Shows
A Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Green LadyFor Miss Braithwaite, who gave me eloquence.
‘I need to summon the spirits of place…’
This week, we join Sally in rehearsal for a performance, given last week at Somerville College as part of Oxfordshire Mind’s evening of ‘Connections.’ Listen for an invocation of character, both in fiction and of those figures in our own lives that become part of our stories.
Both Gladys and J.M.W. Turner feature in Sally’s recent novel, The Green Lady (William Collins, 2023).
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen...2025-06-1415 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyBeing Handy‘Enid’s hands are always kept busy caring for other people…’
This week, Sally continues her theme of developing characters from objects by presenting a portrait of Enid Bagot, a young woman used to working with her hands, who will feature in Sally’s forthcoming imagined biography, provisionally titled Mrs Parnell. Listen for a reflection on the routines and rhythms of life and work, interspersed with the moments from Sally’s own life that provide her inspiration.
The image of the cat by Edward Lear that Sally refers to can be viewed here.
The wonderfu...2025-06-0128 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyKatherine Mansfield‘His straw hat hurt him, it pinched his forehead and started a dull ache in the two bones just over the temples…’
This week, Sally has been reading and teaching Katherine Mansfield, focusing on characters in her short fiction. Listen for a masterclass on openings, writing characters through objects, and making connections between and through them.
The full text of the stories Sally reads can be found here.
The passage read in the final section comes from Sally’s forthcoming fictional biography, provisionally titled Mrs Parnell.
This episode was edited and produced...2025-05-1928 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Fragment of MayFor Emilie: may you always sing.
We return this week, for a special micro-episode, to Mrs Dalloway’s London. Listen for a brief meditation on the fragmentation of life, interruption, and finding meaning in art.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2025-05-0211 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyMrs Dalloway‘Now it was time to move, and, as a woman gathers her things together, her cloak, her gloves, her opera-glasses, and gets up to out of the theatre into the street, she rose from the sofa and went to Peter…’
This week, we join Sally reflecting on the arrangement of character. Listen for a journey, via Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925) through perspectives, cityscapes, and the means by which we navigate everyday life.
The music accompanying the initial discussion of Mrs Dalloway is ‘Friday’, by Paul Seba. More about Paul and his work can be found here.2025-04-2723 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySightlines‘Sightlines produce a story, an avenue, a walkway, a space to move through…’
This week, we join Sally reflecting on the idea of the sightline, and the stories they structure. Listen for a meditation on narrative, childhood, and a unique perspective of and from The Dreaming Spires…
The text of the Sylvia Plath poem Sally references can be found here.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2025-04-0430 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyRhapsody‘I try to live my life as though I were stitching together a book of songs.’
This week, Sally offers us a tour through the stitched-together songs of her life, reflecting on the form of rhapsody. Join her for a series of vignettes on art, education, memory, and connection.
This text of this episode is based on an address Sally gave at Wadham College Chapel, part of an evening of ‘Taking Heart in Poetry & Song’ for St David's Day. More information can be found here.
The full text of Dylan Thomas’ poem, ‘The force that th...2025-03-1129 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Painter‘I see that she is thinking most of her canvas, and how she will get there…’
This week, we join Sally after visiting her friend, the artist Emma Neuberg. Listen for a reflection of friendship, travel, and the connections art offers us.
More information on Emma and her work can be found here. She can also be found on Instagram @emmaneuberg.
The beautiful piano music in the closing section is ‘Tuesday’, by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson...2025-02-0121 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyBlithe‘Blithe came to me, not in flashing red or pink neon, but in pastels… in soft, painterly tones…’
This week, Sally has been inspired by a dream of the word ‘blithe.’ Listen for a meditation on the relationship between words, language, and the memories they ignite.
The Muir poem Sally reads can be found here.
The music used in the opening and closing section is, respectively, ‘Sunday’ and ‘Thursday’, by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magn2025-01-1228 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyOn Rhythm‘Rhythm seems to be the first or formal relation of part to part in any whole…’
This week, Sally has been thinking about rhythms, in her life, writing, and the works of others. Listen for a meditation, via James Joyce, Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight (1939), and Sally’s work in progress, on the suturing of experience, and the spaces between moments of being.
Joyce’s reflection on rhythm, among others, can be found in full here.
Sally is currently in the early stages of writing out the rhythms and images of her next book – a pass...2024-12-1125 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyOrphan PowerThis week, Sally has been reflecting on her ‘orphan power’, a phrase once applied to her by Will Self, and her relationship with orphaned literary characters such as Jane Eyre. Listen for a meditation on isolation, belonging, and the communities that art can provide.
The extracts performed here involving Jane Eyre and Miss Marple are from Sally’s first coming of age novel, Girl with Dove (William Collins, 2018).
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is 'Rain', by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was partially inspired by Sally being asked to speak at a symp...2024-11-2321 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyPlaying in the SunThis week, we join Sally at home, on a sunny autumn day. Listen for a meditation on play, weather, and our relationships with everyday objects.
The passage from David Copperfield can be found here.
More from Sally on the kaleidoscope mentioned early in the episode can be found here.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-11-1516 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyCalpurnia's Dream‘Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, / Yet now they fright me.’
This week, we join Sally in the early morning, after a Shakespearean dream. Listen for a meditation on the boundaries between sleeping and waking, dreams and reality, and confidence and hubris.
Calpurnia’s full speech can be found here.
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is ‘Tuesday’, by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-10-2919 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyOn Walking‘I hate walking, it seems so pointless to me…’
This week, Sally has been musing on the importance of mobility, reflecting on the increasing role of her blue scooter in her life. Listen for a meditation on the importance of transport, both physical and imaginative, via Thomas Bernhard, Agatha Christie, and Elizabeth Bishop.
Miss Marple of Bourne End has previously appeared in Sally’s first novel, Girl with Dove (2018). Available from all good booksellers.
