Creative Coffee

Thank you for tuning into my live video with Debbie Weil ! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehyphen.substack.com/subscribe

I went on Freya Bromley ’s new podcast called Character Study and she asked me to read a favourite passage from my new book A Creative Compass which launches officially into the world on June 25th 2026. She is kindly letting me share this passage with you here too. Someone described A Creative Compass as “Emma’s first creativity guide” in a review and I thought: first ?! The implication that there...

One of the joys of my creative life is knowing other creative women, and growing alongside them. I’d followed Lydia Pang’s work for years before we finally met in person in 2019—back when she was creative director at Refinery29, about to move to Portland to become creative director at Nike. Our first friend-date was at a restaurant in New York, in the middle of our younger hustle years—bold, ambit...

Amy Suto’s book Write for Money and Power has an arresting cover. It’s bold. It’s not messing around. It asks: can you be an artist — and want money and power? Inside a system that doesn’t often grant artists much power? How many of us have been sold the starving artist myth? That to be an artist, you should be living off nothing, and never ever “sell out”? I met Amy last year at a writing retreat...

After reading Kathy Slack’s Rough Patch: How a Year in the Garden Brought Me Back to Life , I immediately wanted to speak with her. I had a feeling we’d have a good conversation, not least because her book shares so many themes with my own, A Year of Nothing , which launched this week. We both write about deeply personal years in which, against our will, we were forced to let go, opt out, and go u...

(Full episode for paid subscribers on Substack.) I have been lucky enough to interview Liz Gilbert multiple times over the years. First almost ten years ago now, when I launched my podcast Ctrl Alt Delete in 2016. We spoke on Skype, the audio was tinny, it was the early days of podcasting, I was in my mid-twenties recording from my spare box-room in my old Hackney flat. I remember how magical it f...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thehyphen.substack.com In 2016, Caroline Donahue and I each started our own podcasts, recording hundreds of episodes with guests. As the industry grew, our shows became our main focus, and eventually, we both decided—separately—to shut them down. In 2023, I decided to end Ctrl Alt Delete after 15 million downloads and superstar guests l...

I had such fun chatting to Eleanor Wilkinson author of ONE POT ONE PORTION about the joys of solo eating, our love of solo travel, the difference between loneliness & chosen solitude, why I wrote my novel TABLE FOR ONE and what we’re currently reading. We can’t believe that nearly 4,000 people tuned in on a Saturday—thank you so much and hope you enjoyed our conversation! Thank you Lauren Powell ,...

This is Creative Coffee with Emma Gannon , a new series exploring creativity and how to live more creative lives over coffee with someone I admire. Less of an interview, more of a fly on the wall conversation. This is the last episode of this season, but I hope to be back soon — and I am planning to write a piece all about what I’ve learned launching a podcast on Substack. Today my guest is Jonath...

I first met Leyla Kazim almost ten years ago, in 2015, at a ski resort of all places. I was working for Condé Nast at the time, she was a renowned blogger, and we were invited to review a new ski company (I was writing a piece for Glamour magazine.) I’m so glad our paths crossed. Since then, we’ve stayed friends and it’s been so fun to be on this new(ish) Substack adventure together. In this chat,...

Haley Nahman’s newsletter “Maybe Baby” was the first Substack I properly started reading back in 2020. Every week I loved receiving her emails that made me think, laugh and reflect. My intrigue around Substack as a platform grew in tandem. She is also the first person who I followed who turned her newsletter into a full-time writing job after leaving her media job, and the first person I saw who o...

Is a good story worth something? JP Watson thinks so. A few years ago, I made a new friend in Birmingham-born writer JP Watson. He is probably most well-known for being the founder of The Pound Project which has sold thousands of books to more than 100+ countries worldwide, is known for paying authors an equal share and a former winner of The Bookseller's Futurebook Startup of the Year award. The...

I really enjoy Emily McDowell’s honest take on creative grief, career identity, life transitions and quitting. She has a brilliant podcast called Quitted that she hosted with her pal and fellow Substacker Holly Whitaker. One of my favourite episodes is titled ‘Emily McDowell quits being a human brand.' (On that note, Emily and Holly have just launched a new workshop on how to help you navigate “th...

I read the book Matrescence in two days. It was as though I was reading a thriller, I really couldn’t put it down. I felt a compulsion to keep reading that I hadn’t felt in years. It is a book about motherhood, written by Lucy Jones, but more than that, it’s a book about metamorphosis. You don’t need to be a mother to find it utterly captivating, and yet it is clearly a book that will make those w...

Jenn Romolini and I are kindred spirits across the pond. In 2016/2017, we both wrote a memoir/guide about our respective online careers and how to navigate a world when you feel slightly ‘different’ to everyone else around you who seems to follow the sensible path. Mine was called Ctrl Alt Delete: How I Grew Up Online and hers was called Weird in a World That’s Not. Cut to now, all these years on,...

Welcome to the first episode of my new podcast exclusive to The Hyphen: Creative Coffee with Emma Gannon. This is a Substack-only podcast focusing on writers and their creative process, discussed over a laid back coffee. My first conversation is with the brilliant Farrah Storr, head of writer partnerships at Substack who runs Things Worth Knowing , a newsletter always full of interesting essays, t...

I’m back with a new podcast! 18 months after closing down my previous show Ctrl Alt Delete , I’m back in a different way. I’m starting from scratch, which may surprise some people. Why not launch my new podcast to an existing RSS feed that over the years reached thirteen million people? Because I’m not interested in reaching as many people as possible— I’m interested in building this community her...