The Writers’ Gym Podcast

In this episode Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen look at the role and influence of place in creative writing.  We look at the ways in which setting can influence you as writers and affect your characters. As usual, we offer creative writing challenges to help you consider the influence of place in your own work.    In this episode Rachel references “Three Wishes” by Liane Moriarty (Penguin 2003) ...

In this podcast we’ll talk about the art and techniques of editing.  We’ll discuss approaches to editing, what you should take out and keep in and some of the best and worst editing advice we’ve received.  Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.  New episodes will appear every Wednesday The Writers Gym Podcast is an Alter...

In this episode Rachel Knightley and Emily Inkpen discuss the art of giving and receiving feedback.  We’ll have advice on how and who to ask for feedback, when feedback will be useful and how you should use feedback as part of your creative process. Subscribe to The Writers’ Gym in your favourite podcast app to be notified of all new episodes as they are released.  New episodes will appear every W...

Acclaimed actor, poet and novelist Nigel Planer joins Dr Rachel Knightley for a very special, between-series episode of The Writers’ Gym podcast. From writers’ geographical landscapes to the love of flares and the influence of Pratchett on their lives and works, this is a sneak preview of Nigel Planer and Friends, featuring Nigel, Rachel and filmmaker and debut novelist Simon Rumley, at Riverside...

Ahead of the launch of Twisted Branches (coming Oct 2023 from Black Shuck Books), Rachel Knightley talks to Trevor Kennedy of Big Hits Radio UK for his horror spot on the Sunday Service. In return, Trevor come to the Writers' Gym to talk about his freelance writing life and how confidence in our voices is only ever half the story of what it feels like to be a professional writer.   Big thanks to B...

What does full-time writing look like? It depends on the writer – and what we create in our lives off the page depends directly on what we imagine. Today's Personal Training at the Writers' Gym takes in the spaces between what goes on the page, and how to work with our feelings about ourselves and the world to create the work lives as well as the art we want. Rachel Knightley's guest is Maura McHu...

Internationally best-selling author, artist, journalist and speaker John-Paul Flintoff trained in improvisation with Keith Johnstone. He designs today's word-count workout alongside Rachel Knightley as they discuss the benefits of stagecraft on communication, and how performance provides 'factory conditions' for understanding your own character motivation offstage as much as on it. John-Paul's boo...

"What writing advice really pisses you off?" was one of my favourite questions to ask award-winning author and editor Dan Coxon. At the time (an interview for the Business of Writing module I convene at Roehampton University), his answer was one of the most prolific – and apparently innocuous – answers out there. Maybe you've heard it. Dan's the first to say if it works for you, great. But what ar...

One thing that becomes clear the more accomplished we get in any area of writing (or of anything else): the kind of writing somebody else is doing still looks to us more like "real" writing... Dr Mike Jones is a rock lyricist (notably for Latin Quarter, including their Top 20 hit Radio Africa), reader and lecturer in music at Liverpool University. His work includes an MA programmes in partnership...

A painter doesn't need permission to mix any colours they like. Yet, as writers, our memories, imagination, observations and questions about the world and ourselves come with "not supposed to go there" stamped all over them. How can we give ourselves permission to beat those blocks? Multi-award-winning author Jennifer Steil joins Rachel Knightley to talk about about what kept her writing through k...