The guitar music in the opening section is by Dylan Gwalia, and the piano music in the closing section is ‘Doub...2024-10-1917 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA European PostcardThis week, Sally offers us a series of vignettes from her travels, both past and present. Follow her on a journey around Europe, through the eyes of the child, adult, and writer.
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is ‘Sunday’, by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
A note on the sound: This was recorded on location, while Sally taught at the Rosemary’s House writing retreat in Greece, without Sally’s usual reco...2024-10-0816 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyPoppies in October‘A gift, a love gift / Utterly unasked for / By a sky’
This week, Sally has been reading Sylvia Plath’s ‘Poppies in October’ (1963). Join her for this brief mediation on living generously and the restorative powers of reading poetry.
The text of the poem can be found here.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-09-1712 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Painted Veil‘There’s always hope where there’s poetry…’
This week, Sally is preparing for her narrowboat, Cerian, to journey upriver for maintenance. Join her in her engine room for a discussion of Somerset Maugham’s novel The Painted Veil, meditations on kindness, and reflections on how poetry helps us to create our own rhythms in a noisy world.
More information on The Painted Veil (1925) can be found here.
The poems read from in this episode are ‘Auguries of Innocence’ by William Blake, ‘“Hope” is the thing with feathers’ by Emily Dickinso...2024-09-1022 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySadler's Birthday‘Silence, quietness, that’s a way of living…’
This week, we join Sally in the attic room of her family home, where she has been reading Rose Tremain's first novel Sadler’s Birthday (1976). Follow her on a journey through the spaces in life where we find quietness, and the ways we make ourselves fit into them, in writing or otherwise.
The piano music in the closing section is ‘Tuesday’, by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.2024-08-2035 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Gleaners‘But the darkness is a kind of blanket, and she comforts me…’
This week, we join Sally on a sleepless night, on a journey through Millet’s The Gleaners (1857), via her character Pond Man. Follow her through this meditation on voice, place, and the spaces in between events.
More information on the painting can be found here.
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is ‘Doubt’, by Paul Sebastian. The guitar piece is by Dylan Gwalia.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Ma...2024-08-0928 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyBleak House‘London. Michaelmas Term lately over and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall…’
This week, Sally has been reading and teaching Charles Dickens’ Bleak House (1852). Follow her on a journey through his London, in the company of its climate, characters, and the bewildering legal bureaucracy not very far from our own….
Music used throughout includes ‘Tuesday’ and ‘Thursday’ by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-07-0340 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Weatherhouse‘I’m wondering what happiness sounds like, these days…’
This week, Sally has been reading Nan Shepherd’s The Weatherhouse, and reflecting on her relationship with happiness and contentment. Join her for a meditation on acceptance, simplicity, and our connections to life’s natural rhythms.
The guitar music throughout is by D. Gwalia.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-06-1827 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyPond Man Beneath the Date Palm TreeThis week Sally is experimenting with location and atmosphere for her character Pond Man. She asks her friend Dylan, to come and join her, as they improvise their way into Pond Man's world. This episode celebrates the value of creative collaboration and experiment.
Music by D. Gwalia.
Produced by D. Gwalia.
2024-05-2712 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyMary Crow“She glanced up at the great broken tower-columns of the vanished nave of the Abbey Church….”
This week, Sally continues to read John Cowper Powys’ 1932 novel A Glastonbury Romance, dwelling on the character of Mary Crow, whose form gives shape to the flat Glastonbury plain. Join her for reflections on visual art, our search for meaning through symbolic structure, and our deeply human need for form and rhythm.
More information on Powys can be found here: https://www.powys-society.org/JCPowys.html
The guitar piece (05:28) is by D. Gwalia.
This episode was produce...2024-05-1119 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyCloud Patterns“On this particular day the weather conditions had assumed a cloud-pattern…”
This week, Sally continues to read John Cowper Powys’ 1932 novel, A Glastonbury Romance, asking: how does writing produce depth and dimension? And what role do images play in our creative and emotional lives? Join her on a spring morning by the river for reflections on craft, inspiration, and literature as a visual language.
Note: in Greek mythology, Clytemnestra traps and murders her husband, king Agamemnon, by tangling him in a net. More information on Powys can be found here: https://www.powys-society.org/JCPowys.html
...2024-05-0217 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Glastonbury Romance‘There’s no life that frees anyone so completely from unhappiness as does the mystic life…’
This week, Sally has been reading John Cowper Powys’ 1932 novel, A Glastonbury Romance. Join her for a meditation on attachment, possession, desire, and being with others.
More information on Powys can be found here: https://www.powys-society.org/JCPowys.html
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Paul Clarke, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-04-2217 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyPond Man's Day, Pond Man's Night"What is it this material life we find ourselves captured by?"
This week Sally is developing her character, Pond Man as she considers the opening line of James Joyce's experimental epic, Ulysses, and the tradition of ritual - secular and religious - in everyday life. In the tradition of Joyce, we observe Pond Man across the length and breadth of his day as he prepares to sleep.
This episode was edited and produced by D. Gwalia.
The guitar music is by D. Gwalia.
The opening and exiting voice is Emma Fielding.
2024-04-0418 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyPond Man‘You see, I go and live with Pond Man when the pain becomes too much…’
This week, we join Sally at home, as she tries to live with a pain that has become familiar with the help of imagination, community and her young neighbour Maeve. Follow her as she escapes the everyday through the figure of Pond Man, an inhabitant of her latest work, seeking solace in the world of her forthcoming novel (2025), Pond Life.
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was edited and produced by Jam...2024-03-2521 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Dog of Tears‘We have forgotten what it is to look at one another and to notice.’
What does it mean to really see? This week, Sally is meditating on the power of images to connect us in a busy world. Join her as she reflects on José Saramago’s novel Blindness, on empathy and attention, and how literature offers us ways of tuning in to our surroundings.
