Writer's Routine

Danny Wallace is an ideas-man and a doer. He's started his own kindness cult, tracked down all his long-lost friends, and spent a whole year saying yes to everything. Danny has published adult books, kids books, and has a new one out, 'The Luckiest Kid in the World'. It's all about a boy who is determined to be the most average child ever, and that very fact makes him extremely unusual. We talk ab...

Luca Veste is fully immersed in the fantastic writing community. He's blogged, he podcasts with 'Two Crime Writers and a Microphone', plays in the 'Fun Lovin' Crime Writers', co-founded the 'Locked In Festival' and has published many books. He's most known for the 'Murphy and Rossi' novels, and for writing across many genres. His new one, 'You Never Said Goodbye', is about Sam Cooper who lost his...

Until very recently, Claire Frost worked full-time as a book reviewer for 'Fabulous'. After years reading and chatting to authors, she chose to work 4 days a week, and dedicate a whole day to writing. She has published 3 books, 'Married at First Swipe', 'Living My Best Life', and her new book is, 'The One'. It's about Lottie Brown, who has finally found The One. Leo is everything she’s ever wanted...

Stacy Willingham has just published her debut novel, 'A Flicker in the Dark'. The novel follows Chloe Davis, whose world was torn apart at 12 years old when her father confessed to the murder of six teenage girls in their small Louisiana town. 20 years later, Chloe is a successful psychologist in Baton Rouge. But when a local girl disappears, she starts to unravel. The rights have been optioned by...

Nadine Matheson is busy. Busy, busy, busy. She works as a criminal lawyer, has found time to go back to school, and publish her debut novel, 'The Jigsaw Man'. The book is a police procedural about Inspector Henley, tasked with finding the killer of bodies found along the River Thames in London. It's set in the area she grew up and we talk about why she wanted, and how she managed, to accurately po...

This week we chat to Rudy Ruiz, about his new novel, 'The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez'. Rudy has been a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards, and has written extensively about the Mexican/ US border. The new book weaves that social activism into a novel, telling the story of a man seeking redemption and the American Dream in the face of a mystical family curse. We talk about whe...

Ellen Alpsten has worked in TV, as a producer and presenter, she's won short story competitions, teaches creative writing, and has just published her second book, 'The Tsarina's Daughter'. It's based on Catherine the 1st of Russia's daughter, Elizabeth. We talk about research, how she knows want to look into next, and how she blends historical fact with fiction. Also you can hear how getting publi...

Harriet Kline is an award-winning short story writer. 'Ghost' won the Hissac short story competition, 'Chest of Drawers', the London Magazine short story competition. Her work has been published online, in magazines and played out on BBC Radio. Her debut novel is 'This Shining Life'. It's all about Ruth, who loses her husband Rich, and sets out on a mission with her son Ollie to solve puzzles he l...

Paul Bradley Carr has spent his career as a journalist uncovering the dark side of Silicon Valley. He's reported on it for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Private Eye, and many more. He founded NSFWCorp in Las Vegas, and hosted the nightly NSFWLive radio show. Now he's taken that experience to pen his first work of fiction, '1414 Degrees'. It's not Paul's first published book. He's written memo...

This week, we're joined by Anna Kent, with her sort-of-debut novel, 'The House of Whispers'. See Anna Kent, is also Annabel Kantaria, who has already published 4 books. This is her first as Anna Kent. It's domestic noir, so treads the line between eerie psychological thriller, and chilling whodunnits at home. We talk about how she learned to write genre, and what she pays attention to when structu...

Sarah Alderson is busy. Busy, busy, busy. So busy, she takes a break from her writing job to write the novels she loves. Sarah works as a screenwriter in LA for S.W.A.T on CBS, and finds tiny slithers of time to get books down. In the past, this has led her to getting a draft done in 10 days. She's written YA, psychological thrillers, her novel 'The Weekend Away' has been adapted for Netflix, publ...

Our first guest of 2022 is Rosanna Amaka. Her debut novel is 'The Book of Echoes', which tells the story of 16 year old Michael, always in trouble, who falls in love with Ngozi, a young Nigerian immigrant. It was shortlisted for The Author's Club First Novel award, also the RSL Christopher Bland Prize, and the HWA Debut Crown Award. It's a story Rosanna has tried to get published for 20 years, and...

