We’re going to the Slovenian coast this week during the final years Yugoslavia with Ana Schnabl. 

Dunja has finally launched her literary career, but the shadow and spectre of her brother’s death haunts both her and her family. What happens when she returns to investigate her brother’s death? And what happens when the truth becomes stranger than the fiction she writes?

Ana Schnabl’s novel is published by Divided Publishing. Ana is a Slovenian writer, and this is her second novel to be translated into English, by Rawley Grau. Her first novel to be translated into English was The Masterpiece, that time by David Limon. In Slovenia, she is a winner of Slovenia’s prestigious literary prize, the Kresnik award. She’s also a regular contributor to the journal The Guardian, writing on Balkan politics and culture.

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Episode Chapters

1.30 - Ana's based in Slovenia

Reference Points

Agatha Christie 

Marcel Proust

Virginia Woolf

What a lovely time I had speaking and sitting with Eva Meijer, the Dutch Author, in Leeds to discuss their novel SEA NOW. 

A government who seems slow to respond to a rapidly encroaching crisis. Marketing executives exploiting ways to make quick cash. A missing Prime Minister. Leavers and remainers conflicted about the right course of action. It all sounds like a playbook for our recent political crises. But when the dams start bursting in the Netherlands and the country rapidly begins to flood and be subsumed, what happens when people are faced with the unthinkable in this new waterworld. 

These are the questions at the heart of Eva Meijer’s, SEA NOW, translated by Anne Thompson Melo, and published by Peirene Press.

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Chapters

2.25 - what is the novel about

Happy New Year!

In Pakistan, a young woman grapples with a strange, indefinable illness against a backdrop of political upheaval. In England, a teenager tries to make sense of his intense emotions during one hot summer at boarding school.

Farah Ali’s TELEGRAPHY, published by CB Editions, is her second novel. Originally from Pakistan, Farah has been anthologised for the Pushcart Prize and is the reviews editor at Wasafiri.

JEAN is the debut novel by London-based writer Madeleine Dunnigan, published by Daunt Books. She was a Jill Davis Fellow on the MFA programme at New York University.

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Tom McCarthy 

John McGahern

Gerald Murnane 

I’m kicking off a 2026 preview with two of the most exciting emerging voices publishing books this January. I speak to them about how they wrote their novels, before asking which books inspired them along the way, and what their books and book selections say about the world today.

If you’re looking for your next great reads of 2026, look no further — Rippling Pages has you covered.

We’re going from Pakistan to a rural boarding school in 1970s London.

In Pakistan, a young woman grapples with a strange, indefinable illness against a backdrop of political upheaval. In England, a teenager tries to make sense of his intense emotions during one hot summer at boarding school.

Farah Ali’s TELEGRAPHY, published by CB Editions, is her second novel. Originally from Pakistan, Farah has been anthologised for the Pushcart Prize and is the reviews editor at Wasafiri.

JEAN is the debut novel by London-based writer Madeleine Dunnigan, published by Daunt Books. She was a Jill Davis Fellow on the MFA programme at New York University.

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Reference Points

Chapters

3.15 - illness and narrative voice

I'm delighted to be talking to Rali Chorbadzhiyska about her work as freelance editor, and we're asking what the road to publication really looks like.  

It must be another edition of Ask the Curator. In these episodes, we go behind the curtain of the literary industry to ask another literary curator, how they do what they do.

Over the years, Rali has worked at Penguin RandomHouse, Faber and Canongate, working with some of the biggest names in literature. But she recently went freelance to deliver on her aim of guiding writers refine and elevate their work. She was awarded with a Rising Star Award from The Printing Charity in recognition of her work.

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Reference Points

Farah Ali

Chapters

2.25 - what does Rali's work look like?

Welcome to some bonus content with Lee Cole, and we’re talking about how he used an old book he found at his grandparents to help build the world and characters in his novels. 

Plus, you’re going to hear some extra bits about writing heroes and villains. 

