Maggie Butt (also published as Maggie Brookes) speaks with Ann Morgan about the transition from being a published poet to an internationally published novelist, the resilience writing requires and the challenge of choosing a pen name.
Lydia Syson reflects on the particular kinds of truth that fiction can reveal, considers the radical history of her maternal forebears, and puts the case for novel-reading as an essential element of historical research in ‘The Evidence of Fiction’.
Tina Pepler speaks with Jane Draycott about the responsibility to real lives when fictionalising traumatic experiences, how the internet can’t beat talking to people for stories you didn’t even know you were looking for, and working as a mentor with young people arriving in the UK from other cultures.
Shelley Harris speaks with Bethan Roberts about prose perfectionism and embracing the ‘dirty first draft’, the fear of ‘using up’ all your talent, other disabling myths about writerhood and the writer’s ideal superpower.