Forthwrite

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.