This Writing Life

In the final part of my discussion with Hanya Yanagihara on her (now) Man Booker shortlisted novel A Little Life, we continue our discussion of male repression.

As short taster for the final part of our conversation with Hanya Yanagihara about A Little Life, here is a short consideration of children, convention and the novel as queer classic.
Part three to follow.

In the second part of our lunch-time chat with Hanya Yanagihara for the amazing A Little Life, we began by discussing how her second book was a reaction to her debut, the also amazing The People in the Trees.

For the second Writing Life Podcast conversation with Hanya Yanagihara, we moved from tea at a posh London hotel to lunch at a posh(ish) London restaurant. This was not the only difference. Yanagihara had herself moved: jobs, from Conde Nast to the New York Times; and novels from her debut The People in the Trees to A Little Life, which has recently been long-listed for the Man Booker prize.

In part two of This Writing Life's podcast with Anna Smaill, we negotiate photographers, noises in RIBA and publicists to discuss her soon-to-be Man Booker longlisted debut novel, The Chimes.

Anna Smaill is a New Zealand poet, academic and now Man Booker longlisted novelist.

In the final part of my Yanagihara trilogy from 2014, we continue to discuss her astonishing, unnerving debut The People in the Trees.

In the second part of my nicely noisy conversation with Hanya Yanagihara about her debut novel The People in the Trees, we began by discussing 

Hawaiian-born Hanya Yanagihara has been feted across the world, and longlisted for 2015's Man Booker Prize, for her amazing A Little Life. A Writing Life podcast is on the way.

A short taster for my first interview with Hanya Yanagihara from 2014 about her extraordinary debut novel, The People in Trees. 
A Writing Life podcast with Hanya about her differently extraordinary Man Booker longlisted A Little Life will be out last this month. 
For now, enjoy Yanagihara on encountering an Upper East Side book group. 

In the third part of my conversation with Tom Drury, we rewind to his days studying creative writing with Robert Coover, 'a great teacher'.

A small taster for part three of my chat with Tom Drury. We talk MP3s, social networking, email, and The New Luddites from the third Grouse County novel, Pacific. 

In the second part of my interview with Tom Drury, one of America's finest living novelists, we begin by discussing the railroad and its part in linking places like Grouse County to the outside world. 

In this stopgap between podcasts, Tom Drury discusses the use of light in his debut novel, The End of Vandalism. 'I love that there would be some incidental lighting in the dark, like the dryer, you know?' Hear Antonya Nelson read Tom Drury's 'Accident at the Sugar Beet', which became an episode in The End of Vandalism, for the New Yorker here.

Tom Drury is the author of six astounding novels. Three - his masterpiece The End of Vandalism, Hunts in Dreams and Pacific - are set in the same fictional Grouse County area of Iowa - Drury's home-state.