Page One - The Writer's Podcast

This is one of a special series of short episodes speaking to some of the best comedians appearing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe! These episodes will be released daily during the week of 8 August 2022. Schalk Bezuidenhout was born in Kempton Park or as he calls it - 'The New York of the East Rand'. His family and friends stood back as they watched Schalk evolve from an Afrikaans conservative cat...

This is one of a special series of short episodes speaking to some of the best comedians appearing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe! These episodes will be released daily during the week of 8 August 2022. Tessa Coates is a writer, performer, journalist, comedian and one third of critically acclaimed sketch group Massive Dad. Her debut solo show  Primates  sold out the entire run...

This is one of a special series of short episodes speaking to some of the best comedians appearing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe! These episodes will be released daily during the week of 8 August 2022. Jessica Fostekew is a comedian, actor and writer. Star of Motherland  BBC  and Cuckoo  BBC/ Netflix,  host of  The Hoovering Podcast  and regular co-host of the behem...

This is the first of a special series of short episodes speaking to some of the best comedians appearing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe! These episodes will be released daily during the week of 8 August 2022. Jacob Hawley is a stand-up comedian, podcaster and the presenter and creator of BBC Sounds’s Jacob Hawley: On Drugs and Jacob Hawley On Love . Jacob has rapidly generated interest as one of...

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the multi-award winning bestselling author of sci-fi and fantasy books such as the Children of Time series, Shadows of the Apt series and much more. He primarily explores deep themes, such as artificial intelligence and alien awareness within epic galactic and fantastical settings. He has a deep interest in the animal world specifically insects from his studies in Zoology and...

Lorraine Wilson is the author of the BFS and Kavya-nominated speculative fantasy novel, This is Our Undoing . She has also written short fiction (also award-shortlisted!) and her latest novel, The Way The Light Bends is just out. We had a fascinating chat with Lorraine, hearing about her previous life as a field scientist (including catching the bubonic plague!) and why she turned to writing when...

Victoria Selman is the bestselling author of four crime novels and co-host of the crime writers’ podcast, CrimeTime.fm. Her latest book, Truly Darkly Deeply , has only been out for a couple of weeks and is already a bestseller and has had the film rights optioned. We had a great time chatting with Victoria, hearing about how she rediscovered writing after a near 30-year hiatus, chatting about chan...

A former magazine editor and award-winning journalist, Janice Hallett has written screenplays and novels. Janice's first feature film Retreat was released by Sony Pictures (co-written and directed by Carl Tibbetts) which starred Cillian Murphy, Thandiwe Newton and Jamie Bell, and was selected for the Triforce Creative Network year-long mentoring scheme and featured on the BBC New Talent Hotlist. S...

Chris Whitaker is a bestselling crime writer whose debut, Tall Oaks , won the CWA debut dagger award. His latest crime novel, We Begin At The End , has been an international bestseller and has been optioned to Disney. Most recently, he wrote the brilliant YA novel, The Forevers . We had great fun chatting with Chris, hearing about how he found writing after a very traumatic period in his life and...

Martha Wells has been an SF/F writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes  The Books of the Raksura  series,  The Death of the Necromancer , the  Fall of Ile-Rien  trilogy,  The Murderbot Diaries  series, media tie-in fiction for  Star Wars ,  Stargate: Atlantis , and  Magic: the Gathering , as well as short fi...

Ed McDonald’s debut novel  BLACKWING  began the  The Raven’s Mark  trilogy, which continues with   RAVENCRY   and concludes with  CROWFALL . Ed has been writing stories since he was a child, and studied history for his BA and MA degrees. He is a practitioner of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), and his love of history has helped to inspire the books t...

Jane Shemilt is an internationally-acclaimed, best-selling author of psychological suspense novels. Her debut novel Daughter was a  Richard and Judy pick , shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish award and nominated for an  Edgar award . It became the fastest selling debut of 2014. Her third novel, How Far We Fall, has been optioned for production as a TV drama by Twelve Town. Jane’s stories...

Nicholas Meyer is an American writer and director, known for his best-selling Sherlock Holmes novel  The Seven-Per-Cent Solution , and for directing the films  Time After Time , two of the  Star Trek  feature films, including Wrath of Khan, and the 1983 television film  The Day After. Meyer was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the fi...

