Page One - The Writer's Podcast

Kate Foster worked as a national newspaper journalist for more than twenty years before becoming an author. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. Her previous novels include The Maiden , which won the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The King’s Witches . The Mo...

Watch this as a full video episode on our YouTube channel! On this week's Drafting Notes, we are discussing that issue that every writer needs to deal with: Rejection! How do you handle it? Is there ever a point in your career where you don't have to deal with it (spoiler: no). And what are our thoughts on being resilient when you receive those rejections? Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast...

Stuart MacBride is the Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author of the Logan McRae and Ash Henderson novels. He’s also published standalones, novellas, and short stories, as well as a slightly twisted children’s picture book for slightly twisted children. His latest book, This House of Burning Bones, is out now. Despite some technical difficulties (explained at the start!) we enjoyed chatting wit...

Watch this episode as a full video interview on our YouTube channel Andrew Hunter Murray is a writer, broadcaster and comedian. He co-hosts the award-winning podcast No Such Thing As A Fish, which has received 500 million downloads and toured the world. He also writes jokes and journalism for Private Eye magazine, hosts the Eye's podcast Page 94, presents BBC Radio 4’s Friday night comedy The Nake...

Julian Simpson is a London-based writer and director known for his work across film, TV, and audio, including on Spooks, Hustle, Hotel Babylon, New Tricks, and Doctor Who. He’s also the co-founder of Storypunk and the creator of acclaimed audio dramas like The Lovecraft Investigations. He is currently running a Kickstarter for the next chapter of The Lovecraft Investigations, focusing on 20th Cent...

Watch this episode as a full video interview on YouTube Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and storyteller, whose 21 books—translated into 58 languages—include The Island of Missing Trees , 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World , and The Forty Rules of Love . A fellow and Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, she holds a PhD in political science, has taught...

Robert is the author of  The Tainted Cup , The Divine Cities trilogy and The Founders Trilogy. A Drop of Corruption , the sequel to The Tainted Cup , is out now. His work has received the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Phillip K. Dick Citation of Excellence, and he has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Locus Awards. He also dug a very good fren...

On this episode of Drafting Notes, we talk about the importance of research: how it can spur ideas, how to go about it with difficult topics, what to include (and not include) in your writing and much more! And once you have all your notes, how do you organise them? Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be-published w...

Frances White is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Voyage of the Damned, a queer fantasy murder mystery at sea. A Nottingham resident, Frances is a creative writing graduate from Royal Holloway University of London. When not writing, Frances can be found sewing nerdy costumes or researching obscure historical facts.  We loved speaking to Frances and hearing about how Voyage of the Damned...

On this episode, we are talking about how to deal with those days that every writer has when you just aren't feeling it. What do you do if you are doubting what you've written? Push through or stubbornly try and fix it? We offer our thoughts and possible solutions - some more serious than others! Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one h...

David Hewson’s novels have been translated worldwide, from Italian to Japanese, with his debut, Semana Santa , filmed with Mira Sorvino. His work spans Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Amsterdam, including the Nic Costa series in Rome, the Pieter Vos books in Amsterdam, and his adaptations of The Killing in Copenhagen. A former journalist for The Times and The Sunday Times , he turned to fiction full-ti...

Watch this as a full video episode on YouTube! Nicholas Binge is a bestselling author of speculative thrillers, literary science fiction, and horror. His novels include Extremity ( 2025), Dissolution (2025), Ascension (2023) and Professor Everywhere (2020). Binge is based in Edinburgh, UK, where he also lectures in creative writing. Regular listeners will know Nick as he has been on the pod not on...

Nadine Matheson lives in London and is a criminal solicitor. In 2016, she won the City University Crime Writing Competition and completed the Creative Writing (Crime/Thrillers Novels) Master’s Degree with distinction in 2018. In 2019, Nadine signed with A.M. Heath Literary Agents and her debut crime fiction novel, The Jigsaw Man, was won by HQ (HarperCollins) in a six-publisher auction. The best-s...

