Rippling Pages: Interviews with Writers: Recent Episodes
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This is some bonus content from the latest Rippling Pages Coffee Conversations. This is as real as it gets - two microphones, two writers getting real about writing!
Here, Deepa is talking about our favourite Rippling Pages bonus segment, and speaks about the importance of Moby Dick.
You’ll also hear a preview of the Rippling Points podcast, a podcast for those who want to understand the ideas behind books exclusive to Patreon Subscribers.
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages Patreon and become a Page Rippler!
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Books
Buy all the books here!: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/july-s-reads-2026?&new-list-page=true&bkshp-astro=t
Rudyard Kipling
T.S.Eliot
Herman Melville - Moby Dick
Alexandra David-Néel
Larissa Pham - Discipline (2026, Serpent’s Tail)
Larissa Pham - Pop Song. (2021, Catapult Books)
Deepa’s Books
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - (2020, Random House)
Letters to a Writer of Color: An Anthology (2023, Vintage Books) - edited by Deepa Anappara, Taymour Soomro, and Madeleine Thien
Chapters
0.15 - Introduction
03.50 - Deepa Anappara objects of influence
08.20 - Rippling Points preview
It’s time for another special episode where we have another coffee conversation!
As ever with the coffee conversations, this is a real as it gets. Two microphones, two writers getting real about writing!
And this is a book that has a bit of everything.
It’s 1869. Tibet is a forbidden kingdom and closed to foreigners. Tibet is also an unwilling participant in what was called, ‘The Great Game’, a geopolitical rivalry, shall we call it, that didn’t escalate into a full-scale war, but it did see both Russia and the United Kingdom trying to expand their territories.
Deepa takes us on a sweeping journey back into history as she brings to life what was at stake for those explorers who, secretly, conceitedly, and ambitiously, crossed those borders.
But it's also a prescient exploration of boundaries and borders and a hymn to the complicated emotion of grief. And, as well all that, it’s an example of just really good storytelling.
Deepa Anappara is here to talk to me about THE LAST OF EARTH published by Oneworld Publications.
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages Patreon and become a Page Rippler!
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Chapters
2.45 - Writing about the mountains
6.20 - Political dimensions of map-making
8.30 - inspiration from maps
12.15 - Characters and the captain
15.15 - Moby Dick and naming characters
21.45 - Rippling Pages Patreon
23.15 - Who is Catherine?
28.30 - Women, race, and getting into Tibet
31.15 - Guilt, death and grief
35.20 - Finding meaning in loneliness
37.30 - Deepa’s own grief
Reading List
Buy all the books here!: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/july-s-reads-2026?&new-list-page=true&bkshp-astro=t
Rudyard Kipling
T.S.Eliot
Herman Melville - Moby Dick
Alexandra David-Néel
Deepa’s Books
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - (2020, Random House)
Letters to a Writer of Color: An Anthology (2023, Vintage Books) - edited by Deepa Anappara, Taymour Soomro, and Madeleine Thien
It's a summer of sport, and I am here for it!
Ashton Politanoff is here to talk to me about his novel, DAD HAD A BAD DAY (Daunt Books)
Ashton's novel is an articulate exploration of masculinity, its patiently crafted unraveling narrative, and its loyal homage to the sport of tennis.
Here's some fun facts about Ashton.
Ashton Politanoff is a frequent contributor to NOON, edited by Diane Williams. He is a former Division I tennis player, and his childhood coach was Robert Lansdorp, who is credited with coaching Pete Sampras and Maria Sharapova. Politanoff’s first novel, You’ll Like It Here, was published in 2022 by Dalkey Archive Press. He is an English professor at Cypress College, and lives in Los Angeles.
In the episode, we'll be talking about (im)perfect role models and father figures, the challenges of writing about your passion, how to write narrative tension, and yes, of course, and tennis.
A reading list of books Ashton mentions in this episode are available to buy here: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/july-s-reads-2026?&new-list-page=true&bkshp-astro=t
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages Patreon and become a Page Rippler!
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Chapters
- 1.15 - Pete Sampras and Maria Sharipova?
- 2.10 - watching Wimbledon
- 4.15 - Who is Ned and why tennis?
- 5.45 - setting a novel in a tennis club
- 7.40 - Did Ashton feel like he had to write this novel
- 10.15 - Ned's relationship with his son.
- 11.50 - Tough challenges of writing sons
- 15.10 - fathers and sons and sports.
- 17.45 - Ashton's own tennis career
- 19.30 - different fraternal and paternal relationships
- 20.30 - Rippling Pages Bookshop
- 21.45 - Writing key smalls scenes
- 27.00 - Writing tension
- 32.25 - Ned's relationship with his wife.
- 37.30 - Writing about tennis!
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I had the absolute pleasure hosting Alice Hattrick up in Leeds for a special edition of the Rippling Pages at Leeds Literature Festival.
I'm a huge fan of Alice's first book, ILL FEELINGS (Fitzcarraldo Editions), so I was obviously really excited to get stuck into their next book, FANCY WORK (Fitzcarraldo Editions), for this special live edition of the Rippling Pages.
That book indeed weaved (auto)biography, science art history, reportage, and polemic to explore the impact of chronic illness on theirs and their mother’s lives. Alice applied some of these innovative techniques to FANCY WORK.
Alice explores the life and work of the incredibly influential Morris family and the arts and craft movement. Alice finds and traces evidence and ephemerality related to the life and work May Morris and their gender non-conforming partner, M.F.
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Chapters
0.15 - Introduction to the event
02.15 - How Alice was enjoying Leeds
03.00 - What is the book about?
05.00 - Who are the Morris Family?
9.00 - How the Morris's went back in history.
13.10 - Embroidery as labour
14.50 - Alice's reading.
22.45 - Why write history in this way?
26.05 - Making money from embroidery/writing
28.05 - How to uncover history
34.45 - Alice writing about feelings
40.00 - Alice's relationship with their mum.
43.00 - Alice's mum is an embroider
47.00 - Love in Alice's novel
47.30 - Rippling Pages Patreon Prize.
Reference Points
Walter Benjamin
Judith Butler
Ill Feelings (2021: Fitzcarraldo Books) - Alice Hattrick
Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History - Heather Love (2007:Harvard University Press)
Queering the Subversive Stich (2020: Bloomsbury Publishing) - Joseph McBrinn
José Esteban Muñoz
The Subversive Stitch (1984:Bloomsbury Publishing) - Rozsika Parker
The Log Books (2026: Faber) - Tash Walker and Adam Zmith
Welcome to an episode of Ask the Host, i.e. with me, Liam!
This the podcast where writers get real about writing, but today, we’re getting real about podcasting!
In today’s episode of Ask the Host, we’re finding out:
- What’s the difference between the live coffee conversations and remote interviews>
- My summer book preview and reading list?
- Where have we been for Leeds Lit Fest? What is the hottest new literary salon on the scene? And looking forward to my event with Alice Hattrick
- What’s the origin story of the podcast?
Enjoy and let me know if you’ve got any questions when you leave a review of my show!
Tickets to the Rippling Pages Live at Leeds Literature Festival with Alice Hattrick
https://www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/alice-hattrick-fancy-work/
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Books
Jan Carson
Raoul de Jong
John Eyck
Neil Griffiths
Alice Hattrick
Stu Hennigan
M. John Harrison - The end of everything
Hanna Nordenhök - Caesaria
Agnes Lidbeck
Fernanda Melchor
Sara Mesa
Jake Morris Campbell - A journey onto the salt and ash
Flann O’Brien
The Rickard Sisters
Keith Ridgway - Dooneen
C.D. Rose
Guillermo Stitch - The Coast of Everything
Saskia Vogel
Katie Whittemore
Alice Evelyn Yang - A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing
Let’s dust off the archives again and celebrate some of the guests we’ve had on the Rippling Pages
This time, we’re going back to a conversation that was had in 2022 with the writer, editor, and all around bookish good guy, Nicholas Royle.
I spoke to Nicholas about his wonderful book about book collecting, WHITE SPINES:THE CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK COLLECTOR
Chances are, if you’ve a penchant for second-hand books, you’ll have been or known about one of the many bookshops Nicholas visited to find the Picador books that he coveted.
We’re also celebrating Leeds Literature Festival. The book features Leeds bookshops, and Nicholas is in Leeds talking about the art of the short story with Alice Jolly and Naomi Booth.
Get your tickets below
Tickets to me in conversation with Alice Hattrick.
https://www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/alice-hattrick-fancy-work/
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Reference Points
Writers and Books
AJ Ashworth
Andrea Ashworth
The Lake John Foxx (Nightjar Press)
M. John Harrison
Anna Kavan - Ice (Picador: 1967)
Alberto Manguel (editor) Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature (Picador: 1983)
Livi Michael - The Lake (Nightjar Press)
Alison Moore
Nicholas Royle - First Novel (Vintage: 2013)
Nicholas Royle - Counterparts (Penguin: 1995)
Nicholas Royle - Ornithology (Confingo: 2017)
Nicholas Royle - An English Guide to Bird Watching (Myriad Editions: 2017)
Nicholas Royle - Uncanny (Manchester University Press: 2003)
Per Wahlöö - The Lorry (Picador: 1972)
Conrad Williams
Artists
Paul Delvaux
Salvador Dali
Chapters
3.00 - when did he first see the white spines?
7.00 - what was special about the books
9.00 - why write this book
12.15 - Writing a quest
14.45 - is it about confession or obsession
18.10 - giving second life to writers
19.35 - second hand bookshops
24.55 - tactile nature of books
26.09 - sharing names and uncanniness
28.15 - two Nicholas Royles
30.30 - dreams and realities of being a writer
34.45 - nightjar press
The podcast for the world’s most interesting writers is going a little closer to home; we’re visiting Leeds and the North of England for a conversation about with Stu Hennigan about his novel, KESHED.
Not only is it lovely to speak about some of the places I know really well, but also a bittersweet too, as Stu’s novel reminds of me of the people and places I’ve moved away from.
What I loved about Stu’s novel, is its sheer vividness of its writing, combining, artfully, the vernacular and the obscene. It’s evocations of northern town and cities that are close to me, but also its unflinching approach to troubling subject matter.
Stu Hennigan is a writer, poet, editor, and musician based in Leeds, UK. His acclaimed book, Ghost Signs: Poverty and the Pandemic, became notable for its powerful documentary fo the city's most deprived communities during COVID-19 lockdown. KESHED, published by Ortac Press, is his first novel.
this episode features strong language and discussion of sensitive themes!
Tickets to me in conversation with Alice Hattrick.
https://www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/alice-hattrick-fancy-work/
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Stu’s Substack:
https://stuhennigan.substack.com
References
Writers
Martin Amis
Jenn Ashworth
Charles Baudelaire
Naomi Booth
James Clark
Owen Jones
Alice Jolly
Alice Murphy-Pyle
Ben Myers
Annie Proulx
Music
Arab Strap
Jimi Hendrix
Film and TV
The Royle Family
Ken Loach
Chapters
1.45 - Uncategorising KESHED
6.15 - What is KESHED about
8.45 - why is Sean in Leeds.
9.55 - Is Sean a flaneur?
16.05 - Sean’s voice
19.20 - The importance of reading
20.10 - On truth
25.25 - Liam’s personal response to the book.
27.45 - Patreon shoutouts!
28.45 - Who is Mandy?
31.20 - Getting feedback on writing women
36.00 -the hard work of writing
37.30 - Assuming readers are smarter than you
38.45 - Language is not a barrier
40.15 - The market of writing
Amber Medland is here to tell us about what it’s like to be in an anthology with George Saunders, overcoming writers block, and telling us whether it’s magic or mechanics that makes a story.
Amber has been collated in one of the most select short story anthologies likely to hit the shelves this year. Magic and Mechanics (Scratch Books) features some of the most talented short story writers short stories alongside interviews about those stories.
The anthology about the art and craft of the short story features writers such as George Saunders, Claire-Louise Bennett, Mark Haddon, Camilla Grudova, and Colin Barrett.
Amber tells me about her story, Mr Blythe Esq.
Amber’s debut novel, WILD PETS, was published by Faber and Faber, and her book of non-fiction, ATTENTION SEEKER:THE TRUTH ABOUT ADHD, her exploration of the history of ADHD, was published by Dialogue Books. She has an MFA from Columbia University.
Links to heighting your Rippling Pages Experience
Tickets to me in conversation with Alice Hattrick.
https://www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/alice-hattrick-fancy-work/
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
2.20 - what's it like being in the anthology with George Saunders
4.05 - is writing magic more mechanics?
6.10 - what is Amber's story about?
8.30 - the relationship between the two
10.00 - what is left out of a story?
