Debut novelist Carys Shannon on how to stay true to your voice through submissions and agent feedback, why an editorially led indie press was the right home for her book, and the craft that brought it to life.

We discuss:

• How to decide what your book wants to be and center its emotional life.
• Submission strategy after competitions: reading agent feedback without losing your vision.
• Indie presses 101: editorially led models, scale, and alignment.
• Contracts with a small press: advances, rights splits, and what to expect.
• Publicity with an indie: bespoke support and realistic reach.
• Craft choices that unlocked the book: first-person present vs close third, “killing your darlings.”
• Landscape as character.
• Redefining success through integrity of voice.
   

Resources and Links:

• 📑Interview Transcript
• Truth Like Water
• Cree 
• Hummingbird by Tristan Hughes 
• Mslexia Indie Press Guide
• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert 
   

About Carys Shannon

Carys Shannon is a Welsh writer whose debut novel Truth Like Water (Parthian Books) was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award and the Mslexia Novel Award, shortlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award, and winner of the Jericho Writers Festival of Writing Prize. Her short fiction has appeared with Honno Press, Parthian Books, and Mslexia Magazine, with work broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She’s originally from North Gower, Swansea, and divides her time between Wales and the Spanish Pyrenees.
 

About Parthian Books

Parthian is an independent, editorially led publisher based in Cardigan, Wales. Founded in 1993, it champions debut and regional voices across contemporary fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction, and literature in translation.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Head of Books at the Madeleine Milburn Agency, Liv Maidment, shares how literary agents read, evaluate, and champion submissions (from pitches and comps to strategy, timelines, and today’s AI-driven market), helping writers pitch their work clearly and confidently.

You'll learn:

• How to build a snappy 1–2 line elevator pitch that helps everyone down the chain sell your book (“the art of summing something up in one or two sentences”).
• Tips for writing comp titles and using them smartly.
• Blurbs vs synopses: how the pitch sells your book while the synopsis tells your book.
• What strong synopses and author bios must include: how much to reveal, and why they matter.
• Why agent editorial and development with an agent still matter.
• Today’s submission etiquette: realistic timelines, when to chase, and how resubmissions work.
• Market and positioning: genres currently on the rise, platform and geography demystified (do you need social media, does location matter).
• Implications of AI in today's publishing landscape: contracts, transparency, and more.
• More exclusive insight and advice for writers from an expert on the other side of the publishing industry.
   

Resources and Links:

• 📑Interview Transcript
• Madeleine Milburn Website
• Submission FAQs
   

About Liv Maidment

Liv Maidment is Head of Books at the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, representing a prizewinning list of literary, upmarket, and book club fiction. She previously worked at The Blair Partnership and United Agents and has brokered major UK and North American deals, guiding debut and established authors throughout their careers. 

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Indyana Schneider—international opera singer and novelist—shares practical ways to write rhythm and desire on the page, craft scene-level tension, and shape compressed-time narratives; plus lessons from drafting her debut on the Tube. 
 

You'll learn:

• How to build sentence-level cadence: vary lengths and read aloud to tune flow.
• A simple spine for short-timeframe novels: day-by-day beats, rising stakes, a final choice.
• Where to start and stop scenes so pages move (start late, leave early).
• Writing desire without cliché: stay in character voice; revise for rhythm and clarity.
• Turning musical training into prose: sensory sequencing that guides attention.
• When to query (and what “ready” looked like) plus handling editorial feedback.
• Smart ways to measure success beyond sales and keep momentum across careers.
   

Resources and Links:

• 📑Interview Transcript
• Since the World is Ending by Indyana Schneider
• 28 Questions by Indyana Schneider
• If the World Was Ending by JP Saxe ft Julia Michaels
• What Makes a Bestseller? | Jonny Geller | TEDxOxford 
• ReaderBank
• One Day by David Nicholls
• Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
• So Thrilled for You by Holly Bourne
• The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye
• Love in Exile by Shon Faye
• I Love You, I Love You, I Love You by Laura Dockrill
• Indy’s Instagram 

About Indyana Schneider

Indyana Schneider is an international opera singer and novelist from Sydney. She studied Music at Oxford and Opera in Hanover, completed training at the Zurich Opera studio, and now performs across the UK, Europe, and Australia. She is the author of 28 Questions and Since the World Is Ending, a novel set over a sweltering weekend in Vienna, steeped in music, desire, and consequence.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Natalie Lue, bestselling author and writer (Baggage Reclaim) shares how she shaped her mini-memoirs Let Go (Family & Friction) with The Pound Project, why intention is your best editor, and the inner tools that helped her write through grief, illness, and complicated family ties — without turning her life into content.

You’ll learn

• How to decide if you’re writing from the scar or the wound.
• Practical ways to protect yourself on the page: boundaries, pauses, and purpose.
• A simple test for what stays in your memoir and what gets cut.
• Why journaling and “scrap-paper noodling” reveal patterns you can’t see in real time.
• How a small, focused publisher like The Pound Project co-builds a project — and what they look for in pitches.
• The mindset shift of “hold it lightly” when outcomes are uncertain.
• Gratitude for your past self as a creative survival skill.

