Sonia Faleiro shares how independent booksellers – from India to Italy – have provided a refuge and a guiding light throughout her life and career.
Sarah Butler describes how she went from poetry sceptic to poetry enthusiast and how experimenting with different forms supports her prose writing.
Richard Lambert tells of his first encounter with two famous twentieth-century forgers and how his interest in them inspired fifteen years of writing and research.
Elizabeth Barrett visits Sylvia Plath’s grave and reflects on what the poet’s rural resting place has meant to her over four decades.
Michaela Morgan describes her first encounter with Winnie the Pooh and how A. A. Milne’s famous books have been an influential presence throughout her career as a children’s author.
Lauren James considers how her training as scientist has influenced her novels, and how writing acts as a time capsule for future generations.
Roy Bainton asks whether writers improve as they age and explores the long career of a personal literary icon, Ray Bradbury.
Alex Nye reflects on a biology lesson at school in the 1970s, and how she is still wrestling with the same preoccupations as a writer even now.
Pauline Rowe shares her latest literary obsession: the poetry of Pulitzer Prize winner, Frank Bidart.
Lesley Glaister recounts how her father’s death led her to research his experiences as a prisoner of war during WWII and fuelled a fiction project that almost defeated her.