2016-08

As a trailer for the next guest on This Writing Life Podcast, the wonderful American crime writer Laura Lippman reads from her new novel, Wilde Lake.
Parental advisory notice: there is a gratuitous mention of a de-trousered Bill Clinton.
Part one of three to follow.

In this second Writing Life Podcast Extra, Vendela Vida offers some TV recommendations and asks the questions for a change. Your host blethers on...

In this first of two Writing Life Podcast extras, Vendela Vida recalls meeting the real rock star Patti Smith - who appears as herself in The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. Vida also discusses how Dave Egger's A Hologram for a King changed her last novel.

The final part of ThisWriting Life's cheerful conversation with Vendela Vida begins with wondering whether writing is a form of narcissism and ends with a discussion of parenthood.

Vendela Vida reads a second passage from her excellent new novel, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. It begins after a little banter and a glass of water.

In part three of This Writing Life's chat with American writer Vendela Vida about her latest novel The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, we begin by asking: 'Why Casablanca?'

In this mini-podcast, Vendela Vida explains why Joan Didion is a formative literary hero, and why long-form interviews are great. Phew.
Part three to follow.

Part 2 of Vendela Vida's Writing Life podcast begins with a discussion of performance: parenthood as performance, self as performance, acting as performance.

Vendela Vida is a novelist, editor (of The Believer magazine), screenwriter, literacy advocate (via 826 Valencia). She is also a wife, of the similarly busy writer Dave Eggers, and mother.

As a trailer for the next subject on This Writing Life, Vendela Vida reads from her latest novel, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty - just released in paperback via Atlantic Books in the United Kingdom.

In the final part of David Gates' episode of Writing Life, we begin by exploring the question of religion that we failed to address in Part 4. 'I am not a religious person. I am to some degreee obsessed with it.'

In the fourth and penultimate part of our podcast with David Gates, we set out by talking about money - how to earn it, keep writing, earn money from writing.