Shows
FictionableCynthia Banham: 'Writing is a dangerous act'In this Winter series we've already welcomed Cynthia Zarin, Rodrigo Urquiola Flores and the translator Shaina Brassard, Tim Conley and Samuel Rigg. We bring down the curtain with Cynthia Banham and her short story Swimming With Crocodiles.Banham confesses that she shares her protagonist's passion for rewilding, but insists that her short story both is and isn't about the author: "You don't really control what finds its way into your story."After losing her legs following a plane crash in 2007, Banham says that one of the few things that gave...
2026-02-2026 minFictionableSamuel Rigg: 'Often I find I'm writing about people who are not me'After hearing from Cynthia Zarin, Rodrigo Urquiola Flores and the translator Shaina Brassard, and Tim Conley, this Winter series of podcasts enters the final stretch. We'll be rounding off with Cynthia Banham next time, but stepping out on to the ice this week is Samuel Rigg and his short story, At the Rink.Although a short story that explores parenthood and loss is far from his own life, Rigg tells us his short fiction rarely starts close to home."Often I find I'm writing about people who are not me," he says, "or...
2026-02-1214 minFictionableTim Conley: 'Short fiction is a lot more liberating'We've already heard from Cynthia Zarin, Rodrigo Urquiola Flores and the translator Shaina Brassard in this Winter series – we'll be welcoming Cynthia Banham and Samuel Rigg on to the podcast over the next few weeks. But this time we're putting Tim Conley on the turntable with his short story Records.While Conley does confess to owning a few vinyls, he's fascinated by the idea that a record can also be "something that we regret". If you look at where the word comes from, he continues, "to record something is to have it by heart, again. That in...
2026-02-0519 minFictionableRodrigo Urquiola Flores: 'Everything in this short story is true'We began this Winter series of podcasts with Cynthia Zarin, who suggested that every single one of us is torn in different ways. We'll be examining those cracks with Tim Conley, Cynthia Banham and Samuel Rigg over the next few weeks, but this time we welcome Rodrigo Urquiola Flores and the translator Shaina Brassard.According to Urquiola, his short story DYSNEYWORLD is all true. The author says that – just like his character – he grew up in a couple of small rooms on the edge of La Paz and sometimes stayed in the big...
2026-01-3023 minFictionableCynthia Zarin: 'You write out of the world that you're living in'It's cold, it's wet, it's January. Time for another series of exclusive short stories and another series of podcasts. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be hearing from Rodrigo Urquiola Flores and his translator Shaina Brassard, as well as Tim Conley, Cynthia Banham and Samuel Rigg. But we kick off this winter series with Cynthia Zarin and Housekeeping.Zarin reveals that both the houses in her short story are taken from life, but with a certain amount of embroidery."Everything is drawn from life," she says, "because what else is there?"
2026-01-2231 minFictionableEphameron: 'My work is always at the crossroads between literature, graphic arts, painting, comics'This Autumn series of podcasts has already brought us Helon Habila, Caroline Clark and Kasimma. We round it off with Ephameron and her graphic short story .This enigmatic comic imagines a couple divided by distance but reaching for connection by talking about the weather. So when Ephameron joined us down the line from Antwerp, we began with an update on the skies.Clouds are endlessly fascinating, the author says, "A lot of painters have been interested in painting skies and how you do the textures right."In , Ephameron uses watercolours...
2025-11-2018 minFictionableKasimma: 'Because I’m writing fiction, I can get away with anything'We've already heard from Helon Habila and Caroline Clark in this Autumn series of podcasts, and we'll be rounding out the set with Ephameron in the next couple of weeks. But this time we welcome Kasimma and her short story Mama Taught Me That.This story is set in the 16th century."We are not really sure what life was like then," Kasimma explains. "After colonisation, a lot of our culture was destroyed or merged with the beliefs of the colonisers, so that we don't really – in my opinion – have the original culture and...
2025-11-1321 minFictionableCaroline Clark: 'This story completely surprised me'This Autumn series of podcasts started with Helon Habila confronting the difficult legacy of slavery in the US. Over the next few weeks, we'll be talking with Ephameron and Kasimma. But this time we welcome Caroline Clark and I Will Go.Clark tells us she isn't really sure where this haunting story started."I could tell you a story about how this story came together," she says, "but it probably wouldn't be the real one."The author explains how she assembles her writing mosaic fashion, instead of a "linear, chronological...