12.50 - who is Mr Blythe?
14.15 - Power dynamics and musicality
17.30 - sentences on the ear
20.10 - taking creative writing MFAs
21.55 - writer's block
26.00 - Taking the weight from writing.
27.38 - Rippling Pages Bookshop
28.40 - what does it mean to have confidence as a writer.
33.00 - food in Amber's writing.
35.00 - Amber writing about ADHD
39.55 - writing about attentiveness
Referenc Points
Writers
Claire-Louise Bennett
Lucy Caldwell
George Saunders
Joy Williams
Films
Fantasia
Musicians
Harry Styles
Let’s dust off the archives and celebrate some of the guests we’ve had on the Rippling Pages.
This is a re-release of a previous episode with Polly Barton.
Over the years, we’ve been proud to feature emergent writers on the Rippling Pages and speak to them in the early stages of their careers.
One of those writers is Polly Barton, who’s just released her debut novel, WHAT AM I, A DEER? with Fitzcarraldo Editions.
I spoke to Polly five years ago about her Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize winning, FIFTY SOUNDS.
Polly is a writer and translator from Japanese. Translations include Butter by Asako Yuzuki, Hunchback by Saul Ichikawa, and Where the Where the Wild Ladies Are by Akko Matsuda. Her essay, Porn: An Oral History was also published by Fitzcarraldo Editons.
In our conversation, we picked out knotty debates about language, her time in Japan, and what it means to love and love in language
Enjoy!
If you fancy hearing another Fitzcarraldo essayist, why not buy tickets for my event with Alice Hattrick at Leeds Lit Fest:
https://www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/alice-hattrick-fancy-work/
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Chapters
3.00 - What are the Fifty Sounds
5.40 - what is the philosophy behind the bok
10.00 - Wittgenstein
14.30 - Embarrasment, error and comedy
16.15 - Binaries
20.15 - Outsiders and immersion
21.45 - Language games
24.14 - Structuring the book
28.00 - Japan as a man
31.45 - Loving language and people
Reference Points
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Camille Bordas likes miniature objects.
It’s how they remind her of her childhood in Mexico and show off little details.
In fairness, it might once have been a lighter for Camille, but she still has them all.
This is bonus content on the Rippling Pages where we ask a writer to provide us with an object that has been with them during their writing process.
You’re also going to hear a snippet of the Patreon close-reads podcast for subscribers. If you like the sound of it, you can sign up for exclusive member benefits, including the full close read podcast for Patreon subscribers.
Do that here:
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
You’ll also hear a little more about Camille’s experience of writing in French and English.
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Tickets for live in conversation with Alice Hattrick at Leeds Lit Fest:
https://www.leedslitfest.co.uk/events/alice-hattrick-fancy-work/
Chapters
2.20 - Objects of influence; miniature objects
7.50 - Patreon preview
9.25 - Camille writing in French and English
Camille Bordas is one heck of an exciting literary talent, and she’s joining me on the Rippling Pages to discuss her story collection, ONE SUN ONLY (Serpent’s Tail).
What I loved about these stories is their wonderfully dry humour, empathetic narratives of flawed characters, and deeply woven observations, within the stories, about how fiction works.
Plaudits for Camille have come from George Saunders, Zadie Smith, and Percival Everett. She’s a regular contributor to the New Yorker.
Other useful links to heighten your Rippling Pages experience
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
1.30 - bad backs and teaching
4.00 - writing and talking about death
8.45 - creating character dynamics
11.10 - camille’s sociology background
12.45 - experimenting in stories and novels
15.10 - writing in French and English
17.40 - Rippling pages Patreon
19.55 - animation and jokes
22.15 - what animates a language
24.30 - writing dialogue
26.30 - misunderstanding ourselves
28.45 - illness and self growth
30.15 - plotting
33.30 - how sopranos helps with plotting
36.35 - recreating scenes from the sopranos
39.00 - acting and writing
Reference Points
Donald Barthelme
Delphine Horvilleur
Karl Ove Knausgård
Gwendoline Riley
Katharina Volckmer
TV
The Sopranos
It's Easter - and it's easter egg time.
In this bonus content, you're going to hear a lot about Easter Eggs, but not the chocolate kind. Instead, we’re talking those little secret insights to Lucy's work, both past, present and future.
This is bonus content and our objects of influence segment where we ask a writer to provide us with an object that has been with them during the writing of the book.
It's also a little Easter Egg from the Rippling Pages too. You're going to hear a snippet of the Patreon close-reads podcast for subscribers. If you like the sound of it, you can sign up for exclusive member benefits, including the full close read podcast exclusive to subscribers.
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Other useful links to heighten your Rippling Pages experience:
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Chapters
- Close Read Patreon Preview 1.45
- Objects of Influence - 3.55
Reference Points
Anton Chekhov
Hamlet
Taylor Swift
Oh wow! It was my pleasure to have a coffee with and speak to the writer Lucy Caldwell about her new short story collection, DEVOTIONS (published by Faber and Faber).
That's right, we were live and in person having a coffee talking about Lucy's new collection
I revelled in a theatre troupe performing a choose your own version of Hamlet; I had a wry smile watching Christopher Plummer ponder on whether he really did love Julie Andrews, and among the many other stories, continued to marvel at Lucy's capacity to meditate on death, existence, light and love.
Lucy is from Belfast. She lives in Kent, but we had our conversation in London.
Other useful links to heighten your Rippling Pages experience
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Chapters
2.00 - is 'master' the right word?
7.15 - Devotions forming a single whole
9.15 Lucy's relationship with her editor
12.50 - writing in real-time
16.50 - Choose your own adventure stories.
18.10 - Hamlet.
21.10 - Writing about love
26.05 - Devotions easter egg!
28.35 finding meaning in the here and the now.
32.20 - Patreon shoutouts!
33.50 - inspired by James Joyce
37.26 - writing great psychic movements.
42.00 - Special writing from Lucy.
46.45 - Finding meaning in the darkness
51.25 - Suffering as a portal.
Reference Points
Sebastian Barry
Elizabeth Bowen
Willa Cather
Anton Chekhov
Dante
Ram Dass
John Donne
T.S. Eliot
Anne Enright
Wendy Erskine
bell hooks
Kazuo Ishiguro
James Joyce
Claire Kilroy
Rosamond Lehman
Louis MacNeice
Alice Munro
Cardinal Newman
Edna O’Brien
Frank O’Hara
Rumi
Helen Simpson
John Updike
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Virginia Woolf
W.B. Yeats
Lucy’s Work
Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (edited by Lucy, Faber, 2021)
Multitudes (Faber, 2016)
Intimacies (Faber, 2021)
Leaves (Faber: 2007)
Where They Were Missed (Faber: 2005)
Plays
Hamlet
Music
Ludwig van Beethoven
Van Morrison
Taylor Swift
Films
The Sound of Music (1965: Robert Wise)
Welcome to this bonus content with Leon Craig. We’re talking about how Leon found an old letter knife in a shop which helped her understand her characters desires. PLUS! You’ll hear Leon talking about plagues, the pandemic, and why she left the UK to write her novel about the UK.
Leon was here to discuss THE DECADENCE (Sceptre), a novel about a group of friends who find shelter in an old abandoned home, but encounter more than they bargained for. Leon Craig, whose previous collection of short stories, PARALLEL HELLS, was also published by Sceptre, is a graduate of the Birkbeck MFA Creative Writing course. Her work has been published by Hazlitt, the Sunday Times, the London Magazine and others and is forthcoming in Nulla magazine and Berlin Babel anthology.
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
I’m looking forward to diving into the crumbling and the haunted this week with Leon Craig.
We’re discussing Leon Craig’s THE DECADENCE.
And you the listener picked Leon as one of the rising stars of literature that you wanted me to interview.
Have you ever walked past an old abandoned house and wondered what kinds of lives were lived there? Have you ever dared to explore one? Perhaps you wanted to escape and hide in the house. Or perhaps you wanted to use it for something a little more nefarious.
Leon Craig, whose previous collection of short stories, PARALLEL HELLS, was also published by Sceptre, is a graduate of the Birkbeck MFA Creative Writing course. Her work has been published by Hazlitt, the Sunday Times, the London Magazine and others and is forthcoming in Nulla magazine and Berlin Babel anthology.
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Episode Chapters
1.30 - rising literary stars poll
3.30 - The crumbling haunted house
6.30 - the ensemble cast
7.25 - early hauntings.
10.10 - misunderstandings and humour
11.50 -embracing imperfect characters.
14.25 - secret passageways
16.05 - sexual elements to hauntings.
19.10 - colonial legacies and trespassing
22.55 - Rippling Pages Patreon
24.20 - on beauty
27.00 - getting what we want.
29.50 - desire and disgust
32.00 - The country housegenre
37.15 - Leon’s next novel
Reference Points
House of Leaves (2000, Mark Z. Danielewski).
Saltburn (2023, dir. Emerald Fennell)
Beowulf
The Great Gatsby (1925, F.Scott Fitzgerald)
White is for Witching(2009, Helen Oyeyemi)
Brideshead Revisited (1945, Evelyn Waugh)
We’re going to the Slovenian coast this week during the final years Yugoslavia with Ana Schnabl.
Dunja has finally launched her literary career, but the shadow and spectre of her brother’s death haunts both her and her family. What happens when she returns to investigate her brother’s death? And what happens when the truth becomes stranger than the fiction she writes?
Ana Schnabl’s novel is published by Divided Publishing. Ana is a Slovenian writer, and this is her second novel to be translated into English, by Rawley Grau. Her first novel to be translated into English was The Masterpiece, that time by David Limon. In Slovenia, she is a winner of Slovenia’s prestigious literary prize, the Kresnik award. She’s also a regular contributor to the journal The Guardian, writing on Balkan politics and culture.
Get exclusive subscriber benefits from the Rippling Pages.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Check out the Rippling Pages Bookshop and buy all the books featured on the Rippling Pages:
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Episode Chapters
1.30 - Ana's based in Slovenia
2.35 - Fake crime novels
3.50 - Djuna's relationship with her dead brother.
5.30 - Why has Djuna returned?
7.30 - Family dynamics.
9.00 - Rockstars and the Slovene transition
10.35 - Michael Jackson
13.30 - a fake crime novel
15.00 - Rippling Pages Bookshop
16.00 - Not liking modernist novels
19.45 - Writing cerebral characters
21.00 - Sentimental feelings about home
24.15 - Ice cream and the Adriatic coast
27.30 - Not believing in legacies.
30.30 sitting with unpleasant people.
31.50 - who helps Djuna.
33.45 - Smoking
Reference Points
Agatha Christie
Marcel Proust
Virginia Woolf
What a lovely time I had speaking and sitting with Eva Meijer, the Dutch Author, in Leeds to discuss their novel SEA NOW.
A government who seems slow to respond to a rapidly encroaching crisis. Marketing executives exploiting ways to make quick cash. A missing Prime Minister. Leavers and remainers conflicted about the right course of action. It all sounds like a playbook for our recent political crises. But when the dams start bursting in the Netherlands and the country rapidly begins to flood and be subsumed, what happens when people are faced with the unthinkable in this new waterworld.
These are the questions at the heart of Eva Meijer’s, SEA NOW, translated by Anne Thompson Melo, and published by Peirene Press.
Other useful links to heighten your Rippling Pages experience:
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Chapters
2.25 - what is the novel about
4.25 - a human and animal story
7:45 - how people respond to the crisis in the book
11.15 - is the novel represent human experience
13.45 - widescreen viewpoints
17.45 - why is the sea so powerful
21.20 - the Rippling Pages Bookshop
23.10 - why do characters stay?
25.40 - is there hope in the novel
27.15 - endings and new beginnings and grief
30.30 - objects of influence
36.40 - Patreon subscriber shoutout!
Reference Points
Don DeLillo
Happy New Year!
I’m delighted to bring you some more unedited and bonus content from my Christmas and New Year special with Madeleine Dunnigan and Farah Ali. There was just so much good stuff in our craft and curation special, that I wanted to bring you a little more to start the year.
These books are going to be spoken about in literary circles in January.
In Pakistan, a young woman grapples with a strange, indefinable illness against a backdrop of political upheaval. In England, a teenager tries to make sense of his intense emotions during one hot summer at boarding school.
Farah Ali’s TELEGRAPHY, published by CB Editions, is her second novel. Originally from Pakistan, Farah has been anthologised for the Pushcart Prize and is the reviews editor at Wasafiri.
JEAN is the debut novel by London-based writer Madeleine Dunnigan, published by Daunt Books. She was a Jill Davis Fellow on the MFA programme at New York University.
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon with exclusive crafted subscriber benefits.