Watch as a full video episode on YouTube! How to find the time to write? Even published authors often have day jobs, and so it can be tricky to find the time to write. In this episode of Drafting Notes, we discuss how we manage to do it, and what writing habits and techniques help us get words on the page. Let us know if you have any different methods! Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast epi...

Simon Scarrow’s passion for writing began at an early age. After a childhood spent travelling the world, he pursued his great love of history as a teacher before becoming a full-time writer. His Roman soldier heroes Cato and Macro made their debut in 2000 in UNDER THE EAGLE, and have subsequently appeared in many bestsellers in the Eagles of the Empire series, including CENTURION, THE GLADIATOR an...

We often hear that authors shouldn't write to market, shouldn't chase trends... but how true is that? Is it always a bad thing? And even if not writing to market, how important is it to keep an eye on the market as you write? We discuss it all in this episode of Drafting Notes. Drafting Notes is a new series of podcast episodes in which one award-winning writer (Tariq) and one hopefully soon-to-be...

Trevor Wood served 16 years as a Writer (not what you think it is) before branching out into journalism and then writing plays. From there, he moved into writing novels, with his debut, MAN ON THE STREET, winning the CWA New Blood award and the Crimefest Debut Crime Novel of the Year. His latest book, The Silent Killer, was published in July 2024 and is just out in paperback. We had a great chat w...

Watch the full episode now on our YouTube channel Self-promotion for authors of all levels is increasingly important in today's busy publishing world - even with a traditional publishing deal, authors are encouraged to promote their own books. But what works, what doesn't - and how do you get over that "cringe" factor of promoting your own work? We discuss it all in this episode of Drafting Notes...

Chris McQueer  is a Scottish writer and spoken art performer. Writing in the Scottish vernacular, he is known for his dark comedy and surreal humour. He is best known for his two published collections of short stories  Hings  and  HWFG . His debut novel, Hermit , is out now. We had a great chat with Chris, hearing about how he first decided to start writing his stories on Twitt...

Annabel Campbell writes fantasy with fierce female characters and disaster wizards, and believes everything is improved by dragons. She lives in a tiny village in Scotland, where most of her neighbours are sheep. She has a PhD in cardiovascular science, and when not making things up for a living, she works as a Medical Writer. Her debut novel, The Outcast Mage, is out now. We had great fun chattin...

Watch the full episode on YouTube now! What books influenced you as a reader and writer? We continue our countdown of the top ten books that influenced us as writers - from number 5 to number 1! (Before the comments fly in, we want to stress again: This is NOT a list of the ten best books we have read! We wanted to discuss books that have stayed with us for whatever reason and have influenced the...

Watch this episode as a full video interview on our YouTube channel! Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times bestselling writer of Star Wars: Phasma, Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire, Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade, The Secrets of Long Snoot, The Perfect Weapon, and Scorched; Disney Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart, It Will Only Hurt for a Moment, Guillotine, Midnight at the Houdini, Bloom, Mine, The...

What books influenced you as a reader and writer? That's what we're looking at on today's special episode of Drafting Notes as we break down numbers 10-6 on our own list of 10 books. *Before the comments fly in, we want to stress again: This is NOT a list of the ten best books we have read! We wanted to discuss books that have stayed with us for whatever reason and have influenced the stories we w...

Watch this episode as a full video interview on our YouTube channel Jay Kristoff is a #1 international, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. He is the winner of eight Aurealis Awards, an ABIA, has over two million books in print and is published in over thirty five countries. His latest book is The Empire of The Damned, the second book in his Empire of Th...

Watch this episode as a full video podcast on YouTube We're joined by not one, not two, but three brilliant authors for our end of year Christmas special! Anna Mazzola is the award-winning author of five historical crime or Gothic novels. She is now also writing legal thrillers under the name Anna Sharpe. Her latest book, Notes on A Drowning, is out January 2025. Abir Mukherjee is the Times bestse...