2025-11-0617 minFictionableHelon Habila: 'What fiction does is make you live the life of the other'Here in the northern hemisphere it's getting misty and mellow all over again. Time for Autumn 2025 and another fruitful harvest of podcasts, ripened to the core. Over the next few weeks, we'll be hearing from Caroline Clark, Kasimma and Ephameron. But we launch into autumn with Helon Habila and his story Paradise.Habila tells us how, after twenty years of living in the USA, in this story he's trying to "make sense of America"."History is not past," Habila says, "it's still with us, and we're living the consequences of that history of...
2025-10-2922 minFictionableSheyla Smanioto: 'It's a haunted story, where you know something is going to happen'This summer series of podcasts has taken us from the snow and ice of AL Kennedy's Expedition Skills to the blunt heat of Ali McClary's Proper Magic, and from the staccato fragments of Pete Segall's Bolex Man to the unstoppable momentum of Dafydd McKimm's The Nosebleed.We bring this season to a close with Sheyla Smanioto and the haunting threat of her short story Intruder, translated by Laura Garmeson and Sophie Lewis.Speaking with the help of the interpreter Jaciara Topley Lira, Smanioto tells us that the story came to her with "almost...
2025-09-0121 minFictionableDafydd McKimm: 'I write this kind of story in a bit of a fever'This summer, we've heard from AL Kennedy, Pete Segall and Ali McClary. We'll be bringing this series to a close with Sheyla Smanioto, but this time Dafydd McKimm steps into the consulting room with his short story The Nosebleed.McKimm tells us how The Nosebleed was a story that came to him with the ending already in place, citing the translator Michael Hofmann and his notion of Kafka time, where it's "already too late".With this type of story, the author says, "You just set the ball rolling and the characters fruitlessly struggle...
2025-08-2418 minFictionableAli McClary: 'This story started as a conversation between two young women'We've already heard from AL Kennedy and Pete Segall in this summer series of podcasts, and we’ll be hearing from Sheyla Smanioto and Dafydd McKimm over the next few weeks. But this time we're summoning up Ali McClary and her short story Proper Magic.McClary confesses that the intense friendship between Min and Hazel is drawn from her own experience."I hope that all girls, all women have these kinds of friendships," she says, "that feel a little bit magic, a little bit disgusting."They may not always end we...
2025-08-0815 minFictionablePete Segall: 'I don’t feel like it’s my job as a writer to answer questions'We began this Summer series of podcasts with AL Kennedy arguing that the empathy which powers fiction makes writing it a political act. We'll be talking fiction – or maybe politics – with Sheyla Smanioto, Ali McClary and Dafydd McKimm over the next few weeks. But this time we're zooming in on Pete Segall and his story Bolex Man.Segall tells us that this series of snapshots emerged after he took up analogue photography. He was wandering around the neighbourhood taking pictures of "the same buildings, the same places" and he began to ask himself "if there are post...
2025-07-3117 minFictionableAL Kennedy: 'It's all political, if you're writing fiction'It's raining in London, but it's time for another issue – and another series of Fictionable podcasts. Over the next few weeks we'll be hearing from Sheyla Smanioto, Pete Segall, Ali McClary and Dafydd McKimm. But we begin Summer 2025 with AL Kennedy, and her icy short story Expedition Skills.Kennedy says that the story emerged out of the "very strange day" earlier this year which saw the commemoration of Martin Luther King and the second inauguration of Donald Trump. Upstate New York was covered in snow and ice, she explains and "it seemed good to put people in...
2025-07-2528 minFictionableSusanna Clarke: 'You’ve got to play with things being very fantastical and also slightly humdrum'This spring we've heard from Fríða Ísberg, Bronia Flett, Jeremy Wikeley and PR Woods already. But we bring this series to a close with Susanna Clarke and her short story The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City.Clarke tells us that it's a story she's been thinking about for some time."I have never really stopped thinking about Strange and Norrell," she says. "It's a world that keeps summoning me back."In the novel, The Raven King was very young when he first arrived in England, Clarke exp...