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Reference Points
Tom McCarthy
John McGahern
Gerald Murnane
I’m kicking off a 2026 preview with two of the most exciting emerging voices publishing books this January. I speak to them about how they wrote their novels, before asking which books inspired them along the way, and what their books and book selections say about the world today.
If you’re looking for your next great reads of 2026, look no further — Rippling Pages has you covered.
We’re going from Pakistan to a rural boarding school in 1970s London.
In Pakistan, a young woman grapples with a strange, indefinable illness against a backdrop of political upheaval. In England, a teenager tries to make sense of his intense emotions during one hot summer at boarding school.
Farah Ali’s TELEGRAPHY, published by CB Editions, is her second novel. Originally from Pakistan, Farah has been anthologised for the Pushcart Prize and is the reviews editor at Wasafiri.
JEAN is the debut novel by London-based writer Madeleine Dunnigan, published by Daunt Books. She was a Jill Davis Fellow on the MFA programme at New York University.
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon with exclusive crafted subscriber benefits.
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
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Reference Points
Mathias Énard - The Annual Banquet of the Gravedigger's Guild
Rachel Kushner - The Flamethrowers
John McGahern - That They May Face the Rising Sun
Gerald Murnane - The Plains
Tom McCarthy - Remainder
Chapters
3.15 - illness and narrative voice
5.25 - feeling ill writing the book
10.15 - Madeleine's on Farah's narrator
12.30 - Madeleine's book
16.10 - different kinds of love.
18.40 - Rippling Pages patreon
19.55 - a queer story in the boarding school
21.50 - different kinds of intimacy
23.40 - precociousness
28.10 - bodies, illness and healing
33.00 - what these books say about the world.
38.00 - Dealing with fracture
40.50 - rippling pages bookshop
41.20 - Madeleine recommends
45.15 - Farah recommends.
I'm delighted to be talking to Rali Chorbadzhiyska about her work as freelance editor, and we're asking what the road to publication really looks like.
It must be another edition of Ask the Curator. In these episodes, we go behind the curtain of the literary industry to ask another literary curator, how they do what they do.
Over the years, Rali has worked at Penguin RandomHouse, Faber and Canongate, working with some of the biggest names in literature. But she recently went freelance to deliver on her aim of guiding writers refine and elevate their work. She was awarded with a Rising Star Award from The Printing Charity in recognition of her work.
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon with exclusive crafted subscriber benefits.
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Links to Rali’s services:
https://www.ralieditorial.com/https://www.instagram.com/reading.rali/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralieditorial/https://www.tiktok.com/@reading.rali Reference Points
Farah Ali
Raymond Carver
V.S. Naipaul
Erin Sommers
Chapters
2.25 - what does Rali's work look like?
3.45 - Rali's ideal clients
4.50 - the importance of taking feedback
7.15 - strategies for taking and rejecting feedback
12.00 - finding people who champion you
15.20 - Do writers need to market themselves?
16.10 - Having ties to local communities.
17.40 - Rali’s top tip
19.40 - books Rali is looking forward to in 2026
Welcome to some bonus content with Lee Cole, and we’re talking about how he used an old book he found at his grandparents to help build the world and characters in his novels.
Plus, you’re going to hear some extra bits about writing heroes and villains.
Fulfillment, Lee Cole’s second novel, follows two half brothers whose clashing ambitions—Emmett’s longing to be a screenwriter and his brother’s academic ideals about “rural despair”—go beyond a simple difference in worldview. Something deeper threatens to pull them apart.
Lee is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is also the author of Groundskeeping. Both his novels were published by Faber in the U.K. The New York Times has described his work as “Anne Tyler by way of Sally Rooney.” Originally from Kentucky, Lee joins me today from Philadelphia.
Buy Lee Cole’s book here
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Welcome to the latest episode of the Rippling Pages. I’m having a coffee with Lee Cole, the American writer from Kentucky. And we’re talking about balancing the feelings and ethics of writing about home.
Now living a humdrum life in Kentucky, Emmett spends his days packing boxes in a warehouse. But what happens when he begins to dream of another life—and when those dreams start to fracture his family relationships?
These questions lie at the heart of Fulfilment, Lee Cole’s second novel. The book follows two half brothers whose clashing ambitions—Emmett’s longing to be a screenwriter and his brother’s academic ideals about “rural despair”—go beyond a simple difference in worldview. Something deeper threatens to pull them apart.
Lee is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is also the author of Groundskeeping. Both his novels were published by Faber in the U.K. The New York Times has described his work as “Anne Tyler by way of Sally Rooney.” Originally from Kentucky, Lee joins me today from Philadelphia.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
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Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
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1.35 - Ann Tyler and Sally Rooney
5.05 - why Kentucky
7.25 - people who leave and stay in small towns
9.30 - why does Emmett wish he had what Joel has?
11.10 - southern fried rendition of Marx
12.10 - warehouses
16.12 - the difficulty of warehouse jobs
18.30 - Kentucky’s beauty
19.45 - backgrounds and worldviews
21.45 - guilt about writing about home or
22.30 - rippling pages bookshop
23.35 - Alice’s role
26.15 - Alice’s dream of owning a farm
28.50 - knowing what our desires are
32.50 - writing about writers impulses
Books
Wendell Berry
Annie Dillard
Sigmund Freud
Aldo Leopold
Karl Marx
Sally Rooney
Anne Tyler
John Updike
I’m talking with the essayist Joanna Pocock, and this is some bonus content from our original interview.
America is a place that has compelled countless writers to travel its vast and varied landscapes. Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. But what happens when you feel compelled to do it all again?
That’s the question at the heart of Joanna Pocock’s essay, Greyhound (Fitzcarraldo Editions). Named after the iconic bus company whose intercity network carries passengers from Detroit to Los Angeles — and which Joanna relies on for her own journey — Greyhound revisits familiar motels, crossings, and bus stations she first encountered years before.
Joanna’s writing has appeared in the LA Times, Guardian US and the Nation among others. GREYHOUND is her second book, and her first, SURRENDER, won the Fitzcarraldo essay prize.
Remember to like, share, follow, subscribe or leave a review if you enjoy the show.
Joanna is talking about objects of influence, which are:
Her notebooks
Her photographs
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
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I’m talking to the Swedish writer, Agnes Lidbeck, in this special edition live episode of the Rippling Pages! We really did have a coffee with one of the world’s, one of Sweden’s most interesting writers, because as we were live in person with a live audience in Leeds!
Life is full of adjustments - perhaps there isn’t a bigger adjustment than having children. But what happens when you start to question your role in this adjustment? Crucially, what happens when a mother starts to question her role in this adjustment.
These are the questions at the heart of Agnes’s novel, SUPPORTING ACT, published by Peirene Press and translated by Nichola Smalley.
It’s a beautiful novel about fierce devotion in the face of fierce questions that need to be asked about why certain people seem to take on certain roles in society.
Agnes is the author of five novels, but this was her first novel, and it’s her first to be translated into English. She is a renowned name in Sweden on TV, radio, and Swedish letters. This book alone was the winner of the prestigious Bourous Debut Novel Prize.
This is part of Modern Culture’s programming of events called Stories from Sweden, so thanks to Martin Colthorpe for help making this happen.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
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Rippling Points
0.15 introductions.
3.25 - Agnes time in Leeds
4.35 opening to the novel
6.05 - Agnes and Jens
10.05 - Agnes’s reading
14.00 - touch and tactility
17.10 - Swedish society and parental leave
19.50 - spiritual and physical pain of Anna.
22.00 - Jens and Ivan
24.25 - why is Ivan so compelling to Anna
27.15 - grips of passion
29.00 - rippling pages bookshop
30.15 - different modes of time
35.30 - Anna’s dark thoughts
38.15 - Agnes’s next book
40.45 - frustration and being kind to Anna
42.30 - a strange interaction in the street!
45.00 - questions from the audience - do you have a different relationship with Anna as a result of the translation
47.30 question from audience - is Anna a detached person, or detached as a result of motherhood.
49.00 - the power of translation
Reference Points
Hjalmar Söderberg
Baruch Spinoza
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Annie Ernaux
Wretchedness - Andrzej Tichý (translated by Nichola Smalley)
America is a place that has compelled countless writers to travel its vast and varied landscapes. Perhaps you’ve done it yourself. But what happens when you feel compelled to do it all again?
That’s the question at the heart of Joanna Pocock’s essay, Greyhound (Fitzcarraldo Editions). Named after the iconic bus company whose intercity network carries passengers from Detroit to Los Angeles — and which Joanna relies on for her own journey — Greyhound revisits familiar motels, crossings, and bus stations she first encountered years before.
Joanna’s writing has appeared in Granta, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and The London Review of Books, among others. GREYHOUND is her second book, and her first, SURRENDER, won the Fitzcarraldo essay prize.
Remember to like, share, follow, subscribe or leave a review if you enjoy the show.
Reference Points
- 1.40 - is Joanna a city or a country writer
- 3.20 - where the journey starts
- 6.15 - why are there not more women on the road?
- 09.00 - starting in Canada.
- 11.05 - Borders
- 12.15 - the people Joanna meets
- 16.05 - the sense of perspective.
- 17.50 - people Joanna sees
- 19.30 - Amarillo and fecal dust
- 23.00 - rippling pages podcast
- 24.05 - the cost of travel
- 26.35 - the bus as a political space
- 30.30 - the enduring appeal of the American road.
Tickets for Agnes Lidbeck in Conversation
https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/events/p/theripplingpagesliveoctober
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
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Reference Points
Ansel Adams
Lewis Baltz
Simone de Beauvoir - America Day by Day
Jack Kerouac - On the Road
Irma Kirtz - The Great American Bus Ride
Ethel Mannin - An America Journey
Benjamin Markovits - The Rest of Our Lives
William Least Heat-Moon - Blue Highways
Ed Ruscha
The Salt Path - Raynor Winn
Welcome to the second edition of Rippling Pages: Ask the Host!
It's time to answer some more questions from you, the listeners!
So, that’s what I’ve done: I’ve picked out some questions from the Rippling Pages inbox, and answered them!
In this episode, I answer:
- What I have been reading lately?
- How are my French lessons going?
- How do I prepare for interviews?
- What is my favourite bookshop?
- What is my favourite season?
- Who's going to win the Premier League and Women's Super League?
Got a question yourself? Why not leave a review and a question and I might pick out one for a future show!
Tickets for Agnes Lidbeck in Conversation
https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/events/p/theripplingpagesliveoctober
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops!
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
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Reference Points
Books
On the Clock by Claire Baglin (translated by Jordan Stump). Daunt Books
Lanre Bakare - We Were There (Penguin Books)
The Unreliable Nature Writer by Claire Carroll (Scratch Books)
Joy is My Middle Name by Sasha Debevec-McKenney (Fitzcaralldo Editions )
Failed Summer Vacation by Heuijung Hur (translated by Paige Aniyah Morris) Scratch Books
Noreen Masud - A Flat Place (Penguin Books)
White Spines by Nicholas Royle (Salt Books)
Two Days, One Night (2014, directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
“It’s almost a perfect work of art.”
This is some bonus content from the previous episode with Gurnaik Johal where we talk about objects of influence.
The return of a potentially holy river in the Indian mountains - is it a sign of a new age, a divine intervention, or simply the workings of nature? These are the questions at the heart of Gurnaik Johal’s novel, SARASWATI, published by Serpent’s Tail. Frauds, politicians, mystics, writers, and the family who own the farm in which the river exists, are caught up in trying to determine what the return of the SARASWATI river means. It is a novel that is truly global in its scope, set in Canada, India, the Chagos Islands, and Wolverhampton. It was named as a Guardian newspaper selection for 2025, and shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. Gurnaik was a winner of the Galley Beggar short story prize.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
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The return of a potentially holy river in the Indian mountains - is it a sign of a new age, a divine intervention, or simply the workings of nature? These are the questions at the heart of Gurnaik Johal’s novel, SARASWATI, published by Serpent’s Tail. Frauds, politicians, mystics, writers, and the family who own the farm in which the river exists, are caught up in trying to determine what the return of the SARASWATI river means. It is a novel that is truly global in its scope, set in Canada, India, the Chagos Islands, and Wolverhampton. It was named as a Guardian newspaper selection for 2025, and shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. Gurnaik was a winner of the Galley Beggar short story prize.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop all books are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medi
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Rippling Points
1.55 - what is the SARASWATI?
3.35 - the family connection
6.45 - river symbolism
8.20 - characters in the novel
10.30 - family dynasties and novels
11.55- reclamation
14.45 - rippling pages bookshop
15.30 - border conflicts
18.40 - human connection between
21 - romance in the novel
23.20 - the chagos islands
27.50 - how people communicate
29.30 - from short stories to novels
31.15 - being faithful to reality
34.35 - more advice for writers
“I think when you’re young you really allow yourself to be stupid.”
