This week I sit down with Christine Rose at her home in London, to find out all about a job that most people aren't aware exists. Christine works behind the scenes in comedy and entertainment, writing jokes for shows including Have I Got News for You and 8 out of 10 Cats ; chat-show monologues for the likes of Graham Norton and Alan Carr; and funny host scripts for awards ceremonies like the BAFTAs and the Brits. Christine won Best TV Comedy Writer at the Funny Women Awards last year, and in thi...
Oct 22, 2021•51 min•Season 4Ep. 35
This week, armed with tea and Jaffa cakes, I speak to the writer Amer Anwar at his home in west London. Amer is the author of Brothers in Blood and Stone Cold Trouble – crime thrillers set in Southall, populated by British Asian gangsters, and peppered with punch-ups, Punjabi swear words, and cunning plans. Before Amer had even finished a draft of his first book, it won the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award – but nevertheless, he struggled to find a publisher. In the meantime, he hat...
Oct 15, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 34
I'm thrilled to be back for a fourth series, and to be kicking it off with such an interesting guest. Elif Shafak is a British-Turkish novelist who has published 19 books including 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World , The Forty Rules of Love and Three Daughters of Eve . Her most recent book is The Island of Missing Trees , which is a twisty tale of love and war, told in part from the perspective of a fig tree. Elif spoke to me in August from her home in London, and we discussed the impo...
Oct 08, 2021•47 min•Season 4Ep. 33
This is a bonus episode with a writer who, in a way, has carved out a bonus career: Graham Norton. Long-established as a hugely successful presenter and comedian in the UK, he published his first novel, Holding , in 2016, and has followed that with 2018's A Keeper , and most recently last year's Home Stretch . They are well-plotted, sensitively written novels that turn the spotlight on small-town Ireland. I spoke to Graham in April, when he was at his home in London, and we discussed how fear of...
May 14, 2021•52 min•Season 3Ep. 32
In the final episode of the third series (thank you for listening!), Maggie O'Farrell joins me from her home in Edinburgh. Maggie is the author of eight novels, including After You'd Gone , This Must Be The Place and Hamnet , which last year won the Women's Prize for Fiction. She also wrote the unsettling 2017 memoir I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. She describes the Victorian greenhouse-turned-studio where her books take shape, and talks about the difficulty of knowing where to beg...
Apr 02, 2021•45 min•Season 3Ep. 31
James Acaster joins me this week to talk about writing stand-up comedy. James has filmed five stand-up specials – the first four make up the series Repertoire , available on Netflix, while the most recent, Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, arrived on Vimeo earlier this month. He was also nominated a record-breaking five years in a row for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Fringe, from 2012 to 2016. He talks me through how he writes a set; the structure of stand-up, and the art of a well-placed call...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 30
This week I'm joined by Wendy Erskine, author of the remarkable Sweet Home , an award-winning short story collection set in modern Belfast. I have a personal connection to Wendy – she was my English teacher in the mid-nineties, and is still a teacher today. She talks about how she found her way to publishing an acclaimed collection in 2018; how her 'imagination headphones' allow her to work at the kitchen table with family life unfolding around her; and how drafting and redrafting leads to her s...
Mar 19, 2021•49 min•Season 3Ep. 29
Back in early November 2020, Will Storr spoke to me from a solo writing retreat in Spain, where he was working, sleeping and doing nothing else. This turns out to be Will's process: he also tells me about his zero-distractions writing routine at home, which involves a black-out blind and total immersion. I first discovered Will's work through the brilliant book The Science of Storytelling ; he's also the author of Selfie , The Heretics and Will Storr Vs The Supernatural , plus the novel The Hung...
Mar 12, 2021•57 min•Season 3Ep. 28
The writer and illustrator Cressida Cowell joins me this week, with a backdrop of birdsong from outside her writing shed. Cressida wrote and illustrated the Wizards of Once series, and the How to Train Your Dragon series, which became a highly successful Dreamworks franchise. She also wrote the Emily Brown picture books, and is passionate about getting kids into reading, and showing them that whether they're good at school or not, they're still smart. She talks about her quest as Waterstones Chi...
Mar 05, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 27
This week I speak to George Saunders: author of 11 books including the 2017 Man Booker Prize winner Lincoln in the Bardo ; regular contributor of short fiction to The New Yorker for almost 30 years; and creative writing teacher at Syracuse University. George's new book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain , uses classic Russian short stories to analyse good writing and storytelling. His special skill, other than writing, is in demystifying the subject and providing comforting, encouraging, practical ad...
