Page One - The Writer's Podcast

Tasmina Perry is the internationally bestselling author of fourteen novels including Kiss Heaven Goodbye, Private Lives and Guilty Pleasures. Her books have been translated into twenty languages and sold over two million copies worldwide. She is a former lawyer turned award-winning journalist and was editing the UK edition of In Style magazine when her debut novel Daddy's Girls...

Chris Hammer is a leading Australian crime fiction novelist, author of international bestsellers  Scrublands ,  Silver  and  Trust . Scrublands was shortlisted for major writing awards in Australia, the UK and the United States. In the UK it was named the Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Year 2019 and won the prestigious UK Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey New Blood Dagge...

Hugh Howey is the author of the bestselling sci fi series, Wool, which is now being turned into a show for Apple TV. In addition, he wrote the Molly Fyde and Beacon 23 series, and is currently working on the next installment of the Wool universe. We had a great chat with Hugh about his career, and heard about the brave and ultimately life-changing decision he made to self-publish his own works (wh...

Jon Ingold is the founder and narrative director of Inkle Studios who have made hugely popular narrative games such as 80 Days , Overboard! and Heaven's Vault . He is also a published author and has just released a two-volume novel set in the Heaven's Vault world. We had a fascinating chat with Jon about the differences between fiction and interactive fiction - and found out that in many ways, the...

Simon Beckett taught English as a foreign language in Spain, installed cavity wall installation and played in various unsuccessful bands before becoming a freelance journalist and author. Since then, he has become an international bestselling author thanks to his David Hunter crime thrillers. The series has been translated into 29 languages. Simon’s novels have appeared in The Sunday Times Top 10...

Joanne Harris MBE is the international bestselling author of books such as Chocolat and The Gospel of Loki . A prolific author, she has written nearly twenty books in addition to numerous short stories. Her latest novel is A Narrow Door , a psychological thriller set in an English grammar school. She is also currently Chair of the Society of Authors. We loved chatting with Joanne about all things...

Catriona Ward won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel for her debut, Rawblood , and again for Little Eve , making her the first woman to win the prize twice. Little Eve, which also won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, will soon be republished. Her latest novel, The Last House on Needless Street , has received rave reviews and became an instant bestseller. We loved chatting with...

Dominic Nolan is the author of the Abigail Boone novels, Past Life and After Dark . His most recent novel, Vine Street , is a historical thriller based on real events in 1930s Soho, and has already been garnering rave reviews. We had a really interesting chat with Dominic about his path to publishing, and talk about why it took some time between his getting an agent and his first book being publis...

Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of the novel, Dark Matter , for which he is writing the screenplay for Sony Pictures. His international-bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy was adapted into a television series for FOX, executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan, that was Summer 2015's #1 show. His latest book, Recursion , was a bestseller which is also being ad...

Stuart Turton is a former journalist and the author of the award-winning, genre-mashing The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle . His second book, The Devil and the Dark Water was released in October 2020 and became an instant smash hit. We had a great time chatting to Stuart about how an early love of Agatha Christie mysteries eventually led to his becoming a writer. He tells us why he would prefer...

Alan Johnson was an MP for 20 years and served as Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Health for the Labour Governments of Blair and Brown. After leaving the Cabinet, he wrote his first memoir, This Boy , which was an instant success, and followed that up with two more volumes of memoirs, Please, Mister Postman and The Long and Winding Road . This year he has published his first novel, The L...

Yes, the tables are turned this week as our very own Tariq Ashkanani joins us as a guest rather than interviewer to tell us about the path to publishing his debut novel, Welcome to Cooper, which currently sits high on Amazon's Kindle Store! Tariq explains his rather convoluted path to becoming a writer, and how the spark for his brilliant debut came after attending a short story writing class. We...

Catherine Quinn is a bestselling fiction author whose books are published in over fifteen countries. She writes contemporary thrillers as Cate Quinn, and her historical thrillers are published under the pen name CS Quinn. Catherine’s was a travel and lifestyle journalist for The Times, The Guardian and The Mirror, alongside many magazines. Prior to journalism and fiction, her background in hi...

