Gwyneth Lewis is a poet and non-fiction writer.
Joanne Limburg is a poet, memoirist and historical novelist.
Here they talk with Julia Copus about their experiences of mental illness and its effects on a writer’s life.
Julia Copus examines the role of intense personal experience in contemporary poetry, including her own recent work.
Joanne Limburg examines the complex responsibility of writing honestly about one’s own life when this also requires writing about the lives of others.
Fiona Shaw tells Frances Byrnes of how she felt an affinity with her PhD subject — the poet, Elizabeth Bishop — but never anticipated being a writer herself until severe emotions forced something out of her.
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'.