In this episode, we speak to writer Marianne Brooker about her book Intervals. We discuss the politics of care and the precarious economics of social, hospice and funeral care. We talk about the importance of interdependence, and how networks of care link to activism and writing. We think about the right to abundance and life, while considering what it means to die a good death. We chat about intersections of class, gender and disability, and beauty and maximalism as an act of resistance. We imagine writing as reparative magic and consider what it means to write into and with grief, as opposed ..read more

In this episode, we speak to author Sheila Heti about her brilliant new book, Alphabetical Diaries, in which she alphabetizes her diaries over a ten-year period, creating parallels and juxtapositions between past and present versions of the self. We speak about the role of formal constraints in her work and her resistance of linear time, progress and the notion of a complete, continuous narrative of selfhood. We think about rhythm and the materiality of language in relation to associative narrative structure. We chat about Heti's body of work, from How Should a Person Be? to Motherhood and Pur ..read more

In this episode, we speak to academic, author and broadcaster Noreen Masud about her memoir, A Flat Place. We discuss the psychological, literary and philosophical histories and connotations of flat landscapes. We talk about Masud's experience growing up in Lahore, Pakistan, then moving to the UK and the complexity of language, culture and the post-colonial experience. We discuss what it means to resist the history of landscape writing, from white male colonial stories of nature as redemption and Romantic notions of landscape as revelation or a text to be interpreted 'correctly.' Instead, our ..read more

In this episode, we speak to Nathalie Olah about her book Bad Taste: Or The Politics of Ugliness. We discuss notions of taste and the intersection with social class and cultural capital. We think about the ways in which a fear of judgement is intrinsic to working-class survival and the construction of working-class femininities within this. We chat about the ways in which ideas of social mobility force working-class people to assimilate to middle-class ideas of taste, and the loss and displacement caused by this. We highlight the importance of working-class writers amplifying the people, place ..read more

In this episode, we speak to novelist and short story writer Eliza Clark about her novel, Penance. We discuss violence and transgression within fiction, and what this can reveal about wider society. We chat about the satirisation of the true crime genre, and the socio-political context which surrounds violent acts. We examine the role of the internet in writing, publishing and how it effects our experiences of our bodies and desires. We discuss the influence of both mainstream and social media in shaping narratives about people and places, as well as aspects of social class and regional inequa ..read more

In this special live episode, we speak to writer and broadcaster Octavia Bright about her memoir, This Ragged Grace. We discuss the ways in which Octavia's roles as an interviewer, carer and linguist informed her process as an active listener and developed her writing voice. We explore the distinction between the pornographic and the erotic in relation to memoir writing, and discuss the process of revealing and concealment when writing from lived experience. We chat about the importance of images and symbols in articulating trauma, with reference to Louise Bourgeois' 'Spiral Woman' as a symbol ..read more

In this episode, we chat to Isabel Waidner about their new novel, Corey Fah Does Social Mobility. We discuss the notion of 'liberating the canon' and the role of formal innovation in representing marginalised perspectives across gender, sexuality, social class and race. We explore the queering of the Bambi figure in Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, the radical importance of acknowledging references and transdisciplinary approaches to art-making. We discuss the role of football and music as traditional ways for working-class people to access 'social mobility' and consider how literature might fi ..read more

In this episode, we speak to investigative journalist Siân Norris about her new book, Bodies Under Siege. We discuss the rise of far-right ideology across the world, and the ways in which fascism and the struggle for reproductive rights are inextricably linked. We consider the ways in which global anti-abortion networks are connected to movements which are underpinned by white supremacy and hostile to LGBTQIA+ rights. We think about the influence of these movements across the world, including their access to funding, their co-opting of feminist language and tactics used by the far-right to sec ..read more

In this episode, we speak to Preti Taneja about her brilliant book, Aftermath. We discuss the ways in which individual actions are mapped onto societal, national and global histories and inequalities. We consider the paradoxical limits of language and writing to articulate grief, as well as a return to other radical writers and thinkers. We discuss the oppression of the prison industrial complex system and its relationship to racism within the UK education system. We speak about the use of shame to denigrate marginalised people and the erasure of colonial and imperial history within schools. W ..read more

In this episode, we have the privilege of speaking to the very brilliant Bhanu Kapil about the UK publication of her collection Incubation: a space for monsters. We discuss what it means to return to earlier work in new contexts, and why the figure of the monster or cyborg is so crucial to her work, in relation to migration and border politics. We chat about the role of the body within her work, and the language of flesh and bones. We discuss the relationship between performance, writing and memory and what it means to make work which refuses categorisation. Bhanu Kapil is the author of six f ..read more