In Writing with Hattie Crisell

Nathan Silver, director and co-writer of Between the Temples (and many other movies) joins me from New York today to talk about his 'scriptment' approach to screenwriting, in which scripts read more like novellas. Nathan and I have a great chat about how he collaborates with cast and uses improvisation to tell a story; how comedy helps him to 'Trojan horse' experimental work to audiences; and his thoughts on letting an audience feel a little bit lost. 

Watch the trailer for Between the Temples, starring Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UNPfUU0UZI

If you liked this episode, try my interview with filmmaker Ruben Ostlund: https://audioboom.com/posts/8259325-ruben-ostlund-filmmaker

'Great rewards come from being brave' – read my Q&A in Curtis Brown Creative's newsletter: https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/blog/hattie-crisell-author-interview

Order a signed or dedicated copy of my book for someone you love (possibly yourself): https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/books/in-writing-owl-bookshop-signed-copy/

To celebrate the publication of In Writing, Granta Books is giving away twenty 'Creative Desperation' T-shirts. To be in with a chance of winning one, all you have to do is pre-order or purchase a copy of the book from any retailer. Email your receipt/proof of purchase to [email protected] before Tuesday 12th November, putting ‘In Writing Giveaway’ in the email subject. Terms and conditions:

Entrants must be UK-based. The winners will be chosen at random. Any entries received after the closing date will not be counted. Entries must include proof of purchase. Both online and in-store purchases are accepted as entries.

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative – the renowned writing school run by the literary and talent agency. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off your first online writing course – eligible courses can be found here. Visit https://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.

This slightly silly bonus episode marks the launch today of In Writing: Conversations on Inspiration, Perspiration and Creative Desperation, published in the UK by Granta Books. Friend of the podcast and former guest Sathnam Sanghera came to visit the room where I write, for a conversation about the writing life – touching on elaborate procrastination, the fetishisation of fountain pens, and whether writers are good at a party (or not).

Listen back to Sathnam's first appearance on In Writing, from 2019: https://audioboom.com/posts/7782209-sathnam-sanghera-journalist-memoirist-and-novelist

Buy my book, if you feel like it: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5954/9781803510637

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative – the renowned writing school run by the literary and talent agency. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off your first online writing course. Eligible courses can be found here. Visit https://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.

Yomi Adegoke, bestselling author of The List and co-author of Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible, spoke to me in August for this episode. We discussed the stellar career she's established in her twenties and early thirties – from launching a self-made magazine, to producing an acclaimed book on the experience of black British women, to writing a novel that has sold more than 150,000 copies in little over a year. Yomi spilled the beans on the steep learning curve of moving from non-fiction to fiction; her love of a good edit; and why she thinks literary critics are underappreciated. 

You can buy Yomi's books here in the In Writing bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/in-writing

Order my book In Writing: Conversations on Inspiration, Perspiration and Creative Desperation: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5954/9781803510637

London: I'm in conversation with BBC Radio 4's Sheila Dillon at Ink@84 on 7 November: https://www.ink84bookshop.co.uk/product-page/in-writing-hattie-crisell-in-conversation-with-sheila-dillon

Edinburgh: I'm in conversation with novelist Maggie O'Farrell organised by Rare Birds Books on 10 November: https://rarebirdsbooks.com/products/hattie-crisell-in-conversation-with-maggie-ofarrell

Glasgow: I'm reading from my book and being interviewed at Glasgow University on 11 November: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hattie-crisell-reading-and-in-conversation-tickets-1058328712669

Durham: I'm being interviewed by writer Kathryn Tann at Collected Books on 12 November: https://collectedbooks.co.uk/products/hattie-crisell-in-writing-conservations-on-inspiration-perspiration-and-creative-desperation-tuesday-12-november-6-30pm

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative – the renowned writing school run by the literary and talent agency. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off your first online writing course, eligible courses can be found here. Visit https://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.

I had a great chat this week with Craig Brown, parody writer and columnist for Private Eye and the Daily Mail, and author of offbeat biographies including A Voyage Around the Queen; One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time; and Ma'am Darling (about Princess Margaret). Craig takes iconic cultural figures and writes around them, exploring how they were seen by their friends, fans and critics, and the strange, humorous and poignant ways that they affected other lives. It's an art form that Craig has made his own, mixing imagination with fact, and it was so interesting to visit him at his flat in Bloomsbury, London, and hear about how he puts these portraits together.

Read Craig's very funny Daily Mail column here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/profile-2082/criag-brown.html

Buy A Voyage Around the Queen or browse more of Craig's books: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/in-writing

Order my book In Writing: Conversations on Inspiration, Perspiration and Creative Desperation: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5954/9781803510637

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative – the renowned writing school run by the literary and talent agency. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off your first online writing course – eligible courses can be found here. Visit https://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.

The very funny and frank Bella Mackie is with me today. We met in August to talk about the writing of her three bestselling books: the nonfiction hit Jog On: How Running Saved My Life, and the witty murder novels How to Kill Your Family and What a Way to Go – a new genre that we dub 'sarcastic crime'. Bella opens up about accepting defeat on a failed manuscript, learning her craft on the job, and battling with structure. And we discuss all of that while her dog Barney wanders around us at her kitchen table.

