Watch this episode as a full video interview on YouTube Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and storyteller, whose 21 books—translated into 58 languages—include The Island of Missing Trees , 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World , and The Forty Rules of Love . A fellow and Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, she holds a PhD in political science, has taught at Oxford University, and is a celebrated voice for women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and freedom of e...
Apr 18, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 23Ep. 11
Robert is the author of The Tainted Cup , The Divine Cities trilogy and The Founders Trilogy. A Drop of Corruption , the sequel to The Tainted Cup , is out now. His work has received the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Phillip K. Dick Citation of Excellence, and he has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Locus Awards. He also dug a very good french drain in his backyard back in 2019. We had a great chat with Robert, hearing about why he moved into writing...
Apr 11, 2025•53 min•Season 23Ep. 10
On this episode of Drafting Notes, we talk about the importance of research: how it can spur ideas, how to go about it with difficult topics, what to include (and not include) in your writing and much more! And once you have all your notes, how do you organise them? Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published writer (Marco) discuss various writing issues as they occur to them! Drafting Notes episodes are avai...
Apr 09, 2025•22 min
Frances White is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Voyage of the Damned, a queer fantasy murder mystery at sea. A Nottingham resident, Frances is a creative writing graduate from Royal Holloway University of London. When not writing, Frances can be found sewing nerdy costumes or researching obscure historical facts. We loved speaking to Frances and hearing about how Voyage of the Damned came to be, and why she thinks it has found such success. We also talk about the importance of queer repr...
Apr 04, 2025•49 min•Season 23Ep. 9
On this episode, we are talking about how to deal with those days that every writer has when you just aren't feeling it. What do you do if you are doubting what you've written? Push through or stubbornly try and fix it? We offer our thoughts and possible solutions - some more serious than others! Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published writer (Marco) discuss various writing issues as they occur to them! D...
Apr 02, 2025•20 min
David Hewson’s novels have been translated worldwide, from Italian to Japanese, with his debut, Semana Santa , filmed with Mira Sorvino. His work spans Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Amsterdam, including the Nic Costa series in Rome, the Pieter Vos books in Amsterdam, and his adaptations of The Killing in Copenhagen. A former journalist for The Times and The Sunday Times , he turned to fiction full-time in 2005. His latest book, When the Germans Come , is out now. We had a great chat with David, hea...
Mar 28, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 23Ep. 8
Watch this as a full video episode on YouTube! Nicholas Binge is a bestselling author of speculative thrillers, literary science fiction, and horror. His novels include Extremity ( 2025), Dissolution (2025), Ascension (2023) and Professor Everywhere (2020). Binge is based in Edinburgh, UK, where he also lectures in creative writing. Regular listeners will know Nick as he has been on the pod not once but twice (does this make him our first three-peat guest?) We had a great chat with Nick, hearing...
Mar 26, 2025•31 min
Nadine Matheson lives in London and is a criminal solicitor. In 2016, she won the City University Crime Writing Competition and completed the Creative Writing (Crime/Thrillers Novels) Master’s Degree with distinction in 2018. In 2019, Nadine signed with A.M. Heath Literary Agents and her debut crime fiction novel, The Jigsaw Man, was won by HQ (HarperCollins) in a six-publisher auction. The best-selling ‘The Jigsaw Man’ was published in 2021, has been translated into fifteen languages and has be...
Mar 21, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Season 23Ep. 7
Watch as a full video episode on YouTube! How to find the time to write? Even published authors often have day jobs, and so it can be tricky to find the time to write. In this episode of Drafting Notes, we discuss how we manage to do it, and what writing habits and techniques help us get words on the page. Let us know if you have any different methods! Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published writer (Marco...
Mar 19, 2025•16 min
Simon Scarrow’s passion for writing began at an early age. After a childhood spent travelling the world, he pursued his great love of history as a teacher before becoming a full-time writer. His Roman soldier heroes Cato and Macro made their debut in 2000 in UNDER THE EAGLE, and have subsequently appeared in many bestsellers in the Eagles of the Empire series, including CENTURION, THE GLADIATOR and THE BLOOD OF ROME. His latest book, DEATH IN BERLIN, is out now, and his is on a tour of the UK fo...