2025-05-2330 minFictionableJeremy Wikeley: 'I would always defend the notion of being able to write about a place called England'We've already welcomed Fríða Ísberg, Bronia Flett and PR Woods in this Spring series, and Susanna Clarke will be joining us next time. But now we're hearing from Jeremy Wikeley with his short story Kent's Oak.According to Wikeley, his main character's disconnected connection with his neighbours on the estate is just how it felt when he was growing up in the suburbs of a small town."You were very familiar with a lot of places and a lot of things," he says, "and you were at home. But you...
2025-05-1519 minFictionablePR Woods: 'I would never write anything against Wolf Hall'We've already heard from Fríða Ísberg and Bronia Flett in this Spring series, and we'll be welcoming Susanna Clarke and Jeremy Wikeley on to the Fictionable podcast over the next few weeks. But this time we're going back in time with PR Woods and her short story Our Lady of Sorrows.Woods tells us how Sister Avis came to her after someone wrote to the Guardian about Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall arguing "It's a great story, but it didn't happen like that."In the 16th century, the dissolution of...
2025-05-0819 minFictionableBronia Flett: 'This is obviously all fiction'Fríða Ísberg got this Spring series of podcasts started, with a dialogue on monologues and a reading from her short story Fingers, translated by Larissa Kyzer. We'll be welcoming Susanna Clarke, Jeremy Wikeley and PR Woods on to the podcast over the next few weeks, but right here and right now we're talking transformation with Bronia Flett.Flett tells us how her short story Leopard, Spots fell into her lap, and explains why she wanted to put female friendship under the lens."We do form these close bonds," she says, "and more oft...
2025-05-0122 minFictionableFríða Ísberg: 'We are always just looking for simple stories'Everything is changing, but one thing you can rely on is a new set of stories and a new series of podcasts from Fictionable. Spring 2025 brings us stories from Susanna Clarke, Bronia Flett, Jeremy Wikeley and PR Woods – we'll be hearing from them all over the next few weeks. But we begin with Fríða Ísberg and her short story Fingers, translated by Larissa Kyzer.Like much of her work, Ísberg explains, Fingers began with the cadence of a character's thought."You don't need to know what the mother's name is," she says, "or the...
2025-04-2425 minFictionableJoanna Kavenna: 'We all make fictions about the future'After hearing from Helga Schubert, Ben Sorgiovanni, Julian George and Rachida Lamrabet, we bring this Winter series of podcasts to a close with Joanna Kavenna and her short story Notes on the Future.Kavenna tells us how this story was born from an obsession with patterns and a robust detachment from her characters."I like to have quite questing narrators," she says, "who are desperately trying to find meaning in a world that keeps depriving them of meaning. Which is probably quite autobiographical."When you’re writing, Kavenna continues, you’re c...
2025-02-2327 minFictionableRachida Lamrabet: 'Fiction gives me the opportunity to introduce another perspective'In this Winter season we've already heard from Helga Schubert, Ben Sorgiovanni and Julian George. Joanna Kavenna will be rounding off the series next time, but right here and now we welcome Rachida Lamrabet and her short story Two Girls on Bicycles, translated by Johanna McCalmont.Lamrabet recalls how this story was set in motion by a chance encounter with an old friend, which brought back memories of pedal-powered escapades while she was a teenager."Everyone had a bike," she remembers. "If you didn't have a bike you'd steal a bike…"...
2025-02-1518 minFictionableJulian George: 'Any word out of place, the whole thing is worthless'So far we've heard from Helga Schubert and Ben Sorgiovanni in this Winter season. We'll be welcoming Joanna Kavenna and Rachida Lamrabet over the next couple of weeks, but for this feature we present Julian George and The Movie Lovers.George tells us how this short story emerged from the classic 1950s sitcom, The Honeymooners."I just thought of the character played by Audrey Meadows, Alice," he says. "Sometimes that character wanted something else, or there were moments of unexpected poignancy."The cinema on East 14th Street...
