Always Take Notes

By Always Take NotesArts

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Typical duration
65 min
per episode

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Always Take Notes episodes

May 22, 2018 #30: Jonathan Shainin, editor, Guardian Long Read
Kassia and Simon speak to Jonathan Shainin, who runs the Long Read section of the Guardian. He spoke to us about his nomadic career, which took him from New York (and the New Yorker), to Abu Dhabi, India, and back to New York, before coming to London to set up the Long Read in 2014.
Jonathan discusses the differences between US and UK editing styles, where the Long Read fits into the wider Guardian ecosystem, and how venturing abroad can fit into the career of an editor as well as a writer.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read
https://twitter.com/gdnlongread
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Elizabeth Davies edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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1 hr 13 min
May 08, 2018 #29: Julia Kelly, romance novelist
Kassia and Simon speak to romance novelist Julia Kelly about her portion of the literary universe - romance fiction is a billion-dollar industry.
Julia talked to us about how she came to write her first books, the importance of marketing and social media for romance writers, the pros and cons of self-publishing in this genre, and why the happy ending remains non-negotiable. She also discussed the impact of the #metoo movement on the world of romance.
http://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/authors/Julia-Kelly/575597749
https://www.juliakellywrites.com/
http://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Light-Over-London/Julia-Kelly/The-Matchmaker-of-Edinburgh-Series/9781501172922
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Olivia Crellin edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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1 hr 1 min
April 24, 2018 #28: Peter Moffat, BAFTA-winning screenwriter
Kassia and Simon interview screenwriter and playwright Peter Moffat, whose work includes the series Cambridge Spies, Criminal Justice - later the basis of HBO's The Night of - and Silk, as well as the TV films Hawking and Einstein & Eddington. Peter spoke about moving from his early career as a lawyer into writing, the distinctions between British and American approaches to producing TV drama, and the role of both intensive research and muzak-free coffee shops in his writing routine.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0595584/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hbos-night-how-peter-moffat-who-wrote-bbcs-original-version-inspired-story-915914
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Ed Kiernan edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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1 hr 8 min
April 10, 2018 #27: Helen Lewis, deputy editor, the New Statesman
Kassia and Simon interview Helen Lewis, deputy editor of the New Statesman. She spoke to us about what her current role entails, the training she received as a sub-editor at the Daily Mail (and what it was like to work there). Helen candidly discussed the importance of networking, feminism, sub-editing and longform journalism. She also revealed a brilliant tip for powering through writers' block.
https://www.newstatesman.com/2016/01/where-bodies-are-buried-0
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/27/hot-feminist-by-polly-vernon-reducing-revolution-to-sloppy-self-help
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Elizabeth Davies edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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1 hr 9 min
March 27, 2018 #26: Max Hastings, military historian
Simon speaks to Max Hastings, the best-selling military historian and erstwhile foreign correspondent and newspaper editor. They discussed Max's early career - how 1960s and 70s Fleet Street really was, without the benefit of rose-tinted spectacles - his experiences in the Falklands in 1982, the development of his book writing, from early ventures to his doorstopper World War Two histories, and the evolution of military history as a genre.
http://www.maxhastings.com/
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Olivia Crellin edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor and deals with all things social media. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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1 hr 6 min
March 13, 2018 #25: Hannah Westland, publisher, Serpent's Tail
Kassia and Simon speak to Hannah Westland, the publisher at Serpent's Tail, an independent imprint that published Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin and Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent. She spoke to us about her early career — she started out as a literary agent — some of the projects she's currently working on and the role of independent firms in the publishing marketplace.
https://serpentstail.com/
https://twitter.com/hannahwestland?lang=en
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook atfacebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Ed Kiernan edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor and deals with all things social media. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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1 hr 2 min
February 27, 2018 #24: Laura Palmer, publishing director, Head of Zeus
Simon speaks to Laura Palmer, publishing director for fiction at Head of Zeus, an independent publishing house in London. Laura co-founded Head of Zeus in 2012, having started her career at Quercus Books, and she also worked at Corvus, the commercial fiction imprint of Atlantic Books. We spoke about what 'commercial fiction' precisely means, whether 'women's fiction' is still a useful label, best practice for aspirant writers and editors, and whether the Kindle has boosted public appetite for erotica.
http://headofzeus.com/
Sophie Hannah - Why and How I Plan My Novels
https://sophiehannah.com/why-and-how-i-plan-my-novels/
Save the Cat! - A step-by-step guide to telling the perfect story
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Save-Cat-Only-Screenwriting-Youll/dp/1932907009
Head of Zeus - Submissions portal
http://headofzeus.com/submissions-login
Head of Zeus - Internship application
http://headofzeus.com/about-us
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Liz Davies edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor and deals with all things social media. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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59 min
February 13, 2018 #23: Ben Judah, journalist and author of This is London
Kassia and Simon chat to Ben Judah, the journalist and author of This is London and Fragile Empire. He told us about how he got into writing, the influence on his work of Polish reportage styles and why he's decided to take a little break from Twitter. (We were on Skype, so please excuse the odd rough patch.)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-London-Life-Death-World/dp/1447274792
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fragile-Empire-Russia-Vladimir-Putin/dp/0300205228
http://standpointmag.co.uk/dispatches-jan-10-ben-judah-siberia-gulag-stalin
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/dispatches-january-february-2014-hunting-lynx-with-the-old-believers-ben-judah-tuva-siberia
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Ed Kiernan edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor and deals with all things social media. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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1 hr 2 min
January 30, 2018 #22: Patrick Kingsley, New York Times correspondent
Kassia and Simon interview Patrick Kingsley, a correspondent with the New York Times.
Patrick previously covered migration and the Middle East for The Guardian, based in Cairo and Istanbul. His first book, How To Be Danish (2012), was an exploration of contemporary Danish society. His second book, The New Odyssey (2016), chronicled the European refugee crisis, and was one of NPR's books of the year. Now based in London, Patrick is also a past winner of the annual foreign reporting award at the British Journalism Awards.
We spoke about how foreign correspondency works — the intricacies of fixers, bureau chiefs and deadlines, Patrick's motivation to go abroad, some of his major pieces for the Guardian, his earlier experiences of student journalism and how he has combined his newspaper reporting and book writing.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2010/sep/06/gap-year-thailand-full-moon-party
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/22/cairo-prison-abu-zabaal-deaths-37-prisoners
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/hashems-journey-a-lesson-in-humility-and-heroism
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/world/middleeast/the-jihadi-who-turned-to-jesus.html?_r=0
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Ed Kiernan edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor and deals with all things social media. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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55 min
January 16, 2018 #21: Nikesh Shukla, author
Kassia interviews Nikesh Shukla, a TV and fiction writer. We spoke about his novels Coconut Unlimited and Meatspace, and how he came to edit The Good Immigrant, the collection of essays about race and immigration and what it means to be a model "good immigrant" in the UK.
You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Kassia St Clair and Simon Akam, and produced by Olivia Crellin, Ed Kiernan and Elizabeth Davies. Olivia Crellin edited this episode. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor and deals with all things social media. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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52 min

About Always Take Notes

From the publisher's feed

Always Take Notes is a fortnightly podcast from London for and about writers and writing. Hosts Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd speak to a diverse range of people in the industry on a variety of topics,…