Browse and buy Bella's books here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/in-writing

Read Bella's newsletter on privilege and honesty, 'Do influencers owe you transparency?': https://bellamackie.substack.com/p/manifesting-luck

Pre-order my book In Writing: Conversations on Inspiration, Perspiration and Creative Desperation: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5954/9781803510637

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative – the renowned writing school run by the literary and talent agency. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off your first online writing course. Eligible courses can be found here: https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk

See me and Anna Metcalfe at Stratford Literary Festival on 26 October: https://www.stratfordliteraryfestival.co.uk/events/hattie-crisell-and-anna-metcalfe

This week, meet Donal Ryan, who has since 2012 published seven bestselling novels and a collection of short stories. Based in County Limerick, Ireland – where he teaches creative writing at the University of Limerick – he writes heartfelt stories inspired by the kinds of people he's lived among all his life. His latest novel, Heart, Be At Peace, is a sequel to his debut, The Spinning Heart, which won the Guardian First Book Award and Irish Book of the Decade, among other plaudits. We sat down in London in August and talked about the self-doubt that delayed the start of his writing career; the characters he loves so much that he can't stop writing them into new stories; and his wife Anne-Marie's important role in his work.

Browse and buy Donal's books here: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/donal-ryan-novelist

Pre-order my book, In Writing (thank you!): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Conversations-Inspiration-Perspiration-Desperation/dp/1803510633

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative – the renowned writing school run by the literary and talent agency. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off your first online writing course – eligible courses can be found here: https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk

Here are the details of my book tour: https://www.instagram.com/p/DA5bYGqIqYN/

Buy tickets for my online masterclass in writing with emotional honesty (discounts are available for various groups including those on low income): https://www.arvon.org/writing-courses/courses-retreats/masterclass-how-to-improve-the-authenticity-of-your-writing/

We're back! And I'm sitting down with influential Canadian writer and thinker Naomi Klein, author of Doppelganger, No Logo, The Shock Doctrine and many more. Naomi studies and writes about corporate globalisation and the climate emergency, but today we're talking about the challenges of hiding from a child in order to get some work done, and not being able to read one's own handwriting, among other writerly challenges like structure and tone. She's really interesting on honing her voice as a writer and what she learnt from seeing a creative-writing tutor during the pandemic.

Browse Naomi's books here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/in-writing

Pre-order my book, In Writing: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5954/9781803510637

or at Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Conversations-Inspiration-Perspiration-Desperation/dp/1803510633

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative – the renowned writing school run by the literary and talent agency. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off your first online writing course. Eligible courses can be found here. Visit https://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.

In this final episode of the season, recorded in February 2023, I'm joined by the beloved poet and author Michael Rosen. Known equally for humorous children's verse and his poetry and prose for adults, Michael's books for kids include We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Chocolate Cake, Michael Rosen's Sad Book and Jelly Boots, Smelly Boots. He's also written a number of more grown-up books, including Many Different Kinds of Love and the memoir Getting Better, about healing and recovery. In recent years he's written and spoken about his experience of spending seven weeks in intensive care with Covid-19, at the peak of the pandemic. In this conversation, we talk about how writing can help us after trauma; how performing poetry for children shaped his work; and how plain, understated language can express great emotion.

Browse Michael's books in the In Writing bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/in-writing

Visit his YouTube channel for kids: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7D-mXO4kk-XWvH6lBXdrPw

Watch the short film Many Different Kinds of Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsrSN-OCk8w

Listen to Word of Mouth, hosted by Michael, on BBC Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtnz

Subscribe to the In Writing newsletter and leave your questions about the podcast in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them: https://inwriting.substack.com/

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off one of their four, five, six, or ten-week online writing courses. Visit https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.

This week's guest is the beloved novelist Barbara Trapido, who I met at her home in Oxford in March 2023. Barbara's first novel was 1982's Brother of the More Famous Jack, which was published when she was 41; she followed it with Noah's Ark (1984), Temples of Delight (1990), Juggling (1994), The Travelling Hornplayer (1998), Frankie & Stankie (2003) and Sex & Stravinsky (2010). She's now in her early eighties, and talked to me about finding the energy to write in later life; her playful philosophy of writing; and her memories of introducing a young, then-aspiring novelist Maggie O'Farrell to her first agent.

You can find Barbara's novels here in the In Writing bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/in-writing

Please do subscribe to my newsletter on the writing process, and join me for writing hours on Google Meet, here: https://inwriting.substack.com

Here's the episode of In Writing with novelist Maggie O'Farrell, who talks about Barbara: https://audioboom.com/posts/7835707-maggie-o-farrell-novelist

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off one of their four, five, six, or ten-week online writing courses. Visit https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.

A little detour into death this week – or life, depending on how you look at it. Nigel Williamson, obituary writer for The Times newspaper, joins me to talk about the art of summing up a person one final time, over 1600 words or so, for the permanent record. I met Nigel in March at the News Building in London to talk about researching a biography, interviewing the bereaved, and trying to get the essence of a whole human life into a couple of pages.

You can buy the latest Times anthology of obituaries, Lives Less Ordinary, here, including Nigel's pieces on Ken Dodd, Greg Lake, Rod Temperton, Anita Pallenberg, April Ashley, Magic Alex, Christina Smith, Richard Cole, Jan Morris and many more: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5954/9780008537913

And here are some more of Nigel's obituaries:

Lisa Marie Presley: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lisa-marie-presley-dies-elvis-priscilla-aged-54-r5jt9v6ls

Jeff Beck: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/guitarist-jeff-beck-dies-aged-78-djff57bw9

Hilary Alexander: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hilary-alexander-obituary-fxc02swrk

and my 2013 piece on Hilary Alexander, which I loved writing: https://www.thecut.com/2013/01/hilary-alexander-will-stop-working-someday.html

Join me on 18 April 2023 in London for this live event with the London Writers' Salon: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-build-a-self-directed-writing-career-w-london-writers-salon-tickets-609412698787 For a 50% discount and a drink at the bar, use the code HATTIEFRIEND when you purchase your ticket.

This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off one of their four, five, six, or ten-week online writing courses. Visit curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.