Welcome to part 2 of my conversation with Yan Ge.
Yan Ge is here to discuss her life and writing. She was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province People’s Republic of China. Emerging as a prodigious writer in Chinese and Sichuanese, she was named as one of China’s twenty future literary masters by People Magazine. In 2012, she was chosen as Best New Writer by the Prestigious Chinese Literature Media Prize. For English language readers, Nicky Harman first translated her novella, White Horse, for Hope Road publishing in 2014, a story about young girls negotiating adolescence in the presence of a mysterious white horse. Then, four years later, Nicky translated The Chilli Bean Paste Clan in 2018, published by Balestier. Elsewhere arrived in 2023 (Faber), and Yan Ge treated us to a new dimension of her work entirely: short fiction and, for the first time, written in English.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
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Rippling Points
Chapters
- 3.30 - writing parts of ourselves that are distinct
- 7.35 - SBoC taking off
- 10.05 - identifying vulnerabilities
- 12.15 -all consuming spells of writing
- 16.45 - finding balance
- 20.15 - inspired by a younger self
- 24.40 - The Chilli Bean Paste Clan
- 27.35 - food in Yan ges work
- 31.35 - Yan’s parents
- 35.02 - Another Liam!
Reference Points
Nicky Harman
Jeremy Tiang
”If I enter a project knowing what I’m going to do, confidently, I wouldn’t do it.”
It’s Women in Translation Month!
Yan Ge is here to discuss her life and writing. She was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province People’s Republic of China. Emerging as a prodigious writer in Chinese and Sichuanese, she was named as one of China’s twenty future literary masters by People Magazine. In 2012, she was chosen as Best New Writer by the Prestigious Chinese Literature Media Prize. For English language readers, Nicky Harman first translated her novella, White Horse, for Hope Road publishing in 2014, a story about young girls negotiating adolescence in the presence of a mysterious white horse. Then, four years later, Nicky translated The Chilli Bean Paste Clan in 2018, published by Balestier. Elsewhere arrived in 2023 (Faber), and Yan Ge treated us to a new dimension of her work entirely: short fiction and, for the first time, written in English.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Reference Points
George Saunders
Rippling Points
Chapters
02.30 - connected by Leeds
4.20 - Drifting from the Chinese language
5.45 - Writing elsewhere in English
09.20 - Transforming the process
10:50 - A new relationship with language
14:05 - Linguistic and cultural experiences of the characters
16:47- Happiness
19:24 - Contentment and striving
21:00 - Rippling Pages Bookshop
23:41 - Making writing hard and easy
28:26 - Having belief
“She starts having an experience to see her own life as a more shifting sands that isn’t to be fear but in fact to be enjoyed.”
Kimberly Campanello is here to talk about her novel, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE (Somesuch Editions). It’s a sweltering summer in Bretagne, France. K, an American exchange student, is navigating more than just unfamiliar streets. She’s finding a new language. This is bonus content from the previous episode.
In this bonus content, I’ve asked Kimberly to provide me with some objects that Kimberly associated with writing the book, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE. It’s an interesting and new way to think about influence, and a way to understand both the book and the writer a bit more.
We talk about a flag, a musician, Alan Stivell, and something called a ‘Fest Noz’, all of them relating to the culture of Brittany where the novel is set.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
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Rippling Points
1.54 - Proust and Memory
04.01 - Objects of influence
06.21 - Fest Noz
07.01 - Alan Stivell
08.29 - The Brittany Flag, the Blanche Ermine
Reference Point
Jonathan Culler
Arthur Rimbaud
“How do you sound like you know what you’re doing when you don’t have the words”
Kimberly Campanello is here to talk about her novel, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE (Somesuch Editions). It’s a sweltering summer in Bretagne, France. K, an American exchange student, is navigating more than just unfamiliar streets. She’s finding a new language.
Kimberly’s work moves between forms, genres, and histories. She’s the author of MOTHERBABYHOME (zimZALLA), a harrowing and formally innovative response to Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes, is held in the national poetry special collections across the U.K and Ireland. Her poetry has appeared in publications like Granta, The White Review, and The Poetry Review, and essays in Tolka. And, this year, her poetry collection, AN INTERESTING DETAIL was released by Bloomsbury.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
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Rippling Points
01:30 - Motherbabyhome
02:07 - From motherbabyhome to Use the words you have
05:38 - What is the novel about
08:02 - Sounding like you know what you’re doing when you don’t
09:51 - Differences poetry and the novel
11:46 - Who is K
14:16 - Belief and reading
15:58 - Making sense through Rimbaud
16:28 - Life in the Midwest
20:03 - Rippling Pages Bookshop
21:05 - K in Paris
22:16 - K’s notebook
25:37 - Wonky translations
29:19 - Kimberly’s notebooks.
Reference Points
Hart Crane
Dante
Marguerite Duras
Annie Ernaux
Tony Harrison
Marcel Proust
Arthur Rimbaud
Nathalie Sarraute
Bruce Omar Yates review https://thelondonmagazine.org/review-use-the-words-you-have-by-kimberly-campanello/
“I found myself writing an apology letter…and I didn’t know what I was apologising for.”
In Uttama Kirit Patel’s novel, The Shape of an Apostrophe (Serpent’s Tail), Lina is pregnant, and she’s finding that this seemingly salubrious society is not congenial and accommodating to the difficult challenges of an unplanned pregnancy.
Uttama, born to Gujarati parents who then since found their way to the United Arab Emirates via Kampala, Surat, Pondicherry and Colchester. Her short fiction was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for emerging writers.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
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Reference Points
Helen Phillips - The Need
Rippling Points
.30 - Uttama's life living around the world.
2.47 - An unexpected pregnancy
3.45 - Limited reproductive rights and setting the novel in Dubai
5.47 - writing a novel about someone who doesn't want children
6.30 - Uttama writing an apology letter to herself
7.59 - On desire
11.17 - Lina's relationship with her parents
12.57 - Does Lina have a support network?
14.03 - Lina's husband and her mother-in-law
16.44 - Is Lina's mother-in-law a feminist?
22.27 - Uttama's interest in sea-life.
24.10 - Lina's feeling of loss
26.41 - Lines, traces and artistry of Lina in the novel.
32.45 - Uttama's writing journey
“When I set out to plan the business, I wrote ten words - the world I always kept coming to was community.”
The Rippling Pages is all about curating the best writers to inspire you and your writing - today, we’re speaking to another curator. Eden Barnes is the owner of Next Chapter Books, an indie women-focussed bookshop in Leeds, and I had a quick chat with her in store.
There’s lots going on this week in Leeds. Leeds Lit Fest is starting, and it’s Indie Bookshop Week. Here someone who is at the centre of it.
Eden tells us:
The personal journey to opening a bookshop in Leeds
Why she focusses women’s writing
Balancing commercial and personal interests
Creating a safe space and sense of community for readers
What she’s got planned for next week and the rest of the year.
Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Check out Next Chapter Books website: https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/
Tickets for Leeds Lit Fest Events: https://www.leedslitfest.co.uk/
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
"It is also difficult to imbue the people and the movements of the past with the complexities we offer ourselves."
If you were to meet a time traveller from the future, what would you ask them? This is the question Roisin Dunnett asks in her novel, A LINE YOU HAVE TRACED (Magpie Books/Oneworld Publications). Spanning over three centuries, three women are connected by forces they, at first, don’t understand. From post-WWI Britain, to East End London’s modern queer scene, to a portentous dystopian future, Roisin’s novel is coded with messages between the past, present and future. It's published by Magpie Books, an imprint of Oneworld.
You can buy A LINE YOU HAVE TRACED from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon
https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Rippling Points
2.01 - the past, present and future.
3.55 - is there a past event that influenced this novel?
6.45 - Narratives of women
10.16 - which character did Roisin write first?
11.33 - Why do characters feel out of time
13.02 - Visions and dreams in Roisin's novel
19.24 - what would we do if we could actually see the future?
24.30 - The marshes in Roisin's novel.
29.24 - Does your dad pick up litter?
30.59 - Roisin's writing journey
Reference Points
Charles Dickens
“They got fired for that!”
Katharina Volckmer is here to discuss her second novel, Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes (Indigo Press) and it was live at the Hyde Park Book Club! Thank you to the Hyde Park Book Club for hosting us and Next Chapter Books for supporting the event. This is the second part of our conversation.
Katharina’s first novel, THE APPOINTMENT, was translated into over fifteen languages, it was adapted for the stage starring Camille Cottin and was nominated for several prizes. Katharina is in ribald mode in this funny, outlandish, and yet, very melancholic novel about a man called Jimmie who works in a call centre. Jimmie helps holiday makers. He placates their fears about sharks in the waters of Mykonos, Greece, among many other strange and wonderful challenges. He also manages a complicated relationship with his mother and has a traumatic memory of an electric carving knife that threatens to burst to the surface. The Irish writer, Colm Tóibín, said the book is ‘filled with brilliant dialogue, unexpected turns, some very dirty talk with sudden bursts of hilarity, and then fierce sadness.’
A special treat here - Leeds based poet Kirsty Went gave a reading for, some of her work to open the event. We’ve re-recorded for the purposes of the podcast.
You can buy CALLS MAY BE RECORDED FOR TRAINING AND MONITORING PURPOSES from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Where to find Next Chapter Books: https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/
Rippling Points
1.35 - writing about mothers and fathers
5.03 - clowns
9.45 - on jokes and fantasies
11.23 - Kirsty Went reading
14.19 - questions from the audience - where does the relentless comic vulgarity come from?
20.10 - question from the audience - does this book fit into the wonderfully weird fiction category? Can we have more daring takes in fiction?
23.35- question from the audience - did Katharina know the book would end in this subversive way?
Reference points
Thomas Bernhard
Katharina Volckmer is here to discuss her second novel, Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes (Indigo Press) and it was live at the Hyde Park Book Club! Thank you to the Hyde Park Book Club for hosting us and Next Chapter Books for supporting the event.
Katharina’s first novel, THE APPOINTMENT, was translated into over fifteen languages, it was adapted for the stage starring Camille Cottin and was nominated for several prizes. Katharina is in ribald mode in this funny, outlandish, and yet, very melancholic novel about a man called Jimmie who works in a call centre. Jimmie helps holiday makers. He placates their fears about sharks in the waters of Mykonos, Greece, among many other strange and wonderful challenges. He also manages a complicated relationship with his mother and has a traumatic memory of an electric carving knife that threatens to burst to the surface. The Irish writer, Colm Tóibín, said the book is ‘filled with brilliant dialogue, unexpected turns, some very dirty talk with sudden bursts of hilarity, and then fierce sadness.’
You can buy CALLS MAY BE RECORDED FOR TRAINING AND MONITORING PURPOSES from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Where to find Next Chapter Books: https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/
Rippling Points
05.07 - Katharina's tour of Leeds.
05.49 - What's Katharina's novel about?
08.11 - Jimmie's need for the toilet in the opening scenes!
10.28 - A reading from the novel.
14.07 - Life in a call centre.
16.42 - Experience of moving abroad
19.03 - Why people overshare
20.33 - Differences between this novel and Katharina's previous novel
24.14 - Intimacy and speaking to strangers
26.14 - The other side of anonymity
28.25 - Kafka
Reference Points
Franz Kafka
The Appointment - Katharina Volckmer
Welcome to the first edition of Rippling Pages: Ask the Host!
Over the years, I’ve been asking the questions, but it’s about time I answered some too.
So, that’s what I’ve done: I’ve picked out some questions from the Rippling Pages inbox, and answered them!
In this episode, I answer:
- Where am I from?
- Why did I start the podcast?
- Who would I like to interview?
- What books have I enjoyed recently?
- Would I rather speak every language or to every animal?!
Got a question yourself? Why not leave a review and a question and I might pick out one for a future show!
Tickets to Katharina Volckmer in conversation!
https://www.seetickets.com/event/katharina-volckmer-in-conversation/hyde-park-book-club/3381984
Don’t forget there’s a Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Lots of books and writer’s mentioned in this one
Reference Points:
Alice Chadwick - Dark Like Under (Daunt Books)
Anton Chekhov
Vincent Delacroix - Small Boat (Hope Road Publishing) - translated Helen Stevenson
Gurnaik Johal - Saraswati (Serpent’s Tail)
Vincenzo Latronico
Tiago Miller
Iris Mwanza
Oluwaseun Olayiwola - Strange Beach (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Pola Oloixarac
Mercè Rodereda
Montserrat Roig - The Song of Youth (Fum d’Estampa)
Montserrat Roig - Goodbye Ramona (Fum d’Estampa)
Montserrat Roig - The Time of the Cherries (Daunt Books)
Anthony Shapland - A Room Above a Shop (Granta Books)
Olga Tokarczuk
Virginia Woolf
"She finds herself in London working in a theatre having to touch people!"
