Liz Hyder on the inspiration behind her debut novel Bearmouth

Writing is a strangely solitary affair, sitting for hours at a desk tapping out words from the voices in your head. For me, the actual writing is the easiest pa... Read More...

Adrian J Walker on flawed characters and The End of the World Survivors Club

Readers don’t always enjoy what you write. Sounds obvious, but it bears repeating. Once, in a pub, a drunk man approached me. MAN: “Hey, you’re not one of tho... Read More...

Sara Alexander on the inspiration behind The Last Concerto

The Sardinian summers of my childhood were about food, vast numbers of family crowding around a table heaving with freshly prepared lunches, dinners and stories... Read More...

The mothers of bad mothers: Sherri Smith on the worst mothers of the thriller genre

In my novel, The Retreat, Katie Manning is a former child-star who endured a strained and exploitive relationship with her ‘stage’ mom. Mothers are our first... Read More...

The Warehouse author Rob Hart on living inside the economic empathy gap

Rob Hart's first standalone novel examines our day-to-day complicity in a system that prioritises cheap consumerism, conveniences and security over people's liv... Read More...

Nick Setchfield: Scare Tissue – Four Frights That Left Their Mark On Me

MIDWINTER You don’t expect to find existential dread in the pages of Radio Times – let alone the Christmas issue. But when I was seven a single paragraph, pa... Read More...

Tom Chatfield on writing a novel that wrestles his fascinations into fictional form

I studied and then taught English literature at Oxford, moving from my undergraduate degree through a masters to a doctorate looking at the second half of the 2... Read More...

Mary Watson on how fantasy holds up a light to real issues in the real world

To celebrate the publication of magical thriller The Wickerlight, the sequel to last year's The Wren Hunt, author Mary Watson discusses the theme of metamorphos... Read More...

Alyssa Sheinmel on the “unlikeable” narrator in her new YA novel A Danger to Herself and Others

To celebrate the publication of A Danger to Herself and Others on 5 February 2019, author Alyssa Sheinmel discusses the book's "unlikeable" narrator and why cha... Read More...

T. E. Carter: Top Five Works that Centre the Female Perspective

To celebrate the publication of I Stop Somewhere on 19 April 2018, author T. E. Carter discusses her top five works that centre the female perspective.  I de... Read More...

Shea Ernshaw on the portrayal of sisterhood in The Wicked Deep

To celebrate the publication of The Wicked Deep on 8 March 2018, author Shea Ernshaw discusses the book's portrayal of sisterhood and female relationships.  ... Read More...

S. J. Kincaid on how she developed the setting of The Diabolic sequel by expanding the galaxy

To celebrate the release of The Empress, author S. J. Kincaid discusses expanding the galaxy of the first book in her YA space adventure series, The Dia... Read More...