For our last episode of the year, we chat to psychological thriller debutant Alice Hunter. Her book is 'The Serial Killer's Wife', and tells the story of Beth Hardcastle, whose perfect marriage is obliterated when the police show up and report her husband Tom is missing. Alice worked in prisons, part of a team offering rehabilitation courses to in-mates, often those who'd committed violent crimes....

This week, we're joined by Joanne Harris MBE. She became phenomenally successful over 20 years ago for her novel 'Chocolat', which became an Oscar nominated movie starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. Her new one is called 'A Narrow Door', it tells the story of the first headmistress at a traditional school who discovers a body in the grounds. It's billed as 'magical realism', we discuss how...

This week, Ken Follett shares his writer's routine. He's one of the UK's most successful authors, selling over 170 million books across 80 countries. He has a staff of over 20 working on all aspects of book selling, so he can concentrate on book writing. We talk about whether that puts pressure on his writing, knowing he has staff relying on him for a salary. Also, what his writing routine of a ye...

This week's guest is Helen Paris. She's worked in performing arts, writing, performing and directing, for 2 decades, and has just published her debut novel, 'The Lost Property'. It's all about Dot, who strives to reunite lost property with their owners. It all came from a spell of unusual research she undertook at the London Transport Lost Property Office, the characters she met there, and their p...

This week we're chatting to Steve Cavanagh. He's won the CWA Gold Dagger Award, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, has published many Sunday Times Top 10 Bestsellers, and his new book has just been named as one of the Best Crime and Thriller Books of the Year by Waterstones. It's called 'The Devil's Advocate', and is the newest Eddie Flynn book. Telling the story of Andy Dubois, s...

Lucy Foley joined us back at the start of 2020... pre-pandemic! She spoke about her 2nd mystery thriller, 'The Guest List'. It's set at a dream wedding, on a remote island, where someone gets killed and everyone has a motive. We talk about the fundamentals you need to include in writing whodunnits, and how to flip the tradition on its head. It comes after the huge success of her first whodunnit, '...

Xanthi Barker has published novelettes and short stories, penned columns and articles, and has just released her debut book, 'Will This House Last Forever'. It's a memoir of her time with her dying father, the poet Sebastian Barker. She is also the granddaughter of George Barker and the cult novelist, Elizabeth Smart. We discuss whether because of her highly and successfully creative family, she w...

For this week's Random Routine, we chat to Rob Hart, who came on back in 2019 to talk about 'The Warehouse'. 'The Warehouse' is in the mold of 'Farenheit 451' and '1984', and focuses on one big business that suffocates all others, and the stories of 3 people who work there. Because of this, his characterisation needs to be truly believable and authentic, we talk about this struggle and how he beca...

This week we're joined by Joe Thomas. He's just released the 4th in his 'Sao Paulo Quartet', with 'Paradise City', 'Gringa', 'Playboy' and the new one 'Brazilian Psycho'. He grew up in Hackney, before spending 10 years in Sao Paulo, and being inspired to tell its story. It mixes fiction, true crime, historical fact, and high literature, in an utterly compelling style. We talk about how his routine...

This week's random routine, our bitesize chunk of inspiration, comes from Trent Dalton who came on the show back in 2019. Not many authors have debut success like Trent Dalton. His book 'Boy Swallows Universe' won the 'Debut Fiction Prize' and 'Book of the Year' at the Australian Indie Awards, and went straight into the top 10, selling over 100,000 copies. It's a semi-autobiographical story about...

Zen Cho is a multi-award nominated and winning author. She's published 3 novels and many short stories, and is back with her first ghost story... although that's not what she thought it'd be at the start. It's called 'Black Water Sister', and all came from one word she read in the dictionary. It's based on ancient Malaysian folklore, and Zen has taken great joy in playing with old language, and pr...

Along with Dan Gillespie-Sells, from The Feeling, Tom MacRae wrote the hit musical 'Everybody's Talking About Jamie'. It follows Jamie New who is determined to wear a dress to his school prom night. It's based on a a real story, explored in a BBC documentary. The musical is now a film, also written by Tom, which you can watch on Amazon Prime now. In this bitesize chunk, you can hear about his writ...

This week, we chat to Claire Allan. Her new book is 'Ask No Questions', a psychological thriller about Ingrid Devlin, on the search to find the truth of her best friend's disappearance 25 years ago. Claire started her career as a journalist, has written women's fiction under the name Freya Kennedy', and is back with a brand new psych thriller. She's written almost 20 books across different genres....