Not Too Busy To Write

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

The Mindful Photographer - Sophie Howarth

Street Photography Now - Sophie Howarth

Family Photography Now - Sophie Howarth

sophiehowarth.com

Sian Meades-Williams is the brains (and muscle) behind the hugely popular Freelance Writing Jobs newsletter and co-founder of the award winning lifestyle newsletter Tigers Are Better Looking (formerly Domestic Sluttery). In today's episode we discuss Sian's new book The Pyjama Myth: The Freelance Writer's Survival Guide - an indispensable guide for writers from pitching to getting paid. Sian is full of fantastic advice for earning a living from the craft of writing, including pitching. We also do a deep dive into newsletters and the freedom and joy they bring to her work. A must listen for anyone experiencing the highs and lows of freelance writing life.

Links

The Pyjama Myth - Sian Meades-Williams

Freelance Writing Jobs Newsletter Sign up

Tigers Are better looking Newsletter Sign Up

The Feminist Quiz Book - Sian Meades-Williams and Laura Brown

You can find Sian on Twitter @SianySianySiany and sianmeadeswilliams.com

In this episode Maggie Gee reads extracts from her stunning new novel, The Red Children (Saqi Books). Set in the near future against a backdrop of increased migration pressure, climate change and increasing isolation, The Red Children explores themes of far right extremism and the aftermath of virus.

Ali talks to Maggie about the enduring power of fable. How characters with radically different personalities to ours can foster a deeper empathy, and how to write the non-human successfully.

Lizzie Damilola Blackburn's debut novel Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? tells the story of 31 yr old British-Nigerian Yinka, who is feeling the pressure to settle down. When she finds out her ex-boyfriend is bringing his new fiance to her cousins wedding, she decides to go on a mission to find herself a plus one for the big day. Lizzie and Penny chat about how Yinka started life in a short story and how Lizzie felt characters like Yinka were missing from mainstream women's fiction. After the story won a prize, Lizzie decided to write her into a novel. Lizzie is passionate about representation in fiction and about writing religion in a way that feels true to her. She also discusses the importance of writing about colourism and body image for dark skinned black women and creating nuance and humour these complex issues.

Links

Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? - Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

Hope and Glory - Jendella Benson

The Christie Affair - Nina De Gramont

You can find Lizzie on twitter @DamilolaLizzie

Clover Stroud is a Sunday Times best selling author of a number of books including The Wild Other and My Wild and Sleepless Nights. Her latest book, The Red of My Blood, is the story of her sister Nell's death and the immediate aftermath. Clover talks about how her writing benefits from the immediacy of writing in real time and how it felt natural for her to write about the extremities of grief when she was deep in its throws. We also talk about taking yourself to the edge creatively and how it makes life more vivid and putting a magnifying glass up to human experience as well as some of the positive aspects of social media. Clover also has some excellent reading advice for writers.

Links

The Red of My Blood - Clover Stroud

My Wild and Sleepless Nights - Clover Stroud

The Stone Mason - Andrew Zeminski

Devil in a Coma - Mark Lanegan

Atlas of the Heart - Brene Brown

You can find Clover on instagram @clover.stroud

Doreen Cunningham began her a career as a climate science researcher and has spent the last 20 years as a journalist. Her memoir, Soundings: Journeys in the company of whales, is the story of her experiences follow the grey whale migration from Mexico to Alaska as a newly single parent with her very young son in tow. Woven into the book is the story of her time spent with an Inupiaq family in Northern Alaska, where she joined a traditional whale hunt and learnt about how climate change was already affecting artic communities. It's a memoir about love, wrestlessness, colonialism, motherhood and climate change. Doreen talks about the challenges and responsibility of writing about her experiences as a white person within an indigenous community, the urgent drive to write about climate change in a way that would resonate with readers and writing about science in an accessible, story driven way.

Links

Soundings: Journeys in the company of whales

Literary Kitchen

Society of Authors - Grants for work in progress

Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert

We Need New Names - Noviolet Bulawayo

Devotion - Hannah Kent

In this week's episode Ali talks to Lily Dunn, the author of Sins of my Father (W&N, 17th March) about the craft of memoir. Together they discuss how narrative techniques can be used to move the form past expected norms, taking the personal into the realms of the universal, how the 'I' on the page differs from the 'I' in every day life, and how at the heart of memoir lies a love of storytelling. They also consider where the writer sits - does the writer operate as observer or partaker, are they inside or outside, and how does the act of writing alter this position.

Abigail Bergstrom is a literary agent and consultant, former editor, and now debut novelist. What A Shame is a darkly funny novel about grief, friendship and dabbling in the occult. Abigail talks about the challenges of having a lot of knowledge of the industry whilst writing and having to take her agent hat off in order to write, removing the constraints that made writing feel like 'work' and being conscious of the exchange that happens when we give up other things in order to write on the side of a demanding full time job.

Bergstrom Studio is a 360 degree literary consultancy, offering editorial consultancy and representation. As an agent Abigail represents multiple best selling authors and has some excellent advice for those who are going out on submission.

Links

Bergstrom Studio

What A Shame - Abigail Bergstrom

Wet Paint - Chloe Ashby

Beautiful Country - Xian Julie Wang

You can find Abigail on Instagram @abigailbergstrom and @bergstrom.studio

And Penny on instagram @pennywincer

Our writing lives don't always look the same. Depending on which phase you're in, drafting, editing, submitting, publishing or promoting - our rhythms and routines change according to what phase we are in. Ali and Penny are currently in different phases to each other and to where they each were a year ago. Today's episode is about where they are at and how that changes how they sit down and get the work done. They are both now juggling multiple projects at different stages and how that has necessarily changed their writing routines, in ways that are both good and a challenge.

Caribbean-American writer Charmaine Wilkerson's incredible fiction debut, Black Cake is a sweeping family tale about inheritance, memories and secrets. Charmaine discusses the layering of multiple timelines, much like the layering of a cake or the layering of conversation. She also talks about channeling the characters, allowing herself to follow them and see where they take her and having a quarter of the book written in various files before she was certain it was a story.

Black Cake is out in the UK on 3rd February 2022 and in the US on 1st February

Links

Black Cake - Charmaine Wilkerson

Another Life - Jodie Chapman

Beautiful Country - Qian Julie Wang

Olga Dies Dreaming - Xochitl Gonzalez

The Final Revival of Opal and Neve - Dawnie Walton

Who They Was - Gabriel Krauze