Featuring: Steve Toltz's new book Here Goes Nothing and why it’s set in the afterlife; using time in the writing process like a painter uses light; Steve’s spiritual home; juggling editorial notes from different countries; the overarching project of Steve’s work; a short reading; on writing humour and hilarious characters (who are also very entertaining to write); his experience in writers' rooms, how Steve first got an agent; his play that didn't eventuate; what's next and some wonderful reading recommendations. ‘A writer uses time like a painter uses light - without time you can’t even see what it is that you’ve done.’ ‘Years go by without ever showing anyone a word…I get it as good as I can possibly get it without burying it in the garden for six months' ‘I don’t feel like I’ve ever really been in a literary world that much’ On editorial notes: ‘There’s always the clear understanding that you can take them or leave them...I end up always taking about 80% of the notes because they’re always generally great.'

Featuring: writing as a strange quixotic thing; how Claire was first published; her grandfather's memoir; Claire's childhood years in Sydney ‘the light, the air, the birds’; writing A Dream Life in The American Library in Paris; when fantasy keeps us alive and when it becomes something pernicious; on writing complex, alive characters; literary and familial influences; writing about adolescence; what Claire’s working on now; memories of Robert Silvers. With two readings. ‘I’m always very interested in deception and self-deception, this is a life-long thing.’ ‘Fiction like life is a balance between freedom and constraint, and you do need some constraints.’ ‘For the most part my work has not been autobiographical, or only elements have. It’s almost like a coat hanger, from which you make papier maché.’ ‘If something’s too close to life then I don’t feel free.’ ‘One has a different self in each language.’

Featuring: Hannah's earlier books Burial Rites and The Good People; the landscape in her life and work; the messiness of first drafts; on writing Devotion, a modern novel that's 'a queer love story'; celebrating the light; returning to that place of play; balancing imagination and research; the Prussian and Lutheran history of South Australia; the occult; exploring places of absence and silence; the experience of screenwriting; what working at Kill Your Darlings taught Hannah; a love of poetry.

Featuring: When Charlotte committed to writing; overriding fear and doubt; allowing it to happen; the grumpy struggle, despair and the luminous solution; the elation when the solution or connection suddenly appears; Susan Sontag's rules for writing; creating personal rituals around writing; trusting instinct and intuition; not shutting down ideas that don't make sense; the way the book will tell you how to write it; following the heat; on being 'relatable'; the qualities of a good sentence; showing up for the ideas to come; on Georgia Blain to whom Charlotte dedicated the book.

'To commit to art is to commit to living.' 'I do believe in agency and I do believe in the power of the story and the power of your own story.' Featuring: the Irish storytelling tradition; writing about illness; resilience; the agency in telling your own story; books and music as saviours; the artists whose lives and art were beacons of hope; advice from John Banville; on interviewing; watching New York go by with George Saunders; how to decide what goes into an anthology; a love of the short story; the elasticity of the essay; overriding fear; ghosts in the family; the novel-in-progress, and the upcoming music anthology Sinéad has edited with Kim Gordon.

Featuring: what Anna learned from Sylvia Beach and carried into her life; her first taste of creative freedom; having a visual memory; how mistakes are positive; her first book All Messed Up; bringing artists and designers together; creating the publisher Visual Editions and the visually astounding books that were published; writing a love letter to Jonathan Safran Foer; pushing the boundaries of what a book can be; reader out-louders at V&A; storytelling in Ace hotels and live experiences; working with Google Creative Lab; playing with the familiar and not familiar; using technology as a tool to tell stories in a way that’s delightful; meeting audiences where they are already; looking at scent, and working with The Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles.

Featuring: how it took some time for Katie to call herself a writer; the effect of teaching on her own writing; influential authors; where the idea for Intimacies came from; connective points between A Separation and Intimacies; crafting tension; characters who work with language and Katie’s own relationship with languages; why Katie set Intimacies in The Hague; structures of power and our complicity; different ways of writing violence; the role of performance in court; the interiority and unreliability of the narrator; and keeping doors open.

Featuring: Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Irish Book Award-winning A Ghost in the Throat that reads like a literary detective story; her muse Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill at the centre of the book and Doireann’s hunt for details about her life; oral history and being passed down in the bodies of women; the all-consuming journey of translating Eibhlín’s iconic poem; the obsession that countered the loneliness of motherhood; how an experience of dissection changed the trajectory of Doirean’s life; the surprising way she began writing; how the place we write makes itself felt in the texture of a book; the worlds between languages and their particular melodies; writing poetry in both English and Irish; and following hunches.

Featuring: The experiences of Louise’s parents in Europe and her father’s time in the French Resistance; how her parents' passion for the arts impacted Louise’s life; an early obsession with books; studying and teaching at Columbia University; her time as Edward Said’s teaching assistant; being socially engaged; her major roles in publishing and the arts, and what she learnt from them; a love of commissioning; finding Australian stories and readers; Hilary McPhee’s brief for MUP; the role of a publisher; some stand-out titles Louise published in the past and what she is publishing now (and some wonderful reading recommendations).

