EP378: Tim Sullivan — Character is more Important than the Crime
Tim Sullivan is a critically-acclaimed screenwriter who turned his back on Hollywood to self-publish thrillers. 250,000 downloads later Tim became a self-publishing phenomenon whose new DS Cross thriller The Patient is published by Head of Zeus. Tim takes us through his extraordinary career, the research he undertook to write a character with autism, and the role that […]
Continue readingEP377: FMA Dixon — Finding Your Voice
FMA Dixon’s debut novel The Little House on Everywhere Street was awarded the inaugural Acheven Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction and is charming readers the world over. He tells us how he developed his craft and voice through short stories, and by creating a special gift for his daughter. . . In this episode […]
Continue readingEP376: Martin Latham — A Bookseller’s Tale
Martin Latham has been a bookseller for over thirty-five years and is proud to be responsible for the biggest petty-cash claim in Waterstones’ history. He’s also an author and his latest book The Bookseller’s Tale is a wonderful celebration of books and bookshops. Martin is an endless source of bookselling anecdotes and, as you’ll hear, he is […]
Continue readingEP374: Nina De Gramont — Searching for Agatha Christie
Nina De Gramont takes on her most ambitious book yet with The Christie Affair, which explores what might have happened to Agatha Christie when she disappeared for 11 days in 1926. Nina takes us through the process of taking a real-life mystery and creating a fiction around it, mixing drama with research, and writing for […]
Continue readingEP373: Erica James — What happens next?
The amazing Erica James returns to the podcast with her latest bestseller Mothers and Daughters. She tells us the key question she asks of her characters, why she wants a dark cloud on the covers of her books, and how events in the real world might affect our writing. Oh, and the two Marks ponder […]
Continue readingEP372: Veronica Henry — It’s not supposed to be easy
Veronica Henry returns to the podcast with her latest bestseller The Impulse Purchase, where a mother, daughter and grandmother run a pub together. Veronica talks about writing across the generations, whether or not to include Covid in her novel, and — after over twenty novels — if she’s getting the hang of writing yet. . […]
Continue readingEP371: Cathy Bramley — Launch in a Phone Box
Cathy Bramley is a bestselling author of romantic comedies and her new novel The Summer That Changed Us is delighting readers all over the world. Cathy started by self-publishing her first novel with a launch party in a phone box, and she used her expertise in marketing and PR to carve out a career as […]
Continue readingEP370: Lizzie Pook — A Long Old Slog to Publication
Lizzie Pook is a long-time listener of the podcast and Patreon supporter whose debut novel Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter was inspired by her time in north-western Australia researching the pearl-diving industry. The novel is being published by three major publishers on three continents with three very different covers, but the road to publication was a long slog, […]
Continue readingEP368: Bethany Clift — Feeling Fine at the End of the World
Bethany Clift’s debut novel The Last One at the Party is hilarious, moving, cathartic and set in an utterly terrifying pandemic. She tells us how writing and reading horror is great for mental health, how seeing E.T. at an impressionable age inspired her, and how writing a novel with only one living character allowed her […]
Continue readingEP367: Jeevani Charika — The “Aah” Factor
Jeevani Charika (aka Rhoda Baxter) is an award-nominated author of women’s fiction with heroines of colour. Her latest novel, Playing for Love, is set in the world of online gaming, giving the classic mistaken identity romcom story a fresh makeover. We discuss how to write a convincing rom com, and why 2022 could be her […]
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