Author Interviews | Page 4

Alex Pheby | 'I like to try things. I like to see how they work and see whether I can do them'

Alex Pheby warns his readers, at the start of Mordew, about the “many unusual things” they are set to find within the forthcoming 600-odd pages.... Read more

Sue Hendra & Paul Linnet | 'We wanted to make a moment where the world disappears'

Foreign travel is still a distant dream when I speak to Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet on the anniversary of the first national lockdown, making... Read more

Candice Carty-Williams | 'It’s a story that centres on young Black girls just living their life'

Candice Carty-Williams’ début novel Queenie took the literary world by storm in 2019. Rightly described as a “phenomenon”, the Sunday Times bestseller won Book of... Read more

Priscilla Mante | 'It was really important for me to challenge the status quo'

Entering a stadium among a sea of equally boisterous and kitted-out fans, kicking around a weather-worn ball in the park, impressing friends with yet another... Read more

Mateo Askaripour | 'The lines are intentionally blurred, which puts the responsibility on the reader to decide what’s what'

On publication in January, Iranian-Jamaican Brooklynite Mateo Askaripour’s Black Buck became an instant New York Times bestseller. Described as “a crackling, satirical début novel”, and... Read more

Jodie Lancet-Grant | 'It’s vital that all children get to see all different kinds of families in an incidental way'

The Pirate Mums, the picture book by debut author Jodie Lancet-Grant and illustrator Lydia Corry,... Read more

Phil Earle | 'I genuinely thought I was done. I had nothing left to say'

"I had a physical reaction. It literally made the hairs on my arm... Read more

Dr Gwen Adshead | 'I wanted to write something that could be read by a lay person'

"I have spent decades working with people who have caused horror and grief... Read more

Meg Mason | 'I hope that you get the sense that it is everybody’s tragedy'

Back in January 2018, freelance journalist Mason began work on a new novel... Read more

Amanda Craig | 'I had one of the worst débuts you could possibly think of'

Hannah, the protagonist of Amanda Craig's The Golden Rule, is a young single... Read more

Patrick Ness | 'Screenplays are hugely collaborative, with all the joys and difficulties that entails'

British-American author Patrick Ness talks about Burn, his latest novel, adapting Lord of the Flies for the big screen and the forthcoming film of his... Read more

Kirsty Capes | 'It’s important to have stories about the care experience that are positive'

Half way through my interview with Kirsty Capes, she mentions the fact that... Read more

Owen Eastwood | 'We never want anybody to leave their culture at the door'

Over the past decade, from somewhere under the radar, Cotswolds-dwelling Kiwi Owen Eastwood has become... Read more

Rahul Raina | 'Part of my thinking was trying to put my version of Delhi onto the map'

With its witty, ruthless skewering of the Indian middle classes, Rahul Raina’s roistering, whip-smart and... Read more

Melvin Burgess | 'Like a lot of white folks, I’ve been wary of writing Black characters'

Melvin Burgess’ Three Bullets, which interrogates themes of brainwashing and the far-right, will be released this summer alongside a 25th-anniversary edition of the author’s pioneering... Read more