2025-01-3016 minFictionableBen Sorgiovanni: 'What fiction does really well is capture the nuance of human experience'This Winter series of podcasts got underway with Helga Schubert, who told us how she put together her short story On Getting Up from pieces of her past. This season we'll be hearing from Joanna Kavenna, Rachida Lamrabet and Julian George, but this time we meet Ben Sorgiovanni and his story No One Here Knows You.He tells us how this story grew out of a philosophical thought experiment about how you would know there was a tiger in a forest if you'd never seen it, and why his characters were looking for a tiger, not...
2025-01-2514 minFictionableHelga Schubert: 'There's got to be distance between the writer and their story'As the world lurches into 2025 we launch into another series of Fictionable podcasts. We'll be hearing from Joanna Kavenna, Rachida Lamrabet, Ben Sorgiovanni and Julian George over the next few weeks, but we start with Helga Schubert and her short story On Getting Up, translated by Aaron Sayne and Lillian M Banks.Banks turns interpreter as Schubert explains how this story was awakened by an appearance on a panel discussing one of German literature's most prestigious awards, the Ingeborg Bachmann prize."The joke is," Schubert says, "the only reason I was even selected...
2025-01-1724 minFictionableEsther Karin Mngodo: 'I am more myself when I write in Swahili'Last year we heard from Daisy Johnson, Judith Vanistendael, Scott Jacobs and Hannah Webb. We bring our Autumn series to a close – just in time for Winter – with Esther Karin Mngodo and the translator Jay Boss Rubin, who join us to talk about First Date.Mngodo tells us how this story ate another of her short stories, Without Sun."It came from the idea of how things are within other things," she says, "how everything is interconnected."In First Date, the links stretch across an entire millennium. Mngodo feels that we s...
2025-01-1129 minFictionableHannah Webb: 'I always seem to end up writing at the extremes'We opened this Autumn season with Daisy Johnson and followed up with Judith Vanistendael and Scott Jacobs. We'll be sitting down with Esther Karin Mngodo over the next week or so, but this episode is devoted to Hannah Webb and her short story Titanic.While Jacobs told us Be Careful Who Your Friends Are was drawn from his own life, Webb insists that her story is definitely not autobiographical."I have been on one of those holidays," she says, "but it didn't end up like that. There was much less cruelty."
2024-11-0119 minFictionableScott Jacobs: 'I made a few things up along the way'This season we've already heard from Daisy Johnson and Judith Vanistendael. Over the next few weeks we'll be sitting down with Esther Karin Mngodo and Hannah Webb, but this time we welcome Scott Jacobs and his short story Be Careful Who Your Friends Are.According to Jacobs, this curious tale was a "real-life experience"."I changed the names, to protect the innocent," he says, "including the name of the restaurant."But the last-minute invitation, the bottle of Primitivo, the bowler hat and that curious note were all drawn from life.
2024-10-2418 minFictionableJudith Vanistendael: 'This first love has defined my storytelling'In the first of our Autumn podcasts, Daisy Johnson told us how she was living on the edge when she was writing her collection The Hotel, and read from her short story Conference. Over the course of this season we'll be ranging all round the world to hear from Esther Karin Mngodo, Scott Jacobs and Hannah Webb, but this time Judith Vanistendael explains why The Small Story is very close to home.This graphic short started when she began thinking about her own family, and how the funny story her grandfather Jef told about his bike...
2024-10-1822 minFictionableDaisy Johnson: 'Most of the things I write do have a twist'The leaves are swirling, there's a nip in the air, so it's time for a whole new bunch of Fictionable podcasts. Over the next few weeks we'll be hearing from Judith Vanistendael, Esther Karin Mngodo, Scott Jacobs and Hannah Webb, but we're launching into Autumn with Daisy Johnson and her short story Conference.Conference appears in Johnson's forthcoming collection, The Hotel, and she explains that throughout the collection she set out to write about "what it means to live in unsafe spaces"."We feel like we should be safe at work and protected,"...
2024-10-1124 minFictionableSusan Muaddi Darraj: 'My writing has changed forever by what's happening in Gaza'This Summer podcast series has brought us Samantha Harvey, Patrick Cash, Carolina Bruck – translated by Ellen Jones – and Jack Klausner. We bring it to a close with Susan Muaddi Darraj and her mighty story May You Wake Up to a Homeland.Darraj tells us that she started with an image, an old man in his kitchen "looking at this bizarre package of frozen food". That and the thought of him sitting there "surrounded by his children and almost none of them actually can sympathise with him" was enough to set her on her way.Ma...
