Jesse Sutanto is the award-winning, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers and I’m Not Done With You Yet. Jesse tells how she learned about human behaviour through real estate and weddings, why sh

EP470: Suzie Edge — “Vital Organs, Poo & Wee!"

Sep 17th, 2023 51m 25s

We are delighted to welcome back Suzie Edge for this special episode of the podcast! Suzie is a phenomenon on TikTok and after her smash hit debut book Mortal Monarchs she returns with Vital Organs, a wonderful dissection of history’s strangest

EP469: Harriet Muncaster — “I Wanted to Create My Own World."

Sep 10th, 2023 1h 9m

Harriet Muncaster is an award-winning author and illustrator. Her Isadora Moon books have sold over two million copies worldwide. And in 2020, Muncaster also published Bad and Glittering, the first part of her middle-grade series Victoria Stitc

EP468: Sarah Moorhead — “Grit in the Oyster"

Sep 3rd, 2023 43m 55s

Sarah Moorhead returns to the podcast with The Treatment, her extraordinary new novel that tackles issues of justice and revenge with compassion and heart. She reveals how she got back into writing after being dropped by her publisher and agent

EP467: Linwood Barclay — “The Lie Maker"

Aug 27th, 2023 1h 1m

In this very special episode, international bestselling author Linwood Barclay returns to the podcast to tease us with details of his new thriller The Lie Maker. He gives us tips aplenty for writers, reveals how a correspondence with Ross Macdo

EP466: Teresa Driscoll — “Be Genre Aware"

Aug 20th, 2023 1h 5m

Teresa Driscoll is a former BBC TV news presenter whose psychological thrillers have sold over two million copies across the world. Her first thriller I Am Watching You hit Kindle Number 1 in the UK, USA and Australia and has sold more than a m

EP465: Damian Dibben — “It Needs a Bit of Bite."

Aug 13th, 2023 1h 9m

Damian Dibben is an acclaimed British author whose novels have been translated into twenty-seven languages and published in over forty countries. His series The History Keepers was an international publishing phenomenon. Dibben originally train

EP464: AJ Pearce — “Passion, patience & persistence."

Aug 6th, 2023 1h 22m

AJ Pearce’s debut novel Dear Mrs Bird was a Sunday Times Bestseller and she returns with the third in the Emmy Lake series, Mrs Porter Calling. AJ tells us how writing started as a hobby, how it all very nearly went wrong with a plotless romcom

EP463: Jeremy Szal — “I Want to Break the Reader."

Jul 30th, 2023 1h 22m

Jeremy Szal is the author of the Common trilogy from Gollancz, which includes Stormblood, Blindspace, and Wolfskin and he’s the author of over fifty science-fiction short stories, translated into six languages. He has a new novella, SCREAM IN B

EP462: Antony Johnston — “Right Place, Right Time."

Jul 23rd, 2023 1h 17m

Antony Johnston is a New York Times bestselling author and the creator of Atomic Blonde, the comic book originally published as The Coldest City that was adapted into the movie starring Charlize Theron. For over twenty years he’s written books,

EP461: Freya Berry — “Be Ambitious."

Jul 16th, 2023 53m 37s

Freya Berry’s writing career began as a journalist at Reuters. After a stint in New York reporting on the 2016 US election she left to write her acclaimed first novel, The Dictator’s Wife. With her new novel, The Birdcage Library, Freya has end

EP460: Heide Goody & Iain Grant — “We Smush Our Methods Together."

