Page One - The Writer's Podcast

Kim Sherwood is an award-winning novelist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her debut novel Testament (2018) won the Harper’s Bazaar Big Book of the Year Award and the Bath Novel Award, was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. In 2019, Kim was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Kim is currently writing a...

Jasper Fforde is the critically acclaimed author of The Last Dragonslayer series: THE LAST DRAGONSLAYER, THE SONG OF THE QUARKBEAST and THE EYE OF ZOLTAR, SHADES OF GREY, the Nursery Crime books: THE BIG OVER EASY and THE FOURTH BEAR and the Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR, LOST IN A GOOD BOOK, THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS, SOMETHING ROTTEN, FIRST AMONG SEQUELS, ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING and THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT. His late...

Eliza Chan is a Scottish-born speculative fiction author. Her short fiction has been published in The Dark, Podcastle, Fantasy Magazine and The Best of British Fantasy. Her debut novel FATHOMFOLK — inspired by mythology, ESEAN cities and diaspora feels — was published by Orbit in Feb 2024 and hit number 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

We had a great chat with Eliza, talking about the differences in writing short- and...

Gareth Brown has been writing novels since he was a teenager. His first published novel - The Book of Doors - will be released in the UK (Bantam) and USA (William Morrow) in February 2024. Foreign language rights for The Book of Doors have also been sold to nearly twenty other territories including Germany. Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Hungary. 

It was great fun speaking with Gareth and hearing abou...

Antony Johnston is one of the most versatile writers of the modern era, with a body of work spanning books, film, graphic novels, videogames, and non-fiction. An award-winning author and New York Times bestseller, his creations include Atomic Blonde, The Dog Sitter Detective, the Brigitte Sharp thrillers, and many more.

We loved chatting with Antony and hearing how he got his start as a professional...

James Logan (also known as James Long) has worked for years in the publishing industry, currently as Senior Commissioning Editor for Orbit. But for years, he harboured a secret - he really wanted to write his own fantasy epics instead of just editing them - and he has achieved that dream with his debut novel, THE SILVERBLOOD PROMISE, which is out in April 2024, and has already received rave reviews, including from the likes of Scot...

This episode is also available as a full video interview on our YouTube channel

Felicity Blunt has been a literary agent with Curtis Brown since 2005, and represents authors that span the literary to commercial spectrum, including Booker Prize shortlisted Claire Keegan, Women's Prize shortlisted Meg Mason, Rosamund Lupton, Renée Knight and Gillian McAllister in addition to NYT bestselling debut authors Abi Daré and Bonnie Garmus...

This episode is also available as a full video episode on our YouTube channel!

A slightly different - but bumper-length - episode this time as we are joined by authors Nick Binge and Dave Goodman for our review of 2023!

Nick is a previous podcast guest and is an internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction, sci-fi, and horror. His novels include Ascension and Professor Everywhere.

Dave is a thriller and SFF no...

Cassandra Khaw is an award-winning game writer, and USA Today bestseller. Khaw's work can be found in places like Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. Khaw's first original novella, Hammers on Bone, was a British Fantasy award and Locus award finalist.

Richard Kadrey is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim supernatural noir series. Sandman Slim was included in Amazon’s “100 Science Fiction...

Gareth Rubin writes about social affairs, travel and the arts for British newspapers. In 2013 he directed a documentary about therapeutic art at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London ('Bedlam'). His books include Liberation Square, set in Soviet-occupied London; The Winter Agent, about British agents in Paris on the eve of D-Day and The Turnglass, two entwined mysteries that take place in Essex in 1881 and Los Angeles in 1939.

Susan Lewis is the internationally bestselling author of fifty books across the genres of family drama, thriller, suspense and crime. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol during the 1960s. Following periods of living in Los Angeles and the South of France, she currently lives in Gloucestershire with her husband, James, and her dog, Mimi. Her...

Ian Moore is a leading stand-up comedian, known for his sharp, entertaining punditry, who regularly headlines at London’s world-famous Comedy Store. A TV/radio regular, he stars in Dave’s satirical TV show Unspun and Channel 5’s topical comedy Big Mouths. Ian lives in rural France and commutes back to the UK every week. However, he has recently moved into the world of novel writing, with Death and Croissants being released to great...

Caimh McDonnell is the internationally bestselling author of the Dublin Trilogy which is set in his hometown. His debut novel A Man with One of Those Faces – a darkly comedic crime thriller – was published in 2016. It went on to spawn the increasingly uncountable Dublin Trilogy (seven and a half books and counting) and the McGarry Stateside series. The books have been ranked #1 in their Amazon categories in the UK, Ireland and the ...

RJ Barker is a critically acclaimed and award-winning author of fantasy fiction. He won the 2020 British Fantasy Society (BFS) Robert Holdstock award for Best Novel for his fourth novel, The Bone Ships. His debut trilogy The Wounded Kingdom (Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins and King of Assassins) was nominated for the David Gemmel Award, the Kitschie Golden Tentacle, The Compton Crook and the ...

Sunyi Dean is a biracial autistic author who was born in Texas, grew up in Hong Kong, and now resides in North England. She writes speculative fiction with a weird slant, and has both too many books and too many children. In her spare time, she can be found hiking, weight lifting, wild-swimming, and dying in jiu-jitsu. She also founded and co-hosts the Publishing Rodeo Podcast with fellow Tor author, Scott Drakeford. Sunyi’s debut ...

Alexander Darwin is an author living near Boston with his wife and three daughters. Outside of writing, he teaches and trains martial arts (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu). He’s inspired by old-school Hong Kong action flicks, jRPGs, underdog stories and bibimbap bowls. Outside of writing fiction, Alexander has written for publications such as Rolling Stone Magazine, Jiu Jitsu Style and SF Signal. His latest piece, The Lost Diary of Anthony Bo...

Mark Edwards writes psychological thrillers about scary things happening to ordinary people. He has sold more than four million copies of his books and topped the bestseller lists numerous times since his first solo novel was published in 2013. His latest book, Keep Her Secret, is out now.

We had a great time chatting with Mark and hearing about his long journey to amazing success, including his moves back and forth between self...

We have a rare returning guest this week as the brilliant Lauren Beukes joins us to tell us what she has been up to since her first appearance on the podcast (check out Episode 44 if you haven't heard that one before!).

She tells us all about her latest book, Bridge, which leads us to a discussion about why multiversal stories have become so big in recent years. Plus, we hear what she thought of The Shining Girls TV show, chat a...