2024-08-1731 minFictionableJack Klausner: 'I write more on the darker end of the spectrum'Already this summer we've heard from Samantha Harvey, Patrick Cash, Carolina Bruck and her translator Ellen Jones. This time we're getting under the surface of Jack Klausner's short story The Coalface.Klausner tells us how this story emerged from a memory – his partner's mother remembering her own father eating a block of melted cheese for his tea. "It sort of spun out from there," he says.While Wales is no monolith, Klausner explains, in South Wales mining still looms large. But over the last thirty years its meaning has changed."No...
2024-08-1014 minFictionableCarolina Bruck: 'Fiction can transform the way we understand the world'This summer series has already brought us Samantha Harvey and Patrick Cash. Now it's time for Carolina Bruck and her translator Ellen Jones, with Bruck's short story China.We start with questions of vocabulary, as Bruck clears up exactly what a china is and fills us in on the cultural significance of the gaucho.The author says she was writing against Esteban Echeverría's poem The Captive, inverting the traditional Argentine dichotomy between civilisation and barbarity."Civilisation has always been associated with everything that comes from Europe," she says, "and l...
2024-08-0318 minFictionablePatrick Cash: 'The coming out story has been told so many times'Last time Samantha Harvey let the cat out of the bag, diving straight into the heart of her story Bona Fide Nihon-kitsch. This time Patrick Cash is a little less spoiler heavy as he talks about and reads from his story Trish Malone.Cash tells us how the cabaret artist who takes a leading role came to his rescue a few years back and has been "wandering around" ever since.He recalls work as a journalist reporting on the Albert Kennedy Trust, a charity specialising in young LGBTQ+ homelessness, which "fed into this...
2024-07-2715 minFictionableSamantha Harvey: 'This is what fiction can do'The weather may be up the spout but it's still summer, so it's time for another batch of Fictionable podcasts. We'll be hearing from Susan Muaddi Darraj, Carolina Bruck, Patrick Cash and Jack Klausner in this summer season. But Summer opens with Samantha Harvey and her mighty short story Bona Fide Nihon-kitsch.If you haven't read it already, you might want to head over there before you hit play, because Harvey got straight to the nub of things as soon as we started talking.She told us how she got started on a...
2024-07-1834 minFictionableJakub Żulczyk: 'We're all two inches tall'In this Spring series of podcasts we've heard from Jenny Erpenbeck, Grahame Williams, Lauren Caroline Smith and Rose Rahtz. We bring it to a close with Jakub Żulczyk and his story Many Years of Hardships, translated by John and Małgorzata Markoff.Żulczyk became a bestseller with hard-hitting thrillers such as The Institute and Blinded by the Lights, a semi-autobiographical novel which the author turned into a hit show for HBO. But Many Years of Hardships draws on deeper roots."One of my first memories from childhood is my grandmother telling me stories abo...
2024-06-1319 minFictionableRose Rahtz: 'What if you did have magical powers in a toddler?'This spring we've already heard from Jenny Erpenbeck, Grahame Williams and Lauren Caroline Smith. This time we welcome Rose Rahtz and her short story Where Hast Thou Been, Sister?Rahtz tells us how the story started as a response to the opening of Macbeth, where there is a roll of thunder and Shakespeare's First Witch asks, "Where hast thou been, sister?""I've always really liked the witch's response, because she's so perfunctory about it," she says. "She just goes 'I've been killing swine, obviously, I'm a witch'."
2024-06-0624 minFictionableLauren Caroline Smith: 'There is something countercultural in Christianity'In this Spring series of podcasts we've already heard from Jenny Erpenbeck and Grahame Williams. Now it's time for Lauren Caroline Smith and her short story The Placing of Hands.Smith looks back on her teenage years, when being a committed Christian made her something of an oddity, and reflects on what it’s like to be a person of faith within a predominantly secular culture.Our culture is very individualistic, Smith says, so if you're following Christ, "you’re not following the culture… to be so fully part of it is kind of reb...