Guitar music by D. Gwalia, piano music by Paul Sebastian.
This episode was produced by Lucie Richter-Mahr.
Special thanks to Andr...2024-03-1222 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Reading Life, A Writing Life in ConversationA special episode this week, as we join Sally at Brasenose College in a conversation titled ‘A Reading Life, A Writing Life’, with fellow writers Aida Edemariam and Joanna Kavenna. Join them for a discussion on memory, storytelling, and the porous boundaries between reality and fiction.
Aida is a writer and journalist whose debut book The Wife’s Tale received the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Award. More information on her and her work can be found here: https://www.rcwlitagency.com/authors/edemariam-aida/
Joanna, whose 2016 novel A Field Guide to Reality has appeared in a pre...2024-03-071h 07A Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyBlindness‘If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one…’
This week, Sally has been reading José Saramago’s Blindness, and thinking about the ways we see, or don’t see, the world around us. Drawing on J.M. Barrie, join her for a reflection on seeing and writing through the dark places of the world.
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is by Paul Sebastian, and the guitar music was written and performed by D. Gwalia.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smit...2024-02-2426 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Face in the Mirror‘Where do images come from?’
This week, Sally is thinking about the importance of sound and rhythm to writing. Join her for a discussion of George Orwell’s Coming Up for Air (1939) and a reflection on how to find your writing voice.
Guitar music composed and performed by Dylan Gwalia.
This episode was produced by Lucie Richter-Mahr.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-02-1623 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyWriting and Holding‘Let words pass through you in a small contained space’
This week, we join Sally for a meditation on creating and inhabiting a space in which to write, and to be held, via the work of the novelist V.S. Pritchett. Follow her as she begins to lay out her meditative practice of reading and writing, drawing on the restorative power of words on the page.
An account of Pritchett and his work can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/feb/22/vspritchett
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowe...2024-02-0825 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyInsomnia‘Perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.’
This week, Sally is reading Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Insomnia’, a poem full of shifting, uncertain geographies and marvellous depths. How do we navigate the strange land of sleeplessness? Join Sally as she meditates on the power of reading closely and the solace of poetry as a place of rest.
‘Insomnia’ is available to read here: https://allpoetry.com/poem/8493531-Insomnia-by-Elizabeth-Bishop
This episode was produced by Lucie Richter-Mahr.
For Summer and Dylan, both students. Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kr...2024-01-3124 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe White Rabbit‘I shall be late!’
Sally has been following the White Rabbit this week, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and reflecting on the ever-increasing demands on the writer’s time. Follow her down the rabbit hole on a journey through time, lateness, and rest…
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
The wonderful piano music in the closing section was composed by Paul Clarke.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-01-1724 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyNew Year’s Night‘How do you remember people first?’
We join Sally on New Year’s Night, staying with a relative in Chichester, a familiar city from her childhood. Join her for a meditation on embodiment, memory, and authority, via a vision of John Milton’s hell from the epic Paradise Lost.
Satan’s speech, read partway through the episode, can be found here: https://poets.org/poem/paradise-lost-book-i-lines-221-270
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2024-01-0323 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyIn the Bleak MidwinterThis week, we join Sally in the middle of a winter night. Follow her reflections on festive traditions, via Christina Rossetti, and on seeing the world through illness, with Emily Brontë, and John Milton.
Rossetti’s poem can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53216/in-the-bleak-midwinter
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2023-12-2017 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Difficult Balance With PainFor Demi.
‘And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating / Of dark habits, / keeping their difficult balance.’
This week, Sally has been living with Richard Wilbur’s ‘Love Calls Us to the Things of the World’, and reflecting on living with pain. Balance with her on the precipices we all exist on…
The poem can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43048/love-calls-us-to-the-things-of-this-world
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2023-12-1318 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyWhat are Days For?For Keyang.
‘Where can we live but days?’
This week, Sally has been reading and living with Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Days’, from The Whitsun Weddings. Join her for a meditation on how we spend our days, drawing on prayer, hope, hymns, and reading.
The poem can be read here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48410/days-56d229a0c0c33
Miss Cull, a frequent guest on the podcast, can also be found in Sally’s latest book, The Green Lady, available from all good booksellers.
This episode was edited and produced...2023-11-2925 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Narrow Passage‘This is how I prefer to live…inside a narrow passage…’
Sally is still living with Wuthering Heights this week, as she meditates on the nature of life in confined spaces, both in fiction and on her narrowboat. Join her as she muses on the narrow passages that we live in and move through, reflecting on the nature of freedom, grief, and love.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2023-11-2227 min
The Write and Wrong Podcast#147 - Sally BayleyLiterary author, lecturer and writing teacher, Sally Bayley joins the podcast this week to tell us about her writing, the blurred lines between fiction and non-fiction, dreams, inspirations and staying true to your voice. (Photo by Alexandra Kelly)Support the show on PatreonSupport the show on Patreon, chat with Jamie and other guests on the Discord server and get all of the episodes ad free.WriteMentorGet a whole month with WriteMentor's Hub for free using the coupon code 'Write&Wrong'.The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes2023-11-2027 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyAn Announcement, and a Story‘I can’t live without story now…it feels like breathing.’
This week, Sally is travelling to Sicily, for a conversation with Marina Warner on ‘Life Writing, Memory and Fiction.’ Before leaving, she offers a brief meditation on the local artist Gabriella Bailey, telling us a story of two figures outside a city, and the spaces outside of life.
The painting described can be found here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CoKavmGtbl-/?igshid=MWFzaTYzano3eTN5cg%3D%3D
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Viole...2023-11-1507 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyWuthering Heights‘Are you brave enough to follow me there?’
This week, Sally has been reading Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights. Fixated on the dreams of its narrator, join her for her reflections on rage, the histories of homes and places, and the distracting intrusions of life into writing.
The beautiful piano music in the middle and closing sections is by Paul Clarke.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2023-11-0827 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyShorehamFor Alice Colquhoun.
