No guest this month (don't worry, more fantastic writers will be appearing here starting again in January). In this Xmas '18 special edition, Lochlan and Jaimie get tanked up on port and mince pies to conduct a brief dissection of the first year of Unsound Methods as well as a review of what they've learnt before getting stuck in to a couple of most commonly quoted lists of writing advice from Messers Vonnegut and Orwell.

Full of the Christmas spirit, this episode contains many swears…

Thank you to all of our listeners for a great first year, have a very Merry Christmas and see you in 2019.

This month we speak to Tom Lee award-winning short fiction writer and author of The Alarming Palsy of James Orr.

We talk about Tom's approach to writing and how he finds new ideas, the impact of ill-health on his writing as well as the difficulties in moving from short stories to longer form fiction.

Tom's work has appeared in The Sunday Times, Esquire and Prospect in the UK, The Dublin Review in Ireland and in Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope All Story in the United States, among others.

In 2012 he was shortlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the largest prize for a single short story in the world and in 2015 his non-fiction account of spending 51 days in intensive care was longlisted for The Notting Hill Essay Prize.

Tom is on twitter @TomLeeStories and more about his writing at www.tomleestories.com

In this month's episode we speak to Lars Iyer, weaver of fiction in blog-form, novelist and erstwhile philosopher.

Among many other things we talked to Lars about turning blogs into novels (as he did with his first three novels 'Spurious', 'Dogma' and 'Exodus'), his path to being a serial producer of trilogies and making the most of your spouse as your first reader and editor.

Post-interview, Lars confirmed for us that 'Nietzsche in the Burbs' will be coming out next year on Melville House.

You can follow Lars on Twitter: @UtterlySpurious - he also wrote an interesting piece for the White Review on the health of the contemporary novel in 2011, which can be read here.

Welcome to the second series of Unsound Methods. In this episode we speak to Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi, the author of Call Me Zebra from Alma Books (in the UK).

Azareen's debut novel was Fra Keeler. Topics covered in our chat included research, working with editors and the paths that reading can take while putting a novel together. Thanks to Burley Fisher bookshop for providing us with the recording space for this episode.

You can find Call Me Zebra here: https://almabooks.com/product/call-me-zebra/

And follow Azareen on twitter: @avandervliet

Follow us @unsoundmethods or unsoundmethods.co.uk

This is the audio recording of the event at the Institut Francais that followed our chat with Noémi Lefebvre and Eimear McBride.

The Institut Francais have kindly shared the audio of this event which took place on 17th May 2018.

Thanks to: Nicci Praca, Cecile Menon, Sophie Lewis (who hosted the event), Axelle Oxborrow (translation) and Lucie Campos.

This episode was recorded at the Beyond Words Festival at the Institut Francais on Thursday 17th May 2018. We sat down with Noémi Lefebvre, the author of 'Blue Self-Portrait' (available from Les Fugitives: http://www.lesfugitives.com/books/#/blue-self-portrait/) and Eimear McBride, author of 'A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing' (Galley Beggar Press/Faber) and 'The Lesser Bohemians' (Faber). It was hot, and there was a lot of noise in the street, so the sound is not 100%, but we found it very interesting to speak to both writers about the similarities and differences in their approaches.

We caught Noémi and Eimear just before they went on stage, so this is a brief chat. At times Noémi preferred to speak in French, so we have included the translations from her interpreter Axelle Oxborrow in this audio. 

The Institut Francais have kindly shared the audio of the event that followed, which will be released a few days after this one as a bonus episode.

Thanks to: Nicci Praca, Cecile Menon, Sophie Lewis (who hosted the event), Axelle Oxborrow (translation) and Lucie Campos.

We speak to Olga Tokarczuk and Jennifer Croft, fresh from winning the International @ManBookerPrize for the superb 'Flights', out now on @FitzcarraldoEds - https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/flights

Among other things we discuss the whirlwind of prize-winning, composing constellation novels, suppressing your first published book, and the challenges of translating a title.

You can find Jennifer on twitter: @jenniferlcroft

Photo credit: Janie Airey

In this week's episode we speak to novelist and essayist, Joanna Kavenna.

We talk about beginnings, finding a voice in fiction and taking a Wittgensteinian view of reality, as well as how to deal with Polar Bears while conducting research and the ways in which literature can help us understand and limit technology before the machines destroy us.

Joanna is the author of the Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule and A Field Guide to Reality (riverrun, 2016) as well as three other novels and non-fiction essays.

Find out more about Joanna at joannakavenna.com

Photo credit: A Michaelis

Follow us @unsoundmethods or unsoundmethods.co.uk

This week we speak to Patrick Langley, author of Arkady from Fitzcarraldo Editions.

With a background in art criticism and radio production, Paddy talks to us about drafting and structuring a work, finding inspiration from the urban backwaters of London and the problem with building elaborate memory palaces…

You can find Arkady here: https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/arkady

And follow Paddy on twitter: @PaddyLangley

Follow us @unsoundmethods or unsoundmethods.co.uk

This week we speak to novelist, poet and teacher, Will Eaves. 

We discuss his approach to structuring a novel, turning notes into a finished work and capturing the dream-like state of the unconscious in prose. 

Will was Arts Editor of the TLS from 1995 to 2011 before moving to Warwick, where he is now Associate Professor.

Most recently he is author of the Murmur from CB Editions.