Little Atoms

Lauren Groff is the author of three New York Times bestselling novels – Fates and Furies (named by Barack Obama as his favourite book of 2015), The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia – as well as the story collection Delicate Edible Birds. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Groff’s fiction has won the Pushcart Prize and the PEN/O. Henry Award, among others, and has been shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2017, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her stories have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, the Atlantic, One Story and Ploughshares, and in several of the annual The Best New American Stories anthologies. Her latest story collection is Florida. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eoin Colfer is the author of the internationally bestselling Artemis Fowl series, which has been translated into over forty languages. A Disney film adaptation will be released in 2019, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Dame Judi Dench. Eoin's books have won numerous awards including The British Children's Book of the Year, The Irish Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and The German Children's Book of the Year. Born in Ireland, Eoin was educated at Dublin University and qualified as a primary teacher, before turning his hand to writing in 2001. Highfire is his first adult fantasy novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An Yu was born and raised in Beijing, and left at the age of eighteen to study in New York at NYU. A graduate of the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, she writes her fiction in English. Braised Pork is her debut novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ziya Tong is on the board of WWF International and was formerly the Vice Chair of WWF Canada. She presented Daily Planet, Discovery Channel's flagship science programme, until its final season in 2018. Tong also hosted the CBC's Emmy-nominated series ZeD, PBS' national prime-time series, Wired Science, and worked as a correspondent for NOVA scienceNOW. She is the author of The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Susannah Cahalan is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a memoir about her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease of the brain, which was made into a film by Netflix. Her latest book is The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed our Understanding of Madness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Romesh Gunesekera is the author of many acclaimed works of fiction including Reef, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Sandglass, winner of the inaugural BBC Asia Award, and The Match, the ground-breaking cricket novel. His fiction has been translated into over a dozen languages and he is the recipient of many awards including a Premio Mondello in Italy. He was born in Colombo and lives in London. His latest novel is Suncatcher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Meek is the author of six novels including The People's Act of Love which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won both the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Award. It has been published in more than thirty countries. Meek's last novel The Heart Broke In was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and he has also written two collections of short stories and two books of non-fiction, Private Island, which won the 2015 Orwell Prize and Dreams of Leaving and Remaining. He is a Contributing Editor to the London Review of Books and writes regularly for the Guardian and New York Times. His latest novel is To Calais, In Ordinary Time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Padraig Reidy hosts this episode, joined by Caleb Klaces to discuss his debut novel Fatherhood. They talk about the place of being a father today, the value of home and the novel as an adult bildungsroman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emma Forrest has published three novels, an essay collection and the memoir Your Voice In My Head. An Anglo-American currently based in London, she recently wrote and directed her feature debut, Untogether. Her latest novel is Royals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Neil speaks to Guardian reporter Amelia Gentleman. She was named journalist of the year (Press Gazette) and won the 2018 Paul Foot journalism award for her reportage on the Windrush scandal, which led to the downfall of the Home Secretary and the government loosening its ‘hostile environment’ policy for migrants. She tells Neil about her new book The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.