Jul 9th, 2023 1h 24m

Heide Goody and Iain Grant have been writing together since 2011 and are best known for their Clovenhoof series, where Satan is made redundant from Hell and sent to live in Birmingham. They tell us how their collaborative process has evolved an

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EP459: Deep Dive — Making a Thousand Dollars a Month with Paul Austin Ardoin

Jul 4th, 2023 9m 7s

Paul Austin Ardoin is the USA TODAY Bestselling Author of The Fenway Stevenson Mysteries and the Woodhead & Becker Mysteries. And now Paul has a new non-fiction book: From Zero to Four Figures: Making $1000 a Month Self-Publishing Fiction, whic

EP458: Katherine Faulkner — “It’s Not About Your Ego"

Jul 2nd, 2023 1h 20m

Katherine Faulkner’s second thriller The Other Mothers takes us into the school playground and makes it a terrifying place with dark cliques and murderous secrets. Katherine tells us how finding structure and accountability helped her write her

EP457: Katie Fforde — “Keep The Page Turning."

Jun 25th, 2023 1h 14m

Sunday Times bestselling author Katie Fforde brings us her latest novel One Enchanted Evening, which was inspired by a cookery course. Katie has sold over 4.5 million copies in the UK alone and credits the Romantic Novelists’ Association with l

EP456: JD Kirk — “Libraries Change Lives"

Jun 18th, 2023 1h 15m

JD Kirk is the pen name multi-award-winning author, screenwriter, and writer of comics, Barry Hutchison. When he was nine, a kindly librarian wrote his name on the spine of a notebook in which he’d written a terrible short story, and put it on

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EP455: Deep Dive — How to Write a Novel with Tim Lott

Jun 14th, 2023 9m 7s

Tim Lott is the multi award winning author of ten novels and a memoir, The Scent of Dried Roses, and has been teaching writing for the last ten years, as a lecturer, teacher and mentor. With his new book, Yes! No! But Wait...!: The One Thing Y

EP454: Andrea Dunlop — “Keeping Going is a Win."

Jun 11th, 2023 1h 22m

Andrea Dunlop began her career in publishing as a publicist for the likes of Doubleday before becoming an author and consultant based in Seattle. Her latest novel, Women Are The Fiercest Creatures, is the story of three women written out of a s

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EP453: Deep Dive — SEO for Authors

Jun 8th, 2023 6m 46s

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is what search engines like Google use to pair questions with answers. If you want to be found online, then understanding how SEO works is essential. In this deep dive, SEO expert Kelsey E Meyers offers simple a

EP452: James Naughtie — “A Sense of Place is Essential."

Jun 4th, 2023 1h 8m

James Naughtie’s voice as presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme will be familiar to listeners all over the world. As well as writing non-fiction, he’s the author of the Will Flemyng thrillers the latest of which, The Spy Across the Water,

EP451: Scarlett Brade — “Take Those First Steps"

May 28th, 2023 1h 4m

Scarlett Brade was born in London, but as a child she spent her summers in Toronto where she fell in love with reading. She self-published her first novel aged twenty-three, but then decided to experience life a little more before returning wit

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EP450: Deep Dive — Knowing your Readers

May 25th, 2023 7m 12s

Kelly Weekes answers listener questions on discovering who your readers are in a conversation that takes in social media, comparable authors, visualising your readers, writing to market, goals, pain points, and why authors should think of thems

EP449: Sue Watson — “You’re Looking for the Answers"

May 21st, 2023 1h 6m

Sue Watson was BBC TV producer until she wrote her first novel and was hooked. Now she’s a USA Today bestselling author and has sold over a million copies, but that success came as a second act in a writing career where she switched from romcom

EP448: Jonathan Whitelaw — “Turn The Idea on its Head."

May 14th, 2023 58m 48s

Jonathan Whitelaw started out as a journalist, writing darkly satirical fiction on his commute to work. Jonathan tells us how he went from thinking that he could never write a crime novel, to creating a new cosy crime series with The Bingo Hall

EP447: Jessie Keane — “Don’t Be Afraid."

May 7th, 2023 49m 35s

Jessie Keane has Romany heritage and her Gran — who had ’the sight’ — foretold that that Jesse would not only write, but be famous for it. 6.5 million copies later and with each book becoming a Sunday Times top ten bestseller, that prediction h