Natalie’s reflection prompts:

• What am I pretending not to already know?
• What am I clinging to — and what would it mean to let it go?
• Who will I become if I let go? Who will I keep being if I don’t?
• What pattern keeps replaying in my journals — and what’s it trying to teach me?
• What do I need to feel safe enough to tell the truth?

Resources and Links:

• 📑Interview Transcript
• The Baggage Reclaim Sessions
• The Pound Project
• Email for The Pound Project - [email protected]
• Let Go by Natalie Lue

About Natalie Lue:

Natalie is a writer, speaker, and host of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, a podcast with 3M+ downloads across 140+ countries. Her books include The Joy of Saying No (Harper Horizon) and self-published titles such as Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. In Let Go (The Pound Project), she explores a decade marked by estrangement, loss, illness, and publishing, showing how releasing what no longer serves can restore creative power and clarity.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Sarah Hall—twice Booker Prize–nominated author and the only writer to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice—on crafting fiction that is both lush and uncompromising, and how to captivate readers on the sentence level while staying true to creative freedom.

We discuss:

• Her early reading life in the countryside and the characters who first sparked her imagination
• Lessons learned from an “unpublishable” first novel and how Haweswater found its true form
• The discipline and intuition behind her writing process and when to share drafts
• Why handwriting first drafts rekindled a sense of play and sharpened her editing
• How to build short stories that hold “the world on a pin” and reverberate beyond the page
• Giving voice to Britain’s only named wind in Helm and weaving folklore, climate themes, and playfulness
• Discerning a story’s ending and sustaining joy in the writing process
   

About Sarah Hall

Sarah Hall is one of Britain’s most acclaimed contemporary authors. Twice nominated for the Booker Prize and the first and only writer to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice, she is the author of ten acclaimed novels and short story collections, including Haweswater, The Electric Michelangelo, The Carhullan Army, and Burntcoat. Her latest novel, Helm, blends myth, climate anxiety, and playful storytelling to bring Britain’s only named wind to life.

Resources and Links:

• 📑Interview Transcript
• Helm
• The Helm Wind, the only named wind in Britain - the Met Office
• Sarah’s Website
• Sarah’s books
  • Haweswater
  • The Electric Michelangelo
  • How to Paint a Dead Man
  • The Carhullan Army
  • Burntcoat
• “The Grotesques” - BBC National Short Story Award Winner
• Interview with Sarah Hall in The Guardian
• Faber & Faber - Sarah’s publisher
• Lee Brackstone - Sarah’s editor
• Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien
• Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan
• Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
• Light Years by James Salter
• Hilary Mantel’s Website

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Nicolas Cole—digital writer, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Ship 30 for 30, Premium Ghostwriting Academy, Typeshare, and Write With AI—on building a portfolio of writing businesses, ghostwriting as a path for writers, and how to balance art and commerce. 
 

We discuss:

• How poetry kept him creatively grounded while building businesses
• Why every piece of writing answers a question 
• Career paths to making money as a writer today
• The power of ghostwriting for skill and income
• How AI changes (and doesn’t change) the job of a writer
• Building consistent writing systems and habits
• How to focus when you have too many ideas + other mindset shifts to scale businesses and find creative clarity
   

About Nicolas Cole

Nicolas Cole is a digital writer, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Ship 30 for 30, Premium Ghostwriting Academy, Typeshare, and Write With AI. He first rose to prominence as the #1 most-read writer on Quora, later writing a popular column for Inc Magazine. He has ghostwritten for hundreds of entrepreneurs, artists, and authors, and is the author of The Art & Business of Online Writing and The Art & Business of Ghostwriting. Today, he helps writers build sustainable careers by mastering both the art and the business of writing.


Resources and Links:

• 📑 Interview Transcript
• nicolascole.com
• Premium Ghostwriting Academy
• Ship30for30
• Commercial Fiction Club 
   

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Chris Banks—writer, entrepreneur, and founder of ProWritingAid—on how to embrace what makes you unique, use AI as a tool for inspiration, and build resilience and joy into the writing process, from creating faster feedback loops to reframing the creative pit of despair.

We discuss:

• Why “leaning into your weird” can unlock originality and stronger ideas
• Where you might use AI for inspiration. 
• How to overcome the ‘creative pit of despair’
• Why faster feedback loops can be helpful for your craft 
• How gratitude fuels creativity and flow
• What both entrepreneurs and writers need to know about resilience and joy
   

About Chris Banks

Chris Banks is a writer, entrepreneur, and the CEO and founder of ProWritingAid, the editing tool trusted by millions of authors worldwide. With a background in software development and a lifelong passion for writing, he built ProWritingAid to make the editing process more empowering for writers of all levels. His forthcoming book, The Writer’s Mind, explores how resilience, joy, and creative practice can help writers overcome obstacles and sustain their craft.