In this episode, Sally muses on J.M.W. Turner’s famous 1830 painting, Shoreham. Join her for reflections on art, life, and on writing from the faint lines of existence.
Turner’s work makes frequent appearances in Sally’s latest book, The Green Lady, available from all good booksellers.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2023-11-0415 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySearching for Verity‘A writer’s notebook is full of the sound of atmosphere…’
This week, Sally is teaching a course on detective fiction. Emerging from her meditations on Wilkie Collins’ novel The Moonstone, follow her on a journey through the light and the dark places of the world, and the variegated truths of writing and life.
Miss Cull, a frequent guest on the podcast, can also be found in Sally’s latest book, The Green Lady, available from all good booksellers.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith...2023-11-0233 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySea of TroublesContinuing this week’s Shakespearean theme, Sally describes a recent trip to a screening of a new cinematic adaptation of Kenneth Macmillan’s 1988 balletic interpretation of Hamlet, Sea of Troubles. Join her for a meditation on choreography, interpretation, and prayer.
Dance Scholarship Oxford (DANSOX), who made the screening possible, run a wide variety of events relating to dance at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. More information is available here: https://dansox3.wordpress.com/about/
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve...2023-10-2811 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyFinding Your Part‘All the world’s a stage…’
Sally is thinking this week about a photograph of her foster grandmother in Shakespearean costume. Who is she? How did she find her part? Did she have her experience, like Jacques, the man of the world? Listen to her meditations, extemporised and recorded in a single take, to find out.
The speech from As You Like It, read at the end, is available here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56966/speech-all-the-worlds-a-stage
For those in and around Oxford, Sally will be speaking about her latest book, The Green Lady, at 3pm th...2023-10-2631 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Red Poppy‘Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me.’
In this special episode, Sally reflects on the work of the late poet Louise Glück as she travels around Oxford. Join her as she muses on feeling, poetry, family, and names.
The poem, ‘The Red Poppy’, featured in this episode, can be read here: https://poets.org/poem/red-poppy-0
The wonderful piano music in the opening section is by Paul Clarke.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Mag2023-10-2113 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyPeter Pan"In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls."
Sally and her neighbour discuss tree spirits and magical bracelets on her narrowboat. As the rains draw in, Sally settles down to read J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. She thinks about clouds and feelings, listens to chamber music, and follows the story of Peter Pan from Kensington Gardens to Rustington-on-Sea. Our feelings have always been with us, like the weather. And on rainy days, it’s good to dance more.
Miss Cull, a frequent guest on the podca...2023-10-1832 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyBonus Episode: The Lady StalkerIn this special bonus episode, follow Sally on an adventure of mistaken identity, Marmite ice cream, and Miss Cull.
This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.
Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.
2023-10-1211 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyDaniel Martin‘Is there a plot to life?’
This week, Sally has been reading Daniel Martin, by John Fowles. Follow her musings as she considers the relationship between the writer’s public and private selves, anonymity, and the nature of plot.
Daniel Martin, now published by Vintage Classics, is available from all good booksellers. All quoted materials are the property of the Estate of John Fowles.
The poem, ‘Burnt Norton’ from the Four Quartets, parts of which Sally performed last week at the Oxford Chamber Music Festival, is available to read here: http://www.davidgorman.com/4quart...2023-10-1134 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyMiss Cull‘How do you face the void?’
This week, Sally presents a series of linked meditations around the character of Miss Cull, illustrating how characters can be made by, with, and through everyday objects, and how her biography, like anyone’s, is still being written. For writers struggling to face the blank page, follow Miss Cull as she emerges from Sally’s observations of life, its rhythms, and the animate world of the writer’s imagination.
Miss Cull, a frequent guest on the podcast, can also be found in Sally’s latest book, The Green Lady, available fr...2023-10-0518 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyInhabit the Garden‘Other echoes inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?’
This week, Sally is reading T. S. Eliot in preparation for her performance at the Oxford Chamber Music Festival on the 6th of October. She explores the landscape of ‘Burnt Norton’ (1936), improvising scenes on the theme of memory via rose leaves, purses, lightbulbs, and dry crackling lawns. The Oxford Chamber Music Festival, run by Priya Mitchell, takes place from the 4th to the 7th of October. All are welcome, please come along!
The Festival website is here: https://www.ocmf.net/2023-festival/
2023-09-2914 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyFroggie and the Golden Ball‘For all the Froggies of the World...'
Inspired by her amphibian lifestyle, Sally offers an everyday fable of the writer. Froggie and the Golden Ball is a cautionary tale of the writerly career and the lure of acclaim, interspersed with reflections on nature, Emily Dickinson, and hairdressing.
Dickinson’s poem about the frog is available here: https://poets.org/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260
The producer of this episode is James Bowen.
The extra voice in this episode is Emma Fielding.
The beautiful piano music heard in the opening section is writ...2023-09-2414 min
Self Tune Podcast: il benessere dopo il traumaScrivere e leggere: potenti strumenti di guarigione, con Sally BayleyUna bellissima chiacchierata (in inglese) con la riconosciuta scrittrice Sally Bayley, autrice di fama internazionale i cui libri sono tradotti anche in Italiano, con un nuovo in uscita questo autunno con Edizioni Clichy.Sally ci racconta come il suo rapporto con le parole abbia formato il suo mondo e come la scrittura sia un processo completamente embodied, incarnato. Sulla falsa riga di ciò che propone nel suo podcast, "A Reading Life, a Writing Life" alla fine dell'episodio ci propone una meravigliosa lettura interpretata di un brano dal suo ultimo libro, The Green Lady.A...2023-09-2244 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe FarrierSally has just finished a lesson with a student who is writing a story in the vein of Thomas Hardy about a young man on a farm. Searching for visual references, they latch on to a painting of a farrier, shoeing a horse. Now the image, haunted by a spectral figure, has lingered in Sally's mind and she reflects on how visual and physical memory can inspire writing; and how writers are like ghosts, absent-present in the scene.
