Shows
Therapy WorksLive from Stratford Literary Festival: Kit de Waal on Friendship, Fear & Finding FreedomIn this live episode of Hurt to Healing, Julia Samuel is joined by acclaimed author and advocate Kit de Waal for a powerful conversation about friendship, fear, and the patterns we inherit from childhood. With her signature blend of candour and compassion, Kit opens up about the painful unravelling of a close friendship and how it stirred echoes of her early life — growing up with a strict Jamaican Jehovah’s Witness father and a fiery Irish Catholic mother. She reflects on the emotional survival tactics that shaped her, the fierce loyalty of her siblings, and the way fear and secre...2025-06-1151 min
The Women's PodcastKit de Waal on identity and belonging / Starving children of GazaThis week, we’re joined by the brilliant Kit de Waal novelist, memoirist, and fierce advocate for working-class voices in literature. In conversation with Roisin Ingle, de Waal discusses her powerful new novel The Best of Everything, set in 1970s and 1980s England, which follows the interwoven lives of a single mother, her son, and their neighbours as they navigate grief, love, and survival.Best known for her acclaimed debut My Name is Leon, de Waal also shares insights from her 2022 memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes, where she recounts her unconventional upbringing as the daughter of a...2025-05-221h 04
ArenaFréwaka - Kit de Waal - ChoraFréwaka - Kit de Waal - Chora2025-04-2252 min
Namaste Motherf**kersBeautiful Thing with Kit de WaalIn this episode, Cally talks to best-selling author Kit de Waal about rejection, getting published, reading, writing, social mobility, religion, racism, self-esteem, identity, adoption, motherhood and relationships.Instagram: @kitdewaalKit’s books and moreGet tickets for Cally’s Tour More about Cally Order Cally's Book Produced by Mike Hanson for Pod People Productions Music by Jake Yapp Cover design by Jaijo Part...2025-04-101h 03
Crisis What Crisis?Bonus Episode: Kit De Waal's Crisis CompassBestselling author Kit de Waal has built a career writing stories that capture the reality of life on the margins, but her own story is just as compelling. Growing up in 1970s Birmingham with an Irish Catholic-turned-Jehovah's Witness mother and a Caribbean father, Kit learned early on that survival meant adaptation. Kit's mother’s dire warnings of an impending apocalypse pushed her into rebellion, leading to a breakdown that ultimately brought her home and set her on a new path in social care, advocating for children in the care system before becoming a bestselling author.Here is Ki...2025-04-0804 min
Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize PodcastBookshelfie: Kit de WaalAccomplished writer and this year’s Chair of Judges for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction Kit de Waal talks to Vick about her memoir, the value of audiobooks and why we need to see more writing about women in mid life.
Kit de Waal has written novels for adults and young adults, short stories and her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was published in 2022. Her debut novel My Name is Leon was an international bestseller; in 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC and it is now on the GCSE curriculum. She is founder of the T...2025-04-0157 min
Crisis What Crisis?Kit de Waal on rebellion, redemption and making crisis countBestselling author Kit de Waal has built a career writing stories that capture the reality of life on the margins, but her own story is just as compelling. Growing up in 1970s Birmingham with an Irish Catholic-turned-Jehovah's Witness mother and a Caribbean father, Kit learned early on that survival meant adaptation. Kit's mother’s dire warnings of an impending apocalypse pushed her into rebellion, leading to a breakdown that ultimately set her on a new path advocating for children in the care system before becoming a bestselling novelist.In this episode, Kit shares how she transformed personal cr...2025-04-011h 09
explore words discover worldsS2 EP40: Kit De Waal In ConversationIn this episode, step into the vividly colourful and wildly contrasting world of bestselling author, Kit De Waal, as she shares her captivating memoir. Iman Amrani will lead you on a journey through De Waal’s childhood, growing up in a household that defied convention and expectation.2024-05-151h 01
Pen to Print - Podcasts for Aspiring WritersAn interview with novelist Kit De Waal: Write On! Audio WeeklyThank you for listening to Write On! Audio, the podcast for writers everywhere brought to you by Pen to Print
Our interview this month is with British / Irish writer and broadcaster Kit De Waal. Born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, she initially pursued a career in law working alongside foster carers and the social care sector before turning to writing and broadcasting. Her debut novel ‘My Name Is Leon’ was shortlisted for the Costa Book award. Her short fiction has been nominated for - and won - numerous prizes. Soon after the publi...2024-04-2337 min
Medicine UnboxedMATTER - Kit De Waal - SKIN"One of the pods hangs low, right next to Leon’s face. Inside are five tiny black seeds, smaller than his little fingernail. He picks one out and holds it up to the sun."
