Not Too Busy To Write

Cathy Rentzenbrink is a Sunday Times best selling author of The Last Act of Love, A Manual for Heartache, Dear Reader and Everyone is Still Alive. Her latest book, Write It All Down, is all about writing from life.

Cathy talks about how her first memoir started because she need to write it out of her, how she's learned to trust the process of writing, even though she's still filled with self doubt and learning that external validation of our writing doesn't magically fix that doubt.

Links

Write It All Down - Cathy Rentzenbrink

The Last Act of Love - Cathy Rentzenbrink

Everyone Is Still Alive - Cathy Rentzenbrink

The Virgin Suicides - Jeffery Eugenides

Without Warning And Only Sometimes - Kit De Waal

You can follow Cathy on Instagram @catrentzenbrink and twitter @catrentzenbrink

You can follow Penny on Instagram @pennywincer and sign up for her newsletter here.

Julia Silk is a an agent with Greyhound Literary. Julia spent many years as an editor before becoming an agent who represents a wide range of fiction and non-fiction authors. We talk about what exactly an agent does, how agents find and nurture authors as well as how agents deal with rejection (yes they get rejected too!). She also talks about the common problems that she sees in manuscripts, including really figuring out what the point of your book is and the importance story and how to write a captivating cover letter. It is a packed epsiode full of gold for submitting writers.

Julia Silk is currently open for submissions

You can find Julia on twitter @juliasreading

Book Proposal Group Program with Penny Wincer

Links

Sisters - Daisy Johnson

Nine Perfect Strangers - Liane Moriaty

If This Is a Man - Primo Levi

Eat Up - Ruby Tandoh

You can find all the books recommended on the podcast at our Bookshop.org shop - Not Too Busy To Write Recommends - buying through our bookshop supports independent booksellers as well as supporting the podcast

REPLAY: This episode was originally released in April 2022

Sophie Howarth has a varied and unique career spanning art, entrepreneurship, teaching, activism and writing. She has been Curator of Public Programs at Tate Modern, co-founded The School Of Life and Department Store for The Mind, has written several books on photography. Her latest book The Mindful Photographer is about slowing down and paying attention to what we see. Sophie is a big believer in the joy of being an amateur and the book is for anyone, regardless of equipment or expertise, to find a fresh way of paying attention in the world.

We talk about 'beginning in the middle' - how in middle age, with our awareness of impermanence, we are somehow freed from constraints by being more aware of death. We also talk about the process of writing a photography book, of approaching the artists she wanted to use to illustrate the ideas in the book and the range of work including diversity of gender, race and genre.

Our conversation spans so many areas - inspiration (and too much inspiration/input), work freedom, following joy and the idea of practise as a way of living.

Links

Book Proposal Group Program with Penny Wincer

The Mindful Photographer - Sophie Howarth

Street Photography Now - Sophie Howarth

Family Photography Now - Sophie Howarth

sophiehowarth.com

You can find Penny on Instagram @pennywincer and you can sign up for her newsletter here

Lulah Ellender is an author, creative non-fiction writing teacher and writing coach based in Sussex. Her latest book Grounding: Finding home in a garden is about a single growing year in her garden after her mother died and her family was in danger of losing the home that they had lived in for 10 years. We talk about how Lulah weaves together the stories of many other gardens and the artists who created them into her own personal narrative alongside non-fiction elements of plant and garden history. She sees her role as taking the reader by the hand and leading them through, rather than memoir being particularly about her.

Lulah also tells me about her flexible online courses in Life Writing, her favourite books about writing, the importance of close reading your favourite books and reading widely around your topics of interest.

