The Writing Life

Editing & translating for young readers with Ella Micheler

Editor, translator and co-founder of Kurumuru Books, Ella Micheler, joins us on the podcast to discuss the editing process, why books in translation for young readers are still so rare in the English language, and how writers can get the most out of their editors.

Our early career resource packs are made possible by support from Arts Council England.

Hosted by Simon Jones.

Get more free resources: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/free-resources/

Join our Discord: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/

Find out more about our Early Career Awards: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/early-career-awards/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Writing fantasy with Nuraliah Norasid

Nuraliah Norasid is on the podcast this week, talking with Sally-Anne Lomas. Nuraliah is a writer, researcher and educator with a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Her debut novel, The Gatekeeper, won the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2016 and the Best Fiction Title for the Singapore Book Awards in 2018. Sally-Anne is a writer, artist and filmmaker whose first novel, Live Like Your Head's On Fire, came out earlier this year.

They talk about Nuraliah growing up in Singapore, the inspiration behind her early stories, how gaming has influenced her writing and how The Gatekeeper examines real world issues within its fantasy context.

Hosted by Simon Jones.

Find out more at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ 

Join our Discord: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Going from self-publishing to traditional publishing with AE Warren

AE Warren's science fiction books Subject Twenty One and The Hidden Base were released earlier this year by Del Rey but began life in self-published form several years earlier. On the podcast today, Amy traces her journey from new writer to self-publisher and now traditional publishing. Regardless of which form of publishing interests you, you'll find useful tips in Amy's detailed conversation with Simon.

Meanwhile, Flo Reynolds joins us on the pod to introduce the brand new Book Club Book: The House of One Hundred Clocks by AM Howell. Find out more here: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/the-ncw-book-club/ 

Hosted by Steph McKenna and Simon Jones.

Join our Discord community: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/

Get our newsletter: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/newsletters/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Jenn Ashworth on writing fiction & non-fiction

Jenn Ashworth is on the podcast this week to discuss her writing across fiction and non-fiction, taking in projects Ghosted: A Love Story and Notes Made While Falling. It's a detailed, honest conversation about Jenn's writing life. Flo Reynolds is asking the questions.

Hosted by Simon Jones, Steph McKenna and Roisin Batty - who introduce the episodes by taking a look at their latest reads and how the pandemic is affecting fiction across books and TV.

Check out our event with Sarah Hall AND Sarah Perry, celebrating the launch of Burntcoat - https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/whats-on/hall-perry/

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Title music by Bennet Maples.

Nazry Bahrawi & Vineet Lal in conversation

In June 2021, we welcomed three writers and translators from Singapore in virtual residence in Norwich, with the support of the National Arts Council of Singapore. Nazry Bahrawi was one of them - a literary translator, critic and academic at Singapore University of Technology and Design. Vineet Lal is our fourth Visible Communities virtual translator in residence. Vineet is a literary translator from French to English, based in Scotland. In 2010 he was awarded one of the first-ever Mentorships in Literary Translation by the British Centre for Literary Translation. We're excited to have Vineet and Nazry on the podcast today discussing some of the biggest debates in translation.

Don't miss this article by Vineet: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/emerging-translator-mentorships-ten-years-on/

Translation as a Creative Act featuring Nazry: https://youtu.be/z-J4maoKkYo 

Our first podcast with Sarah Ardizzone: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/creating-trust-between-a-translator-and-writer/

Sarah's pod on how to become a literary translator: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/how-to-become-a-literary-translator/

Join our Discord: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/

We're a non-profit. You can donate to us here: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/support-us/ 

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Music by Bennet Maples.

Carole Angier on writing the first biography of W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald wrote books including The Emigrants, Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, and mixed fiction, history, autobiography and photography . Carole Angier has now published the first biography of Sebald, Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald, and is on the podcast today talking to Alice Kent. They go into fine detail about Carole's research, her methods for structuring a biography and the on-going ethical debates around writing about someone's life.

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Join our Discord community: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/ 

Sign up to our newsletter: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Megan Abbott on crime writing‘s power to change society

Fresh from the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival comes Megan Abbott's astonishing lecture about the power of crime fiction and true crime to influence and reflect society, and the ethics and responsibilities of being a crime writer. Why has so much crime writing focused on the perpetrator, not the victim? How can representation in the genre improve, and why does it matter?

Megan is the award-winning author of nine crime novels, including the just published The Turnout, and the bestselling You Will Know Me and Dare Me. Her work has won or been nominated for the CWA Steel Dagger, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and five Edgar awards. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Paris Review and the Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of The Street Was Mine, a study of hardboiled fiction, and film noir. She received her Ph.D. in American literature from New York University. A writer on HBO’s highly acclaimed The Deuce, she recently served as co-showrunner and co-creator of Dare Me, which completed its first season on the USA Network and Netflix internationally.

Introduced by Henry Sutton, co-director of Noirwich and professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Watch the extended video version of the lecture, including a Q&A between Megan and Henry: https://youtu.be/X2J4pBgPyTY

More about Noirwich: https://noirwich.co.uk/

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Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/3G39dRW

More about Steph's Stephen King Zine, Outsider: https://outsiderzine.bigcartel.com/product/outsider-vol-1 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Structuring a novel: Rebecca Watson talks to Chitra Ramaswamy about Little Scratch

We have a new Early Career Writers' Resource Pack, and it's all about STRUCTURE. On the podcast we're thrilled to have journalist Chitra Ramaswamy interviewing Rebecca Watson about her stunning debut Little Scratch, which was shortlisted earlier this year for the Desmond Elliott Prize. Rebecca details the book's unique design and how the story and its structure are inseparable. Find more resources on 'Structure' here: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/pack-7-structure/ 

Our resouce packs are available for free thanks to support from Arts Council England.

Meanwhile, Simon and Steph celebrate the launch of the 2021 Noirwich Crime Writing Festival, which you can attend virtually here: https://noirwich.co.uk/ 

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Music by Bennet Maples.

Kate Mosse on the Women‘s Prize, Discoveries and research

The inimitable Kate Mosse joins the podcast to talk about her work on The Women's Prize for Fiction and her career as an author of fiction and non-fiction. Talking with Sarah Bower, Kate discusses the Discoveries writer development programme (opening for applications this month!), how the context of the Women's Prize has changed over the years, why some people still expect the prize to justify its own existence, how she goes about the research for her historical fiction and the writing of her memoir An Extra Pair of Hands.

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Join our Discord: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/ 

Noirwich Crime Writing Festival: https://noirwich.co.uk/

Creating Writing Online courses: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/creative-writing-online/ 

The Women's Prize for Fiction & Discoveries: https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/ 

Finding hope in an age of crisis - with Tom Whyman

Simon is joined on the pod today by Tom Whyman, author of Infinitely Full of Hope: Fatherhood and the Future in an Age of Crisis and Disaster. Part philosophical theory and part memoir, Tom wrote the book while awaiting the birth of his child and deals with the challenge of maintaining hope in increasingly desperate times.

Meanwhile, Steph and Simon take a look at our Creative Writing Online courses, get over-excited about the books they're currently reading (Daisy Jones and the Six! Lumberjanes!) and Simon finds a way to shoehorn discussion of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power into the show.

Check out our tutored online courses: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/creative-writing-online/ 

Join our Discord: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/

Everything we do: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.