Mary Colson speaks with John Siddique about the value of children’s non-fiction and the unusual constraints involved in writing it commercially, her love of writing for screen and stage, and the right way to teach writing and nurture children’s voices.

Donny O’Rourke speaks with Geoff Hattersley about losing and rediscovering self-belief as an artist, the pleasures of improvisation, handling midlife melancholy and the joy of that moment 'between apprehension and comprehension'.

Ruth Thomas explains how the publishing industry went cool on her genre, and how a 60p discovery at a charity book fair helped her regain her mission and extend her range.

Mimi Thebo considers the myriad ways writers can fail, and describes how she came back from failure, and before that, from something even more serious.

Cynan Jones speaks with James McConnachie about writing as a kind of imaginative remembering, the act of taking a novel from ninety to thirty thousand words in a single cut, and why it’s good to have more abandoned books in drawers than published ones on the shelf.

Catherine O’Flynn dissects her enthusiasm for failed utopias, such as the ghost real estate ventures of the Spanish Riviera, and the influence of growing up surrounded by the 'bizarre and melancholy landscaped public spaces' of Birmingham.

Siân Rees takes us to Asunción in Paraguay, where magical realism makes sense and ghosts haunt the landscape and the imagination.

Donny O’Rourke speaks with Geoff Hattersley about American influences, anthologising a golden age of Scottish poetry, his love of travel, and how you distinguish a poem from a song.

Martina Evans joins host Julia Copus to discuss two favourite classic poems: ‘They Flee From Me’ by Sir Thomas Wyatt, suggested by Martina, and ‘Aspens’ by Edward Thomas, suggested by Julia, in the first installment of our new 'Poetry Break' series.

Todd McEwen tells Frances Byrnes about how his early life in Southern California gave him abundance – in literature and landscape – but also taught him scepticism and helped him develop his distinctive writing voice.

Alyson Hallett luxuriates in an unusual writing week that’s actually mostly dedicated to writing, with a side serving of bonfires, friends, yoga al fresco and getting enjoyably lost in the woods.

Penny Black speaks with Frances Byrnes about teenage summers in Vienna, the shock of revisiting old contracts, and how her desire to speak perfect German accidentally led to a passionate career in writing for theatre.