Kit de Waal was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother, who was a childminder and foster carer and a Caribbean father. She worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law, was a magistrate for several years and sits on adoption panels. She used to advise Social Services on the care of foster children, and has written training manuals on adoption, foster care and judgecraft fo...2024-04-0217 min
Point Of ViewPoint of View with Kit De Waal
🎙️ Listen to Anne O Neill talk to best selling author Kit De Waal about her scintillating life story , born in Birmingham in 1960 to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father Kit's remarkable trajectory from disenchanted youth to magistrate and mother and onwards to attaining literary success in her 50's with the publication of My Name is Leon,is an uplifting one told with Kit's northern sass and humour.
2024-03-3137 min
A Good Kind of ScaryEP 52: Kit de Waal: It's never too late to tell your story.I am so excited to share today’s discussion with award-winning writer Kit De Waal. Kit shares what it was like growing up in Birmingham with an Irish mother and an African-Caribbean father, and the process of rewriting her story in a memoir. We discuss the struggles of being from a working-class background when pursuing a career as a writer and how a key component to wellbeing is having someone believe in you and your ambitions. We chat about the multiple ways that stories can be told aside from writing and how snobbery to this is what pr...2024-01-3146 min
Tiny In All That AirChris Sewart and Phil PullenIn this episode we talk to Beverley based poet Chris Sewart in his second appearance on Tiny in All That Air, and Phil Pullen, trustee of the PLS, who regular listeners will be familiar with from a number of previous episodes. We talk about Chris's poetry and his upcoming performance as the 'warm up' for Roger McGough in Beverley next year (details below). We also discuss Phil's new project for the PLS You-Tube account documenting the Larkin Trail. We end the episode considering three poems from High Windows- The Explosion, Livings and Forget What Did- as we look ahead...2023-11-171h 42
ForthwriteKIT DE WAALJoin us for this brand new series of Writing Around The Kids Podcast, to kick us off we chat with the ever so wonderful Kit de Waal. Listen for her reading from My Name Is Leon and a valuable insight into what makes her tick as a writer.
Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerr...2023-10-0630 min
North Cornwall Book FestivalKit De Waal - NCBF 2022Kit de Waal, author of the runaway bestseller, My Name is Leon, talks to legendary publisher Lennie Goodings about her funny-ouch memoir of her Jehovah’s Witness girlhood, Without Warning and Only Sometimes.2023-07-1655 min
Viva Natural Health#175 Flöka App, Benefits of Tracking, Wearables & The Future Of Healthcare with Vanessa De WaalVanessa De Waal is the founder of Flöka - the all-in-one platform & app for women’s health. It integrates with tons of other apps & devices you might be using separately & brings all that info together so you can see clearly what maybe is/isn’t working.
