The Secret Life of Writers by Tablo

Featuring: Steve Toltz's new book Here Goes Nothing and why it’s set in the afterlife; using time in the writing process like a painter uses light; Steve’s spiritual home; juggling editorial notes from different countries; the overarching project of Steve’s work; a short reading; on writing humour and hilarious characters (who are also very entertaining to write); his experience in writers' rooms, how Steve first got an agent; his play that didn't eventuate; what's next and some wonderful reading recommendations.

‘A writer uses time like a painter uses light - without time you can’t even see what it is that you’ve done.’

‘Years go by without ever showing anyone a word…I get it as good as I can possibly get it without burying it in the garden for six months'

‘I don’t feel like I’ve ever really been in a literary world that much’

On editorial notes: ‘There’s always the clear understanding that you can take them or leave them...I end up always taking about 80% of the notes because they’re always generally great.'

Featuring: writing as a strange quixotic thing; how Claire was first published; her grandfather's memoir; Claire's childhood years in Sydney ‘the light, the air, the birds’; writing A Dream Life in The American Library in Paris; when fantasy keeps us alive and when it becomes something pernicious; on writing complex, alive characters; literary and familial influences; writing about adolescence; what Claire’s working on now; memories of Robert Silvers. With two readings.

‘I’m always very interested in deception and self-deception, this is a life-long thing.’

‘Fiction like life is a balance between freedom and constraint, and you do need some constraints.’

‘For the most part my work has not been autobiographical, or only elements have. It’s almost like a coat hanger, from which you make papier maché.’

‘If something’s too close to life then I don’t feel free.’

‘One has a different self in each language.’

Featuring: Hannah's earlier books Burial Rites and The Good People; the landscape in her life and work; the messiness of first drafts; on writing Devotion, a modern novel that's 'a queer love story'; celebrating the light; returning to that place of play; balancing imagination and research; the Prussian and Lutheran history of South Australia; the occult; exploring places of absence and silence; the experience of screenwriting; what working at Kill Your Darlings taught Hannah; a love of poetry.

Featuring: When Charlotte committed to writing; overriding fear and doubt; allowing it to happen; the grumpy struggle, despair and the luminous solution; the elation when the solution or connection suddenly appears; Susan Sontag's rules for writing; creating personal rituals around writing; trusting instinct and intuition; not shutting down ideas that don't make sense; the way the book will tell you how to write it; following the heat; on being 'relatable'; the qualities of a good sentence; showing up for the ideas to come; on Georgia Blain to whom Charlotte dedicated the book.

'To commit to art is to commit to living.'

'I do believe in agency and I do believe in the power of the story and the power of your own story.'

Featuring: the Irish storytelling tradition; writing about illness; resilience; the agency in telling your own story; books and music as saviours; the artists whose lives and art were beacons of hope; advice from John Banville; on interviewing; watching New York go by with George Saunders; how to decide what goes into an anthology; a love of the short story; the elasticity of the essay; overriding fear; ghosts in the family; the novel-in-progress, and the upcoming music anthology Sinéad has edited with Kim Gordon.

Featuring: what Anna learned from Sylvia Beach and carried into her life; her first taste of creative freedom; having a visual memory; how mistakes are positive; her first book All Messed Up; bringing artists and designers together; creating the publisher Visual Editions and the visually astounding books that were published; writing a love letter to Jonathan Safran Foer; pushing the boundaries of what a book can be; reader out-louders at V&A; storytelling in Ace hotels and live experiences; working with Google Creative Lab; playing with the familiar and not familiar; using technology as a tool to tell stories in a way that’s delightful; meeting audiences where they are already; looking at scent, and working with The Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles.

Featuring: how it took some time for Katie to call herself a writer; the effect of teaching on her own writing; influential authors; where the idea for Intimacies came from; connective points between A Separation and Intimacies; crafting tension; characters who work with language and Katie’s own relationship with languages; why Katie set Intimacies in The Hague; structures of power and our complicity; different ways of writing violence; the role of performance in court; the interiority and unreliability of the narrator; and keeping doors open.

Featuring: Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Irish Book Award-winning A Ghost in the Throat that reads like a literary detective story; her muse Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill at the centre of the book and Doireann’s hunt for details about her life; oral history and being passed down in the bodies of women; the all-consuming journey of translating Eibhlín’s iconic poem; the obsession that countered the loneliness of motherhood; how an experience of dissection changed the trajectory of Doirean’s life; the surprising way she began writing; how the place we write makes itself felt in the texture of a book; the worlds between languages and their particular melodies; writing poetry in both English and Irish; and following hunches.

Featuring: The experiences of Louise’s parents in Europe and her father’s time in the French Resistance; how her parents' passion for the arts impacted Louise’s life; an early obsession with books; studying and teaching at Columbia University; her time as Edward Said’s teaching assistant; being socially engaged; her major roles in publishing and the arts, and what she learnt from them; a love of commissioning; finding Australian stories and readers; Hilary McPhee’s brief for MUP; the role of a publisher; some stand-out titles Louise published in the past and what she is publishing now (and some wonderful reading recommendations).

Featuring: how Andrew’s life has changed; living with uncertainty; his travel writing over the last thirty years and what still rings true today; experiences in Cambodia and Rwanda; one of the most memorable musical evenings of Andrew’s life that took place in Afghanistan; an early calling to write; 20 years since The Noonday Demon came out; what has been effective in treating his own depression; the ability to listen without passing judgement; Andrew’s family and the families he writes about; how the legal system is so behind in defining family today; polygamy and polyamory; books that have brought Andrew solace. We discuss the body of Andrew’s work, what he has been working on and the books we can look forward to in the future.

You can find Andrew Solomon's books at all good bookshops including:

- McNally Jackson in NY https://www.mcnallyjackson.com

- Better Read than Dead in Sydney: https://www.betterread.com.au

- Shakespeare and Company in Paris: https://shakespeareandcompany.com

- London Review Bookshop in London https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk