Horatio Clare speaks with James McConnachie about difficult journeys, the manic episode that cost him his notes for an entire project, and the difference between loneliness and love of solitude.

Mavis Cheek, John Siddique, Sanjida O'Connell, Ray French, Gwyneth Lewis and Jonathan Tulloch share their all-time favourite books, and explain why they matter.

Diana Evans takes us to a writer’s retreat in upstate New York, where she considers how race is a theme that seems imposed on black writers, obligating them to rage against racial injustice. Her characters, she says, have the right to be human first, 'to be ordinary.'

Cynan Jones considers place and authenticity in the storytelling process. 'Risk being unique or aim for palatable? That’s the choice, in writing as in wine-making.'

Horatio Clare speaks with James McConnachie about the pleasures and plights of Welsh sheep-farming, the creative criminal record of his youth, and why writers should 'live it and leave it until it's ready' when using real life as material.

Clare Pollard talks with Julia Copus about her experiences of motherhood, her thoughts about politics, and how it feels to be labeled a ‘Bad Girl’ of the literary scene.

Heather Dyer is living the writer’s dream in her audio diary, by taking off in her old campervan for a week of uninterrupted beachside writing. How will it all turn out?

Kevin Clarke speaks with Frances Byrnes about playwriting as an essential dramatic apprenticeship, completing his education as an adult, and how his dramatic subjects choose him, rather than the other way around.

Jonathan Tulloch, in his final seasonal piece of the series, revisits a child’s Christmas in Cumbria, with a stray appearance of Saxon the family dog, a big black bible plucked from a Dylan Thomas sky, and an orange bulging in a rugby sock like an anaconda’s meal.

Louise Foxcroft, David Stuart Davies and Alicia Foster share 'the best advice I ever received'.

Marina Benjamin examines the changing role of the personal voice in contemporary memoir, celebrates the sharing of ecstatic highs and vertiginous tumbles, and notes that it’s writerly craft that lifts a work beyond mere self-pimping.

Alyson Hallett takes us to Launceston in Cornwall, home of the writer Charles Causley, in the centenary year of his birth.

Cynthia Rogerson speaks with James McConnachie about ensuring realism in her novels, disliking positive discrimination, and putting up with having her serious novels packaged in chick-lit covers.