With a week to go before polling day in 2016's US Presidential Election, This Writing Life posts the first of two special 'Clinton-Trump' podcasts. The first is part of a longer and forthcoming interview with journalist Gary Younge about his extraordinary book, Another Day in the Death of America.

The rest of the interview will be posted later in November.

In his second This Writing Life podcast, DBC Pierre talks learning to write by remembering what he has read. For dialogue, he looked to Len Deighton.
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Part one of DBC Pierre's interview chat with This Writing Life podcast starts in media res. With a fan blowing our hair in attractive fashion (apologies for the whoosh behind the voices), we talked on a lovely summer's day at a London hotel. Pierre was in town to launch his new book, Release the Bats, an exuberant, personal and inspiring writing guide, with hints of memoir. A call-to-pen with hints about his colourful life. Keep reading →

The next guest on This Writing Life is DBC Pierre, Man Booker winning novelist, literary rogue and now writing guide supremo thanks to the excellent, ebullient, Birthday Party-quoting call-to-pens, Release the Bats. In this trailer, I ask whether writing ever helps him feel, think or 'be' better. Cue tall tales of a naked Thomas Wolfe fondling himself by a filing cabinet.

Part four of Rosa Rankin-Gee's This Writing Life podcast interview opens with some bad pronunciation, some Borges, a little light reading and some Vocalzone throat lozenge chatter. Rosa really begins by examining the idea of imagining the worst things possible as a way of forestalling the worst reality possible. Keep reading →