Still Lives won the 2023 Diverse Book Readers’ Choice Award.
Reshma’s work has appeared in anthologies and journals, and commissioned by the BBC, University of Cumbria and Manchester Literature Festival. She is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani – a writers’ collective of British South Asian writers. Her writing explores the preoccupations of those who possess a multiple sense of belonging.
In this episode Anna and Sam chat with the lovely Kate Morrison about researching her novel it before and after the dawn of the internet, having a slow process and the different experience of writing historical vs 1990s fiction.
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Kate Morrison's debut historical novel A Book of Secrets was published in 2019 by Jacaranda Books and longlisted for the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown Awards and the Diverse Book Awards 2020. She has taught historical fiction writing courses & workshops for the British Library and Writing Around the Kids and has also run kids creative writing workshops for Little Green Pig. She is currently writing two novels at once, very slowly.
This week Anna and Sam speak with fabulous author Disha Bose. We talk about writing with a young baby, finding inspiration in parenting forums and when to follow the shiny new idea.
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Disha Bose was born and raised in India. She worked in the tech industry for a few years before deciding to pursue her dream of writing a novel. She lives in Ireland now, her first novel Dirty Laundry was published in 2023 and her second I Will Blossom Anyway is due May 2025.
This week we talk to brilliant author Kate Sawyer, about killing your darlings, doing character development work by watching reality TV and breaking your novel down into manageable chunks.
Follow Kate @mskatesawyer
Kate Sawyer worked as an actor and theatre and events producer, before writing several short films and then turning her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, The Stranding, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, won the East Anglian fiction prize, was adapted for BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and is being developed for TV by Fremantle and Afua Hirsch's production company Born In Me. Her second novel This Family is a Waterstones Book Of The Month.
When Kate isn't writing, or talking to other authors about their writing practices for her podcast Novel Experience, she is busy producing the annual Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival.
After twenty years living in London, she recently returned to her native East Anglia, where she lives with her young daughter.
This week we chat with ever so lovely Rebecca Ryan about prioritising her writing, her way into being published and the cost of a tin of beans.
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Rebecca Ryan is the author of two uplifting fiction novels. My (extra) Ordinary Life was out last year and The Philosophy of Love is her more recent work. She left a career in teaching to write full time and lives in Bradford. She's a single mum to her three children and mostly, she spends her days fetching them snacks and trying to get on top of the washing. Her main hobby is eating takeaways.