2024-05-2820 minFictionableGrahame Williams: 'Random acts of violence could happen at any time'Last time we heard from Jenny Erpenbeck, who told us that before her latest novel Kairos she'd "never written a love story". This time we welcome Grahame Williams and his short story Making It Happen.Like the industrialist Sir John Harvey-Jones, an inspirational figure in Making It Happen, Williams says he's not much of a planner: "If there's a spark, then let's just start writing and see where it goes."He didn't set out to tell the story of the Troubles, but – as in his own childhood – they loom over Quinton McCandless's life as a...
2024-05-2319 minFictionableJenny Erpenbeck: 'What you write down can be made to hide something'Spring has finally sprung and with it another series of Fictionable podcasts. Over the next few weeks we'll be hearing from Jakub Żulczyk, Grahame Williams, Lauren Caroline Smith and Rose Rahtz. But we launch into Spring with Jenny Erpenbeck and her haunting short story Sloughing Off One Skin.When we spoke down the line from Berlin, Erpenbeck began by reading from the opening of the story in German as well as in Michael Hofmann's supple translation. Sloughing Off One Skin is set in motion by a piece of paper – a false passport – and Erpenbeck admits she's alway...
2024-05-1025 minFictionableLiam Hogan: 'I want to be entertained'We've already heard from Linda Mannheim, Richard Smyth, Ariel Marken Jack. and Robert Neuwirth in this Winter series of podcasts. Now we bring it to a close with Liam Hogan and his short story Backstory.Hogan tells us how it all came from his suspicion of heroes. "They often have it far too easy," he explains. "If you have someone with supreme skills then… what's the challenge?"There's a dark thread running through his collection of short stories, Happy Ending Not Guaranteed, but Hogan says "there has to be an element of humour".Li...
2024-03-0925 minFictionableRobert Neuwirth: 'I wanted it to be plausible as a machine thinking'In this Winter series of podcasts we've heard from Linda Mannheim, Richard Smyth and Ariel Marken Jack. This time we welcome Robert Neuwirth and his short story The Disambiguation.Neuwirth tells us how his story started from a couple of one-liners that were driving him crazy and wound up stuffed full of computer code.We anthropomorphise the machines that surround us, he says, so we keep expecting "artificial intelligences to be human. But they're not. They're inhuman."While he tries to keep his fiction separate from his career as a...
2024-03-0230 minFictionableAriel Marken Jack: 'The way I fight back is through my writing'We've already heard from Linda Mannheim and Richard Smyth in this Winter series, and now it's time for Ariel Marken Jack and their story The Bread Boy.Marken Jack tells us how their writing began in isolation, flat on their back with chronic fatigue syndrome. This debilitating illness is giving rise to writing they call "the most 21st-century form of literature that I can imagine… Who among us doesn't have that feeling that almost everything in life is completely outside of our control?"They reflect on the second guessing common to all those ma...
2024-02-2334 minFictionableRichard Smyth: 'We all need an Otherland'Last week we heard from Linda Mannheim, who told us that the only way she can go back to the neighbourhood where she grew up is in fiction. This time we welcome Richard Smyth and his short story Karóly Bálint's Metaphor.Smyth explains how his story isn’t exactly set in Budapest and reflects on how the bleakness of the steppe echoes the stereotypical grimness of the north of England.Writing in the third person can feel "restrictive", he continues, because he wants "to see inside", while the first person is "just...
2024-02-1632 minFictionableLinda Mannheim: 'What is a happy ending?'In this Winter series of podcasts, we'll be hearing from Richard Smyth, Ariel Marken Jack, Robert Neuwirth and Liam Hogan. We start off with Linda Mannheim, who joined us down the line from Berlin.Mannheim explains how the central character in her story Those Last Days appeared to her "out of the blue" and how she found her fiction inexorably drawn back to her childhood in Washington Heights.Things were a little different back then to Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical – there was certainly less singing and dancing – but what is writing for, she asks, if n...
