Always Take Notes

Rachel and Simon speak with novelist and screenwriter Irvine Welsh. Born in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Welsh moved to London in 1978 where he immersed himself in the punk scene. He returned to Edinburgh in the late 1980s, studied for an MBA, spent 18 months addicted to heroin and worked in the council's housing department. His debut novel, "Trainspotting", an account of heroin addicts written in...

Rachel and Simon speak with children's author and illustrator Lauren Child. She set up her own lampshade company and worked at a design agency before turning to books, publishing “I Want a Pet!” and “Clarice Bean, That's Me” in 1999. As well as the Clarice Bean series, Lauren is the author of the award-winning “Charlie and Lola” books (adapted into a television series which ran from 2005-08) and t...

Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist and travel writer Colin Thubron. Colin worked in publishing in London and New York before writing his first travel book, "Mirror to Damascus", in 1967. Other early books continued to focus on the Middle East, but later he was drawn towards the Soviet Union and Communist China. In 1982 Colin travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey described in "Amo...

Rachel and Simon speak with the historian and novelist Antonia Fraser. She began her career in the 1950s as an assistant to George Weidenfeld, the co-founder of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a British publishing house. Lady Antonia wrote her first book, "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", in her early twenties; her first major historical work, "Mary Queen of Scots", was published in 1969. S...

Simon and Rachel speak with journalist, author and film-maker Sebastian Junger. Attracted since childhood to “extreme situations and people at the edges of things,” Sebastian grew up in New England and worked as a high-climber for tree removal companies. After a chainsaw injury, he decided to focus on journalism, primarily writing about people with dangerous jobs. That led to his debut book in 199...

Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist Monica Ali. Granta named her one of their brightest young British novelists in 2003 ahead of the publication of her first book, “Brick Lane”, which was then adapted into a film in 2007. She is also the author of “Alentejo Blue”, “In the Kitchen”, “Untold Story” and “Love Marriage” and has been nominated for awards including the Booker prize, the Orwell priz...

Simon and Rachel speak with novelist David Mitchell. Raised in Worcestershire in England, Mitchell later spent eight years living in Japan. The author of nine novels, including "Cloud Atlas", "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" and most recently "Utopia Avenue", David has been nominated for the Booker prize five times. His work has appeared in over 30 languages. David's novel "The Bone Clocks"...

Rachel and Simon speak with journalist and author Sian Meades-Williams. She has written for publications including the Guardian, the Independent, the Times and the New York Times and is the creator of Freelance Writing Jobs, a media-industry newsletter. In 2021 she launched the Freelance Writing Awards and in March 2022 she published "The Pyjama Myth", a guide to "the highs, lows and in-betweens o...

Simon and Rachel speak with the journalist and author Toby Harnden. A dual British and American citizen, Toby spent a decade as a Royal Navy officer before becoming a journalist. A former foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph who has reported from 33 countries, Toby was imprisoned in Zimbabwe, faced prosecution in Britain for protecting confidential sources, and was vi...

Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist Ruth Ozeki. In the 1980s Ruth worked in film, first as an art director and production designer for low-budget horror films, then as a writer, producer and director of independent films. "Halving the Bones" (1995), a documentary about her family history and the process of bringing her grandmother's remains from Japan, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize a...

Simon and Rachel speak with journalist and author George Packer. A staff writer for the Atlantic and a former staff writer for the New Yorker, George is the author of "The Unwinding: Thirty Years of American Decline", which was a New York Times bestseller and won a National Book Award. His other nonfiction books include "The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq", "Blood of the Liberals", which won the...

Rachel and Simon speak with journalist and author Christina Patterson. She began her career in publishing and worked as a literary programmer for the Southbank Centre; from 2000 to 2003 she was director of the Poetry Society. She joined the Independent and wrote columns and interview pieces as well as investigations into nursing, for which she was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2013. Christin...

Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist and screenwriter David Nicholls. In 2009 David's novel "One Day" was a global bestseller, published in 40 languages, and he is also the author of "Sweet Sorrow", "Us", "The Understudy" and "Starter for Ten". On screen, David has written adaptations of "Far From the Madding Crowd" and "When Did You Last See Your Father?", as well as turning his own novels, "...

