A short treat. Writer and teacher Jan Woolf gives us a sneak peek of her April 7-11 Jump-start Your Writing course and her thoughts on the pleasures and perils of the writing life.

Enjoy and thanks for listening.

We are delighted to share with you a recording of Emma Sweeney reading from her forthcoming novel My Broken Twin. It is about the relationship between twin sisters, one of whom is disabled. We hope you enjoy this short excerpt from this beautifully written, powerful novel.

Emma joins us at Circle of Misse April 12-18, 2010 to lead a Get Writing! Boot Camp.

Her teaching and writing career has taken her as far a field as South East Asia, Japan and India. She lectures in Creative Writing at New York University - London, and at the Open University.

Emma has won various prizes for her writing including an Arts Council Award and a Royal Literary Fund Bursary. She was also a recent Byrdcliffe Artist in Residence, and has been short-listed for various prestigious awards including the David Wong Fellowship, the International Fish Prize and the Asham Award (Britain’s foremost short story prize for women writers).

Some exciting news from London about Circle of Misse course leader Jan Woolf. Lambeth council (a borough of London) selected her organization, Rootball Writers, to produce a writing workshop for teenagers inspired by the Ballet Rambert dance archive called “Dancing on Paper”. Jan will partner with filmmaker Derek Ogbourne for the March 20-21 event which will produce new writing for Lambeth's submission to the national lottery funded "Big Dance" project.

A special treat on this episode. Award winning poet Meryl Pugh reads her new poem "The Charcoal Bridle" due to appear in The Rialto this spring. She also discusses her influences, including the power of nature, and we explore the concept of "poetic territory" and what it means to the beginning writer.

Meryl leads "Creativity Jumpstart: Seeing With A Poet’s Eye" and "Poetry Boot Camp: Discovering New Territory" at Circle of Misse in July.

Meryl is a Jerwood/Arvon Young Poet, was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship and short-listed for the New Writing Ventures Poetry Prize. She has led writing workshops in museums, schools and prisons and was selected to participate in both the Jerwood/Aldeburgh Seminar, “To and From a First Collection” and the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Masterclass in 2009. Her work has appeared in the anthologies: Entering the Tapestry (ed.s Mimi Khalvati and Graham Fawcett, 2003, Enitharmon) and Reactions 5 (ed. Clare Pollard, 2005, Pen and Ink Press). Reviews and poems have been published in various magazines, including the Guardian and most recently New Welsh Review and Poetry Review. A pamphlet collection, Relinquish, was published in 2007 by Arrowhead Press.

As always, if you like our theme music, it's called Acclimate from the album Cool Aberrations by General Fuzz. You can download it at www.magnatune.com

Enjoy the podcast. Thanks for listening.

Writer and teacher Emma Sweeney and I talk about what it's like, especially for the beginning writer, to garner the courage and support to embark on a long writing project. Drawing from her own creative process and experiences teaching students at NYU and the Open University, Emma sheds some light on what actually happens during writing courses and why they are so useful. 

Emma offers advice that is applicable for those considering longer creative writing courses, such as an MA, as well as those considering a shorter course like the week-long Get Writing! Boot Camp she will lead at Circle of Misse 12-18 April, 2010. For those interested in that course, Emma offers some specific details of what she has planned and her ideas and inspirations for the week.

As always, if you like our theme music, it's called Acclimate from the album Cool Aberrations by General Fuzz. You can download it at www.magnatune.com

Enjoy the podcast. Thanks for listening.

Great interview with Observer journalist and novelist Paul Harris on Media Bistro where he talks about the experience of writing his first novel The Secret Keeper and life as a war correspondent.

Paul leads a novel writing course at Circle of Misse 20-26 Sept. 2010.

Playwright, short story writer and writing teacher Jan Woolf took a break from her writer's retreat at Circle of Misse last August to join me under the arbour in the garden to discuss her forthcoming short story collection Fugues on A Funny Bone from Muswell Press and what inspires her to write.

Jan Woolf is the Harold Pinter writer-in-residence at the Hackney Empire, where her play Porn Crackers (about her past job as a film censor) was produced last year. Her fiction has appeared in literary magazines including Libbon, and her short story “Moving On” was short-listed for the Asham Award. She leads the ‘Writing the Visual’ workshops at the Hackney Empire, for writers whose fiction engages with the visual arts.

Jan returns to Circle of Misse in April to kick off the 2010 season of writing, cooking and painting holidays with a five-day course designed to jumpstart the creative process and get people writing.

If you like our theme music, it's called Acclimate from the album Cool Aberrations by General Fuzz. You can download it at www.magnatune.com

Enjoy the podcast. Thanks for listening.

After a long hiatus, the show is back. The location has changed and so has the format. I'll still talk to writer's about their books, but we'll also discuss other book, writing and literary topics as well.

Most of the time, I'll podcast from the Circle of Misse where there's lots of writing and creativity taking place. I've already recorded a few shows with visiting writers sitting under the arbour in the kitchen garden. Those will post shortly. 

Watch this space.

Meanwhile, check out what we're up to in Misse.

I had the good fortune to catch up with novelist Kate Pullinger at the New Writing Worlds Symposium this summer. We managed to find time to sit down and talk about her most recent novel, A Little Stranger. 

The novel is a fascinating, complex, and textured exploration of what happens when one women wonders if she made a mistake by giving birth. Maybe she's not cut out to be a mother after all. She acts on this notion, leaves her young son and husband, and escapes to Las Vegas where she meets another women struggling with her own doubts. Her journey takes her back to her childhood and her mother's past in an attempt to understand her actions.

Kate and I discuss how she came to write about this often taboo subject, and about the dialogue, and subsequent backlash, generated by the discussion in the media about 'the perils of parenthood.' 

Also check out Kate's cool award-winning digital literature project Inanimate Alice. Enjoy. 

After a gorgeous, yet nail-biting, drive along the rugged coastline between San Francisco and Point Reyes on the way to a friend's wedding reception, we needed the pit stop afforded by Stinson Beach Books (3455 Shoreline Hwy. Stinson Beach, Ca 415-868-0700-no website.) Fortunately, it offered so much more. 

Billed as "the only bookstore located directly on the San Andreas Fault," it's a real gem of an old-style village bookshop.  The knowledgeable and spirited owner interrupted our chat to call the restaurant across the street and tell them to tone down the live music so she could talk to her customers without shouting. The music softened immediately. 

We could have spent all afternoon there, but we had to get back on the snake of a road.  I picked up a copy of Patricia Unterman's wonderful San Francisco Food Lover's Guide and walked across the street for a latte from the Espresso cart before climbing back in the car.