Rippling Pages: Interviews with Writers

The return of a potentially holy river in the Indian mountains - is it a sign of a new age, a divine intervention, or simply the workings of nature? These are the questions at the heart of Gurnaik Johal’s novel, SARASWATI, published by Serpent’s Tail. Frauds, politicians, mystics, writers, and the family who own the farm in which the river exists, are caught up in trying to determine what the retu...

“I think when you’re young you really allow yourself to be stupid.” Welcome to part 2 of my conversation with Yan Ge. Yan Ge is here to discuss her life and writing. She was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province People’s Republic of China. Emerging as a prodigious writer in Chinese and Sichuanese, she was named as one of China’s twenty future literary masters by People Magazine. In 2012, she was chose...

”If I enter a project knowing what I’m going to do, confidently, I wouldn’t do it.” It’s Women in Translation Month! Yan Ge is here to discuss her life and writing. She was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province People’s Republic of China. Emerging as a prodigious writer in Chinese and Sichuanese, she was named as one of China’s twenty future literary masters by People Magazine. In 2012, she was chosen...

“She starts having an experience to see her own life as a more shifting sands that isn’t to be fear but in fact to be enjoyed.”   Kimberly Campanello is here to talk about her novel, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE (Somesuch Editions). It’s a sweltering summer in Bretagne, France. K, an American exchange student, is navigating more than just unfamiliar streets. She’s finding a new language. This is bonus c...

“How do you sound like you know what you’re doing when you don’t have the words” Kimberly Campanello is here to talk about her novel, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE (Somesuch Editions). It’s a sweltering summer in Bretagne, France. K, an American exchange student, is navigating more than just unfamiliar streets. She’s finding a new language. Kimberly’s work moves between forms, genres, and histories. She’...

“I found myself writing an apology letter…and I didn’t know what I was apologising for.” In Uttama Kirit Patel’s novel, The Shape of an Apostrophe (Serpent’s Tail), Lina is pregnant, and she’s finding that this seemingly salubrious society is not congenial and accommodating to the difficult challenges of an unplanned pregnancy. Uttama, born to Gujarati parents who then since found their way to the...

“When I set out to plan the business, I wrote ten words - the world I always kept coming to was community.” The Rippling Pages is all about curating the best writers to inspire you and your writing - today, we’re speaking to another curator. Eden Barnes is the owner of Next Chapter Books, an indie women-focussed bookshop in Leeds, and I had a quick chat with her in store.  There’s lots going on th...

"It is also difficult to imbue the people and the movements of the past with the complexities we offer ourselves."  If you were to meet a time traveller from the future, what would you ask them? This is the question Roisin Dunnett asks in her novel, A LINE YOU HAVE TRACED (Magpie Books/Oneworld Publications). Spanning over three centuries, three women are connected by forces they, at first, don’t...

“They got fired for that!” Katharina Volckmer is here to discuss her second novel, Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes (Indigo Press) and it was live at the Hyde Park Book Club! Thank you to the Hyde Park Book Club for hosting us and Next Chapter Books for supporting the event. This is the second part of our conversation.  Katharina’s first novel, THE APPOINTMENT, was transl...

Katharina Volckmer is here to discuss her second novel, Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes (Indigo Press) and it was live at the Hyde Park Book Club! Thank you to the Hyde Park Book Club for hosting us and Next Chapter Books for supporting the event. Katharina’s first novel, THE APPOINTMENT, was translated into over fifteen languages, it was adapted for the stage starring C...

Welcome to the first edition of Rippling Pages: Ask the Host! Over the years, I’ve been asking the questions, but it’s about time I answered some too. So, that’s what I’ve done: I’ve picked out some questions from the Rippling Pages inbox, and answered them! In this episode, I answer: - Where am I from? - Why did I start the podcast? - Who would I like to interview? - What books have I enjoyed rec...

"She finds herself in London working in a theatre having to touch people!"   Elaine Garvey, to discuss her novel, THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT, published by Canongate Books. It’s 2002. Mairéad Sweeney has moved from rural Ireland to work in London’s West End. While the prestige of working in theatre doesn’t exactly wear off, the long hours and spoiled actors make Mairéad’s transition from Ireland more...