Rachel and Simon speak with the author and journalist Maggie Fergusson. After studying history at university, Maggie briefly worked in finance before joining Harper's & Queen magazine (now known as Harper's Bazaar.) As a freelance writer, she was sent by the Times to interview the Scottish poet George Mackay Brown in 1992, and it proved the beginning of a friendship that would culminate with a pri...

Simon speaks with David Shelley, Group CEO of Hachette UK. After studying English at university, David entered the publishing industry in the 1990s as an editorial assistant at Allison & Busby. David rose through the ranks to become publishing director there at the age of just 23, and eventually turned the loss-making business into a profitable one, before joining Little, Brown as a crime editor i...

Rachel and Simon speak with Katie Kitamura. Born in California to Japanese parents, she wrote her first book, "Japanese for Travellers: A Journey Through Modern Japan", in her early 20s. Her debut novel, "The Longshot", about a mixed martial arts fighter, was published in 2009; "Gone to the Forest", a tale of family drama in an unnamed colonial country, followed in 2012. "A Separation", published...

Simon and Rachel speak with Alex Kay-Jelski, the editor-in-chief in the UK of sports website the Athletic. Alex, previously sports editor of the Times and the Daily Mail, set up British operations for the Athletic in 2019, hiring well-known names from other publications (and new young journalists) in a move that shook up the sportswriting scene. Originally established in 2016, the Athletic had 1.2...

Rachel and Simon speak with award-winning novelist Elif Shafak. The author of 12 novels and 7 works of non-fiction, her work has been translated into 55 languages. "The Forty Rules of Love" (2009) was chosen by the BBC as one of 100 novels that have shaped the world; "10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize in 2019; her latest no...

Simon and Rachel speak with novelist Howard Jacobson. Born in Manchester, Howard spent his early career as an academic and published his first novel, "Coming from Behind," in 1983. He has now written sixteen novels and six works of non-fiction, and won the Booker Prize for "The Finkler Question" in 2010 (he was also shortlisted in 2014 for "J".) His most recent novel is "Live a Little" and his mem...

Rachel and Simon speak with Marianne Tatepo. Currently commissioning editor for Ebury Press and Pop Press, part of Penguin Random House UK, she publishes non-fiction books, with a particular interest in lifestyle, memoir, wellbeing and food. In January 2022 she will take up a new post as publishing director at Square Peg, another PRH imprint. In June 2020 Marianne founded the Black Agents and Edit...

Simon and Rachel speak with bestselling American novelist David Baldacci. A former trial lawyer, after early attempts at screenwriting David published his first thriller, "Absolute Power", in 1996. A film adaptation followed, with Clint Eastwood as its director and star. David has now published 43 novels for adults; his books have sold 150 million copies worldwide, in over 45 languages and more th...

Rachel and Simon speak with the poet Hollie McNish. After rising to prominence online, she has published four collections of poetry: “Papers”, “Cherry Pie”, “Why I Ride” and “Plum”. “Nobody Told Me”, a collection of prose and poetry about parenthood taken from Hollie's diaries, was published in 2016 and won the Ted Hughes award for New Work in Poetry. In May she released “Slug...and other things I...

Rachel and Simon speak with journalist and author Gary Younge. Born in Hertfordshire to Barbadian parents, in his final year at university Gary won a bursary from the Guardian to study journalism at City University. He started working at the Guardian in 1993, and after reporting from all over Europe, Africa, North America and the Caribbean, he was appointed the Guardian’s US correspondent in 2003....

Rachel and Simon speak with novelist Tracy Chevalier. Tracy moved to Britain from America in the 1980s and worked in publishing before completing an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. She is now the author of ten novels, including "Girl With a Pearl Earring", which has sold more than 5m copies worldwide and been adapted into a film and a play as well as a forthcoming opera....

Simon speaks with Alex Wade, a libel lawyer, journalist and author. Alex began life at law firm Carter-Ruck and went on to work as a lawyer for national newspapers. A spell off the rails in his early 30s saw Alex reinvent himself as freelance journalist and take up boxing. His experience of the then-subterranean world of white-collar boxing led to his first book, "Wrecking Machine". Alex went on t...