Resources and Links:

• ProWritingAid
• Chris Banks 
   

Episode Sponsor: 

This episode is brought to you by Scrivener. It’s a tool many of us use at the Salon. It’s a great system to accompany you through the whole writing process from research, editing, organization, formatting, and exporting. To find out more about Scrivener, head to Scrivener.app. To get 20% off, use code WRITERSSALON.

For show notes, transcripts, and to attend our live podcasts, visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: 

writershour.com

.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON

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Amie McNee—creativity coach and writer  behind the popular account @InspiredToWrite—on how to stay grounded through success and setbacks, forge a creative life on your own terms, and why art is both essential and revolutionary.

We discuss:

• How to deal with rejection
• Advice for artists starting out on social media
• Tips and reflections on self-publishing and book deals
• Why the world needs your art
• How to start trusting yourself as an artist (and deal with jealousy)
• Having big dreams and low standards
• And more exclusive insights for writers and creatives

About Amie McNee:

Amie is a trained historian turned creativity coach, writer, and speaker best known for her popular Instagram account, @InspiredtoWrite and The Unpublished Podcast. She’s self-published two historical fiction novels: The Rules Upheld by No One, Regrettably, I Am About to Cause Trouble. Her latest book is We Need Your Art: Stop F*cking Around and Make Something, a manifesto on the vital, human importance of creating. 

Resources and Links:

• Amie’s Ted Talk (The case for making art when the world is on fire)
• The Rules Upheld by No One by Amie McNee
• Amie’s Instagram 
• Amie’s Substack
• We Need Your Art by Amie McNee
• The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin
   

Episode Sponsor: 

This episode is brought to you by Scrivener. It’s a tool many of us use at the Salon. It’s a great system to accompany you through the whole writing process from research, editing, organization, formatting, and exporting. To find out more about Scrivener, head to Scrivener.app. To get 20% off, use code WRITERSSALON.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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If you’re enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Poet, novelist, and teacher Joseph Fasano on how to find the unique language and rhythm in our work, building a meaningful online presence, and why he believes that embracing limits in life (and writing) is key to creative freedom.

We discuss:

• Joseph’s creative evolution, from astrophysics to poetry
• Why studying craft is essential
• The value of constraint and rhythm in unlocking creativity
• How he found his voice, and why he writes persona poems
• Building a meaningful career outside of traditional publishing
• Advice for poets starting out (with or without an MFA)
• The story behind The Magic Words and teaching poetic thinking
• How faith and service shape his creative practice

About Joseph Fasano

Joseph Fasano is an award-winning poet, novelist, and teacher whose lyrical storytelling has captivated readers on the page and across social media, where he’s built a following of over 100,000. His work—translated into more than a dozen languages—includes poetry collections (The Magic Words, Inheritance, The Last Song of the World), novels (The Swallows of Lunetto, The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing), and lyrical prose. He’s received the Rattle Poetry Prize, the Cider Press Review Book Award, and a Poets’ Prize nomination. A passionate educator, Joseph teaches poetry workshops through the Fasano Academy and fosters creative community online.

Resources and Links:

• 📑Interview Transcript
• Fasano Academy
• Boa Editions
• New Pages
• The Magic Words
• Joseph’s Instagram
• Caedmon by Denise Levertov

Episode Sponsor: 

This episode is brought to you by Scrivener. It’s a tool many of us use at the Salon. It’s a great system to accompany you through the whole writing process from research, editing, organization, formatting, and exporting. To find out more about Scrivener, head to Scrivener.app. To get 20% off, use code WRITERSSALON.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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George Walkley, AI strategist and former publishing executive at Hachette, on what writers need to know about artificial intelligence, how it’s reshaping the creative and publishing industries, and how to use it responsibly in your writing life.

We discuss:

• How George transitioned from traditional publishing to AI consulting
• The difference between AI probability and human creativity
• Why everyone should develop “prompt literacy”
• How publishing houses and bookselling platforms are already using AI
• The challenges of AI detection, authorship disclosure & ethical sourcing
• The environmental cost of AI — and how it compares to other tools
• Why AI is already embedded in tools we use every day
• How writers can make informed, personal choices around AI use
• And more exclusive tips for writers and creatives

About George Walkley
George Walkley is an independent consultant specialising in AI and the publishing industry. He has developed and delivers the world’s first independent, CPD-accredited AI course aimed specifically at the publishing industry and has trained people from over 200 publishing organisations. Prior to this, he held senior roles at Hachette.

Resources and Links:

• 📑 Interview Transcript
• Open letter to publishers
• Mistral AI
• Society of Authors
• Jane Friedman
• George’s newsletter

Episode Sponsor: 

This episode is brought to you by Scrivener. It’s a tool many of us use at the Salon. It’s a great system to accompany you through the whole writing process from research, editing, organization, formatting, and exporting. To find out more about Scrivener, head to Scrivener.app. To get 20% off, use code WRITERSSALON.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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If you’re enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!