Links

Grounding - Lulah Ellender

Elizabeth's Lists - Lulah Ellender

Lulah's writing courses

Maggie Nelson - Bluets

EveryBody - Olivia Laing

The Artists Way - Julia Cameron

The Art of Memoir - Mary Karr

Bird By Bird - Anne Lamott

Angela Hui is an award winning food and lifestyle journalist whose first book Takeway: Stories from a childhood behind the counter is about growing up in a Chinese takeaway in rural Wales. We talk about how the memoir began life as an article she wrote for VICE on how Chinese takeaways are disappearing and the dual identities of her childhood - going from yearning to fit in to coming to love and appreciate both her Chinese and Welsh heritage. We also talk about just how important food is in Chinese culture, what it was like to put her formidable mother down on the page and how food has followed her from a childhood behind the counter, to her career as the food writer for Time Out London.

Links

Takeaway - Angela Hui

Michelle Gallen is an Irish author raised in a border town in the north and now based in Dublin. Her first novel Big Girl, Small Town was short listed for the Costa First Novel Award, The Comedy Women in Print Award and An Irish Book Award. Her second novel Factory Girls, set in the summer of 1994 in a small town in Northern Ireland, as a group of friends await their A level results, wondering if they'll ever escape the deprived community they were born into. It's dark and incredibly funny.

We talk about how growing up in a divided community where violence was normal and was dealt with by turning to dark humour and the differences between writing her first and second novel. We also talk about her recovery from a brain injury, the bursaries that allowed her to quit her day job in order to write and the importance of having people to champion and encourage your work.

Links

Factory Girls - Michell Gallen

Big Girl, Small Town - Michelle Gallen

Irish Arts Council Literature Project Award

Arts Council England - Develop Your Practice Fund

Society of Authors Grants

Our very own Ali Millar is on the podcast today talking about her debut book The Last Days. We talk about how writing this memoir was a necessity in truth telling, obsessing over structure, talking books into life and redrafting - lots of redrafting. We also talk about some of the challenges of writing a memoir both emotionally and legally and vulnerability of exposure. The Last Days is out now.

Links

The Last Days - Ali Millar

Original Sins - Matt Rowland Hill

Idol - Louise O'Neill

The Year of Miracles - Ella Risbridger

You can find Ali on instagram @ali_millar_writes and Penny @pennywincer

Chloe Times is an author, podcaster and former teacher based in Kent. Her debut novel The Seawomen, a dystopian tale about a closed community and one young woman who gets a small taste of freedom, is out now. Chloe and I talk about how her disability naturally leads her to write about marginalised characters, building worlds and complex female friendships on the page. Chloe is a graduate of the Faber Academy and talks about how that experience changed her life as a writer. We also chat about the joys of writing podcasts and her wonderful podcast Confessions of a Debut Novelist.

Links

The Seawomen - Chloe Timms

The Faber Academy - Scholarships

Confessions of a Debut Novelist Podcast with Chloe Timms

You can find Chloe on twitter @clotimms and instagram @clotimms

You can find Penny on Instagram @pennywincer

Chloe Ashby is an arts journalist and author based in London. Her debut novel Wet Paint is about a young woman struggling to move forward after the traumatic death of her best friend, who finds solace in a painting and a life of routine, until a sudden change of circumstances has her undressing for strangers as a life model. We talk about ways of finding your way in to a story as a writer, writing about visual art and exploring ideas of control in characters. We also talk about having an 'affair' with novel writing on the side of other paid writing work and Chloe's life as a freelance arts writer working on non-fiction art books and reviewing exhibitions.

links

Wet Paint - Chloe Ashby

Look at this if you love great art - Chloe Ashby

Colours of Art: The story of art in 80 palletes - Chloe Ashby

chloeashby.com

Instagram - @chloeashby

Twitter - @chloeashby

You can find us on instagram @pennywincer and @ali_millar_writes

Ilona Bannister's second novel Little Prisons, is set in one building, from four perspectives, each one a woman experiencing a kind of imprisonment. Emotional, mental and literal. Ilona is our first return guest on the podcast and we discuss the difference between the experience of writing book one and book two, the complex literary devices she uses in the novel to examine issues around human trafficking and how she challenges the reader and our expectations by writing characters that stretch our compassion and have us question how we see those who are the most invisible in our society.

Links

Little Prisons - Ilona Bannister

When I Ran Away - Ilona Bannister