Her intention is to accelerate the rate at which women heal themselves, sustainably - at the root. Whether it's through the Go-Deeper Podcast she hosts, or the technology she co-creates with her community, the intention is always to first and foremost help people. It started with her own chronic health issue...2023-06-261h 01
the attention span03 - The Possibility of an EncounterWelcome to issue three of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Each issue has a short essay, a nerdy look at translation, a page from one of my notebooks, a list of things to read, watch or listen to, and a highlight from my archives. This...2023-06-0716 min
Private PassionsKit de WaalAuthor Kit de Waal was brought up in a working class family in the Moseley suburb of Birmingham in the 1960s and 70s. She talks to Michael Berkeley about how reading wasn’t part of her childhood; she didn’t discover a love of books until much later in life. Her bestselling first novel, My Name is Leon, written in her 40s, draws on her own childhood experiences and her early career as a legal worker in the foster care system, and she devoted some of the proceeds to setting up a scholarship for aspiring authors from working class back...2023-06-0435 min
Yours Sincerely with Jess PhillipsKit De WaalCan you imagine growing up without celebrations?For author and screenwriter Kit De Waal this was the norm, after her mother decided to become a Jehovah's witness.In this episode, Kit and Jess chat about why they love receiving handwritten letters, their love for Birmingham and TV writer Sally Wainwright's portrayal of the working class on British television.Follow the podcast at @jessphillipspod to keep up with the latest episodes and share your letters of gratitude using the hashtag: #JessPhillipsPod.Trigger Warning: This contains discussions of substance...2023-04-1340 min
BacklistedSo Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell - rerunJohn introduces a rerun of an episode from November 2016, where Costa First Book nominee for My Name Is Leon, Kit de Waal joins John & Andy to discuss So Long, See You Tomorrow, the final novel by author and New Yorker literary editor William Maxwell.Rough Timings: 11'27 - You Took the Last Bus Home: The Poems of Brian Bilston17'43 - My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal24'47 - So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell* To purchase any of the books mentioned in t...2023-04-041h 08
The Writing LifeThe Martineau Lecture with Kit De WaalAs part of the annual Norfolk and Norwich Festival we run a series of events called City of Literature. A central part of our programme is the Harriett Martineau Lecture which celebrates the legacy of a remarkable, world-changing woman by inviting globally-renowned radical speakers to respond to her life and work.
In 2022, we were excited to welcome bestselling novelist, memoirist and literary activist Kit de Waal - presenting the lecture in the beautiful environs of the Spiegeltent. Kit gave a thought-provoking lecture covering a range of topics, including human rights, equality, hunger and, as she calls it, ‘co...2023-03-2047 min
The Shift with Sam BakerKit de Waal on race, class – and her exceedingly cool hair! - THE SHIFT REVISITEDOver the Christmas period and into January I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the brilliantly outspoken author Kit de Waal. This episode first aired in July.---Today’s guest is the award-winning writer, Kit De Waal. Until she was 21, Kit had never read a book voluntarily. But once she started there was no stopping her. Kit started writing in her mid-40s and published her award-winning debut, My Name Is Leon, at 56. Since then she has used her success to work tirelessly to promote the vo...2023-01-1757 min
Colli'r PlotSgen I'm Syniad... am 'doligTrafod llyfrau da ni wedi bod yn darllen a beth sydd ar ein rhestr ar gyfer Siôn Corn.Dyma restr ddarllen o'r cyfrolau a drafodwyd yn y bennod:Rhedeg i Parys - Llwyd OwenO Glust i Glust - Llwyd OwenHouse Arrest - Alan Bennett Sgen i'm syniad - Gwenllian EllisSblash! - Branwen Davies. Without warning and only sometimes- Kit de WaalSix Foot Six - Kit de WaalLlyfr Bach y Tŷ Bach - gol. Bethan GwanasRhwng Cwsg ac Effro - Irma Chilton2022-12-1557 min
Oh My Lit!Tea time with TanuIn this episode, we focus on our co host Tanuja Shelar's journey into publishing from India, her reading recommendations and her take on 'moving on with life'.This episode's book recommendations:My Name is Leon by Kit De WaalCommon People by Kit De WaalBecoming by Michelle ObamaBorn a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor NoahKololo Hill by Neema ShahAt Night All Blood is Black by David DropHalf a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieThis is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone 2022-11-0147 min
Always Take Notes#145: Kit de Waal, novelist and short-story writerRachel and Simon speak with the novelist and short-story writer Kit de Waal. Born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father, she worked for several years in criminal and family law, sitting on adoption panels and writing manuals on foster care. Her experience in this field informed her debut novel, "My Name is Leon", which was published in 2016 after a six-way auction and was adapted into a television film this year. Kit has also worked to increase diversity in publishing, using some of her advance from "My Name is Leon" to fund a creative-writing scholarship and...2022-10-1854 min
Two Lit ChicksConversation with Kit De WaalKit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 60s and 70s. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. In 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC. Her second novel, The Trick to Time, was long-listed for the Women's Prize and her young adult novel Becoming Dinah was shortlisted for t...2022-10-1753 min