Laura Barnett is a best selling author, journalist, theatre critic and teacher.

Her first novel Versions of us was a Times best seller and was translated into 25 different languages. Her second novel Greatest Hits was a collaboration with songwriter Kathryn Williams. She has written a third novel Gifts and has just released another titled This Beating Heart which tackles IVF. She lives in an Oast house with her husband, son and cat and teaches at manchester university.

In this episode she talks of trying to sleep in a tree and waking to a man with NO pants on doing some Shakespeare! She talks about writing, being a mother and really gets into the conscious and sub consciousness of creativity.

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Muriel Teodori is a french psychoanalyst, writer, songwriter, film director and producer.

Her first film “ Sans Plomb” premiered at the Carbourg film fest in 2000. She has written as a journalist for Elle magazine under a pseudonym Jean Giselle. She wrote the libretto Welcome To The Voice with her husband Steve Nieve. She held a masterclass at the Cannes film festival all about the unconscious of TV characters. She has written books on philosophy and Dior.

In this episode she talks movingly about being isolated as a child, dreams and singing to her father.

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Steve Nieve is an English musician and composer. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Nieve has been a member of Elvis Costello’s backing bands, The Attractions The Imposters and also Madness. He has also experienced success as a prolific session musician featured on a wide array of other artists' recordings.

In 2003, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame as a member of Elvis Costello and the Attractions. 

Nieve has released several solo albums. Keyboard Jungle (1983) was his first, a combination of classical and ersatz film scores delivered from his beloved Steinway piano. His second album, Playboy (1987), consisted of solo acoustic piano renditions of rock songs. His other solo albums It's Raining Somewhere (1996), Mumu (2001) and Windows(2004) all confirmed his status as an artist in his own right. His classical opera," Welcome To The Voice",was a  collaboration with his partner, Muriel Teodori and was released in May 2007. It was interpreted by Sting, Robert Wyatt, Elvis Costello, Amanda Roocroft, Nathalie Manfrino and Barbera Bonney.. Nieve also composed the score to Téodori's film Sans Plomb.

In this episode Steve talks of time on the road and the creative process true love and theories of sleep. 

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Jude Rogers has been a journalist for twenty years this year, writing about music, books, the arts, culture, people and lots more besides for The Guardian, the Observer, Word Magazine and lots of other places.

She makes radio programmes and also published a book, The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives last year, which dug deep into how music moves us, and how music shaped her own life from her earliest memories to her her life now in her mid-forties.

She lives in Wales with her husband Dan, son Evan and cats Mildred and Maud - named by Evan after the Worst Witch witches - and she first met a certain singer songwriter on a job in Ullapool FIFTEEN years ago where they and last week's guest Niall MacColl stayed up in a hotel honesty bar until 4am.

In this episode she talks about The Arcade Fire interviews, sleeping on a scout hut floor and how Mark Hollis dying was a catalyst for her book.

Find Jude here

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Marry Waterson, is a singer, songwriter and visual artist.

A member of the Waterson-Knight-Carthy folk music family, Waterson is described as having "thrived on communal music making while developing highly original and distinctly English performance styles of [her] own".

She has made 7 albums on One Little Independent Records and she has collaborated with Emily Barker, Adem, David Jaycocks and Olly knight. She has toured with Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker and has made music videos for countless artist with her unique blend of illustrative found pieces and old film

In this episode Marry talks of spending her honeymoon in a car with waves lapping at the wheels.

Find Marry here

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Neill MacColl is the eldest son of folk pioneers Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger and the half brother of Kirsty MacColl. He is also a musician, songwriter and producer in his own right.

He has produced albums for many artists including Bombay Bicycle Club, where Neill eldest son Jamie is the guitarist, and toured as a seasoned session guitarist with artists such as David Gary, David Gilmour, Jesse Buckley and Nadine Shah. He has composed for film and TV, films such as Fever Pitch, 24/7, Far From The Madding Crowd and My Cousin Rachel. He also wrote and recorded an amazing album with me called Two, as well as writing songs such as Heart Shaped Stone for the Crown Electric album and the song Me For You on my latest record Night Drives.

In this episode he gets quite vehement about cushions, and talks of being in the wilderness as his most at home place. 

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Kate St John is an English composer, arranger, producer and multi-instumentalist.

