This Writing Life

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.

Part 3 of David Gates' conversation with This Writing Life starts with a discussion of 'story' - how Gates writes them and how people tell them (and how Gates writes about people telling them).

In the (summer delayed) second part of our chat with David Gates, we go on (we can't go) with the influence of Samuel Beckett and Jane Austen.

David Gates is a novelist, musician, journalist and teacher. His debut, Jernigan (1991), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Award.

As a taster for our next guest, the fine American novelist David Gates, who talks about his classic debut, Jernigan, his new story collection, A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me, and throws in a little analysis of the architectural politics of Donald Trump for free.

Harry Parker begins the
third and final part of his conversation with This Writing Life by
considering the emotional effects of his tours in Iraq and
Afghanistan. 

The second part of our chat with Harry Parker about his debut novel Anatomy of a Soldier begins with a cheerful discussion of decay and destruction of both objects or people. 

Harry Parker is a painter and, thanks to his debut Anatomy of a Soldier, a novelist. Before he was either of those, he served in the British Army, first in Iraq and later Afghanistan.