In a heat haze, the sound of a dog barking prompts her to think about the importance of creating b...2023-09-0709 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Field Guide to RealitySally is reading A Field Guide to Reality, the debut novel by the Granta Best of Young British author Joanna Kavenna, originally published in 2016 and set in a surreal, quantum alternative Oxford University.
Sally will be in conversation with Joanna Kavenna and fellow writer Elizabeth Lowry at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, from 6pm on September 5th. They will discuss many of the themes of the podcast; reading, writing and the intersection with life and living - and it's free to attend! More details here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/s-bayley-e-lowry-and-j-kavenna-a-reading-life-a-writing-life-tickets-688044298017
You can f...2023-08-2908 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe ChosenStarting a new book is like starting a new relationship, and Sally is reading Elizabeth Lowry's The Chosen, a ghost story and a love story about Thomas Hardy and his estranged wife.
Sally will be in conversation with Elizabeth Lowry and fellow writer Joanna Kavenna at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, from 6pm on September 5th. They will discuss many of the themes of the podcast; reading, writing and the intersection with life and living - and it's free to attend! More details here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/s-bayley-e-lowry-and-j-kavenna-a-reading-life-a-writing-life-tickets-688044298017
Elizabeth Lowry's The C...2023-08-2815 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySally talks to Will Self Part TwoThis is the second half of the chat between Sally and Will Self, held at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, in which they discuss the German emigré writer WG Sebald, their reading and writing habits, parenthood, children and eccentric families.
Sally is hosting another evening of literary chat with friends and fellow writers Joanna Kavenna and Elizabeth Lowry, also at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, from 6pm on September 5th. They will discuss many of the themes of the podcast; reading, writing and the intersection with life and living - and it's free to attend! More details here:
2023-08-2337 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA short announcement and a live eventJust a short announcement by Sally about an exciting event coming up - recorded with the help of Magnificent Maeve Magnus.
2023-08-2202 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyMrs RobinsonThis episode is a meditation, inspired by the themes and characters of Sally's latest book, The Green Lady; it's Sally's elegy for Mrs Robinson, a woman who was shut out of life, not seen or heard; but Sally knew her, and remembers her.
You can find out more about The Green Lady here: https://sallybayley.com/
The producer of the podcast is Andrew Smith: https://www.fleetingyearfilms.com
The extra voice in this episode is Emma Fielding.
Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far. Special thanks go to Violet He...2023-07-2708 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Exquisite Melodrama of the WriterIt's the launch day for Sally's new book, The Green Lady, and Sally is feeling the pressure, especially as her neighbours have left her alone on the boat. In the middle of the night, she reads an 18th century classic, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, finding commonality in its psychological upswings and downswings, the melodrama, the despair and the comforts, of its narrator, who has turned to writing in his journal to cope with his lonely castaway life. Brought back to the world by the sound of children playing outside, Sally has to rely on the kindness of a Girl...2023-07-2522 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySally talks to Will Self: Part 1Something different for this episode - Sally interviews writer Will Self about his latest book of essays, Why Read. They discuss not just why we read, but how we read; digital reading versus physical books; and Will discusses the writers who had a formative effect on him, including Lewis Carroll, Franz Kafka and W.G. Sebald.
The event took place at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford. Our thanks to Will and to Blackwell's.
You can find out more about Will Self's book here: https://will-self.com/why-read/
2023-07-2332 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Note Left On A WindowSally has an announcement for listeners: A Reading Life, A Writing Life has now set up on Patreon.
Patreon is a subscription website where, in return for a modest monthly fee, you will receive extra audio and visual material, to be produced by Sally over the forthcoming weeks and months. We are hoping that your generosity will also help us keep the podcast going - and we hugely appreciate any support you are able to give us.
If you are interested, and for more details, please visit:
www.patreon.com/SallyBayley
...2023-07-2103 min
Listen to Trending Full trial Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, MemoirsThe Green Lady: A Spirit, A Story, A Place by Sally BayleyPlease visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/577186 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Green Lady: A Spirit, A Story, A Place Author: Sally Bayley Narrator: Sally Bayley Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 7 minutes Release date: July 20, 2023 Genres: Memoirs Publisher's Summary: From the critically acclaimed author Sally Bayley, The Green Lady is a poignant, brilliant exploration of the relationships between children and their teachers. In the style of her memoir Girl with Dove, this book explores a child’s search for artistic education and a sense of self. Lyrical and playful, Sally Bayley’s writing transports the reader into an eccentric worl...2023-07-2005 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyHauntedIn this episode, Sally reads extracts from her forthcoming book, the Green Lady, released next week. The Green Lady is the third part of a literary coming of age story that began with Girl with Dove, a combination of memoir and storytelling from the perspective of a child in search of a way of expressing herself. The book is a tribute to the women who raised Sally, and the often unappreciated and unnoticed teachers, nurturers and maternal spirits of history and the present day.
The Green Lady is published on July 20th, 2023, and you can find out mo...2023-07-1321 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySunshine of the HeartSally treads old familiar pathways through fields of corn and wheat in Sussex, very close to the place she grew up. Her thoughts are with Charlotte Brontë, who wrote haunting poems about her own complex, equivocal feelings towards her childhood and the place she grew up. Sally reads the famous opening passage from Brontë's novel Jane Eyre. Jane, an unwanted orphan who retreats into the world of books was a pivotal figure in Sally's psychological development as a young teenager.
