In Writing with Hattie Crisell

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...

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 y...

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...

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 v...

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 b...

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

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...

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 h...

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

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

Holly Bourne invites me into her study/spare room to talk about her prolific career as a YA writer – and her recent novels for adults, including the bestselling How Do You Like Me Now? . She explains why her writing is a kind of activism, and why being honest about life – including all the sex and swearing – is the only way to get through to readers in the most vulnerable moments of their teenage...

I sit down with The Times ’ Sathnam Sanghera to talk about the three strands of his work – how a competition run by Michael Jackson propelled him into journalism; how he came to write an acclaimed family memoir in his twenties; the challenges of fiction; and why writers’ block is “something posh people have”. Logo design by Ben Neale

Wendy Cope invites me into her book-filled house in Ely, Cambridgeshire. Wendy started her career as a highly successful outsider to the poetry world – seen by some as an interloper – and is now one of its most respected talents. She tells me about the backlash to her first bestseller, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis ; how she pushed through it, and what she’s learnt. Logo design by Ben Neale

David Nicholls – bestselling author of five novels including One Day and Sweet Sorrow , and BAFTA-winning screenwriter – has me over for a cup of tea at the surprisingly peaceful inner-city office where he does all his writing. He talks me through his process (and how it’s differed with every book); how he turned Edward St Aubyn’s five Patrick Melrose books into five perfect hours of television; a...

Host of the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day ; author of the memoir How to Fail ; a novelist with four books under her belt, and a journalist and columnist too – talented Elizabeth Day is the perfect guest for the first episode of In Writing . I visit her “room of one’s own” to talk about how she moves between genres, how the discipline of journalism has honed her writing, and why learning t...