Little Atoms

The Author of Homegoing Yaa Gyasi talks to Neil about the American opioid epidemic, finding meaning through both faith and science, and growing up in Alabama in her latest novel Transcendent Kingdom, which is long-listed for the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction. Featuring an appearance by Yaa's dog. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Kat Arney talks about how cancer breaks the rules, via naked mole rats, nazi scientists and chimney sweep's scrotums in her new book Rebel Cell. See her website for more details: https://www.rebelcellbook.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the week of St Patrick's Day Neil talks to the current Laureate for Irish Fiction Sebastian Barry on the paperback release of his latest novel A Thousand Moons. Sebastian talks about finding his family through fiction, and how an Arshile Gorky painting, a pet dog, the writings of Peter Matthiessen and watching RuPaul's Drag Race all influenced Days Without End and A Thousand Moons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer from Brooklyn, N.Y. He earned both his B.F.A. in creative writing and M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Essence and The Paris Review. He is the creator of the social justice social media community, Son of Baldwin. He talks to Neil about his debut novel The Prophets. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Watson talks to Neil about her debut novel little scratch, which was published recently to critical acclaim. She is one of The Observer’s 10 best debut novelists of 2021. Watson writes for publications including the TLS, Granta and the Guardian, and is part-time Assistant Arts Editor at the Financial Times. In 2018, she was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Francis Spufford returns to Little Atoms to talk to Neil about his new novel Light Perpetual. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and a professor of physics and planetary science at MIT. She talks about her new memoir The Smallest Lights in the Universe, about juggling being a MacArthur award winning astrophysicist with being a widowed single-mother, and brings Neil up to speed with the latest news in the hunt for exo-planets. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Max Porter is the author of Lanny, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. He is the recipient of the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year award. He talks to Neil about painting with words in his latest book The Death of Francis Bacon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Torrey Peters lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She is the author of two novellas, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker. She talks to Neil about ideas of motherhood, ethical surgery, the politically fraught concept of detransitioning and what trans women and divorced cis women have in common in her debut novel Detransition, Baby. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cal Flyn, author of the memoir Thicker Than Water, talks about her latest book Islands of Abandonment: Life In The Post-Human Landscape. She talks to Neil about her travels to post-industrial wastelands, nuclear exclusion zones and sites of natural disasters to see how nature can reclaim even the most polluted landscapes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.