Charlotte Brontë (1816 to 1855) was the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who lived to adulthood. She live...2023-06-2918 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Bright Metal World"Why do we write?" Sally asks herself this week, as she reads a novella by the 20th century writer DH Lawrence, a story of longing, dreams, desire and self-liberation. Sally is interrupted by the arrival of a gang of noisy pheasants, who annoy the local cat, the aloof and enigmatic Plucky. Sally reflects on the unknowable interiority of everyone - not just cats; and while spring cleaning, she finds a talismanic object - a faded cover of a much-loved, much-read book. Returning to Lawrence, she discusses how the bright shining physically grounded objects of the story generate a fairytale...2023-06-1425 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Body in the LibraryThis week, Sally is entertaining a visitor to the narrowboat - her eight-year-old neighbour Maeve Magnus - for their regular evening ritual of watching Poirot and honing their impressions of the TV show’s characters. Sally harkens back to her eight-year-old self, reading her way through Agatha Christie’s stories, each tale representing a world of fresh possibilities and alternative ways of living.
She savours one of her favourite passages, the opening of The Body in the Library, with its skilful prose, its evocation of place, time and architecture, its sharp observations of class and money, and its v...2023-06-0127 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Girls of Slender MeansThis week, Sally is reading The Girls of Slender Means, a novella by one of her favourite writers, Scottish novelist, poet and essayist Muriel Spark (1918 to 2006).
During the Second World War, Spark came to London to work in British intelligence. She took up residence at the Helena Club in London, a hostel in Lancaster Gate, described as “a strict club for young ladies”. In 1963, she published A Girl of Slender Means, based on her experiences at the Helena Club.
Spark was also editor of the Poetry Review from 1947 to 1948; one of the few female editors of th...2023-05-1629 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyAlmost Being SaidSally starts the podcast with a brief poem by Philip Larkin, a complex poem of springtime, grief, and renewal. The trees all around the boat take Sally’s mind back to the horse chestnut tree of her youth, where she and her brother used to play, and which became a companion to her as she started to read books. A hunt for a pack of pesky wasp invaders, headed by an indignant Queen, ends up with Sally pruning the nearby hawthorn and willow trees, in whose branches the neighbourhood water vole has been spotted, and listening to the chirruping of...2023-05-1136 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA RetreatSally reads Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Frost at Midnight, and reflects on the importance of finding ways to escape, now and again, from a stressful world - to find a place of tranquillity, where we can think and create, connect with ourselves and with the natural world. It's a fundamental need, but very hard to achieve.
So Sally outlines a plan - to create a "retreat", a way to provide our listeners with a temporary but meaningful respite from the world.
As Sally explains, we are thinking of creating a longer form of A Re...2023-05-0116 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyBaby DavidSally starts by telling us the tale of the Boiler That Went Bang in the Night, and the Bird That Never Was. She’s preparing a zoom class for some schoolchildren which draws on her first book of memoirs – or anti-memoirs, as she prefers to call them – called Girl With Dove. Sally pulls out the book's manuscript and we hear about her upbringing in a slum area on the south coast, and her earliest memories of her granny and Mum, growing roses on a scrubby patch of land. She tells us about her baby brother David, and what happened to him...2023-04-1026 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Wind In The WillowsSally does her washing on the narrowboat, and with spring in the air, her thoughts turn to the past. She reads from an old favourite, the children’s classic novel, The Wind in the Willows, and discusses its characters and themes with her friend from next door, Maeve Magnus, who is reading it for the first time and sees close parallels between the book and their own lives on the river. Sally recalls her fierce search for meaning and direction of her university days, and how she plunged into the writings of the American scholar Camille Paglia; then she re...2023-03-3028 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Devil Lives Among UsIn this episode, released on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, Sally reads the works of great Ukrainian writers and poets of previous generations. Her thoughts turn to the novelist Joseph Conrad, who was born in a region which is now part of Ukraine. She reads passages from his masterpiece, Lord Jim, about the tangible presence of evil in the world. In a lighter vein, she reads an extract from her own fictional essay about the joys and freedoms of walking.
Further Reading
Sally’s fictional essay - on the theme of a childhood wa...2023-02-2224 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Country DoctorIn this special, double-length episode, Sally leaves her boat to seek refuge at a friend’s house on another island in Oxford, as the rains have flooded the meadow of her narrowboat community. Returning to the boat as the waters subside, she reads a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, then settles down to study a collection of essays by Will Self. The essays lead Sally to reread a chilling short story by the surrealist writer Franz Kafka - and a striking phrase reminds her of one of her favourite sentences in all of modernist literature. Sally’s musings are interrupted by a...2023-02-0743 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyPond LifeSally wakes up at dawn and thinks about the book she's currently writing – Pond Life, a fictional biography of two women who live on the south coast of Britain in the years after the Second World War. The book addresses themes of loneliness, disconnection and the consolations and snares of film, art and the imagination. Sally consults her own memorandum, a note to herself and the reader, about the composition of the book; and she reflects on the need for calm, away from the distraction of screens, in the creative process.
Further Reading:
Pond Life wi...2023-01-2423 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyEvelynSally takes time off from trying to unblock her sink to conduct a creative writing lesson with her student, Evelyn. They discuss a single sentence in a short story written by Katherine Mansfield, the modernist writer who died 100 years ago this month. After Evelyn leaves, Sally settles down to read Mansfield’s diaries, immersing herself in her scribblings both funny and profound.
Further Reading:
Katherine Mansfield was a writer, essayist and journalist who primarily wrote short stories and poems which explored existential anxiety and issues of sexuality and class.
She was bor...2023-01-1725 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyReading Jean RhysSally takes a trip on her shiny blue electric scooter to Oxford Public Library, where she picks up a novel by the iconic British modernist writer Jean Rhys. After a disturbing experience at the hospital, she seeks refuge in Rhys’ existentialist narrative of rootless but indomitable women, who eke out a living on the margins of society while searching for love, beauty and a sense of belonging.