2024-02-1024 minFictionableCatriona Bolt: 'Everyone in the story associates mushrooms with death'We've already heard from M John Harrison, Irena Karpa, Seán Padraic Birnie and Shauna Mackay on the Fictionable podcast. Now we bring this autumn series to a close with Catriona Bolt and her mycological short story Bloom.Bolt tells us how she fell in love with mushrooms despite, or perhaps because of, their double nature. These mysterious organisms were the perfect lens through which to explore the expectations surrounding young women at the beginning of the 19th century, she explains, an issue that still has resonance in the 21st. With historical fiction, "you can step i...
2023-10-2823 minFictionableShauna Mackay: 'It's listening to the characters and letting them take the lead'In this autumn series of podcasts we've heard from M John Harrison, Irena Karpa and Seán Padraic Birnie. This week we welcome Shauna Mackay to discuss her short story Matching up the Pattern at the Join.Mackay tells us how her short stories are driven by voice, by characters she conjures up and then follows on the page: "I sound like a witch now." The characters come from mixing and banging words together, she explains, so she enjoys spending time with them, even if they're sometimes a little awkward.According to Mackay, t...
2023-10-2114 minFictionableSeán Padraic Birnie: 'I was quite depressed and pissed off with work'This autumn we've already heard from M John Harrison, Irena Karpa and her band, Qarpa. This week we have an appointment with Seán Padraic Birnie and his story The Medical Room.Birnie tells us how he was fuelled by frustration at work and struggles with chronic fatigue syndrome. "It made me laugh, I think," he says, "but I wasn't sure it would make anyone else laugh."Elements of the gruesome office mechanics in The Medical Room are drawn from life, Birnie explains, but the pull of horror fiction lays bare the power s...
2023-10-1422 minFictionableIrena Karpa: 'Literature must entertain, especially in dark times'After hearing last week from M John Harrison, who discussed how he makes fiction from fragments of reality, this week we turn it up to eleven as we welcome Irena Karpa. Fuelled by the latest track from her band, Qarpa, she reads from Kate Tsurkan's translation of her short story, Fellow Traveler, and gives us the inside track on that journey.Karpa explains why the language from the streets that she used in her early novels came as such a shock to Ukrainian literary culture, and how her pride in her country is "like being proud...
2023-10-0831 minFictionableM John Harrison: 'How do you know who’s alive and who’s the ghost?'Over the next few weeks, we'll be hearing from Irena Karpa, Seán Padraic Birnie, Shauna Mackay and Catriona Bolt. But we launch this autumn podcast series with M John Harrison and his haunting short story, I Can't Tell.Harrison tells us how he constructs his stories from fragments of real life, filed in notebooks and then reassembled into uncanny structures on the page. At one stage, this process was "consciously not very fictiony" he says, but by the time you’ve spent ten years exploring the boundary between fiction and nonfiction, "it's stopped being conscious any...
2023-09-2930 minFictionableSabba Khan: 'The terraced house is a big character in this story'This summer we've been hearing a little more from our amazing authors in an expanded series of podcasts. Joyce Carol Oates confessed she feels "like a fourteen-year-old girl" while Fiona Mozley admitted to an "awkward personality". José Falero – voiced by Maria Jacqueline Evans – argued that the 21st century's obscene inequalities can only be addressed through "diversity in the spaces of power" and Donal McLaughlin declared that he does "expect the reader to keep up".We bring this series to a close with Sabba Khan, who joins us to talk about At the Door. She tells us how s...
2023-08-2320 minFictionableDonal McLaughlin: 'I've got that Derry voice in my head'In this summer's new, expanded podcast we've already heard from Joyce Carol Oates, Fiona Mozley and José Falero – translated and interpreted by Maria Jacqueline Evans. This time we're heading north to catch up with Donal McLaughlin and his story runaway.McLaughlin has been writing short stories about his main character, Liam O'Donnell, for thirty years. Both author and protagonist grew up in the heart of a large, Catholic family and moved from Northern Ireland to Scotland in the 1970s. And McLaughlin admits that runaway was sparked by a childhood memory of running away from home. But he...
2023-08-1722 minFictionableJosé Falero: 'If people started robbing cars en masse, that would be a political event'We've heard already this summer from Joyce Carol Oates and Fiona Mozley, but now the translator Maria Jacqueline Evans turns interpreter as we talk – via the magic of email – to José Falero.He tells us why he wanted to look at the violence of a flash kidnapping from the inside in his short story Flash of Dignity, and what drives his characters to attack a woman at gunpoint and throw her in the boot of her own car. According to Falero, capitalism is to blame: "Guarantee that people have access to consumption and they won’t rob fro...
