This Writing Life

Part three of Rosa Rankin-Gee's conversation with This Writing Life podcast about her debut The Last Kings of Sark begins with love triangles, friendship triangles, family triangles, third wheels and intense feelings. ----more----

Other topics include:

Part four to follow.

Part two of Rosa

Rankin-Gee's chat with This Writing Life begins with a discussion of the

coming-of-age-story (in her case, debut novel The Last Kings of Sark). ----more----From there it was a sprightly leap across echoes of Dickens and metaphorical islands to:

Part three of four to follow.

Rosa Rankin-Gee was one of the first guests on This Writing Life when the podcast was still a glint in its host's eye. We spoke ostensibly about her excellent debut novel The Last Kings of Sark but quickly widened the focus to the challenges of being a first-time and very young novelist, to sitting in large publishing boardrooms and sucking strange sweets. ----more----

Part one begins with some idle digital recording chatter - how DO you pronounce WAV? - followed by some idle corporate boardroom chatter, before our host finally gets down to the business of introductions, Bill Callahan, brilliant thoughts, and writer's notebooks. From there we hopped to:

Part two to follow. 

As a trailer for the next writer to face the onslaught that is This Writing Life podcast, Rosa Rankin-Gee reads from her debut novel, The Last Kings of Sark (Virago).

This was one of the first This Writing Life podcasts recorded, and remains a favourite of your host.

Part one to follow. You can learn more about Rosa at her website: here.

Bill Clegg ends his marathon appearance on This Writing Life podcast by talking about his (then) recent Man Booker longlisting for his first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family? Alternating between his twin literary hats - writer and agent - he talks the pros of literary prizes and literary culture in general. ----more---- After the shock of learning that I reviewed Did You Ever Have a Family?, Clegg moved onto a broader discussion of attractive misery in contemporary American fiction:

Part four of Bill Clegg's This Writing Life podcast, begins with a discussion about paying attention to the workings of our own consciousness. After a critique of Alan Ball's Six Feet Under (Clegg's working out box set of choice) we moved to: ----more----

• death as existential wake-up call

The final part to follow.

Part 3 of Bill Clegg's chat with This Writing Life podcast about his debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family?, begins with the personal: 'There are some people born restless. I certainly was.' ----more---- From here we compare childhood ambitions with Clegg's actual route to becoming a successful literary agent in New York City. The conversation continues:

Part 4 of 5 to follow.

In part two of Bill Clegg's chat with This Writing Life's podcast, we begin with the trauma (a house fire on the night before a wedding) that propels his debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family? ----more----From there (soundtracked by some funky flutes) we move to:

Part 3, with more funky background music and cell phone buzzes, to come.

This Writing Life podcast talked to Bill Clegg shortly after the publication of his first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family? Just longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, it was one of the year's most intriguing debuts. ----more----It begins with a tragedy: a house-fire that kills a family on the eve of a wedding in a small-town in rural America. What holds the interest is not the mystery of what happened, but the vapour trails of grief that float between the survivors: above all June, the mother of the bride, and Lydia, the mother of the groom.

During a lengthy conversation, we discussed his childhood, the death of his father, his successful career as a literary agent, the drug addiction that almost lost him everything, not to mention his more recent adventures as a writer.

In part one of Episode 68, backed by some nice hi hat cymbal, we talked about:

Part 2 to follow.

In this prologue to our next guest on This Writing Life podcast, Bill Clegg answers my pilfered Paris Review question: is there one writer that inspired you to write? Find out by clicking play. In the next episode, we start our lengthy conversation about Bill's Man Booker longlisted debut novel, Did You Ever Have a Family?