For episode 56 we're joined by Daisy Hildyard, the author of two novels – Emergency (2022) and Hunters in the Snow (2013) – and one work of nonfiction, The Second Body (2017). Daisy’s first novel, Hunters in the Snow, received the Somerset Maugham Award and a ‘5 under 35’ honorarium at the USA National Book Awards. Her essay The Second Body, a brilliantly lucid account of the dissolving boundaries between all life on earth, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2017. She lives with her family in North Yorkshire, where she was born. Emergency was published last year by Fitzcarraldo Edition ..read more

This month marks the fifth anniversary of Unsound Methods - thank you to everyone who's joined us along the way, and hello to any new arrivals... In this episode we speak to Ewan Fernie and Simon Palfrey about the writing of their collaboratively composed novel 'Macbeth, Macbeth' (available from Boiler House Press, here: https://www.boilerhouse.press/product-page/macbeth-macbeth-by-ewan-fernie-simon-palfrey)  'Macbeth, Macbeth' is described by its authors as a critical fiction. A sequel, critique, and repetition of Shakespeare’s play. Slavoj Žižek has described it as: ‘a miracle, an ins ..read more

In a slight shift from our literary fiction focus, we caught up with writer and script editor Jenny Landreth - one of the driving forces behind the brilliant children's animated TV show 'Hey Duggee'. Having both become fathers only weeks apart in the summer of 2018, Hey Duggee was one of the most joyful discoveries in the often barren wastelands of our young daughters' TV choices... We learnt about how script editing works and how a show like Hey Duggee is put together, as well as speaking a little about Jenny's work on the upcoming reboot of the Magic Roundabout. Jenny also spoke about balan ..read more

In this episode with chatted with Etgar Keret, writer of short stories, comics, a children's book and a memoir. Etgar's books have been published in fifty languages. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Le Monde, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Paris Review and Zoetrope. He is currently a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has received the Book Publishers Association's Platinum Prize several times, the St Petersburg Public Library's Foreign Favourite Award (2010) and the Newman Prize (2012). In 2010, he was honoured in France with the decoration of Chevalier de l ..read more

In our latest episode we had a chat with novelist Sam Byers, author of Idiopathy (2013), Perfidious Albion (2018) and last year's Come Join Our Disease. We talked about needing to write ideas down and how they eventually demand it, using a journal while writing a novel, getting the voice right before venturing too far and the vast gulf between dialogue on the page and in the real world. Sam has a website: http://sambyers.co.uk/ Sam's books are available through Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/sam-byers - or your local bricks and mortar book shop... Find us on Twitter: @Unsou ..read more

Our first guest of 2022 is the novelist Keith Ridgway, author of, among other works, 'the Long Falling' (1998), 'the Parts' (2003), 'Animals' (2006), 'Hawthorn and Child' (2012) and, most recently, 'A Shock' (2021), which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. Keith was awarded the Rooney Prize in 2001. Our chat with Keith took us through the daily fight with the concept of routine, specificity of place, giving up writing and returning, and experiencing a reading crisis - followed by being knocked off the wagon by Georges Simenon. Keith's books are available through Bookshop: https://uk.b ..read more

Our guest this month is Jenn Ashworth, author of A Kind of Intimacy (2009), Cold Light (2011), The Friday Gospels (2013), Fell (2017) and the non-fiction work Notes Made While Falling (2019). Her latest novel is Ghosted: A Love Story out now with Sceptre. She lives in Lancashire and is a Professor of Writing at Lancaster University. Amongst much else we talk about: getting through lockdown with the support of an online writing group, 100 days of writing, how to trick yourself into writing, not being a morning person, interrupting the previous day's writing and stopping in a good place, drowni ..read more

This month we are joined by Lucie Elven, short-story writer and author of the Weak Spot, the debut novel published earlier this year by Prototype in the UK. Lucie has written for publications including the London Review of Books, Granta and NOON.   Our chat took us on an Alpine tour through topics including: how notes demand to be put into short stories or novels, developing a long-term relationship with an editor, the function of ambiguity in fiction, and plenty more. The Weak Spot is available through Prototype: https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/the-weak-spot/ Lucie is on Twi ..read more

As we roll into autumn, we're joined by Rebecca Watson, novelist and arts writer. Rebecca's debut novel, Little Scratch, grew from a short story that was shortlisted for the White Review short story prize and the novel itself was shortlisted for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize.  Among all the other talking our chat took us through: expanding a short story into a novel. Investigating how writing can replicate the immediacy of thought. Playing with fiction and reality, and much more. You can find out more about Rebecca and her writing at her website here: https://www.rebeccawatson.co.uk ..read more

For our August '21 episode we're joined by Natasha Brown, the author of Assembly, which is published by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and will be released in the U.S. on 14th September 2021 by Little, Brown. Our discussion with Natasha includes workshopping at different stages, making speech real on the page, liberal use of index cards, and being in the enviable position of having a novel translated into other languages while it was still being edited. You can find out more about Natasha and her writing at her website here: https://npbrown.com/ Natasha is also on Instagram: @wordsbynatasha Fin ..read more