“It’s my mum’s favourite book that I wrote!” Benjamin Markovits is here to talk about his new and twelfth novel, THE REST OF OUR LIVES, published by Faber and Faber. Tom Layward has made a pact with himself. After his daughter moves out of college, he’s moving out too. His wife had an affair, and he feels like he owes himself a road trip across America. He takes  in the sights, sounds and basketba...

‘The people I like to write about are what I would describe as moderately successful failures.’ Benjamin Markovits is here to talk about his new and twelfth novel, THE REST OF OUR LIVES, published by Faber and Faber. Tom Layward has made a pact with himself. After his daughter moves out of college, he’s moving out too. His wife had an affair, and he feels like he owes himself a road trip across Am...

"Taylor Swift is somebody who has managed to keep reinventing herself to stay relevant." Welcome to Rippling Points, more content and more insights and inspiration into the craft of literature: Marni Appleton is here to talk about her short story collection, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, published by Indigo Press. We discuss: - How Taylor Swift's ability to reinvent herself and stay relevant differs to tha...

"It builds to women and girls choosing to hide their mouths because of the effect of this trend...things just morph and take on different meanings as they're shared in different contexts" Marni Appleton is here to talk about her collection of short stories, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, published by The Indigo Press. The modern world Marni presents to us in her stories is one that feels incredibly liberati...

"Being published in English is a big milestone..." Vincenzo Latronico is here to talk about his first novel translated into English - PERFECTION, published by Fitzcarraldo editions and translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes. Welcome to Rippling Points, more content insights and inspiration into the craft of literature: - How and why he set his novel in Berlin, or why locations don't become s...

“Love is a dangerous topic.” Vincenzo Latronico is here to talk about his first novel translated into English - PERFECTION, published by Fitzcarraldo editions and translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes. Vincenzo is one of the most distinguished novelists writing in Italian today. He has also translated many books into Italian, by authors such as George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgeral...

“They had one objective - to get rid of certain men” Welcome to the first edition of Rippling Points - bonus content from last month’s episode! A little bit more insight and a little bit more inspiration into the craft of writing! Here, you can hear Pola talking about her delve into the archives to learn more about Argentina in 1970s.  You’ll then hear Pola talking about her next project, Bad Homb...

“I think it’s much more interesting to explore women through their powers.” Pola Oloixarac, one of the most exciting voices in world literature today, is here to talk about her two novels that have been translated into English. Most recently SAVAGE THEORIES and then MONA (translated by Roy Kesey). Both are published by Serpent’s Tail . She was named by Granta as one of the Best Young Spanish novel...

"I think it's a story few people have told before. And it's really about, what does a defender of human rights look like?" Iris Mwanza is here to talk about her novel, THE LION'S DEN (Canongate Books) . Iris's novel is about a human rights lawyer, Grace Zulu, whose client Willbess ‘Bessy’ Mulenga, has been arrested for offences ‘against nature. It launches Grace, and Iris, into the underbelly of t...

“The book is me trying to have a conversation with my father and reach a middle ground.”   Friða Ísberg is here to talk about THE MARK (Faber and Faber) translated by Larissa Kyzer. The book centres on a referendum in Iceland about whether mandatory tests should be imposed on its citizens. Friða talks about writing over the divide, arguments with her father, and Icelandic literary culture and how...

“Some people have been, oh these women are so grotesque. I don’t think they are! They’re quite relatable.”   Naomi Wood joins me to discuss THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS ( Published by Orion) It’s a collection that features the BBC Short Story Prize winner, Comorbidities. We talk about different kinds of intimacy in the stories, and how or why Naomi often writes about mothers in the . Naomi...

"I think their experience in the bookstore is trying to think literary inheritance and spiritual and intellectual experience." Sam sax is here to discuss YR DEAD, their debut novel about Ezra, a queer, non-binary 27-year-old of Jewish heritage, whose life we see in fragments and flashbacks when they self-immolate outside trump tower. We talk about qualities of wandering, the multiplicities of Jewi...

"I'd done a lot of clay-making...you can spend a lifetime and only get good at one technique!" Jennifer Lucy Allan joins me to talk about her second book, CLAY: A HUMAN HISTORY ( White Rabbit Books) . After Jennifer's exploration and writing about sound in The Foghorn's Lament (White Rabbit Books), Jennifer has, quite literally, turned her hand to a more physical and enduring substance in clay. Fr...