A Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally Bayley

This week, we join Sally in the middle of a winter night. Follow her reflections on festive traditions, via Christina Rossetti, and on seeing the world through illness, with Emily Brontë, and John Milton. Rossetti’s poem can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53216/in-the-bleak-midwinter This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet He...

For Demi. ‘And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating / Of dark habits, / keeping their difficult balance.’ This week, Sally has been living with Richard Wilbur’s ‘Love Calls Us to the Things of the World’, and reflecting on living with pain. Balance with her on the precipices we all exist on… The poem can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43048/love-calls-us-to-the-things-of...

For Keyang. ‘Where can we live but days?’ This week, Sally has been reading and living with Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Days’, from The Whitsun Weddings. Join her for a meditation on how we spend our days, drawing on prayer, hope, hymns, and reading. The poem can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48410/days-56d229a0c0c33 Miss Cull, a frequent guest on the podcast, can also be found in...

‘This is how I prefer to live…inside a narrow passage…’ Sally is still living with Wuthering Heights this week, as she meditates on the nature of life in confined spaces, both in fiction and on her narrowboat. Join her as she muses on the narrow passages that we live in and move through, reflecting on the nature of freedom, grief, and love. This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen. Spec...

‘I can’t live without story now…it feels like breathing.’ This week, Sally is travelling to Sicily, for a conversation with Marina Warner on ‘Life Writing, Memory and Fiction.’ Before leaving, she offers a brief meditation on the local artist Gabriella Bailey, telling us a story of two figures outside a city, and the spaces outside of life. The painting described can be found here: https://www.ins...

‘Are you brave enough to follow me there?’ This week, Sally has been reading Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights. Fixated on the dreams of its narrator, join her for her reflections on rage, the histories of homes and places, and the distracting intrusions of life into writing. The beautiful piano music in the middle and closing sections is by Paul Clarke. This episode was edited and prod...

For Alice Colquhoun. In this episode, Sally muses on J.M.W. Turner’s famous 1830 painting, Shoreham. Join her for reflections on art, life, and on writing from the faint lines of existence. Turner’s work makes frequent appearances in Sally’s latest book, The Green Lady, available from all good booksellers. This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen. Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet...

‘A writer’s notebook is full of the sound of atmosphere…’ This week, Sally is teaching a course on detective fiction. Emerging from her meditations on Wilkie Collins’ novel The Moonstone, follow her on a journey through the light and the dark places of the world, and the variegated truths of writing and life. Miss Cull, a frequent guest on the podcast, can also be found in Sally’s latest book, The...

Continuing this week’s Shakespearean theme, Sally describes a recent trip to a screening of a new cinematic adaptation of Kenneth Macmillan’s 1988 balletic interpretation of Hamlet, Sea of Troubles. Join her for a meditation on choreography, interpretation, and prayer. Dance Scholarship Oxford (DANSOX), who made the screening possible, run a wide variety of events relating to dance at St. Hilda’s...

‘All the world’s a stage…’ Sally is thinking this week about a photograph of her foster grandmother in Shakespearean costume. Who is she? How did she find her part? Did she have her experience, like Jacques, the man of the world? Listen to her meditations, extemporised and recorded in a single take, to find out. The speech from As You Like It, read at the end, is available here: https://www.poetry...

‘Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me.’ In this special episode, Sally reflects on the work of the late poet Louise Glück as she travels around Oxford. Join her as she muses on feeling, poetry, family, and names. The poem, ‘The Red Poppy’, featured in this episode, can be read here: https://poets.org/poem/red-poppy-0 The wonderful piano music in the opening section is by Paul Clarke. This ep...

"In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls." Sally and her neighbour discuss tree spirits and magical bracelets on her narrowboat. As the rains draw in, Sally settles down to read J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. She thinks about clouds and feelings, listens to chamber music, and follows the story of Peter Pan from Kensington Gardens to Rustington-on-Sea. Our feelings hav...