Featuring: how Andrew’s life has changed; living with uncertainty; his travel writing over the last thirty years and what still rings true today; experiences in Cambodia and Rwanda; one of the most memorable musical evenings of Andrew’s life that took place in Afghanistan; an early calling to write; 20 years since The Noonday Demon came out; what has been effective in treating his own depression; the ability to listen without passing judgement; Andrew’s family and the families he writes about; how the legal system is so behind in defining family today; polygamy and polyamory; books that have brought Andrew solace. We discuss the body of Andrew’s work, what he has been working on and the books we can look forward to in the future. You can find Andrew Solomon's books at all good bookshops including: - McNally Jackson in NY https://www.mcnallyjackson.com - Better Read than Dead in Sydney: https://www.betterread.com.au - Shakespeare and Company in Paris: https://shakespeareandcompany.com - London Review Bookshop in London https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk

Featuring: Evie’s life and books; writing every novel very differently; where The Bass Rock came from; religion and paganism; when in doubt; paying attention to negative reviews; getting nothing done at writers’ retreats; what Australia meant to Evie as a child; the role of character and landscape; writing confronting scenes and the high body count; the exhaustion for women in constantly being vigilant; ghosts and hauntings; the links between religion and misogyny; Evie’s first reader and editor; the writers who helped teach Evie to write; the Victorian idea of a companion; behind the scenes of Review, Evie’s bookshop in Peckham; and book recommendations. In Australia find Evie's books at all good bookshops such as Readings: https://www.readings.com.au In the UK find Evie's books and browse many other delights at Review in Peckham http://www.reviewbookshop.co.uk

Featuring: the way books begin, the conversation between languages, on teaching and writing, untranslatable words, finding a way to get rid of excess, translating her own novel from Italian and the intense scrutiny involved, Jhumpa's upcoming book of short stories called Roman Stories, the anthology of Italian writers Jhumpa edited, those authors with whom Jhumpa feels an affinity, the machinery of publishing and the differences between countries, advice on starting out as a writer, having a threshold for uncertainty and how rejections are crucial. * There’s background noise in a few places, apologies.

Featuring: Living in London, a fierce love of Australia, juggling work and family, bringing unspoken things into the light, strong headstrong women, on Nikki's book After and her mother’s suicide, the importance of cherishing loved ones, memories of getting published, the women in publishing who lifted Nikki up, getting outed as the writer of The Bride Stripped Bare, the pleasures of editing, and the writers who excite Nikki today.

A wide-ranging conversation throughout the' universe of Charles Yu, featuring: race in America; using humour as a compass; the roles we play; the early years coping with rejection and the benefits of having low expectations when starting out; television’s writing room etiquette and servicing a story; the editorial process; what he learnt from Wong Kar-wai; the tiny surgical cuts that lift a manuscript; and the challenges of adapting your own novel.

Featuring: wonder, silliness and how Andy has made millions of kids fall in love with reading. He talks about the early days figuring out what kind of writer he was; dealing with initial rejections; the algebra of comedy and fiction; his characteristic too-much-information detail; the joy of collaborating and the genius of Terry and Jill; the endless rewrites and hard work alongside many laughs; how deadlines are useful; why the Treehouse series went ballistic; the art of performance; working with The Indigenous Literacy Foundation and what books are coming next. There are also loads of book and film recommendations. * You might want to listen to this interview in a few sessions as it’s much longer than usual (everything Andy said was gold so I didn't edit it down). He’s incredibly humble, generous and funny (forgive my excessive laughter) and his life story is an inspiration. Enjoy.

Featuring: Melissa’s novels and non-fiction; advice to new writers; her hit podcast that has been a balm for so many people during the pandemic; connection to place and becoming more attuned to the natural world; life in a rural village; a fascination with England; the authors Melissa reads now and read as a child; defining moments in her writing life; a love of dance music; and the dark side of nostalgia. In this interview Melissa also discusses her new children’s book 'By Ash, Oak and Thorn' that you can now find at your local independent bookshop. The interview took place at the end of 2020.

Featuring: Giving a voice to the voiceless, observations of America today, from war zones to living Paris and New York, the concept of moral injury, ghosts from Bosnia and living with injustice, Syria and the mass exodus of refugees, investigating human rights, the nature of ‘evil’, how foreign reporting has drastically changed, the anchor of faith, and Janine's new book ‘The Vanishing: The twilight of Christianity in the Middle East’.  *Some of the content in this conversation is disturbing as we’re talking about the reality of war. *The film Janine recommends is ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ A 2020 Bosnian film written, produced and directed by Jasmila Žbanić.

Featuring: How Jenny started out; learning from the iconic British agent Deborah Rogers (who represented authors from Ian McEwan to Angela Carter); championing writers; the importance of trust and rapport; choosing the right publishers for authors; the art of contracts; and working for Lutyens and Rubinstein. This interview took place at the end of 2020. The title of Jenny’s last book recommendation is ‘Love after Love’ by Ingrid Persaud.

The first episode of season two! Featuring: Lang self-publishing her first book then getting an agent and a publishing deal; becoming a bestselling author and social media sensation; Lang’s remarkable mother; the power of words to change lives; the impact of speaking different languages (including a rare form of Chinese) on her writing; and writing to her past and future self. Lang also gives some readings of her work. * This interview was recorded at the end of 2020. Enjoy!

Featuring: The most important nine years of his life, from class clown to double firsts at Oxford, travelling the world with UNESCO, what 'The Old Man and the Sea' showed him, the dangers of mass industrial farming, what we can learn from traditional ways, meeting Wendell Berry, rewiggling the rivers and planting trees - all of which weaves in discussion of both 'The Shephard’s Life' and James’ new book 'English Pastoral'.