Elaine Garvey, to discuss her novel, THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT, published by Canongate Books. It’s 2002. Mairéad Sweeney has moved from rural Ireland to work in London’s West End. While the prestige of working in theatre doesn’t exactly wear off, the long hours and spoiled actors make Mairéad’s transition from Ireland more difficult than it should be. Things get even more difficult when Mairéad has to return home for her grandmother’s funeral. It’s here she begins to reconcile with the life, people and values she left behind. This is Elaine’s first book. She has been published in the Dublin Review and the Winter Papers, and has been awarded funding schemes by the Irish Department of Arts for her writing.
Tickets to Katharina Volckmer in conversation!
https://www.seetickets.com/event/katharina-volckmer-in-conversation/hyde-park-book-club/3381984
You can buy THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Rippling Points
1.31 - Why the year 2002?
4.32 - books about women walking.
5.39 - who is Mairéad and why is she in London
7.39 - what is the wardrobe department
9.40 - shadowing the costume department!
12.10 - differences between London and Mairéad's home in Ireland.
13.34 - Mairéad's family.
14:40 - Mairéad's boss.
18.15 - Similarities to the Milkman
- 16 - when is Mairéad's moment of realisation
23.48 - Choosing your words and religion.
27.29 - Is how Mairéad feels about Ireland different to Elaine?
29.15 - how the novel emerged from a short story.
Reference Points
Anna Burns - Milkman
Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre
Seamus Heaney - Sweeney Astray
Hilary Mantel - The Mirror and The Light
Herta Müller - The Land of Green Plums
Rozsika Parker - The Subversive Stich
Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway
“It’s my mum’s favourite book that I wrote!”
Benjamin Markovits is here to talk about his new and twelfth novel, THE REST OF OUR LIVES, published by Faber and Faber. Tom Layward has made a pact with himself. After his daughter moves out of college, he’s moving out too. His wife had an affair, and he feels like he owes himself a road trip across America. He takes in the sights, sounds and basketball games of the American heartland and beyond. But he’s deferring some health issues and it seems like it’s only a matter of time before his body asks him to stop and slow down, some of which was inspired by Ben’s own experiences.
Ben’s novel, You Don’t Have to Live Like This, won the James Tait Black Prize for fiction. He was a Granta Best of Young British Novelists. His writing has featured prolifically in mainstream publications.
We discuss:
- Are families about power dynamics? Hear about Ben and I reflecting on our family life
- Is Steph Curry Benjamin’s new obsession instead of Michael Jordan?
- Why is Syme, Ben’s first novel, his mum’s favourite novel?
Tickets to Katharina Volckmer in conversation!
https://www.seetickets.com/event/katharina-volckmer-in-conversation/hyde-park-book-club/3381984
You can buy THE REST OF OUR LIVES from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
‘The people I like to write about are what I would describe as moderately successful failures.’
Benjamin Markovits is here to talk about his new and twelfth novel, THE REST OF OUR LIVES, published by Faber and Faber.
Tom Layward has made a pact with himself. After his daughter moves out of college, he’s moving out too. His wife had an affair, and he feels like he owes himself a road trip across America. He takes in the sights, sounds and basketball games of the American heartland and beyond. But he’s deferring some health issues and it seems like it’s only a matter of time before his body asks him to stop and slow down, some of which was inspired by Ben’s own experiences.
Ben’s novel, You Don’t Have to Live Like This, won the James Tait Black Prize for fiction. He was a Granta Best of Young British Novelists. His writing has featured prolifically in mainstream publications.
Tickets to Katharina Volckmer in conversation!
https://www.seetickets.com/event/katharina-volckmer-in-conversation/hyde-park-book-club/3381984
You can buy THE REST OF OUR LIVES from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Rippling Points
2.42 - Why Tom goes on a roadtrip
4.12 - Feelings of failure and sport
7.10 - Constructing the narrator
9.00 - Tom’s difference to other narrators of Ben’s
11.30 - Pick-up basketball
15.15 - East Coast privilege
16.00 - The NBA - basketball and race
21.20 - Katharina Volckmer in conversation
22.45 - Tom’s relationship with his children
23.57 - Tom and Ben’s illness
26.58 - Matters of life and death
28.10 - Doctors and writers
29.45 - Ben’s next steps
Reference Points
Philip Roth
John Updike
Ben’s novels
The Syme Papers
Playing Days
You Don’t Have to Live Like This
The Sidekick
"Taylor Swift is somebody who has managed to keep reinventing herself to stay relevant."
Welcome to Rippling Points, more content and more insights and inspiration into the craft of literature:
Marni Appleton is here to talk about her short story collection, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, published by Indigo Press. We discuss:
-
How Taylor Swift's ability to reinvent herself and stay relevant differs to that of the characters
-
Ideas of productivity and how they shouldn't reflect your value in the world
The modern world Marni presents to us in her stories is one that feels incredibly liberating, but then hinged by archaic attitudes from the past all at the same time. Women go viral on social media for seemingly innocent reasons; open and polyamorous relationships that suddenly feel shut; roles in theatre feel too close to real life. Marni holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. Her writing has been published in Banshee, The Tangerine, Contemporary Women’s Writing. This is her first collection.
You can buy I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
"It builds to women and girls choosing to hide their mouths because of the effect of this trend...things just morph and take on different meanings as they're shared in different contexts"
Marni Appleton is here to talk about her collection of short stories, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, published by The Indigo Press.
The modern world Marni presents to us in her stories is one that feels incredibly liberating, but then hinged by archaic attitudes from the past all at the same time. Women go viral on social media for seemingly innocent reasons; open and polyamorous relationships that suddenly feel shut; roles in theatre feel too close to real life. Marni holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. Her writing has been published in Banshee, The Tangerine, Contemporary Women’s Writing. This is her first collection.
You can buy I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Rippling points
2.00 - The women that inspired the stories
4.08 - Giving the characters control or not
5.41 - Moments in the Spotlight
8.26 - Marni’s bold story titles
10.47 - Public and private selves
13.17 - Social media and the writer
14.15 - Theatre in Marni’s stories
18.10 - The different lives characters have
20.15 - How Marni writes about men
23.10 - The significance of mirrors
25.30 - Safe spaces
27.07 - Different registers and discourses
29.16 - Marni's journey to getting the book published.
Reference Points
Melissa Febos
Taylor Swift
"Being published in English is a big milestone..."
Vincenzo Latronico is here to talk about his first novel translated into English - PERFECTION, published by Fitzcarraldo editions and translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes.
Welcome to Rippling Points, more content insights and inspiration into the craft of literature:
-
How and why he set his novel in Berlin, or why locations don't become so important for the novel
-
The global market of translation and the pleasure of being translated into English
Vincenzo is one of the most distinguished novelists writing in Italian today. He has also translated many books into Italian, by authors such as George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hanif Kureishi.
In PERFECTION, there’s something missing from Anna and Tom’s life, and they can’t quite put their finger on what it is that is missing. It drives them to impatience and to the point of leaving their apartment in Berlin. But is it merely an itch they cannot scratch, or does it relate to a deeper lack of authenticity that strikes their core?
You can buy PERFECTION from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops as all sales are from indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Reference Points
Elena Ferrante
Minae Mizumura - The Fall of Language in the Age of English
“Love is a dangerous topic.”
Vincenzo Latronico is here to talk about his first novel translated into English - PERFECTION, published by Fitzcarraldo editions and translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes.
Vincenzo is one of the most distinguished novelists writing in Italian today. He has also translated many books into Italian, by authors such as George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hanif Kureishi.
In PERFECTION, there’s something missing from Anna and Tom’s life, and they can’t quite put their finger on what it is that is missing. It drives them to impatience and to the point of leaving their apartment in Berlin. But is it merely an itch they cannot scratch, or does it relate to a deeper lack of authenticity that strikes their core?
You can buy PERFECTION from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Rippling Points
2.18 - Desirability and Familiarity
4.27 - Driving the characters to dissatisfaction
7.05 - Does Vincenzo want us to ‘care’ about the characters?
10.20 - Any city or Berlin
12.50 - The loss of authenticity
16.20 - Are Anna and Tom in love?
21.30 - Is there another side to Berlin?
23.45 - The migrant crisis and activism
29.15 - On being translated into English
Reference Points
Hand Magnus Enzensberger
Michel Houellebecq
George Perec
“They had one objective - to get rid of certain men”
Welcome to the first edition of Rippling Points - bonus content from last month’s episode!
A little bit more insight and a little bit more inspiration into the craft of writing!
Here, you can hear Pola talking about her delve into the archives to learn more about Argentina in 1970s.
You’ll then hear Pola talking about her next project, Bad Hombre - which features real life accounts collected from Pola of women who were wanting to ‘ruin men’s lives’.
Pola Oloixarac, one of the most exciting voices in world literature today, was here to talk about her two novels that have been translated into English. Most recently SAVAGE THEORIES and then MONA (translated by Roy Kesey and Adam Morris). Both are published by Serpent’s Tail. She was named by Granta as one of the Best Young Spanish novelists as well as this and has written for a wide range of publications and is an Eccles Centre Fellow
SAVAGE THEORIES is a metaphysical, intertextual journey set in 1970s Buenos Aires. Rosa Ostreech struggles with her thesis on violence and culture and sleeps with a bourgeois former guerrilla while trying to kidnap her elderly professor. MONA is a satirical novel set within a global literary prize-giving event. It’s about the fetishisation of characteristics and the global market place of writers.
Buy Savage Theories here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/savage-theories-pola-oloixarac/2102898?aid=15004&ean=9781800818187
Buy Mona Here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/mona-pola-oloixarac/6331115?aid=15004&ean=9781788169899
“I think it’s much more interesting to explore women through their powers.”
Pola Oloixarac, one of the most exciting voices in world literature today, is here to talk about her two novels that have been translated into English. Most recently SAVAGE THEORIES and then MONA (translated by Roy Kesey). Both are published by Serpent’s Tail. She was named by Granta as one of the Best Young Spanish novelists as well as this and has written for a wide range of publications and an Eccles Centre Fellow
SAVAGE THEORIES is a metaphysical, intertextual journey set in 1970s Buenos Aires. Rosa Ostreech struggles with her thesis on violence and culture and sleeps with a bourgeois former guerrilla while trying to kidnap her elderly professor. MONA is a satirical novel set within a global literary prize-giving event. It’s about the fetishisation of characteristics and the global market place of writers.
Buy Savage Theories here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/savage-theories-pola-oloixarac/2102898?aid=15004&ean=9781800818187
Buy Mona Here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/mona-pola-oloixarac/6331115?aid=15004&ean=9781788169899
There’s also a festive treat for you in this episode. In the break, hear a reading from A POEM FOR EVERYDAY OF CHRISTMAS edited by Allie Esiri (MacMillan). I read Lemn Sissay’s ‘Let There Be Peace’.
Buy it here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-poem-for-every-day-of-christmas-allie-esiri/7738901?aid=15004&ean=9781035068388&
Reference Points
Thomas Bernhard
Robert Bolano
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Dark Constellations - Soho Press
"I think it's a story few people have told before. And it's really about, what does a defender of human rights look like?"
Iris Mwanza is here to talk about her novel, THE LION'S DEN (Canongate Books). Iris's novel is about a human rights lawyer, Grace Zulu, whose client Willbess ‘Bessy’ Mulenga, has been arrested for offences ‘against nature. It launches Grace, and Iris, into the underbelly of the legal system.
Iris is deputy director of the Gender Equality Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she leads strategy and investment for the Women in Leadership portfolio, and she has previously worked as a corporate lawyer in both Zambia and the US.
Rippling Points
01.35 - Recording on the morning of the American election
02.41 - Who are the main characters
05.45 - Public institutions, the global south and colonialism
08.59 - When Iris saw the system for what it was
11.17 - ‘True believers’ who inspired this novel
13.41 - Why Grace is the way she is
16.09 - Grace's clashes write father Sebastian
21.27 - Guilt
26.10 - The tragedy of Bessy’s case
28.01 - Challenges promoting the book in Zambia
30.23 - Writing the court room
Click here for links to all Rippling Pages socials
“The book is me trying to have a conversation with my father and reach a middle ground.”
Friða Ísberg is here to talk about THE MARK (Faber and Faber) translated by Larissa Kyzer. The book centres on a referendum in Iceland about whether mandatory tests should be imposed on its citizens. Friða talks about writing over the divide, arguments with her father, and Icelandic literary culture and how they have all shaped the book.