Feb 26, 2021•50 min•Season 3Ep. 26
Grace Dent – Guardian restaurant critic, columnist, author and Masterchef star – joins me from her bed this week. With a string of young adult novels under her belt (including the Diary of a Chav and Diary of a Snob series), Grace has most recently written Hungry : a memoir of food, family, and conquering the London journalism scene as a working-class northerner. Recording in November 2020, we chat about the harsh realities of restaurant reviewing; how Grace navigated writing about her father's ...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 3Ep. 25
Brandon Taylor, author of the novel Real Life , joins me from Iowa this week. At the end of a whirlwind year in which his debut was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Brandon talks about how he emerged as a novelist from an illiterate family; why he objects to the idea that it's easy for black writers to write black characters; and why 'It's only a draft' can be a game-changing thought. Support the podcast and independent bookshops by buying Real Life or other books by guests of In Writing here: ...
Feb 12, 2021•55 min•Season 3Ep. 24
In this bonus episode, I speak to London Grammar‘s Hannah Reid, songwriter and vocalist. Ahead of the release of the band's third album, Californian Soil, Hannah talked about the value and risk of vulnerability in songwriting. Californian Soil is out on 9th April, and you can hear singles Baby It’s You, Californian Soil and Lose Your Head now. To continue the conversation about writing, come and find me on Twitter (@hattiehattie) or Instagram (@hattiecrisell), or share your thoughts with the has...
Feb 10, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 23
This week, John Lanchester joins me from his writing shed at the bottom of the garden. John has just published a new collection of spooky short stories – Reality & Other Stories – and has also written five novels, including Capital (which became a BBC series) and The Wall. He's a winner of the Whitbread First Novel Prize and the E.M Forster Award, among others, and is also a journalist and writer of non-fiction. He talks about writing his first few books on index cards; why fact is allowed t...
Feb 05, 2021•54 min•Season 3Ep. 22
Season 3 is here! My first guest is Lucy Prebble, playwright of A Very Expensive Poison and Enron; showrunner of the Sky series I Hate Suzie; and part of Jesse Armstrong's writing team on the HBO drama Succession. Lucy lets us into the secrets of that writers' room, sheds light on the relationship between writers and actors, and reflects on what she learnt from quitting her first TV success, Secret Diary of a Call Girl. To buy Lucy's plays, or any other books mentioned on In Writing, visit https...
Jan 29, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 21
My final guest of the second series is Jon Ronson: journalist, documentary-maker, screenwriter, and author of wonderful narrative longform non-fiction. Jon’s books include The Psychopath Test and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed , and he tells me about the complicated legacy of the latter. In his work he’s delved into some murky worlds, including the Ku Klux Klan, the pornography industry and the Church of Scientology, and found the humour and pathos in subjects that most of us would overlook. In ...
Jul 17, 2020•51 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Kit de Waal, whose books include My Name Is Leon, The Trick to Time and the new short story collection Supporting Cast , joins me this week from her home in the West Midlands. Kit started writing in her mid-forties, and remembers being stunned by how hard it was. In our chat she reflects honestly on that time, the stories that worked, the novels that didn’t, and how getting too interested in her characters tripped her up. She also spills the beans on her plotting spreadsheet, her knack for tackl...
Jul 10, 2020•42 min•Season 2Ep. 19
TV writer Robert Popper joins me for a chat this week, fresh off the sixth series of his Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner . Robert has been involved in some of the best British comedy of the last 20 years; he co-wrote the cult favourite Look Around You , a spoof science documentary series that ran from 2002 to 2005, and worked as a script editor on Peep Show , The Inbetweeners and The IT Crowd . He is also the alter ego of Robin Cooper, author of The Timewaster Letters . He tells me how he m...
Jul 03, 2020•48 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Mhairi McFarlane is the author of six great novels in the genre of romantic comedy/chick lit (delete as preferred), including her most recent, If I Never Met You . This week she speaks to me from her front room – she does not have or want a study – about the process of rewriting her first book, You Had Me At Hello , and what she learned along the way, plus the essential components of a good romcom.
