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Samantha Havery's debut The Wilderness was winner of the Betty Trask Prize and shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Guardian First Book Award. She spends a week pondering her critics, celebrating her champions, and writing her next book while revisiting the last.
Thursday, 25 February, 2010
Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies, spends a week perfecting the art of Christmas shopping, battling with the cat and self-medicating with Toblerone. More...
Wednesday, 27 January, 2010
Science writer Marcus Chown speaks up for reform of the libel laws, does coco crispie calculations and is outmaneuvered by the postman. More...
Tuesday, 22 December, 2009
New Zealand-born writer Charlotte Grimshaw tours her new book, stalks the Prime Minister and reclaims 'Infidelity'. More...
Thursday, 19 November, 2009
Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black and the forthcoming memoir Howard's End is on the Landing, loses her dogs, predicts the demise of high street bookselling, and declares global warming a scam. More...
Monday, 12 October, 2009
Ed Hollis spends a week shepherding 45 students around Edinburgh, catching up with an old friend in a gay sex dungeon, and attending High Mass on Sunday. More...
Monday, 7 September, 2009
Ali Sethi grew up in Pakistan in a family of dissenting journalists and publishers. He recently graduated from Harvard graduate, where he studied under Zadie Smith and Amitav Ghosh. The Wish Maker is his first novel. More...
Monday, 13 July, 2009
Wells Tower's stories have appeared in the New Yorker, McSweeney's and Harper's, and he was awarded the Plimpton Discovery Prize from the Paris Review. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is his first book. More...
Tuesday, 7 April, 2009
Con Coughlin is a journalist and commentator specialising in the Middle East and international terrorism. He is defence and security editor of The Daily Telegraph and writes for the Spectator and other periodicals. His new book, Khomeini's Ghost, follows Saddam: The Secret Life, a biography of the fallen dictator. More...
Tuesday, 10 March, 2009
Dirk Wittenborn, author of Fierce People, Zoe and Pharmakon, is disappointed by the Super Bowl, out-written by a seven year old and wildly optimistic about the British Weather. More...
Monday, 9 February, 2009
Kathleen Kent's first novel has its roots in her own family history. The Heretic's Daughter follows the story of Martha Carrier, one of the women hanged in the Salem witch trials, whom Kent discovered she was realated to through her mother. A research trip for her second book brings her to Wales, where she gains first hand experience of two great British institutions; the weather and the rail network. Why take one train when you can take four? More...
Tuesday, 13 January, 2009
Thirty years ago Daniel Everett and his young family journeyed to South America as missionaries, hoping to convert the Piraha tribe of the Amazon basin. In the intervening years Everett came to reject his faith, lose his family and challenge many of the basic assumptions that Western academics hold dear regarding language, culture and cognition. He tells us about a nerve racking week lecturing to British academics, joy at Obama's election and trying to keep things in perspective. More...
Monday, 8 December, 2008
Mark Crick, author of Sartre's Sink, teaches DIY at the School of Life, and cuts a sartorial dash at the House of Lords.
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Thursday, 6 November, 2008
Glyn Maxwell, poet and playwright, records the exultation and despair of the week he launched his new play Liberty at the Globe.
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Thursday, 2 October, 2008
Rabih Alameddine, author of The Hakawati, gets nervous on a whirlwind tour of England, Ireland and Scotland, spends evenings filled with wine, poetry and song at Colm Toibin's house and battles endless, endless rain. More...
Friday, 5 September, 2008
Nicholas Hogg, award-winning author of Show Me the Sky, takes a holiday from writing to brave the cows at camp bestival, run the papparazzi gauntlet out in Soho (blame Rhys Ifans) and meet the original Mr Nice.
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Friday, 1 August, 2008
Charles Boyle, poet, publisher, and now award-winning novelist, recounts the week that saw him collect the McKitterick prize for his first novel 24 for 3 and blow his cover as the man behind Jennie Walker. More...
Friday, 4 July, 2008
Mohammed Hanif, another of the 'Hay 21', is the author of A Case Exploding Of Mangoes. He spends a week trying to find a Pakistani publisher willing to publish his book despite its inflammatory nature, being a 'Capote nut' and doing 'manly crafts' with his ten year old son. More...
Friday, 6 June, 2008
Sarah Hall, author of the Electric Michelangelo and The Carhullan Army, writes of a week of manic publicity, work on her new novel and fielding questions about skinny-dipping. More...
Thursday, 24 April, 2008
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