Further Reading:
Jean Rhys was born in 1890 and brought up on the Caribbean island of Dominica. She was sent to England to further her education at the age of...2023-01-1018 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyLet Me InTemperatures on the narrowboat dip below zero, so Sally takes the advice of Virginia Woolf and stays in bed to read poetry. She immerses herself in The Child’s Story, by the Oxford writer Elizabeth Jennings, a poem about the fear and the potential of love. Sally reflects on the connectivity between learning, teaching and love, and the regenerative possibilities of a New Year.
Further Reading:
Elizabeth Jennings was born in 1926 and studied at St Anne’s College, Oxford. She lived in the city for the rest of her life, becoming a fami...2023-01-0314 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThe Green LadyOn a cold boat, Sally is warmed by her fire, the sound of her neighbours, and the cathartic practice of “speaking in tongues”, a technique she learned as a very young child from her aunt, who ran an all-female Christian charismatic group and would suddenly launch into these emotional outbursts. She reflects on how this practice may express the longings of the subconscious, and may have influenced her writing. Then she corrects the proofs of her next book, The Green Lady, the third in her series of “coming-of-age” memoirs, or anti-memoirs.
Further Reading
Sally’s fi...2022-12-2718 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyThese Words Will Not WaitSally leaves a frosty boat and travels to Gloucestershire to meet her friend and fellow author Alice Jolly. They talk about Alice’s epic experimental novel, Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile, which is written in rolling free verse and recounts the life of an elderly maidservant in the Stroud Valley of the 19th century. They listen to clips from an extraordinary dramatisation of the book, and discuss spiritual autobiography, Christina Rossetti, the Psalms, and how the marginalised and dispossessed can find a posthumous voice in literature.
Further Reading
Sally’s friend Alice Jolly has won the V.S. P...2022-12-2024 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleySweet AirsSally takes a swim in the river after a few days’ absence from the boat, reflecting on how her natural surroundings fuel her writing. Her thoughts turn to her mother, who loved music; and she plays a song by Nina Simone, which Sally has often used as a teaching aid in her creative writing classes. It’s an elegiac song, and Sally ponders how songs can help us unpick the difficult narratives of our own lives. At the end of the episode, Sally gets bad news about Philip, an old friend and student. She reaches for a passage from Shak...2022-12-1318 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyCerianA robin visits Sally’s boat, and she reflects on the importance of quietness and concentration in the creative process. Inspecting a patch of the meadow which she shares with other boat owners, she thinks of the pioneering naturalist Henry David Thoreau, who also escaped urban living in search of the natural life. Meanwhile, podcast producer Andrew wanders through the woods in search of Sally’s boat and together they discuss a big question in literature; what is the appeal of tragedy, why do we find pleasure in sad stories and sad songs? Sally discusses how tragic literature can help...2022-12-0717 minA Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally BayleyA Reading Life, A Writing Life with Sally BayleySally invites us into her life on the boat, a life lived in close connection to nature, powered by sunlight from her solar panels. We hear how a water pump works, and witness a daddy long legs making its slow way across a rainy porthole. Sally is reading the diaries and journals of Virgina Woolf, a modernist “stream-of-consciousness” writer, who intensively recorded her own thoughts and observations, transforming them into enduring art. Sally responds to the events of the day by writing her own piece of poetic prose, on how we think, and who we really are.
Furt...2022-12-0215 min
Inside A Mountain: walking real and imaginary landscape with Charlie Lee-PotterSERIES 1: EPISODE 1: Landscapes of the imagination: Sally BayleyEPISODE 1
The writer Sally Bayley had a chaotic, deprived childhood in a household of 12 children and 3 adults. But since placing herself in care at the age of 14, she's gone on to teach English Literature at Oxford and to find a new way of writing fiction. Her books Girl with Dove and No Boys Play Here conjure imaginary and literary landscapes for Sally, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield and Falstaff to walk through together.
In this episode, Sally revisits her early life with artist and writer Charlie Lee-Potter. As they walk along the riverbank in Oxford and...2021-03-3033 min
Listen to New Full Audiobooks in History, WorldThe Private Life of the Diary: From Pepys to Tweets – A History of the Diary as an Art Form by Sally BayleyPlease visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/494965 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Private Life of the Diary: From Pepys to Tweets – A History of the Diary as an Art Form Author: Sally Bayley Narrator: Camilla Rockley Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 21 minutes Release date: March 18, 2021 Genres: World Publisher's Summary: In a beautiful literary exploration, Sally Bayley tracks the evolution – and the potential twenty first century death of – the diary, mourning what it means to lose the art of writing simply for oneself. Diaries hold all manner of things: they allow us a moment to be completely personal, to self-aggrandise, to foc...2021-03-1805 min
Listen to New Full Audiobooks in History, WorldThe Private Life of the Diary: From Pepys to Tweets – A History of the Diary as an Art Form by Sally BayleyPlease visithttps://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/494965to listen full audiobooks.
Title: The Private Life of the Diary: From Pepys to Tweets – A History of the Diary as an Art Form
Author: Sally Bayley
Narrator: Camilla Rockley
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 7 hours 21 minutes
Release date: March 18, 2021
Genres: World
Publisher's Summary:
In a beautiful literary exploration, Sally Bayley tracks the evolution – and the potential twenty first century death of – the diary, mourning what it means to lose the art of writing simply for oneself. Diaries hold all manner of things: they allow us a moment to be completely personal, to self-aggrandise, to focus...2021-03-187h 21
Start the WeekFamily struggles - from Greek tragedy to The TroublesKerri ní Dochartaigh was born in Derry-Londonderry at the height of the Troubles, to a Catholic mother and Protestant father. In Thin Places she traces a life affected by poverty, loss and violence, and the invisible border that runs through it. But she tells Kirsty Wark how the natural world has helped heal the traumas of childhood.For the writer Sally Bayley it was Shakespeare that brought her solace and ignited her imagination. Growing up in a working class household with no father figures Bayley roamed through his plays looking for companions and escape from her oppressive h...2021-02-2242 min
Free Audiobook, Where Stories Come Alive, Take a DiveNo Boys Play Here: A Story of Shakespeare and My Familys Missing Men Audiobook by Sally BayleyListen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/freeID: 413101
Title: No Boys Play Here: A Story of Shakespeare and My Familys Missing Men
Author: Sally Bayley
Narrator: Sally Bayley
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6:21:11
Language: English
Release date: 01-21-21
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers UK
Genres: Biography & Memoir, Fiction & Literature, Literary Criticism, Women
Summary:
Nobody writes like Sally Bayley Lemn Sissay
From the brilliantly original and critically acclaimed Sally Bayley, a literary story of working class childhood, absent or broken men and the power of literature to save and rebuild a world.