2023-08-0923 minFictionableFiona Mozley: 'Fiction really is a conversation'After hearing last week how Joyce Carol Oates is firmly focused on the future, this week we’re focusing on Fiona Mozley and her mighty story Cadair Idris.She tells us how this trip up the mountain began on a family holiday and explores how characters suffering from mental illness pose a particular challenge for writers of fiction. As the kind of author who has always tried to put herself in other people's shoes, Mozley says she's convinced writers can tell stories that are not their own – provided they do the work.Next time...
2023-08-0217 minFictionableJoyce Carol Oates: 'With prose fiction you can go beneath the surface'It's revolution on the Fictionable podcast, where we've evolved again to hear more from our fabulous contributors.We're devoting an entire programme to Joyce Carol Oates and her fantastic story Small Veins, with Fiona Mozley, José Falero and his translator Maria Jacqueline Evans, Donal McLaughlin and Sabba Khan all joining us over the coming weeks.In this programme, Oates tells us how she paid for Small Veins with her own blood, and how she works out if something is a "Story" or a "Tale of Suspense". She talks typography as she explains how s...
2023-07-2623 minFictionableEtgar Keret: 'When I write a story I also live it'The Fictionable podcast heads for Tel Aviv, where Etgar Keret talks about the mystery of translation, the surrealism of technology and surprising himself with his own fiction. The sudden reverses in stories like Point of No Return are rarely planned in from the start, Keret explains, but emerge as he writes – an impulse towards instability he attributes to his upbringing as the child of two Holocaust survivors.Lucy Caldwell tells us how she built her story Katherine Mansfield's Cat by weaving the New Zealander’s words with her own, and how the mystical connection she feels with...
2023-04-2451 minFictionableDiana Evans: 'You can actually go quite far with very little'On this edition of the Fictionable podcast, Diana Evans tells us how she started cooking up her short story Broth. She talks about minimalism in fiction, female friendship and how the category "black writing" doesn't make any sense. She also gives us a heads up about her forthcoming novel, A House for Alice, which finds the characters from Ordinary People struggling with questions of family and home.Carlos Rojas turns simultaneous interpreter as we hear from Yan Lianke, and get a taste of all the other stories in our Winter edition – stories from Ali Smith, Ross Ra...
2023-01-1626 minFictionableEvie Wyld: 'I feel much more able to do wilder things in the present tense'Evie Wyld joins us for the second edition of the Fictionable podcast to spill the beans about the inspiration for her short story The Land. She tells us about childhood holidays in a rat-infested caravan on the Isle of Wight and how she's fascinated by the twists and folds of time. She also keeps us up to the minute, confessing that she can go wild when she writes in the present tense.We also welcome Amy Sackville, Yasmine Seale, Arinze Ifeakandu and Julian Hanshaw, who introduce all the stories in this Autumn issue – that is, when th...
2022-09-2628 minFictionableSarah Hall: 'At what point would you take grand steps?'For the first edition of the Fictionable podcast, we welcome Sarah Hall, who reveals the inspirations for her story Be Good. She also explains why she chose to tell this haunting story in the second person, and why authors outside of the capital sometimes find themselves written out of the national conversation.We hear about all the stories in Summer 2022, with short readings from Hall, Alain Mabanckou, Ladee Hubbard, Owen Booth and Isabel Greenberg. And we also hear a little about how the magazine was funded, with a great, big Fictionable thank you to all our...
2022-06-2723 min
Ken and Robin Talk About StuffEpisode 7: Lindbergh’s MummyTravel Advisory whisks us on an aural journey to Worldcon, courtesy of Ken, who brings back knowledge of Chinese SF, steampunk semantics, the best vampire novel of the last 100 years, and the dreaded hallway seminar. Along the way we explore the sub-cultural differences between the literary side of geekery and its gaming cousin.
We venture into the Gaming Hut to peer over the shoulders of Mike Mason and Paul Fricker as they refit the classic roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu for its seventh edition.
On the occasion of a $69 mil settlement of price-fixing charges by...
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