Rob Hart is the author of six novels, including  The Paradox Hotel  and  The Warehouse , as well as the short story collection  Take-Out ,  Scott Free  with James Patterson, and a Star Wars short story. The Warehouse sold in more than 20 countries and was optioned for film by Ron Howard. We really enjoyed talking to Rob about his move from journalism to writing n...

A self-confessed serial killer nerd, Sam Holland studied psychology at university then spent the next few years working in HR, before quitting for a full-time career in writing. Her debut novel, The Echo Man , is out now. We had great fun chatting with Sam, hearing about how she crafted her debut novel while working in HR, and talking about coming up with one of those ideas that seems so brilliant...

Mary Kenney is a brilliant writer of video games and comic books from The Walking Dead to the recent smash hit PS5 game, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales . She is currently working on a new Wolverine game for Marvel and Sony. She also has Gamer Girls , a YA non-fiction novel about the women who built the video games industry, coming out in July 2022. We loved chatting with Mary, hearing how she...

Leroy Kincaide is a former professional wrestler who moved from the world of the squared circle to creating stories from behind the camera as a writer/director. His first feature, The Last Rite , is available to stream now. We had a really interesting chat with Leroy, learning how he largely taught himself how to create his own feature film, from writing to directing and editing. We talk about how...

Ben Aaronovitch is the bestselling author of the Rivers of London series, the latest of which, Amongst Our Weapons , is just out! Before becoming a successful author, Ben worked in screenwriting, writing episodes of Doctor Who , Casualty and more - but it was only when he was working as a bookseller in Waterstones that the idea of writing novels struck him. It was great fun chatting with Ben about...

Fonda Lee is the author of the epic fantasy Green Bone Saga, beginning with  Jade City,  continuing in  Jade War,  and concluding in  Jade Legacy.  She is also the author of the science fiction novels  Zeroboxer ,  Exo  and  Cross Fire . Fonda is a winner of the World Fantasy Award, as well as a three-time winner of the Aurora Award (Canada’s natio...

James Oswald is the author of the bestselling Inspector Maclean series of novels, as well as the fantasy series, The Ballad of Sir Benfro, and more. His latest book, All That Lives , is the twelfth in the Inspector Maclean series. It was really interesting hearing how James made his breakthrough via self-publishing and how his success there led to traditional publishers bidding to try and get the...

Georgia Pritchett is an award-winning screenwriter who has worked on some of the best shows on television including Spitting Image , Smack The Pony , The Thick of It , Veep , Succession and, most recently, The Shrink Next Door , the hit Apple TV show starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd. On top of all that, she has also recently released a hilarious memoir entitled My Mess is a Bit of a Life . We h...

Ian Rankin is an international superstar of crime writing, with bestsellers across the globe and is the creator of one of the best-known fictional policeman, John Rebus. We are so delighted that Ian was able to come down to our studio to talk about his stellar writing career. We hear how that began, where Rebus came from and talk about the impact of Scottish crime writing on the genre. We also tal...

Anna Mazzola is the a writer of historical thrillers and Gothic fiction. Her novels explore the impact of crime and injustice. Her debut novel,  The Unseeing , is based on the life of a real woman called Sarah Gale who was convicted of aiding a murder in London in 1837. It won an Edgar Allan Poe Award in the US and was nominated for the Historical Writers’ Association’s Debut Crown in th...

Will Carver is the acclaimed author of unique, dark crime novels such as Good Samaritans , The Beresford and, most recently, Psychopaths Anonymous . We had great fun chatting with Will, hearing about how he broke into the industry and also how he found himself having to start his writing career again when publishing contracts dried up. We also discuss why his books are either loved or hated (with...

Lilja Sigurðardóttir is an Icelandic crime-writer born in 1972. She is the author of novels, stage plays and screenplays. Her latest latest book, White as Snow (Náhvít jörð) is the third in a series of thrillers featuring financial investigator Áróra and police detective Daníel. We had great fun chatting with Lilja about her interesting route into writing (thank you, Dan Brown!), talked...