In this special bonus episode, follow Sally on an adventure of mistaken identity, Marmite ice cream, and Miss Cull. This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen. Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.

‘Is there a plot to life?’ This week, Sally has been reading Daniel Martin, by John Fowles. Follow her musings as she considers the relationship between the writer’s public and private selves, anonymity, and the nature of plot. Daniel Martin, now published by Vintage Classics, is available from all good booksellers. All quoted materials are the property of the Estate of John Fowles. The poem, ‘Bur...

‘How do you face the void?’ This week, Sally presents a series of linked meditations around the character of Miss Cull, illustrating how characters can be made by, with, and through everyday objects, and how her biography, like anyone’s, is still being written. For writers struggling to face the blank page, follow Miss Cull as she emerges from Sally’s observations of life, its rhythms, and the ani...

‘Other echoes inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?’   This week, Sally is reading T. S. Eliot in preparation for her performance at the Oxford Chamber Music Festival on the 6th of October. She explores the landscape of ‘Burnt Norton’ (1936), improvising scenes on the theme of memory via rose leaves, purses, lightbulbs, and dry crackling lawns. The Oxford Chamber Music Festival, run by Priya Mitche...

‘For all the Froggies of the World...' Inspired by her amphibian lifestyle, Sally offers an everyday fable of the writer. Froggie and the Golden Ball is a cautionary tale of the writerly career and the lure of acclaim, interspersed with reflections on nature, Emily Dickinson, and hairdressing. Dickinson’s poem about the frog is available here: https://poets.org/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260 The p...

Sally has just finished a lesson with a student who is writing a story in the vein of Thomas Hardy about a young man on a farm. Searching for visual references, they latch on to a painting of a farrier, shoeing a horse. Now the image, haunted by  a spectral figure, has lingered in Sally's mind and she reflects on how visual and physical memory can inspire writing; and how writers are like ghosts,...

Sally is reading A Field Guide to Reality, the debut novel by the Granta Best of Young British author Joanna Kavenna, originally published in 2016 and set in a surreal, quantum alternative Oxford University.  Sally will be in conversation with Joanna Kavenna and fellow writer Elizabeth Lowry at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, from 6pm on September 5th. They will discuss many of the themes of the p...

Starting a new book is like starting a new relationship, and Sally is reading Elizabeth Lowry's The Chosen, a ghost story and a love story about Thomas Hardy and his estranged wife.  Sally will be in conversation with Elizabeth Lowry and fellow writer Joanna Kavenna at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, from 6pm on September 5th. They will discuss many of the themes of the podcast; reading, writing a...

This is the second half of the chat between Sally and Will Self, held at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, in which they discuss the German emigré writer WG Sebald, their reading and writing habits, parenthood, children and eccentric families. Sally is hosting another evening of literary chat with friends and fellow writers Joanna Kavenna and Elizabeth Lowry, also at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford,...

Just a short announcement by Sally about an exciting event coming up - recorded with the help of Magnificent Maeve Magnus.

This episode is a meditation, inspired by the themes and characters of Sally's latest book, The Green Lady; it's Sally's elegy for Mrs Robinson, a woman who was shut out of life, not seen or heard;  but Sally knew her, and remembers her. You can find out more about The Green Lady here: https://sallybayley.com/ The producer of the podcast is Andrew Smith:  https://www.fleetingyearfilms.com The extr...

It's the launch day for Sally's new book, The Green Lady, and Sally is feeling the pressure, especially as her neighbours have left her alone on the boat. In the middle of the night, she reads an 18th century classic, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, finding commonality in its psychological upswings and downswings, the melodrama, the despair and the comforts, of its narrator, who has turned to writ...

Something different for this episode - Sally interviews writer Will Self about his latest book of essays, Why Read. They discuss not just why we read, but how we read; digital reading versus physical books; and Will discusses the writers who had a formative effect on him, including Lewis Carroll, Franz Kafka and W.G. Sebald. The event took place at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford. Our thanks to Wil...