Duncan Hamilton is an award-winning non-fiction author and sports journalist. His first book, Provided You Don't Kiss Me:20 Years with Brian Clough , won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and award he has subsequently won another two times. He has just released his first fiction novel, Injury Time . We had a really interesting chat with Duncan about his route into sports journalism and hea...

This week we have not one but two great guests! Abir Mukherjee is the bestselling author of the Sam Wyndham series of crime novels set in Raj era India. His debut, A Rising Man , won the CWA Endeavour Dagger for best historical crime novel of 2017. His latest, Death in the East , was nominated for the Theakston Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021. Vaseem Khan is the author of two crime series se...

C. Robert Cargill started out as a film reviewer for one of the internet's first film sites, aintitcool.com, before moving into the world of movies himself, writing films such as Sinister and Dr Strange. Not content with taking the movie world by storm, he has also become a bestselling novelist, and his most recent book, Day Zero , is a prequel to the brilliant Sea of Rust . We loved chatting with...

As well as being a successful novelist, Imran Mahmood is a practising barrister with over 30 years' court experience. His first book, You Don't Know Me , was chosen by Simon Mayo as a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice for 2017 and longlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year and for the CWA Gold Dagger award. It's currently being adapted for TV. His latest book, I Know What I Saw , is just out. We...

Philip Gwynne Jones spent twenty years in the IT industry before realising he was congenitally unsuited to it, and now works as a writer, teacher and translator. He lives in Venice with his wife Caroline. His first novel, “The Venetian Game”, was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month and a  Times  Top 5 bestseller. “The Venetian Legacy”, the fifth in the Nathan Sutherland series,...

MJ Arlidge is a man of many talents, being a novelist, screenwriter and producer. Having started out as a storyliner for Eastenders on the BBC, he went on to work on celebrated British shows such as Monarch of the Glen and Silent Witness , before creating his own hit shows such as Mistresses and Cape Wrath . He came to the world of novels in his 40s, when Eeny Meeny was released to huge success. I...

Caroline Hulse is the author of Like a House on Fire and The Adults . All The Fun of the Fair is her latest novel which has just been released. Her books have been published in fourteen languages and optioned for television. We had great fun chatting with Caroline, hearing about how she moved from HR into writing, why she still works in an office (as an author!) and why she abandoned writing suspe...

In this special episode, we talk with all three of the nominees for the 2021 Desmond Elliott Prize, the showcase award for debut authors from the National Centre for Writing. First up, we talk with AK Blakemore, author of The Manningtree Witches , a brilliant literary historical fiction novel set in England in 1643. AK is the author of two full-length collections of poetry:  Humbert Summ...

Nina Allan has won the British Science Fiction Award, the Novella Award, the Kitschies Red Tentacle and France’s Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire. Her first published piece of fiction appeared in a magazine called Dark Horizons in 2002. Since then, her stories have featured in numerous magazines and anthologies including  The Year’s Best Science Fiction ,  Best Horror of the Year  and&nbs...

Holly Seddon is the bestselling author of books such as Try Not to Breathe , Don't Close Your Eyes , and her latest, The Hit List . In between writing these great books, she also manages to host a great writing podcast (a great one to listen to alongside this one...!) called Honest Authors, which looks at the realities of life as a published author. We had great fun chatting with Holly, hearing ab...

Nikki Smith studied English Literature at the University of Birmingham and went on to forge a career in finance; working for companies including a city bank and a trampoline park. She’d always wanted to write, and prompted by someone she hadn’t seen since school contacting her to ask if she’d ever done anything with her writing, signed up for a Curtis Brown creative writing course in 2017. She wen...

David Nicholls is the award-winning author of books such as Starter for Ten , Us , One Day and, most recently, Sweet Sorrow . He has also won awards for his screenwriting, from his contributions to Cold Feet to the adaptations of both his own books such as Starter for Ten and One Day and the likes of Patrick Melrose and Great Expectations . We loved chatting with David about how he got his start i...