Adriana Hunter contemplates the limitations of automated language translation by computers, and the liberties that human translators simply must take with source material.
Brian Clegg considers our human tendency to interpret the world via patterns and categories, and explains the trouble this causes when it comes to getting books into the hands of readers that might enjoy them.
Stephen Sharkey asks why anybody would want to turn a perfectly good novel into a stage play, and explains the value in turning the solitary pursuit of reading into the shared experience of theatre.
Bill Kirton considers Gustav Flaubert’s masterpiece, suggesting that its irregularities might be subversion rather than error, and spends an evening with his eponymous heroine.
RLF Trustee Joanna Trollope speaks with Caroline Sanderson about how Freudian psychology changed fiction, updating Jane Austen, taking children seriously in her writing and being inspired by 'preoccupying situations'.
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.
William Palmer explains the importance of craft, skill and empathy in successful fiction, and examines where novice writers often go wrong.
John Siddique introduces the 'laboratory' of his notebook’s pages, and explains how keeping a journal can lead to 'a more conscious and loving way to live'.
Jane Draycott reads from the medieval dream-poem Pearl and her modern translation of it.
Carole Angier shares the surprises, challenges and pleasures she’s encountered in beginning to write poetry.
