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.

Another surprise in Georgia: Indie Coffee and Books in Decatur, right outside Atlanta.  The selection is not huge, but that's the charm.  All titles are handpicked by the owners and range from classics to contemporary fiction and nonfiction.  There's a wall of BookSense bestsellers, and a display of recommended titles.

It's the kind of place where you can browse, find something you've been meaning to read for years, or stumble across something completely new.  It has that personal vibe and genuine enthusiasm for books so sorely missing from most mega-chains. Odds are the person at the register can chat with you about your purchase and suggest other books of interest.  (Can't tell you the last time that happened to me at one of the biggies.)  Then you can order a coffee, take a seat and read for a while.  I bought a copy of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire (a brilliant read) and did just that.

What are the boundaries between the stories we tell--to ourselves and each other--and truth? Are facts, and reality for that matter,  just too unimaginative for us to cope with, so we rely on stories to survive?  James Scudamore takes on these ideas in his compelling debut novel, The Amnesia Clinic, which was recently (after our conversation) longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Anti is English, quiet, asthmatic; risk averse. He lives the typical expat life with his parents. Fabian is Ecuadorian, charismatic, always up for an adventure and reckless. Orphaned by a car accident that killed his father and his mother (although her body was never recovered,) he lives with his equally flamboyant Uncle, who entertains the boys with outrageous stories of shrunken heads and adventures in the countryside.  

The boys acquire his passion for outlandish tales and soon begin conducting their relationship entirely through the medium of storytelling.  The stories grow more imaginative, and although they think they know the boundaries between reality and fantasy, those lines begin to blur, especially as Fabian's buried pain over his mother's assumed death rises to the surface. The boys decide that she is in fact alive and at an amnesia hospital on the coast, for those who have lost their memory. That's why she hasn't returned. They set out to find her. On the journey the boys meet many fascinating characters, including an innkeeper who rents rooms in exchange for a good story.  As they become further enthralled in their imaginative world, dangerous consequences await them.

James and I discuss the ideas in the novel, how the story came to him, and the role Ecuador itself plays in the book.

We met on one of the hottest days this summer in London, near London Bridge. Because of the heat, we had to keep the doors open and the fans running, so the strange noises you hear are trucks rumbling past on the street below. Last time it was planes. I'll see what I can do to get train noises in the next one.  Enjoy.

On a recent trip to the southern U.S., I ended up with an afternoon to kill in Madison, GA. It's promotional material lauded it as "the town too pretty to burn," a nod to its exclusion from Sherman's highly flammable March to the Sea. Travel Holiday Magazine named it the best small town in the U.S.  It is charming, the architecture stunning, and the general ambience quintessential small town America.  But the biggest surprise for me was its local independent bookshop: Dog Ear Books. They have a great selection and a cool display of recommended reads.  I picked up two fantastic short story collections: Dan Chaon's Fitting Ends, and David Means Assorted Fire Events.  Drop in if you're in the area, or visit online.

After some delay, it is my pleasure to bring you the second part of my conversation with Jill Dawson about her current novel Watch Me Disappear. I've been on the road and, much to my surprise, reliable Internet connections were few and far between. The good news is that while out and about, I crossed paths with several authors who either agreed to do a podcast in the future, or started talking on the spot while I recorded. I'll post those conversations over the next several weeks.  Until then, enjoy the second half of the discussion with Jill Dawson. Please feel free to post your comments here, or email me at literaryconversations@yahoo.com. Thanks for listening. Let's continue the conversation.