In Sally Bayleys childhood, the men were often...2021-01-216h 21
BacklistedTold by an Idiot by Rose MacaulayThis week John and Andy are joined by super-librarian Nancy Pearl, possibly the only librarian in the world to have their own action figure, to discuss Rose Macaulay's gloriously eccentric family saga Told by an Idiot. John has been reading Sally Bayley's acclaimed bibliomemoir Girl With Dove, while Andy waxes lyrical over Andrew Sean Greer's Pulitzer-winning novel Less (and has a surprise in store...) This episode was recorded in the library at the recent Stoke Newington literary festival.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)9'04 - Less by Andrew Shaun...2018-06-251h 12
Listen to Full Trial Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, WomenGirl With Dove: A Life Built By Books by Sally BayleyPlease visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/334200 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Girl With Dove: A Life Built By Books Author: Sally Bayley Narrator: Sally Bayley Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 46 minutes Release date: May 17, 2018 Genres: Women Publisher's Summary: ‘The word “mesmerising” is frequently applied to memoirs, but seldom as deservedly as in the case of Girl With Dove’ Financial Times ‘Reading is a form of escape and an avid reader is an escape artist…’ Brilliantly original, funny and clever Honor Clark, Spectator, Book of the Year This audiobook includes an exclusive interview between the author, Sally Bayley, and a mentee of Sall...2018-05-1705 min
Listen to New Full Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, WomenGirl With Dove: A Life Built By Books by Sally BayleyPlease visithttps://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/334200to listen full audiobooks.
Title: Girl With Dove: A Life Built By Books
Author: Sally Bayley
Narrator: Sally Bayley
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 7 hours 46 minutes
Release date: May 17, 2018
Genres: Women
Publisher's Summary:
‘The word “mesmerising” is frequently applied to memoirs, but seldom as deservedly as in the case of Girl With Dove’ Financial Times ‘Reading is a form of escape and an avid reader is an escape artist…’ Brilliantly original, funny and clever Honor Clark, Spectator, Book of the Year This audiobook includes an exclusive interview between the author, Sally Bayley, and a mentee of Sally’s, Ge...2018-05-177h 46
Word of MouthThe Words That Saved MeMichael Rosen and Laura Wright talk to Sally Bayley, author of Girl With Dove, about how words both mystified and rescued her during a highly unusual childhood. Producer Sally Heaven.2018-05-0828 min
BacklistedJacob's Room by Virginia WoolfIn a special live edition of Backlisted, recorded in front of an audience at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, John and Andy are joined by Mark Haddon, author of 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time' and Sally Bayley, author and tutor in English at Balliol and St. Hugh's Colleges, Oxford. The panel discuss Jacob's Room, the third novel from Virginia Woolf.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)4'42 - Love, Madness, FIshing by Dexter Petley9'30 - The Lucky Ones by Julianne Pachico15'42...2017-10-1659 min
Oxford Brookes University | Publishing PodcastsSally Bayley in Conversation with Beverley TarquiniSally Bayley is a Lecturer in English at Balliol College, Oxford and the author of the crowd-funded book The Private Life of the Diary, published by Unbound.
Sally talks to Beverley Tarquini about both this new book and also her other writing projects, including her work on Sylvia Plath. She shares her thoughts on how authors operate and in particular, how they interact with their editors.2016-10-2942 minOxford Brookes University | Publishing PodcastsSally Bayley in Conversation with Beverley TarquiniSally Bayley is a Lecturer in English at Balliol College, Oxford and the author of the crowd-funded book The Private Life of the Diary, published by Unbound.
Sally talks to Beverley Tarquini about both this new book and also her other writing projects, including her work on Sylvia Plath. She shares her thoughts on how authors operate and in particular, how they interact with their editors.2016-10-2942 min
Oxford Brookes University | Publishing | Publishing PodcastsSally Bayley in Conversation with Beverley TarquiniSally Bayley is a Lecturer in English at Balliol College, Oxford and the authorof the crowd-funded bookThe Private Life of the Diary,published by Unbound.
Sally talks to Beverley Tarquini about both this new book and also her other writing projects, includingherwork on Sylvia Plath.She shares her thoughtson howauthors operate and in particular, how they interact with their editors.2016-10-2942 min
BacklistedThe Holiday by Stevie SmithRecorded live at the Durham Book Festival 2016, John and Andy are joined by Sally Bayley (author, The Private Life Of The Diary) to discuss Stevie Smith's third and final novel The Holiday.Timings: (may differ due to adverts)13.28 - The Holiday by Stevie Smith* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www...2016-10-1056 min
Four ThoughtThe Art of Diary WritingSally Bayley traces the art of diary writing from Samuel Pepys to today's culture of blogging. "In an age of practically universal web access, the diary represents an old fashioned sense of self scrutiny and surveillance, a period of personal introspection." Four Thought was recorded at the End of the Road music festival.Producer: Sheila CookPhoto Credit: Sarah Caroline Photography.2016-10-0513 min
Interviews on Great WritersA Discussion of Emily Dickinson's 'I started early, took my dog'.Dr Sally Bayley presents an illuminating reading of Emily Dickinson's 'I started early, took my dog'. In her reading, she seeks out allusions to Shakespearean plays including Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. She then answers questions about the poem.2012-07-1616 min