This Writing Life

This Writing Life

By James KiddArtsBooksFiction
Download on the App Store

This Writing Life episodes

  • Episode 67 - Laura Lippman: Part 3
    In the final part of Laura Lippman's This Writing Life podcast, we begin by discussing trigger warnings: the fine line between offensiveness and individual sensitivities. ----more----From there we move to:

    • how violence is portrayed on the news
  • secrets and Lippman's family
  • 'I was brought up by Southern parents. Don't ask anybody their age. Never talk about money. I think part of the reason I became a journalist it gave me license was to ask those questions...'
  • Lippman and her heroines: Tess Monaghan and Luisa Brant
  • Lippman and her father
  • history, taking down statues and the politics of women on $10
  • 'We are doing something right now, today, that is going to seem despicable in 50 years...'
  • posterity, Lippman and crime fiction
  • crime v literary fiction: Lippman and the never-ending genre-wars
  • 'There are so many books. You have to be arrogant to have anything to say...'
  • after some blatant references to The Wire, Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, we move to the social realist novel
  • a little afterword on James Crumley
  • 'Elmore Leonard is my role model'
  • George Pelecanos, Elmore Leonard and Lippman's cute nose...
  • what next?
    • Laura Lippman's website is: here.

    25 min
  • Episode 66 - Laura Lippman: Part 2
    Part two of Laura Lippman's chat with Writing Life Podcast about her new novel Wilde Lake begins with the real-life district of Columbia, where Lippman grew up. ----more---- Other Wilde Lake High School alumni include Edward Norton and Michael Chabon. After some insight into the impact of babysitting on Norton's early acting talent, we talked about:

    • the utopian impulses behind (and deceitful subtext beneath) the creation of Columbia
  • 'We were so self-congratulatory about not seeing race'

  • the 'You know you grew up in Columbia when...' Facebook page
  • 'In writing this book, I came to the realisation that I am very much the product of that high school': Lippman on Columbia's doomed experiment

  • innocence, childhood and changing moral values
  • race, liberalism and the problems of good intentions
  • race, height, gender: the challenges of unacknowledged prejudice
  • the (Twitter) politics of Calvin Trillin's poem about Chinese food
    • Part 3/3 to follow.

    19 min
  • Episode 65 - Laura Lippman: Part 1
    Laura Lippman is the author of 22 crime novels. In addition to her series featuring private investigator Tess Monaghan, she has written nine standalones. Lippman's new book Wilde Lake falls into the latter category. As often is the case with her one-offs, the context is deeply personal. Lippman herself grew up near the actual Wilde Lake in the Maryland district of Columbia. ----more----

    In this first of three episodes, we begin by talking transatlantic travel, skip elegantly to Wilde Lake itself. From there it is but a few sentences to discussing the following:

    • how books change when the author begins to discuss them
  • what Wilde Lake is about
  • the echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird
  • the thematic inspiration for the storyline
  • rape allegations, the truth and historical sex crimes

  • are perpetrators innocent until proven guilty?
  • has society been changed by the Savile and Cosby cases?
  • 'how many slaves did our ancestors own?': how should families confront dark corners of their past?
  • how morality changes over time
    • Part 2/3 to follow.


    Laura Lippman's website is: here.


    20 min
  • Episode 64 - Laura Lippman reads from Wilde Lake
    As a trailer for the next guest on This Writing Life Podcast, the wonderful American crime writer Laura Lippman reads from her new novel, Wilde Lake.


    Parental advisory notice: there is a gratuitous mention of a de-trousered Bill Clinton.


    Part one of three to follow.

    3 min
  • Episode 61 - Vendela Vida: Part 4

    The final part of ThisWriting Life's cheerful conversation with Vendela Vida begins with wondering whether writing is a form of narcissism and ends with a discussion of parenthood.----more----In between we explored:

    • 'There are people doing good in the world...and I am just sitting here thinking my thoughts. That's why you need to keep a sense of humour about what you are doing.'
  • Vida on her children's literacy programme, 826 Valencia, and The Believer magazine
  • 'Writing can be very lonely...We read to know we're not alone, and we write to know we're not alone'
  • the importance of helping young people develop writing skills
  • 'If my own kids wanted to be a writer, I might say, Gosh, there are so many jobs out there.'
  • on her early writing career: 'Trying to pay grad school loans, working a job, waitressing. 5 o'clock in the morning pretending to write to justify the rest of my existence. That is not fun...'
  • on whether she had a choice to be a novelist
  • how do writers (try to) make a living?
  • how does Vida fit it all in?
  • what's next?
  • family and motherhood.
    • Two short Vida 'This Writing Life podcast-extras' will follow next week. Her latest novel is The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, available in paperback from Atlantic.

    13 min
  • Episode 59 - Vendela Vida: Part 3
    In part three of This Writing Life's chat with American writer Vendela Vida about her latest novel The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, we begin by asking: 'Why Casablanca?'

    ----more----After some exploration of labyrinths (and stupid questions), we move onto:

    • art, stories and constant change

  • 'A story is something that happens, after which nothing is ever the same'
  • characters (and Vida) on the verge of...adulthood?
  • parenthood, acting, and playing at selfhood

  • Reeves, Aretha, Sabine: the various selves of Vida's heroine
  • 'I know what her name is...but I'm not going to tell you'
  • humour, trauma and The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty
  • 'Distract, distract, distract': that's entertainment?!
  • Vida on Amy Schumer, comedy and the internet
  • why Vida goes to the library to use the internet

  • 'If I want to read a book at night, if I had internet, it would not happen'
  • Vida's preparation for a cultural evening (and why she hates dinner parties)

    • Part 4 (of 4) to follow.

    17 min

About This Writing Life

From the publisher's feed

The Book Festival You Can Enjoy In Your Bath: Interviews, Readings, Rambling Chat