#161: Sarah Hall — Writing Award-Winning Short Stories & Literary Fiction, Evocative Landscape & Creative Freedom; Booker-Nominated Writer

19 snips

Sep 21, 2025

In this engaging conversation, Sarah Hall, a twice Booker Prize nominee and the only author to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice, dives into the art of writing. She shares how her upbringing in the Lake District influenced her creative voice and the lessons from her first unpublished novel. Hall discusses the joy of handwriting first drafts and crafting stories that resonate deeply. She elaborates on her latest work, Helm, exploring the unique Helm Wind, climate themes, and the playful nature of narrative, all while sustaining the magic of storytelling.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ADVICE

Add Layers By Telescoping Character Time

Telescope in and out on your character: ask why they're unraveling, what brought them here, and their future possibilities.
Keep the reader with the character by making the walk and sensory filter vivid and immediate.

ANECDOTE

Helm Was Rooted In Childhood Landscape

Helm is Britain's only named wind and a phenomenon Sarah knew from childhood views of Crossfell.
The wind's clouds, rotor and folklore made it a compelling long-term subject for a novel.

INSIGHT

Climate Stakes Gave Helm Its Shape

Framing Helm as potentially threatened by climate breakdown turned the book into a biography and eulogy for the wind.
Giving the phenomenon an end-date clarified the novel's emotional stakes.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Sarah Hall—twice Booker Prize–nominated author and the only writer to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice—on crafting fiction that is both lush and uncompromising, and how to captivate readers on the sentence level while staying true to creative freedom.

We discuss:

Her early reading life in the countryside and the characters who first sparked her imagination
Lessons learned from an “unpublishable” first novel and how Haweswater found its true form
The discipline and intuition behind her writing process and when to share drafts
Why handwriting first drafts rekindled a sense of play and sharpened her editing
How to build short stories that hold “the world on a pin” and reverberate beyond the page
Giving voice to Britain’s only named wind in Helm and weaving folklore, climate themes, and playfulness
Discerning a story’s ending and sustaining joy in the writing process

About Sarah Hall

Sarah Hall is one of Britain’s most acclaimed contemporary authors. Twice nominated for the Booker Prize and the first and only writer to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice, she is the author of ten acclaimed novels and short story collections, including Haweswater, The Electric Michelangelo, The Carhullan Army, and Burntcoat. Her latest novel, Helm, blends myth, climate anxiety, and playful storytelling to bring Britain’s only named wind to life.

Resources and Links:

📑Interview Transcript
Helm
The Helm Wind, the only named wind in Britain - the Met Office
Sarah’s Website
Sarah’s books
“The Grotesques” - BBC National Short Story Award Winner
Interview with Sarah Hall in The Guardian
Faber & Faber - Sarah’s publisher
Lee Brackstone - Sarah’s editor
Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien
Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan
Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
Light Years by James Salter
Hilary Mantel’s Website

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON

Twitter: twitter.com/WritersSalon

Instagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalon

Facebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalon

If you’re enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!