Rippling Points
02:05 - what is the mark?
04:12 - where are the divides?
06:30 - working in London while Brexit happened
08:07 - Frida's relationship with her dad and how it informed The Mark
11.15 - feeding emotion into a novel
13:46 - is it easier to write characters we agree with?
18:31 - Icelandic meaning of The Mark and how it relates to divides.
21:25 - why an empathy test?
25.51 - who is profiting from the mark?
28:30 - is one in ten a published writer in Iceland?
31:22 - do writers have a public duty?
Reference Points
Writers
Fernanda Melchor
Jacqueline Rose
George Saunders
Ali Smith
Films
There's Something About Mary (1998, dir: Peter and Bobby Farrelly)
“Some people have been, oh these women are so grotesque. I don’t think they are! They’re quite relatable.”
Naomi Wood joins me to discuss THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS (Published by Orion)
It’s a collection that features the BBC Short Story Prize winner, Comorbidities. We talk about different kinds of intimacy in the stories, and how or why Naomi often writes about mothers in the . Naomi also talks about the craft and how she clashed registers to dazzling effect.
Naomi Wood is the bestselling author of The Godless Boys, Mrs. Hemingway and The Hiding Game. As a novelist, her books have won a Jerwood Award, the British Library Hay Festival Prize, and been shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Historical Writers Golden Crown. Mrs. Hemingway was a Richard and Judy Bookclub pick in 2014 and a Chanel Bookclub pick in 2023.
for details about Naomi’s short fiction course, visit www.naomiwood.com
Rippling Points
1.45- comorbidities and winning the bbc short story prize award
5.34 - pie charts’
8.17 - on writing about mothers
10.29 - transgressive actions in characters
12.07 - complicated or bad?
15.48 - what’s a register clash?
18.54 - are they healing?
23,20 - influence of the pandemic and previous novels
27.30 - what do we do with old me?
29.04 - what’s next for Naomi?
Reference Points
Rachel Cusk
Yan Ge
Ernest Hemingway
Elizabeth Morris’ Crib Notes: https://cribnotesbookclub.substack.com
"I think their experience in the bookstore is trying to think literary inheritance and spiritual and intellectual experience."
Sam sax is here to discuss YR DEAD, their debut novel about Ezra, a queer, non-binary 27-year-old of Jewish heritage, whose life we see in fragments and flashbacks when they self-immolate outside trump tower.
We talk about qualities of wandering, the multiplicities of Jewish identities, and what second hand bookstores can tell us about legacies and life.
Sam's PIG was named one of the best books of 2023 by New York Magazine and Electric Lit. They're also the author of Madness, winner of The National Poetry Series and ‘Bury It’ winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets
YR DEAD is published by McSweeney's in the US and Daunt Books in the UK
Reference Points
01.30 - who is Ezra
02.20 - is Ezra a flaneur?
04.53 - why the novel is set on this day
06.28 - the multiplicity of Jewish identity
09.40 - how death or organises or doesn’t organise the novel
15:00 different desires
19:20 - Ezra’s mother and her absence
24.25 - second hand bookshops and legacies
29.00 - the hopeful message of Sam’s novel
Reference Points
Hervé Guibert
Andrea Lawlor
Virginia Woolf
"I'd done a lot of clay-making...you can spend a lifetime and only get good at one technique!"
Jennifer Lucy Allan joins me to talk about her second book, CLAY: A HUMAN HISTORY (White Rabbit Books). After Jennifer's exploration and writing about sound in The Foghorn's Lament (White Rabbit Books), Jennifer has, quite literally, turned her hand to a more physical and enduring substance in clay. From Japanese Tea Ceremonies, to humans making their own image, to life on Mars, clay is seemingly everywhere. Jennifer is also a presenter on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction.
Rippling Points
1.20 - How Jennifer’s early experience with clay led to her enchantment of it and then writing this boundless history
6.04 - How the book on clay differs to Jennifer’s previous book on foghorns
10.30 - Ephemerality of sound and permanence of clay - the writing challenges.
13.40 - Clay: its history compared with human history
15:15 - Who is Marija Gimbutas, and why is she important
21:15 - Language and touch
24.40 - Climate change and how it's revealing more about clay
28.00 - How clay becomes an object
Reference Points
Marija Gimbutas.
Ladi Kwali
Maria Martinez
"This book is begging to be written...It has this a frontier-ness to it..."
Bruce Omar Yates is here to discuss his upcoming novel published by Dead Ink Books, THE MUSLIM COWBOY .
In a contemporary and entertaining novel set in aftermath of the Iraq war, a man who is obsessed with old Western movies dresses in double denim and roams a lawless landscape in search of his own Western story.
Rippling Points
1.32 - Bruce's family and how these fed into ideas about a 'muslim cowboy'
4.30 - Nameless and speechless: playing with the archetype of the cowboy
6.20 - Song writing in Nashville to writing this novel
8.40 - Iraq as the setting for the novel
12.00 - Removing binaries around what is good and not good
17.33 - A camel and child - the other characters
20.53 - The novel as a sandbox
25.30 - The act of making his characters watch westerns
Reference Points
Aladdin (1992. Dir: John Musker and Ron Clements)
David Foster Wallace
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
Lucky Luke - Goscinny
Once Upon a Time in the West (1969. Dir: Sergio Leone)
The Road - Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Shane (1953. Dir: George Stevens)
True Grit (1969. Dir: Henry Hathaway)
Zadie Smith
"The smotheringly neutral voice"
Claire Carroll is here to talk about her new and debut collection of short stories THE UNRELIABLE NATURE WRITER. A truly candid insight into the workings of craft and being a writer from one of the most exciting and upcoming fiction writers today.
THE UNRELIABLE NATURE WRITER is published by Scratch Books - more here
Rippling Points
2.00 - Claire's dreams and reading.
4.55 - The different personal and impersonal voices in Claire's work
10:37 - Being a writer and knowing or not knowing answers
13:12 - Unreliable narrators and what they mean to Claire
18:00 - How and why Claire writes about animals.
24:30 - The challenge of having 'authority' on the climate crisis
28.40 - Giving the stories a sense of wonder
30:00 - Claire's book tour!
Reference Points
Franz Kafka
Cormac McCarthy - The Road
Ben Pester
Saba Sams
Samantha Walton - The Nature Cure
"The garden is a co-author"
Marchelle Farrell is here to talk about her essay in a new anthology from Daunt Books, BY THE RIVER: ESSAYS FROM THE WATER'S EDGE. I've wanted to talk to Marchelle since the publication of UPROOTING: FROM THE CARIBBEAN TO THE COUNTRYSIDE - Canongate Books), so it was great to have her here when she's part of an anthology featuring the likes of Caleb Azumah Nelson and Tessa Hadley.
Marchelle, a consultant psychiatrist as well as a writer, often blends personal history with reflections on how colonial history has shaped the world and behaviour
Rippling Points
1.25 - The rivers that Marchelle writers about in her essay, 'Memory River
4.06 - the noise of the river and how it infiltrated Marchelle's dreams
7.08 - A sense of renewal and writing about childhood
9.00 - The pain and joy in revisiting childhood
12.34 - Marchelle's belief on balancing both pain and joy in life.
15.04 - The story of Marchelle's family and forgotten stories
18.23 - Can anything ever be permanently erased?
20.22 - Leaving space for the reader to make interpretations.
22.13 - The river and its links to colonial history.
25.22 - How the 'English' garden isn't so English.
28.20 - What is play and why is it important
Reference Points
Jo Hamya
Amy Key
Donald Winnicott
"I wanted to be talking choice in a way that was routed in a social context, and that was true to the particularity and intimacy that I shared with my mum at the end of her life."
Marianne Brooker is here to talk about her Women's Prize for Non-Fiction shortlisted essay, INTERVALS, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Marianne talks about her life and living with her mother who was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. The book is a blend of memoir, philosophy, literary criticism, and politics.
It's a tough but incredibly beautiful read.
Rippling Points
2.05 - When Marianne decided this story about her mother was going to be a book
3.40 - 'Trying, circling, avoiding' - setting down to write a book like this
4.30 - How Marianne would categorises this book
7:00 - On planning or not planning the book
8:44 - When Marianne's mother developed primary progressive multiple sclerosis
10:20 - Finding a voice and coming up with a 'vocabulary'
12:20 - The 'forces' in the book and Marianne's mother
16:10 - Marianne's relationship with her mother.
20:00 - What primary progressive multiple sclerosis is.
22:20 - Marianne on 'choice'
25:21 - When Marianne found a video of her mother.
Reference Points
Writers
Roland Barthes
Annie Ernaux
Clarissa Pinkola Estés - Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Saidiya Hartman
Alice Hattrick
Sophie Lewis
Sam Mills
Margery Williams - The Velveteen Rabbit
Filmmakers
Chantal Akerman
"That whole question of the invisible life...that there's something going on we cannot see that determines our health and the future of the planet."
Dawn Garisch, one of South Africa's most pre-eminent writers, joins the Rippling Pages to talk about Breaking Milk, published in the UK by Heloise Press. Shortlisted for the prestigious Sunday Times South Africa/CNA Literary Awards '21, it finally lands on our shores.
Dawn is also a doctor and a CEO of the Life Righting Collective, a non-profit organisation aiming to provide creative practice as a low-cost resource for humane, responsible and compassionate attitude in institutions and society as a whole.
Find out more here: https://liferighting.com/
Rippling Points
1.40 - Who the narrator (Kate) of this novel is, and why Dawn chose to write about her at this point in the narrator's life.
7.00 - Why Dawn spent some time making cheese for the book
8.40 - what separates us from our parents and other people
11.43 - Kate's former job as a geneticist
14.26 - The voice of the inner critic
17.54 - The benefits of the life writing collective
21.00 - Kate's husband, the other writer in the book.
27.30 - Dawn's work as a doctor.
Reference Points
Christa Wolf - Accident: A Day's News
J.M. Coetzee Disgrace
Dawn Garisch - Eloquent Body
Bessel Van der Kolk - The Body Knows the Score
Jaakp Panksepp
Donald Winnicott
Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway
Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own.
"Wounds, whilst they open us to the world...they can be points of infection."
Welcome to 2024 and a new episode of the Rippling Pages. Rachel Mann is a poet, scholar, novelist and Anglican priest. She is Rachel Mann is here to talk about her new collection, Eleanor Among the Saints (Carcanet), which takes inspiration from the life of Eleanor 'John' Rykener. A trans woman, seamstress, embroider, and sex worker who lived in medieval England.
More info about the book here
This is Rachel's second collection after Kingdom of Love (also Carcanet - and which I reviewed here!)
The book is a Poetry Book Society recommendation and you kind find tickets to her launch here.
Tickets to the Carcanet launch of the book here: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/events?showpage=913
This show comes with a content warning - we do talk about some sensitive topics, such as domestic violence, so please do take care of yourself when listening.
Rippling Points
5.05 - Poetry and embroidery
8.03 - What Eleanor's story, and Rachel's poetry, tells us about embodiedness
11.45 - Society and Eleanor's story
14.54 - How details about Eleanor's life helped in writing the collection.
18.30 - 'Violence' in craft and the writing process.
21.45 - How themes of violence and the body converge in Rachel's poems.
28.20 - 'Fear' of working with heavy and sensitive topics
Reference Points
Gilles Deleuze
Umberto Eco
"Kathy had a documentary impulse that is teaching us now."
Jo Scott-Coe returns to the Rippling Pages to talk about her latest book, UNHEARD WITNESS: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KATHY LEISSNER WHITMAN (University of Texas Press)
Jo is a previous guest of the podcast, joining us in Series 2 to discuss MASS (Pelekinesis), an account of Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower Shooter.
Listen to that episode here: https://ripplingpages.podbean.com/e/jo-scott-coe-on-mass/
Now she returns to discuss a follow-up to that book, the story of Whitman's wife, Kathy Leissner Whitman.
This show comes with a content warning - we do talk about some sensitive topics, such as domestic violence, so please do take care of yourself when listening.
Rippling Points
- Returning to the story: where the last book left us (2:30)
- How Kathy's letters tell the story: Being with Kathy's 'intimate testimony' to tell her powerful and painful story (19:30)
Reference Points
- Sylvia Plath
- Evan Stark
- Jane Monckton-Smith
If you've enjoyed this episode - why not send a small donation to support with the running costs! Thank you! - https://ko-fi.com/liambishop
"It's not confessional...but it's absolutely full of concrete details of things that I've observed or really happened."