Classically trained on oboe, she gained a music degree at City University London. Her first band was The Ravishing Beauties with Virginia Astley and Nicky Holland. The trio joined The Teardrop Explodes in Liverpool during the winter of 1981 for a series of dates at small clubs and a UK tour in early 1982. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a member of The Dream Academy with Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel. In 1985 they had a worldwide hit with "Life In A Northern Town" and produced three albums: The Dream Academy (1985), Remembrance Days (1987) and A Different Kind Of Weather (1990). In the 1990s St. John was a member of Van Morrison's live band playing oboe and saxophone. She played on five Van Morrison albums. In 1994 she co-wrote and sang on 4 tracks with Roger Eno on the album The Familiar on the All Saints Label. This led to the formation of Channel Light Vessel, a band with Kate, Roger Eno, Bill Nelson, Laraaji and Mayumi Tachibana. St John has released two solo albums: Indescribable Night (1995) and Second Sight (1997).

I met Kate when she was musical director for a Barbican show of the songs of Nick Drake. She has gone on to MD many other multi-artist shows. She has worked with Hal Wilner, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, to name just a few.

In this episode she talks about working with Van Morrison, a love of books and libraries, wordle and how sleep comes even when she is stressed.

Find Kate here

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Romeo Stodart is the lead singer/songwriter for The Magic Numbers. The band have released five critically acclaimed albums thus far including the self-titled Mercury Music Prize nominated, million selling debut, the follow up Those The Brokes, 2010's The Runaway, 2014’s Alias and their most recent album, 2018’s Outsiders. He is also a producer and songwriter for artists as varied as Ren Harvieu, Billy Bragg and Natalie Imbruglia.

He has toured with the magic numbers world wide and supported artists such as Neil Young, the Flaming Lips, Rufus Wainwright.

in this episode he talks about how his granny got him into music and creating and how he makes up magical far out bedtime stories for his son.

Find Romeo here

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Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican-mixed heritage based in London. In 2021 Canongate published her highly acclaimed debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death. It won The Indie Book Award for fiction and was the winner of The Peoples Book Prize 2022. It was also shortlisted for The British Book Awards; The Bad Form Magazine Book Of The Year shortlist and The Gordon Burn Prize. Film and TV rights to this debut novel have been taken by Idris Elba and Green Door Pictures. Currently Godden is working on three new books for Canongate: a memoir, a poetry collection and an eagerly anticipated second novel set in the Mrs Death Misses Death universe - all three books are due for publication in 2024 and 2025.

A new edition of Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance was published by Rough Trade Books in February 2023. This hardback edition features revised and new material, an introduction by John Higgs, an Old English translation of the title poem by Emily Cotman and design and artwork by Craig Oldham. 

Salena Godden's work has been widely anthologised and broadcast on BBC radio, TV and film. Her many credits include her contribution to the BAFTA award-winning Life and Rhymes hosted by Benjamin Zephaniah and co-starring in award-winning indie anti-rom-com movie Brakes. She also regularly co-hosts an arts and culture radio show Roaring 20’s Radio for Soho Radio with art journalist Amah Rose Abrams and poet Matt Abbott. 

Her essay Shade was published in groundbreaking anthology The Good Immigrant (Unbound). A short-story Blue Cornflowers was shortlisted for the 4th Estate and Guardian short story prize. Godden has had several volumes of poetry published including Under The Pier (Nasty Little Press) Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014 (Burning Eye Books) Pessimism is for Lightweights - 13 Pieces of Courage and Resistance (Rough Trade Books) plus also a literary childhood memoir,  Springfield Road (Unbound). She has produced four studio albums to date - her solo poetry album LIVEwire (Nymphs and Thugs) was shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Prize. Her poem Pessimism is for Lightweights is on permanent display at The Peoples History Museum, Manchester. The Royal Society of Literature elected Godden as fellow FRSL in November 2020, she was inducted in July 2022. 

In this episode she talks about working in the early morning and seeing the sunrise, having little naps under pool tables and other nooks in nightclubs and then carrying on her night. she also eloquently discusses the magic time between sleep and wake and how those blurrings form a special place to create from.

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Kathryn Joseph is a Scottish singer, songwriter and musician. Her debut album “Bones You Have Thrown Me And Blood I Have Spilt” won the 2015 SAY (Scottish Album of the Year) award. Her second album “From When I Wake The Want Is” was also shortlisted. Her third album “ For You Who Are Wronged” is out this year.

Kathryn's version of “Land O The Liel” and “Scots Wah Hey” were included in the film “ Outlaw King”.

She has collaborated with Cora Bissett on a stage version of Emma Donaghue’s book “Room”, and also with The Twilight Sad’s James Graham on a project that ended as an album called “Conflats”.

Her live performances are electric and powerful with joy sorrow and heart pouring off the stage.

In this episode we learn that Kathryn can sleep very easily, does not want a wooden nose protector to stop her dog biting it off and knows who ate the big block of cheese!

Find Kathryn Joseph here

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