Jun 26, 2020•38 min•Season 2Ep. 17
This week I chat to Will Harris, a London-born poet and essayist of mixed Anglo-Indonesian heritage. Will’s debut poetry collection RENDANG came out in February; previously he was perhaps best known for the essay Mixed-Race Superman , which was published in 2018, and which The New York Times called “A zany, exuberant and highly original meditation on what it means to come of age as a mixed-race person in a predominantly white world.” He spoke to me about how engaging with his family history help...
Jun 19, 2020•47 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Alexandra Shulman joins me this week to talk about life on both sides of the divide: editor and writer. At the helm of Vogue , she spent 25 years herding journalists. Now she has a column in the Mail on Sunday and has this year published a book that blends memoir with fashion history, Clothes and Other Things that Matter . We talk about the article that changed her career, the challenge of writing two novels with a full-time job, and the value of storytelling in journalism....
Jun 12, 2020•43 min•Season 2Ep. 15
This week, from my living room in London, I speak to Robert Webb in his loft study (also in London). By the time Robert published his memoir How Not To Be A Boy in 2017, he’d already achieved huge success as an actor and performer (memorably, of course, in Peep Show ). We discuss that book and his new novel Come Again; how his instinct to entertain translates from the screen to the page, and how years of writing comedy sketches gave him insight into characterisation....
Jun 05, 2020•39 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Kiley Reid joins me for this episode of In Writing , recorded when she visited London in February to promote her bestselling debut novel Such A Fun Age. Kiley is a graduate of the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she shaped this novel, and we talk about how the feedback of other writers helped her hone it, how to flesh out fiction with well-researched fact, and why it’s essential to “write to your obsessions”.
May 29, 2020•28 min•Season 2Ep. 13
This week’s guest is the sharp and funny Hugo Rifkind, award-winning columnist for The Times . In the attic of his house in north London – not long before recording a podcast in person started to look like insanity – we had a great discussion about his journalistic career, how he approaches the (nightmarish) challenge of a weekly opinion column, and what he’s learnt about writing satire from his very funny diary series, My Week .
May 22, 2020•42 min•Season 2Ep. 12
The second series of In Writing is here in the midst of a pandemic, and while going into writers’ workspaces may not be practical for a while, that doesn’t mean we can’t pretend. This week, from my duvet fort in London, I speak to Curtis Sittenfeld in her small, distraction-free study (which she likens to Harry Potter’s under-stair bedroom) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Curtis is the author of five bestselling novels, including Prep , American Wife and Eligible , and a book of short stories, You Th...
May 16, 2020•52 min•Season 2Ep. 11
In this last episode of the series, Charlie Brooker – the man behind Black Mirror , the BBC’s Wipe shows, Dead Set , Nathan Barley , TV Go Home and more – invites me into his messy, makeshift study. We talk about his unique career trajectory, the process of writing a Netflix show, and the ongoing, necessary pain of taking feedback on your work. Logo by Ben Neale
Jan 24, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 10
This week, in a garden cabin in Sussex, I speak to Anna Hope: the author of two historical novels – Wake and The Ballroom – and Expectation , one of the most talked-about books of 2019. Anna was an actress when, in her early thirties, she started taking creative writing courses; she reflects on that transition, the struggles she went through before being published, and how she found her flow as an author. Logo by Ben Neale
Jan 17, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 9
For a while I’ve been looking for a chance to pick Andrew Billen’s brain about how he writes his insightful, revealing profiles of celebrities and politicians for The Times , and in this episode I visit him at his family home in Oxford to do just that. Andrew looks back on 30 years of interviews, talks me through his ‘essay plan’, and reveals some of the most and least successful encounters he’s had in his career. Logo by Ben Neale
Jan 10, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 8
The author of Animals and Adults – and winner of Best Debut Screenwriter at last year’s British Independent Film Awards – Emma Jane Unsworth welcomes me into her twinkly Brighton flat. She talks about how to overcome the moments of self-loathing that come with any creative project; postnatal depression and recovery; and why she never gets the ending right on a first try. Logo by Ben Neale
Jan 03, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Author of Call Me By Your Name and its recent sequel Find Me , Andre Aciman tells me what it’s like to see your novel get a second life in film (and the new flock of young fans who followed); why he has no interest in realism, and why it’s valuable to read all your reviews. Logo by Ben Neale
Dec 27, 2019•37 min•Season 1Ep. 6