Charlotte Eichler joins the Rippling Pages to discuss her new collection, SWIMMING BETWEEN ISLANDS, published by Carcanet
Tickets to Tom Branfoot launch that I'm hosting here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/boar-book-launch-tickets-733576425837
Rippling Points
- Fruit bats: the mystery of the mystery, and how we write it
- Unnatural world: how even poets find it difficult to connect with nature
Reference Points
Anthony Vahni Capildeo
"There was a lot of solitude quiet and silence, and I believe poetry exists in relation to silence."
Baron Wormser, a former National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim Fellow, is here to talk about his eleventh collection of poetry, THE HISTORY HOTEL, and THE ROAD WASHES OUT IN SPRING , an account of a poet living life off the grid.
Tickets to Tom Branfoot launch that I'm hosting here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/boar-book-launch-tickets-733576425837
Rippling Points
- The rhythm of poetry, the poetry of jobs: how the different rhythms of the jobs Baron undertook in rural Maine influenced his poetry
- A chance of tragedy: Baron's philosophy of tragedy, chance, and, ultimately, life
Reference Points
Charles Taylor - A Secular Age (Harvard University Press)
Baron Wormer - Teach us That Peace (Piscataqua Press)
Baron Wormser - Tom O'Vietnam (New Rivers Press)
Emily Dickinson
Robert Frost
William Shakespeare
Walt Whitman
"it took a lot of courage to keep going and channel that sadness and melancholy into pictures of such joy and exuberance "
Leslie Smolan, widow and creative partner of the photographer Rodney Smith is here to talk about a new book celebrating his life and work.
A LEAP OF FAITH, with essays from Paul Martineau, Rebecca Senf, and Graydon Carter, is also packed full of Rodney's iconic images. It's published by Getty Publications (available here )
Leslie is a founder and director of the Carbone-Smolan agency. She met Rodney in the 90s and worked with him on his most iconic shoots.
There's a whole host of events going on this week to celebrate A Leap of Faith:
David Campany and Paul Martineau will be in conversation at the Fashion Institute of Technology on the 27th September - But your tickets here
The first NYC exhibition of Rodney's work will be held at the Staley Wise Gallery, with a book signing launching the exhibit on the 28th September. More info here.
Enjoyed this episode - why not send a small donation to support with the running costs! Thank you! - https://ko-fi.com/liambishop
Rippling Points
In fashion: how Rodney transcended the genre to create timeless images
Hang on to your hats: Enduring and iconic motifs
Reference Points
Ansel Adams
Wes Anderson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Walker Evans
Federico Fellini
René Magritte
Cary Grant
Alfred Hitchcock
Edward Hopper
Irving Penn
Tom Wolfe
"We live in a world where we increasingly want to control everything...I hope that in fictional spaces, the effort of trying to keep up becomes so much you eventually say, hey, let's go."
Nii Ayikwei Parkes is here to discuss his second novel, Azúcar, published by Peepal Tree Press.
How do we grow in...
Fictional spaces: understanding when we're not in control Real spaces: understanding control and conditioning
Nii is also director of poetry publisher, Flipped Eye publishing. We featured Samatar Elmi and Katherine Lockton back in series one of the Rippling Pages for their new pamphlets. You can listen to those episodes here:
Samatar Elmi: https://ripplingpages.podbean.com/e/samatar-elmi-and-a-portrait-of-colossus/
Katherine Lockton: https://ripplingpages.podbean.com/e/katherine-lockton-on-paper-doll-flipped-eye-anniversary-part-1/
"I hate judging characters - you have to have respect for people's origins."
James Clarke is here to talk about his new novel, Sanderson's Isle, published by Serpent's Tail (buy here)
Enjoyed this episode - why not send a small donation to support with the running costs! Thank you! - https://ko-fi.com/liambishop
Rippling Points
Ebullient characters: stepping into the sixties and using real-life figures as reference points and inspiration
Lost and looking: writing characters that are lost and looking for someone, or maybe anyone.
Reference Points
Francis Bacon Lucia Berlin Patrick deWitt - The Sister's Brothers Jack Kerouac Ian Nairn Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita Terry Southern - The Magic Christian
Event with Charlie Baylis in Leeds - tickets here:
'I wanted to write a queer love story, Blackpool is crying out for literary renditions and I'm obsessed by Ulysses.'
Helen Palmer is here to talk about her Ulysses inspired queer love story, Pleasure Beach which is published by Prototype (more info here!)
Enjoyed today's episode? Leave a tip!: https://ko-fi.com/liambishop
Rippling Points
- Corrie and the Tower: setting a novel in Blackpool.
- Time please: The enduring appeal of a novel set in a day
Reference Points
James Joyce Julia Kristeva Coronation Street
"There is a genuine search for something - much of the time it turns out to be distraction."
Duncan Wiese joins me from Denmark to discuss his new collection of poetry based on Virgil's Eclogues, Tityrus: A Pastoral. Published by Lolli Editions (more info here!), the poems were translated by Max Minden Ribeiro (Pelle Hvenegaard’s Dear Zoe Ukhona and Finn Juhl: Life, Work, World by Christian Bundegaarand) and Sam Riviere (81 Austerities, Kim Kardashian's Marriage)
Rippling Points
Life in the twenties: Tityrus as an emblem of finding your way in life, sitting alongside pop culture.
Driven to distraction: how 'Rome's great poet's' ideas of the pastoral influenced a story of today.
Reference Points
Writers Anne Carson Virgil's Eclogues - You can read on Project Gutenberg for free here:
TV Shows Beverly Hills 90210 Friends That 70's Show.
"I was interested in stories with stories and how the family used folklore to approach conflict"
Soraya Palmer joins me from Brooklyn to discuss her debut novel, recently released in the UK, The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts, published by Serpent's Tail (more info here!).
We speak about hauntings, family narratives, and Anansi the animal trickster!
Rippling Points:
Tales from the Caribbean: myth and folklore re-told in modern day Brooklyn
Life inside the multiverse: seeing different aspects of characters through time.
Reference Points
Writers
Toni Morrison
Film and TV
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Exorcist
Myths and Folklore
Anansi
Ol Higue
Rolling Calf
It's a Catalan Literature in Translation Special!
I'm delighted to welcome Mara Faye Lethem and Tiago Miller to discuss two recently released books from Catalonia
Irene Solà's When I Sing, Mountains Dance has has been re-released in paperback translated by Mara for Granta
Josep Maria Argemí's The Angel of Santa Sofia has been newly released and translated by Tiago for Fum d'Estampa
Rippling Points:
Good and Evil: how the boundaries between what's right and wrong are blurred and might reflect debates about Catalonian history
The Catalan Language: Literature and it's role in keeping a language thriving
Reference Points:
Irene Solà's first novel Els dics (The Dams, L'Altra Editorial, 2018)
Jaume Cristòfol Pons Alorda
Jorge Luis Borges
Víctor Català
Jordi Cussa
Josep Palau i Fabre
Maria Mercè Marçal
Mercè Rodoreda
Marià Vayreda
Artists
Caravaggio
Salvador Dali
Mara's Essay in Lithub: https://lithub.com/author/marafayelethem/
"I was fascinated by the idea of what is real and what isn't real what people perceive to be real and not real"
Welcome back to Series 4 of the Rippling Pages. And Seraphina Madsen is here to talk witches, the occult and different realities!
Aurora is Seraphina's second novel and is published by Dodo Ink
Read an extract here
Rippling Points:
- Witchhunts and witchcraft - a cultural phenomenon or do novels about it reveal something more pervasive about our culture?
- Permission to read - knowing no boundaries and enjoying what you read. How Aurora and her friend's quest for new knowledge is something to be embraced
Reference Points:
Dee Brown - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Carlos Castaneda
Joseph Campbell
Dion Fortune
Jack Kerouac - On the Road
Seraphina Madsen - Dodge and Burn
The Book of the Dead
"I don't think poetry should be giving a lesson to anyone"
Caitlin Stobie is here to talk about THIN SLICES, her new collection from Verve Press (Pre-order here )
Caitlin examines culture's need for 'origin' myths, as well as asking what is a language for the pre-lingual?
We recorded this episode in the run-up to Caitlin's appearance at Ilkley Literature Festival - more of which you can find out here: https://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk/whats-on
And find out more about the University of Leeds Poetry Centre here - https://poetry.leeds.ac.uk/
Rippling Points
Who needs origin myths? Lessons re-learned from Eve Leave no trace: what we leave when we leave
Reference Points
Malcolm Gladwell - Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Eileen Myles - Chelsea Girls Donald Winnicott
Both writer and translator of SALT CRYSTALS, Cristina Bendek and Robin Myers, are here to discuss this shape-shifting and history-searching novel. A book about a woman, Victoria, who explores her own and the island she's from, San Andrés's, history.
Find out more about the book here
Rippling Points:
A momentaneous piece or peace? How can we write about the transient, the changing, in a form which preaches endurability and timelessness?
Disease as a symptom: why Cristina chose to write about diabetes
Reference Points:
Geoffrey Hill
"It's a quest to try to collect all of the Picadors..."
Nicholas Royle is here to talk about White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector, and his journey to find Picador books. You can buy the book here
Rippling Points The Second Life of Books: the second-hand bookshop as a home for new, undiscovered and forgotten writers
Got to Catch Them All: Is your favourite bookshop named?
Writers and Books
AJ Ashworth Andrea Ashworth The Lake John Foxx (Nightjar Press) M. John Harrison Anna Kavan - Ice (Picador: 1967) Alberto Manguel (editor) Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature (Picador: 1983) Livi Michael - The Lake (Nightjar Press) Alison Moore Nicholas Royle - First Novel (Vintage: 2013) Nicholas Royle - Counterparts (Penguin: 1995) Nicholas Royle - Ornithology (Confingo: 2017) Nicholas Royle - An English Guide to Bird Watching (Myriad Editions: 2017) Nicholas Royle - Uncanny (Manchester University Press: 2003) Per Wahlöö - The Lorry (Picador: 1972) Conrad Williams
Artists
Paul Delvaux Salvador Dali
"All this wouldn't have happened without that experience of cancer..."
Caroline Clark is here with one of the most tender and moving books due to be released this year: Own Sweet Time.
Caroline's book is about the "hardest thing she's been through physically" and the "hardest things she's found mentally.
Find out more book here:
Rippling Points
- In the moment: how do we translate our most difficult moments?
- By your side: verbatim writing
Reference Points:
Svetlana Alexievich - Chernobyl Prayer Marit Kapla - Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village
Caroline's interview with Rowena MacDonald - https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/sovietica-an-interview-with-caroline-clark/
Caroline's Previous Books Saying Yes in Russian (2012: Agenda Editions) Sovetica (2020: CB Editions)
"As humans, we're really scared of forgetting..."
Welcome back for another episode of the Rippling Pages – I’m delighted to speaking to Sarah Schofield, author of the short story collection, SAFELY GATHERED IN (Comma Press - you can find here)
Rippling Points:
- Safely Gathered In? Containment as a literary, psychological and physical idea
- Shopping lists and short stories: when fiction crosses over with the everyday.
Reference Points:
Elizabeth Baines Roald Dahl
Tania Hershman
Adrian Henri
Mary Shelley William Wordsworth
"Song is very powerful...it's not a truth teller, it's a state-changer."
Richard Price joins today's show to discuss his collection of 'Three Inuit Stories Retold.' Published by Carcanet, the book was a Scotsman Book of the Year in 2021, and Richard joined me to discuss the challenges of retelling these tales.
You can buy the book here: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781800171176
Rippling Points
- Don't read it on Wikipedia: shedding light on expectations of roles
- Travelling by song: the powerful nature of song.
Reference Points
- Ron King, artist
- Small World by Richard Price (2012: Carcanet)
- Quentin Tarantino
"The first thing that came to me? A woman, alone with the sea, and in charge of her own destiny?"
Welcome back to the Rippling Pages and Series Three: Beneath the Surface.
We have Erica Mou and Clarissa Botsford here to discuss Thirsty Sea. Erica is a successful musician with six albums to her name. Her novel is translated by Clarissa and published by exciting new press, Héloïse Press, who are championing world-wide female talent.
You can buy the book here:
https://www.heloisepress.com/book/thirsty-sea
Rippling Points
- Sea change? How Erica sings and writes about the sea
- Translating as a reader: How Clarissa read the book 'like a reader.'
Reference Points
Erica's podcast, Punti di Fuga
'Contro le Onde' by Erica Mou
"It's nice to see my imagination dressed with my words...It's very interesting to see a universe in other words."
What a pleasure have both Emilio Fraia and Zoë Perry to discuss with me the writing and translating of Emilio's novel Sevastopol (Lolli Editions - buy here)
Ripping Points:
- A common tone: how the creation of a certain atmosphere leads to individual variations
- How Sevastopol was translated into English
Reference Points
Péter Esterházy Graham Greene William Kennedy Leo Tolstoy Raymond Williams
Previous interview with Emilio and Zoë in Partisan Hotel
'You can't just have a greatest hits collection, there has to be a flow of ideas.'
