The Secret Life of Writers by Tablo

Featuring: writing into the dark to make things visible, Why 'All that I Am' had to be fiction, the strange and lovely process of being commissioned and the pleasure of being edited.

Featuring where it all began, the joys of working and collaboration, thoughts on leadership and insubordination, books that talk to each other, how we read pictures, 'Women in Clothes' with Miranda July and Cindy Sherman, and the film option.

Leanne Shapton creates some of the most intriguing books today that often combine images and text – but they’re not just intriguing, they’re beautiful, revealing, curious-making, smart and often funny too. This is an ambling chat not just about Leanne’s work but also her life, creative ideas and new projects on the go.

Featuring the bestselling Phosphorescence, forest therapy and moonbows, Rachel Carson on wonder, the rafts that keep you afloat, love of cuttlefish and a mother’s grace.

Dr Julia Baird writes for The New York Times and the Sydney Morning Herald, and hosts the current affairs tv show The Drum. She’s also a mother of two, a regular ocean swimmer and has now written three books. Her biography of Queen Victoria was critically acclaimed internationally - Janet Maslin described it as ‘frisky, adventurous’ and ‘exhilarating’, which is like all of Julia’s writing really. Her new book is called Phosphorescence and it’s also taking the world by storm. It’s about how you find light within your life, not just when the world goes dark but all of the time.

Subscribe to The Secret Life of Writers for new episodes every second Thursday. Hosted by Jemma Birrell, and presented by Tablo Publishing.

Featuring the stories within trees, building a house on Galiano Island, literary launches around the world, weaving life into fiction, where Michael’s novel Greenwood came from, adapting for the screen and the strange phenomenon of multiple books on similar subjects coming out simultaneously.

Michael Christie is the author of the novel If I Fall, If I Die, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Kirkus Prize and was selected as a New York Times Editors' Choice Pick. His collection of stories, The Beggar's Garden, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Writers' Trust Prize for Fiction, and won the Vancouver Book Award. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Globe & Mail. Greenwood, his most recent novel, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and just won best novel at the Arthur Ellis awards for crime writing. http://www.michaelchristie.net

Subscribe to The Secret Life of Writers for new episodes every second Thursday. Hosted by Jemma Birrell, and presented by Tablo Publishing.

Featuring the invisible work of mothering, the dark and light of creativity, unhooking reality, Kangaroo Island post-fires, audio firsts, experimentation and expressing your inner weird.

As well as writing prize-winning fiction, Ceridwen Dovey writes thought-provoking essays and profiles which have appeared in publications like Wired and The New Yorker. She has written a collection of short stories, Only the Animals, and the novels Blood Kin, In the Garden of the Fugitives and Life After Truth. A selection of her profiles were published in the collection Inner Worlds Outer Spaces and she has written a literary biography of J.M.Coetzee that’s also a memoir of sorts. Her recent audio-only novel, Once More with Feeling, is now available on Audible. www.ceridwendovey.com

Subscribe to The Secret Life of Writers for new episodes every second Thursday. Hosted by Jemma Birrell, and presented by Tablo Publishing.

Featuring filming Catch 22 in Italy, the allure of Paris, how Lion was career-changing, a dinner with Philip Seymour Hoffman, how not to be pigeonholed and working with Woody Harrelson on The Most Dangerous Man in America.

Luke Davies, poet, novelist and screenwriter, adapted his semi-autobiographical novel Candy for the screen in 2006. His other novels are Isabelle the Navigator and God of Speed which was inspired by the life of Howard Hughes. He’s written five volumes of poetry, the latest, Interferon Palms, won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award in 2012. Luke has written screenplays for film and television in both the US and Australia. His feature films include Life, Beautiful Boy, Angel of Mine and Lion, which went on to win BAFTA and AACTA awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Luke is also the creator of TV series Catch-22 and is currently working on The Most Dangerous Man in America. It was recently announced that Luke will write the next script for Steven Spielberg’s Amblin, adapting Colum McCann’s novel Apeirogon (this was one of the things we couldn't talk about at the time the episode went to air).

Welcome to The Secret Life of Writers, a new literary series by Tablo from inside the literary world. Jemma Birrell will be speaking with some of the most interesting and visionary writers from around the world about what they're working on now, and how they balance life and art, and somehow manage to focus creatively with everything else going on.