Fulfillment, Lee Cole’s second novel, follows two half brothers whose clashing ambitions—Emmett’s longing to be a screenwriter and his brother’s academic ideals about “rural despair”—go beyond a simple difference in worldview. Something deeper threatens to pull them apart.

Lee is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is also the author of Groundskeeping. Both his novels were published by Faber in the U.K. The New York Times has described his work as “Anne Tyler by way of Sally Rooney.” Originally from Kentucky, Lee joins me today from Philadelphia.

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Welcome to the latest episode of the Rippling Pages. I’m having a coffee with Lee Cole, the American writer from Kentucky. And we’re talking about balancing the feelings and ethics of writing about home.

Now living a humdrum life in Kentucky, Emmett spends his days packing boxes in a warehouse. But what happens when he begins to dream of another life—and when those dreams start to fracture his family relationships?

These questions lie at the heart of Fulfilment, Lee Cole’s second novel. The book follows two half brothers whose clashing ambitions—Emmett’s longing to be a screenwriter and his brother’s academic ideals about “rural despair”—go beyond a simple difference in worldview. Something deeper threatens to pull them apart.

Lee is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is also the author of Groundskeeping. Both his novels were published by Faber in the U.K. The New York Times has described his work as “Anne Tyler by way of Sally Rooney.” Originally from Kentucky, Lee joins me today from Philadelphia.

Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!

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1.35 - Ann Tyler and Sally Rooney

5.05 - why Kentucky 

7.25 - people who leave and stay in small towns 

9.30 - why does Emmett wish he had what Joel has?

11.10 - southern fried rendition of Marx

12.10 - warehouses 

16.12 - the difficulty of warehouse jobs 

18.30 - Kentucky’s beauty 

19.45 - backgrounds and worldviews 

21.45 - guilt about writing about home or 

22.30 - rippling pages bookshop

23.35 - Alice’s role

26.15 - Alice’s dream of owning a farm 

28.50 - knowing what our desires are 

32.50 - writing about writers impulses

Books

Wendell Berry

Annie Dillard

Sigmund Freud

Aldo Leopold

Karl Marx

Sally Rooney 

Anne Tyler

John Updike 

I’m talking with the essayist Joanna Pocock, and this is some bonus content from our original interview.

America is a place that has compelled countless writers to travel its vast and varied landscapes.  Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. But what happens when you feel compelled to do it all again?

Joanna’s writing has appeared in the LA Times, Guardian US and the Nation among others. GREYHOUND is her second book, and her first, SURRENDER, won the Fitzcarraldo essay prize.

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I’m talking to the Swedish writer, Agnes Lidbeck, in this special edition live episode of the Rippling Pages! We really did have a coffee with one of the world’s, one of Sweden’s most interesting writers, because as we were live in person with a live audience in Leeds!

Life is full of adjustments - perhaps there isn’t a bigger adjustment than having children. But what happens when you start to question your role in this adjustment? Crucially, what happens when a mother starts to question her role in this adjustment. 

These are the questions at the heart of Agnes’s novel, SUPPORTING ACT, published by Peirene Press and translated by Nichola Smalley. 

It’s a beautiful novel about fierce devotion in the face of fierce questions that need to be asked about why certain people seem to take on certain roles in society.

Agnes is the author of five novels, but this was her first novel, and it’s her first to be translated into English. She is a renowned name in Sweden on TV, radio, and Swedish letters. This book alone was the winner of the prestigious Bourous Debut Novel Prize.

This is part of Modern Culture’s programming of events called Stories from Sweden, so thanks to Martin Colthorpe for help making this happen. 

Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!

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Rippling Points

0.15 introductions. 

Reference Points

Hjalmar Söderberg 

America is a place that has compelled countless writers to travel its vast and varied landscapes.  Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. But what happens when you feel compelled to do it all again?

Joanna’s writing has appeared in the LA Times, Guardian US and the Nation among others*. GREYHOUND is her second book, and her first, SURRENDER, won the Fitzcarraldo essay prize.

Remember to like, share, follow, subscribe or leave a review if you enjoy the show.

Reference Points

*****

*****

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Reference Points