Charlie Baylis, poet, critic, and editor joined me to talk about his latest collection, Santa Lucía, published by Invisible Hand Press - available here
Rippling Points:
- Day and Night: structuring around the rhythms of the day
- The conscious art of repeating
Reference Points
Poets John Ashbery Sean Bonney SJ Fowler Selima Hill Luke Kennard Aaron Kent Andrew McMillan Chelsey Minnis Frank O'Hara Sophie Robinson Matthew Welton
Charlie's interview with Andrew McMillan
Charlie's previous collections Hilda Doolittle's Carl Jung t-shirt (erbacce press, 2018) Swimming (Red Ceilings Press, 2019)
Novels Albert Camus - The Stranger (1942)
Artists Damien Hirst Andy Warhol
"It seemed to be a flashpoint moment, it was saying more than we thought it was saying."
Jo Scott-Coe joins me to talk about Charles Whitman, the man known as the 'Texas Tower Sniper'. In this discussion which touches on some challenging subjects, Jo discusses her book and the journey behind the writing of the book MASS: A Sniper, a Father, and a Priest (published by Pelekinesis Press)
Please be advised we recorded this conversation earlier this year and discuss issues of a sensitive nature
Rippling Points:
'Senseless Acts': the troubling terminology of describing acts as 'senseless' Not an isolated incident: building up the picture and story of the crime.
Reference Points
Films
American Sniper (2014: directed by Clint Eastwood) Spotlight (2015: directed by Tom McCarthy
Articles
More was found about Priest Leduc here following the publication of Jo's book:
https://www.pe.com/2019/02/16/priest-named-on-molestation-list-was-texas-snipers-scoutmaster-friend-and-confidant/
'All the way through the book, it should feel like there's going to be some kind of ending which will enable a potential future'
What a pleasure to welcome Jessie Greengrass to talk about the High House! (Buy here). We talk about the climate crisis and writing about the end times.
Rippling Points:
- Is this the end for me, you, all of us? What's it like writing about characters and limited horizons?
- The history of flooding: researching local and national history for lessons about the past and the future.
Reference Points:
Books
- Sight, Jessie's first novel
- An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It, Jessie's collection of short stories
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- Alice Oswald.
- Liable to Flood (1974) - J.R Ravensdale
We also discussed the Eyemouth Fishing Disaster, and the 1953 North Sea Flood which Jessie researched for the novel.
"The thing I learned last year is that the product is sometimes the problem"
Jeff Chon joins me to discuss his novel, Hashtag Good Guy with a Gun, published by the exciting Sagging Meniscus press (buy here)
Please be advised we recorded this conversation earlier this year and discuss issues of a sensitive nature with some instances of strong language
Rippling Pages:
- Good guys and bad guys: a troubling distinction
- What's it like writing about people we really do not like?
Reference Points
Books Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Films Death wish (1974: Michael Winner; 2018 remake starring Bruce Willis and directed by Eli Roth Falling Down (1993: Joel Schumacher) Fight Club (1999: David Fincher) Taxi Driver (1976: Martin Scorsese)
Superheroes Superman
Essays Alex Diggins on Hashtag Good Guy with a Gun for 3:AM Magazine
'The south is a living breathing thing in this book. it's a personality.'
Really excited to have American poet, Khalisa Rae, join me for series two, episode two!
Khalisa is here to talk about Ghost in a Black Girl's Throat, published by Red Hen Press (buy here)
Rippling Points:
- Title collection: the story of a title
- Surrounded by the best: environments of poetic creativity and support
Reference Points
Writers Maya Angelou Dasan Ahanu James Baldwin Gwendolyn Brooks Jericho Brown Camonghne Felix Nikky Finney Siarra Freeman Ada Limón Toni Morrison Alice Walker
Interview between Khalisa and the writer/photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Welcome Back! Series Two: Horizons is here with Polly Barton.
"I wanted to give people tools they could then forget about for the rest of the book."
Polly Barton is here to talk about Fifty Sounds, winner of the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize 2019. (BUY HERE!)
Rippling Points:
- Loving others and loving language: is there one without the other?
- Wittgenstein: even he got it wrong at times
Reference Points:
Books Ray Monk - Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius
Theory John Bowlby's Theory of Attachment
"The sense we don't have to trample on each other, to amplify each other, we can heal and nurture each other."
Jacqueline Bishop is here to talk about her collection of interviews, The Gift of Music and Song: Interviews with Jamaican Women Writers
(Buy here!)
It's a perfect way to conclude the 'Finding Room' series - promoting the voices of some fantastic Jamaican women writers.
Rippling Points:
- Voices of nurturing and healing: Jamaican women writers
- Changing conceptions of society, but preserving these writers
Reference Points
We mention a lot of writers in this episode because the book is about writers. But it does cause us to reflect on some other names too
Monique Roffey - (Monique selected Jacqueline's book as a cultural highlight in the Guardian)
Jane Austen
Jean Rhys
Kamau Braithwaite
George Lamming
Derek Walcott
"I knew from the age of 13, 14, I needed to write poetry, I just didn't fully understand why."
It's part two of our Flipped Eye 20th birthday special, and I'm joined by Samatar Elmi talking about his debut collection, Portrait of Colossus.
Thank you Katherine and Samatar for joining me. Two exciting, upcoming poets.
Buy Portrait of Colossus here.
Rippling Points:
- The power of the poet in different parts of the world: UK and Somalia
- 100 drafts: writing about the ones we love
Reference Points
Poets
Don Paterson Jason Allen-Paisant - subcribe to the PN Review to read his essay in PN Review 257 Thinking with Trees, Allen-Paisant's debut collection, is out in June.
Musicians Bob Dylan.
Follow Liam on Twitter - @liamhbishop Follow the Rippling Pages on Instagram - @rippling_pages
'[Poetry] is the beginning to accepting, the beginning to processing emotion.'
It's a Flipped Eye anniversary special as I'm joined buy two of their poets. First up - Katherine Lockton talking about Paper Doll.
Buy Paper Doll here
Rippling Points:
- Like a Rubix cube: life and poetry
- Notes from a childhood in Bolivia.
Reference Points
T.S Eliot
Follow Liam on Twitter - @liamhbishop Follow the Rippling Pages on Instagram - @rippling_pages
"I was wrestling with what certain states of being feel like as negatives."
Novelist and publisher, Neil Griffiths, joined me to discuss his essay, 'Madness as Such', which is featured in Trauma: Writing About Art and Mental Health (Dodo Ink).
Neil talks candidly about his essay which reflects on his experiences of depression. Indeed, if you are affected by any of the themes discussed in today's episode, I've reserved this episode's Rippling Points for a couple of links to charities.
The Samaritans Mind
Reference Points:
Books:
Neil's Novels: As a God Might Be (Dodo Ink) Saving Caravaggio (Penguin) Betrayal in Naples (Penguin)
Clair-Louise Bennett - Pond Charles Dickens - Bleak House Fyodor Doestoyevsky - Crime and Punishment Mathias Énard - Zone Eimear McBride - A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
Isobel Wohl - Cold New Climate - the inaugural novel of Neil's publishing company, Weatherglass Books
Writers:
Francis Spufford
Essays:
Neil's Review of Francis Spufford's True Stories and Other Essays on Review 31
BUY TRAUMA: WRITING ABOUT ART AND MENTAL HEALTH HERE
Follow Liam on Twitter - @liamhbishop Follow the Rippling Pages on Instagram - @rippling_pages
'Where there is conflict, there is always a path to literature...Freedom is an important topic for me.'
What a pleasure to talk to the Montenegrin writer, Olja Knežević about her trans-generational novel, Catherine the Great and the Small (Istros Books). The novel is translated by Paula Gordon and Ellen Elias-Bursać
Rippling Points:
- Lessons from writing in and about a civil war
- Why don't we write about grandmothers more?
BUY CATHERINE THE GREAT AND THE SMALL HERE
Reference Points
Writers
- Rachel Cusk
- Sheila Heti
- Karl Ove Knausgaard
- Olja's first novel - Milena and Other Social Reforms
Ideal lockdown literary listening.
Follow Liam on Twitter - @liamhbishop Follow the Rippling Pages on Instagram - @rippling_pages
'I want the story the story to be as disorientating for the reader as it is for me...I'm not trying to offer an answer or a safe and complete world...'
The incredibly talented Jen Calleja joins the RP Pod to talk about her short story collection, I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For (Prototype Publishing), and Goblins (Rough Trade Books), a personal exploration of 'goblinery.'
Rippling Points:
- That's all we've got time for: setting 'temporal parameters' for writing a story
- Is it really the way it is? Working with and against lessons learned in youth
Buy I'M AFRAID THAT'S ALL WE'VE GOT TIME FOR here
Buy GOBLINS here
Reference Points
Books and Writers
- Jen Calleja's poetry collection, SERIOUS JUSTICE
- Interview with the writer Megan Nolan
- The Complete Short Stories of Leonora Carrington
Films
- Labyrinth (1986: Jim Henson)
Artists
- Paula Rego
- Rachel Louise Hodgson
Ideal lockdown literary listening.
Follow Liam on Twitter - @liamhbishop Follow the Rippling Pages on Instagram - @rippling_pages
'It felt liberating to find that voice and put it on paper...Some restrictions can be creative.'
Hello! Katharina Volckmer talks about her debut novel, The Appointment (Fitzcarraldo Editions), a TLS 'Book of the Year 2020', and one critics have called 'a darkly funny untangling of national and sexual identity' (The Guardian).
And what a great way to kick off our 'Finding Room' series with a novel set entirely in one room...
Rippling Points
- Can the restrictions of writing in a language which isn't your 'mother tongue' ultimately set you free?
- How a 'silent' character can be a 'loud' presence.
Buy THE APPOINTMENT here
Reference Points
Books and Writers
Thomas Bernhard - The Old Masters
Siri Hustvedt - The Blindfold
Franz Kafka
Ottessa Moshfegh
Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
Articles
Katharina in conversation with RL Goldberg for the Paris Review
Katharina on 'that strange German silence' that persists over the Holocaust for the Guardian
Ideal lockdown literary listening.
Follow Liam on Twitter - @liamhbishop Follow the Rippling Pages on Instagram - @rippling_pages
‘I do believe that we’re all travellers of a fashion. For the poetic process I personally need a sense of freedom in order to write, and I like to feel free.’
These are some Rippling Pages Pilot episodes published in Summer 2020
Katherine Horrex talks about her debut collection of poetry, GROWLERY (Carcanet).
Rippling Points:
- How 'Growlery', a term from another era, can come to represent the space you write in.
- The challenges of writing or not writing about big contemporary topics like Brexit.
Buy GROWLERY here.
Reference Points
Books
Bleak House by Charles Dickens (Penguin Classics)
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
Falling Awake by Alice Oswald (Faber)
Guy Debord and the Situationist Manifesto
The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times and Glorious Times of the Situationist International by McKenzie Wark (Verso Books)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (Vintage Classics)
Essays
Ange Milonko’s essay on Alice Oswald. (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020...)
'I did feel like I wasn't living my own life. I was in the world of Newbury and trees.'
These are some Rippling Pages Pilot episodes published in Summer 2020.
Gaia Holmes talks about her story, '198 Methods of NVDA', which features in Comma Press's Resist Anthology.
Rippling Points:
- Researching the environment to create your story's environment.
- 'Thisness' and how some elements of the story might refuse to be resolved.
Buy RESIST: STORIES OF UPRISING from Comma Press here.
Reference Points
Books
9 Miles by Jim Hindall - http://www.ninemiles.org/
Circles on the Water – Selected Poems of Marge Piercy - https://margepiercy.com/portfolio-ite...
Articles
The Newbury bypass protest of 1996 - in pictures - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...
Did the Newbury bypass tree huggers change anything - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...
How the Greenham Common protests changed lives - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...
198 Methods of Non-Violent Action – Gene Sharp - https://www.brandeis.edu/peace-confli...
Films
Tales of Resistance by Jamie Lowe - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9037272/
‘Things don’t always turn out how you intended them to, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.’
These are some Rippling Pages Pilot episodes published in Summer 2020.
Thomas Chadwick on his short story collection ABOVE THE FAT (Splice).
Rippling Points:
- Using the ‘byproducts’ of our lives and writing in writing
- How a concept like 'haunting' can be a less than spooky idea
Buy ABOVE THE FAT here.
Reference Points
Books
Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by Mark Fisher (2014: Zero Books)