Annabel Campbell writes fantasy with fierce female characters and disaster wizards, and believes everything is improved by dragons. She lives in a tiny village in Scotland, where most of her neighbours are sheep. She has a PhD in cardiovascular science, and when not making things up for a living, she works as a Medical Writer. Her debut novel, The Outcast Mage, is out now.

We had great fun chatting with Annabel and hearing that The Outcast Mage grew from a story she wrote when she was 14! Plus, we hear how she made the scary decision to change agents before she had a publishing deal (and how it all worked out!) and talk about why special editions are such a big thing in fantasy publishing.

(Annabel also asked us to note that Chris Simmons, who drew character art for her, worked on a graphic novel called Prehistoria!)

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Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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What books influenced you as a reader and writer? We continue our countdown of the top ten books that influenced us as writers - from number 5 to number 1!

(Before the comments fly in, we want to stress again: This is NOT a list of the ten best books we have read! We wanted to discuss books that have stayed with us for whatever reason and have influenced the stories we want to tell.)

Let us know books that have influenced you in the comments below!

Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published writer (Marco) discuss various writing issues as they occur to them! This series is a timed-exclusive for our Patreon backers - support us on Patreon for that and other great benefits!

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now

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Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times bestselling writer of Star Wars: Phasma, Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire, Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade, The Secrets of Long Snoot, The Perfect Weapon, and Scorched; Disney Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart, It Will Only Hurt for a Moment, Guillotine, Midnight at the Houdini, Bloom, Mine, The Violence, the Blud series, Servants of the Storm, the HIT series, Wake of Vultures and the Shadow series (as Lila Bowen), and a variety of short stories in anthologies such as Death & Honey, Robots vs. Fairies, Hellboy: an Assortment of Horrors, Violent Ends, Carniepunk, Three Slices, and Last Night a Superhero Saved My Life.

We had a great chat with Delilah, hearing about how she is so prolific, and what it is really like writing for IP projects like Star Wars (spoiler - Disney trips are a bonus!) We also walk about how structure helps her plan her stories, and she explains why letting go of the idea of writing a perfect book has helped her.

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What books influenced you as a reader and writer? That's what we're looking at on today's special episode of Drafting Notes as we break down numbers 10-6 on our own list of 10 books. *Before the comments fly in, we want to stress again: This is NOT a list of the ten best books we have read! We wanted to discuss books that have stayed with us for whatever reason and have influenced the stories we want to tell.*

Let us know books that have influenced you in the comments below!

Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published writer (Marco) discuss various writing issues as they occur to them! This series is a timed-exclusive for our Patreon backers - support us on Patreon for that and other great benefits!

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now

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Jay Kristoff is a #1 international, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. He is the winner of eight Aurealis Awards, an ABIA, has over two million books in print and is published in over thirty five countries. His latest book is The Empire of The Damned, the second book in his Empire of The Vampire trilogy.

We had great fun chatting with Jay, hearing about he moved from marketing into writing, and how some encouraging words from agents early on really helped him to continue writing. We also chat about how he loves to play with the formatting of his books, and chat about how he writes his visceral fight scenes.

Links:

Buy Jay's books now

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Visit Jay's website

Support us on Patreon and get great benefits!: https://www.patreon.com/ukpageone

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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We're joined by not one, not two, but three brilliant authors for our end of year Christmas special!

Anna Mazzola is the award-winning author of five historical crime or Gothic novels. She is now also writing legal thrillers under the name Anna Sharpe. Her latest book, Notes on A Drowning, is out January 2025.

Abir Mukherjee is the Times bestselling author of the Wyndham & Banerjee series of crime novels set in Raj-era India which have sold over 400,000 copies worldwide and been translated into 15 languages. His latest book, Hunted, is on many of the best crime thrillers of the year lists for 2024.

Vaseem Khan is the author of two award-winning crime series set in India and the upcoming Quantum of Menace, the first in a series featuring Q from the James Bond franchise. His debut, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015-2020. In 2021, Midnight at Malabar House, the first in the Malabar House novels set in 1950s Bombay, won the CWA Historical Dagger. Vaseem is the current Chair of the UK Crime Writers Association.

We had great fun chatting with Anna, Abir and Vas about their writing highlights of 2024, their favourite books and movies, and most importantly, Abir's ranking of eggs... Plus, we test their writing skills with a game at the end.

Support us on Patreon and get great benefits!: https://www.patreon.com/ukpageone

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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We had great fun chatting with Anna, Abir and Vas about their writing highlights of 2024, their favourite books and movies, and most importantly, Abir's ranking of eggs... Plus, we test their writing skills with a game at the end.

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Jo Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. She was a student of the Writers’ Academy Course (Penguin Random House) and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition and Bath Novel Competition. After losing her husband to cancer in 2019 when she was just forty-nine, she started writing In the Blink of an Eye, her debut crime novel, which explores learning to live with loss and what it means to be human. It went on to win huge prizes, and her latest is a follow up entitled Leave No Trace.

We had a great chat with Jo, hearing about how she dealt with initial rejection, including two books failing on submission, and how personal grief led to her finding her authentic voice and writing In The Blink of An Eye. We also chat about AI more generally, and the threats it can pose, and whether it is all doom and gloom from writers' perspectives.

Links:

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Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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Barnaby Walter is (as B.P. Walter) the author of A Version of the Truth (published in the US as The Couple's Secret), Hold Your Breath, The Dinner Guest and more. He was born and raised in Essex and after spending his childhood and teenage years reading compulsively, he worked in bookshops then went to the University of Southampton to study Film and English followed by an MA in Film & Cultural Management. His latest book, Scuttle, is published under the name Barnaby Walter.

We had great fun chatting with Barnaby and hearing how he is a meticulous planner, and also why his process isn't one that many would follow (if you don't like listening to music when writing, you really won't like his approach...!) Plus, we talk about when it is okay to write to market, and why books that don't immediately sell can be valuable for the future.

Links:

Buy Scuttle and Barnaby's other books now

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Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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Adam Howorth was until recently Communications Director for Apple, helped launch the iPhone and once bought Steve Jobs a hot chocolate. Now he spends his time creating tense and otherworldly storylines such as with his debut novel FALLEN FEATHERS, which Stephen Fry has called "Enthralling."

We had a good chat with Adam, hearing how he came to writing fiction late on, what he loves about it, and why he chose a different route to getting published than the normal trad route.

Links:

Buy Fallen Feathers now

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Support us on Patreon and get great benefits!: https://www.patreon.com/ukpageone

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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Genoveva Dimova is a Bulgarian fantasy author and archaeologist based in Scotland. Her debut novel inspired by Slavic folklore, Foul Days, came out in June 2024, with the sequel, Monstrous Nights, just out in October. When she’s not writing, she likes to explore old ruins, climb even older hills, and listen to practically ancient rock music.

We had a great chat with Gen, hearing about how she started to write in English, how she found her agent and how fantasy has changed from the old Anglocentric approach in recent years. We also hear about how her day job as an archeologist helps her writing - and why she would never want to write a story about an archeologist.

Links:

Buy Genoveva's books now

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Support us on Patreon and get great benefits!: https://www.patreon.com/ukpageone

Page One - The Writer's Podcast is brought to you by Write Gear, creators of Page One - the Writer's Notebook. Learn more and order yours now: https://www.writegear.co.uk/page-one

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