Mar 14, 2025•56 min•Season 23Ep. 6
We often hear that authors shouldn't write to market, shouldn't chase trends... but how true is that? Is it always a bad thing? And even if not writing to market, how important is it to keep an eye on the market as you write? We discuss it all in this episode of Drafting Notes. Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published writer (Marco) discuss various writing issues as they occur to them! This series is a tim...
Mar 12, 2025•17 min
Trevor Wood served 16 years as a Writer (not what you think it is) before branching out into journalism and then writing plays. From there, he moved into writing novels, with his debut, MAN ON THE STREET, winning the CWA New Blood award and the Crimefest Debut Crime Novel of the Year. His latest book, The Silent Killer, was published in July 2024 and is just out in paperback. We had a great chat with Trevor, learning what a Royal Navy Writer actually does, hearing about why he moved away from co...
Mar 07, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 23Ep. 5
Watch the full episode now on our YouTube channel Self-promotion for authors of all levels is increasingly important in today's busy publishing world - even with a traditional publishing deal, authors are encouraged to promote their own books. But what works, what doesn't - and how do you get over that "cringe" factor of promoting your own work? We discuss it all in this episode of Drafting Notes - a Patreon timed exclusive! Drafting Notes episodes are available at least three months early if yo...
Mar 05, 2025•19 min
Chris McQueer is a Scottish writer and spoken art performer. Writing in the Scottish vernacular, he is known for his dark comedy and surreal humour. He is best known for his two published collections of short stories Hings and HWFG . His debut novel, Hermit , is out now. We had a great chat with Chris, hearing about how he first decided to start writing his stories on Twitter, and why becoming a full-time writer wasn't all it is cracked up to be. We hear about why he has moved from short stories...
Feb 28, 2025•59 min•Season 23Ep. 4
Annabel Campbell writes fantasy with fierce female characters and disaster wizards, and believes everything is improved by dragons. She lives in a tiny village in Scotland, where most of her neighbours are sheep. She has a PhD in cardiovascular science, and when not making things up for a living, she works as a Medical Writer. Her debut novel, The Outcast Mage, is out now. We had great fun chatting with Annabel and hearing that The Outcast Mage grew from a story she wrote when she was 14! Plus, ...
Feb 21, 2025•51 min•Season 23Ep. 3
Watch the full episode on YouTube now! What books influenced you as a reader and writer? We continue our countdown of the top ten books that influenced us as writers - from number 5 to number 1! (Before the comments fly in, we want to stress again: This is NOT a list of the ten best books we have read! We wanted to discuss books that have stayed with us for whatever reason and have influenced the stories we want to tell.) Let us know books that have influenced you in the comments below! Drafting...
Feb 19, 2025•36 min
Watch this episode as a full video interview on our YouTube channel! Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times bestselling writer of Star Wars: Phasma, Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire, Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade, The Secrets of Long Snoot, The Perfect Weapon, and Scorched; Disney Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart, It Will Only Hurt for a Moment, Guillotine, Midnight at the Houdini, Bloom, Mine, The Violence, the Blud series, Servants of the Storm, the HIT series, Wake of Vultures and the Shadow series ...
Feb 14, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 23Ep. 2
What books influenced you as a reader and writer? That's what we're looking at on today's special episode of Drafting Notes as we break down numbers 10-6 on our own list of 10 books. *Before the comments fly in, we want to stress again: This is NOT a list of the ten best books we have read! We wanted to discuss books that have stayed with us for whatever reason and have influenced the stories we want to tell.* Let us know books that have influenced you in the comments below! Drafting Notes is a ...
Feb 12, 2025•37 min
Watch this episode as a full video interview on our YouTube channel Jay Kristoff is a #1 international, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. He is the winner of eight Aurealis Awards, an ABIA, has over two million books in print and is published in over thirty five countries. His latest book is The Empire of The Damned, the second book in his Empire of The Vampire trilogy. We had great fun chatting with Jay, hearing about he moved from marketing into wr...
Feb 07, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Season 23Ep. 1
Watch this episode as a full video podcast on YouTube We're joined by not one, not two, but three brilliant authors for our end of year Christmas special! Anna Mazzola is the award-winning author of five historical crime or Gothic novels. She is now also writing legal thrillers under the name Anna Sharpe. Her latest book, Notes on A Drowning, is out January 2025. Abir Mukherjee is the Times bestselling author of the Wyndham & Banerjee series of crime novels set in Raj-era India which have so...
Dec 20, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Jo Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. She was a student of the Writers’ Academy Course (Penguin Random House) and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition and Bath Novel Competition. After losing her husband to cancer in 2019 when she was just forty-nine, she started writing In the Blink of an Eye, her debut crime novel, which explores learning to live with loss and what it means to b...
Dec 13, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 22Ep. 11
Barnaby Walter is (as B.P. Walter) the author of A Version of the Truth (published in the US as The Couple's Secret ), Hold Your Breath, The Dinner Guest and more. He was born and raised in Essex and after spending his childhood and teenage years reading compulsively, he worked in bookshops then went to the University of Southampton to study Film and English followed by an MA in Film & Cultural Management. His latest book, Scuttle, is published under the name Barnaby Walter. We had great fun...
Dec 06, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 22Ep. 10
Adam Howorth was until recently Communications Director for Apple, helped launch the iPhone and once bought Steve Jobs a hot chocolate. Now he spends his time creating tense and otherworldly storylines such as with his debut novel FALLEN FEATHERS, which Stephen Fry has called "Enthralling." We had a good chat with Adam, hearing how he came to writing fiction late on, what he loves about it, and why he chose a different route to getting published than the normal trad route. Links: Buy Fallen Feat...
Nov 29, 2024•50 min•Season 22Ep. 9
Genoveva Dimova is a Bulgarian fantasy author and archaeologist based in Scotland. Her debut novel inspired by Slavic folklore, Foul Days , came out in June 2024, with the sequel, Monstrous Nights , just out in October. When she’s not writing, she likes to explore old ruins, climb even older hills, and listen to practically ancient rock music. We had a great chat with Gen, hearing about how she started to write in English, how she found her agent and how fantasy has changed from the old Anglocen...
Nov 22, 2024•55 min•Season 22Ep. 8
Watch this as a full video episode on our YouTube channel! On this week's episode, we talk about that age-old writing divide - Planners v Pantsers! Some writers need to outline every plot detail before they start to write, while other like to, well, fly by the seat of their pants. Is one method better than the other - and are they as different as they first appear? Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes (which after the first few episodes will be timed exclusives for our Patreon memb...
Nov 20, 2024•19 min
CHLOE C. PEÑARANDA is the USA Today bestselling author of The Nytefall Trilogy and An Heir Comes to Rise Series. A lifelong avid reader and writer, Chloe discovered her passion for storytelling in her early teens. Her stories have been spun from years of building on fictional characters and exploring Tolkien-like quests in made up worlds. During her time at the University of the West of Scotland, Chloe immersed herself in writing for short film, producing animations, and spending class time drea...
Nov 15, 2024•53 min•Season 22Ep. 7
Watch this as a full video episode on our YouTube channel On this week's episode, we ask the question many writers face: how do we deal with all the waiting? Whether it's from agents, editors or others, much of publishing involves waiting hopefully for news. We discuss some of the ways we try and deal with that, and also suggest ways that others can try to minimise the anxiety! Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes (which after the first few episodes will be timed exclusives for our...
Nov 13, 2024•15 min
Graham Bartlett is a former police officer, having risen to Chief Superintendent of Brighton and Hove before turning to writing when he left after 30 years in the police force. Working first with renowned crime author (and former Page One guest!) Peter James on two non-fiction books gave Graham the writing bug and he has now written three crime novels, with his latest, City on Fire, just out. In addition, he has set up a consultancy for all budding and established crime writers where Graham and ...
Nov 08, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 22Ep. 6
Watch this episode as a full video interview on our YouTube Channel The Andromeda Award was launched in 2024 by UTA and C&W to seek out and support the best new emerging science fiction and fantasy writers. Literary agents Clare Conville from C&W in the UK and Byrd Leavell from UTA join us to tell us why their agencies wanted to launch this new award for unpublished sci fi and fantasy authors, and tell us about the prizes and rules for entry. Links: Enter The Andromeda Award now Visit Cl...
Nov 07, 2024•34 min
Watch this as a full video episode on our YouTube channel Welcome to the first episode in a new series of podcast episodes (which after this episode will be timed exclusives for our Patreon members!) in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published writer (Marco) discuss various writing issues as they occur to them! This week, we are chatting about revisiting old material, and how easy (or difficult) it can be to rework that when doing redrafts or even taking the ...
Nov 06, 2024•15 min
