Little Atoms

This week Padraig Reidy talks to Paul Ewen. Paul Ewen is a New Zealand writer based in south London. His work has appeared in the British Council's New Writing anthology, the Guardian, the TES, Tank, and Five Dials. Paul's first novel, Francis Plug: How To Be A Public Author, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2014. It went on to appear on numerous Books Of The Year lists, won a Society of Authors McKitterick Prize, and was described as "inspired" by the Sunday Times, whose reviewer also called it "a brilliant, deranged new comic creation... the funniest book I've read in years." Paul is now the author of Francis Plug: Writer in Residence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

R. O. Kwon is the author of the novel The Incendiaries. Her writing is published in The Guardian, Vice, BuzzFeed, Time, Noon, Electric Literature, Playboy, and elsewhere. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Omi International, the Steinbeck Center, and the Norman Mailer Writers' Colony. Born in South Korea, she has lived most of her life in the United States.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Page McBee was ‘masculinity expert’ for Vice and the first trans man ever to box at Madison Square Garden. His essays and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Playboy, Glamour and Salon. He is the author of Man Alive, and most recently Amateur: A True Story About What Makes A Man. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert Olen Butler is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and sixteen other novels including Hell, A Small Hotel, Perfume River, and the Christopher Marlowe Cobb series. He is also the author of six short story collections and a book on the creative process, From Where You Dream. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and received the 2013 F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He teaches creative writing at Florida State University. His latest novel is Paris in the Dark. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Skinner is a novelist, poet and critic. His most recent book, The Mirror, was described as ‘beautifully written . . . immersive . . . captivating’ by the Guardian. As Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy, he created the flagship ‘Writing a Novel’ six-month course in 2009 and since then has helped hundreds of writers find their voice. He is also the author of Writing a Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rose George is the author of A Life Removed: Hunting for Refuge in the Modern World, and The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste, which was judged one of the best books of 2008 by the Economist, and one of the top ten science books of the same year by the American Library Association, and Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that brings you Ninety Percent of Everything, which was a Radio 4 Book of the Week, and won the Mountbatten Literature Award by the British Maritime Foundation. Rose writes frequently for the Guardian, the New Statesman and many others, and her two TED talks, on sanitation and seafaring, have had 3 million views. Her latest book in Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Mysterious, Miraculous World of Blood. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Moss is the author of six novels and a memoir of her year living in Iceland, Names for the Sea, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Her novels are Cold Earth, Night Waking (Fiction Uncovered Award), Bodies of Light (shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize), Signs for Lost Children (shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize) and The Tidal Zone (shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize). Her latest novel is Ghost Wall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonathan Ames is the author of nine books including The Extra Man, Wake Up, Sir!, and You Were Never Really Here, all published by Pushkin Press. He also created the hit HBO comedy Bored to Death, starring Ted Danson, Zach Galifianakis and Jason Schwartzman, and Blunt Talk, starring Patrick Stewart. He has fought in two amateur boxing matches as "The Herring Wonder". He lives in Los Angeles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ivy Pochoda is a novelist and writer, previously a world ranked squash player. Her novel Visitation Street was chosen as an Amazon Best Book of 2013 and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. She has written for a number of outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books and The Huffington Post. She teaches creative writing at the Lamp Arts Studio in Skid Row, and her latest novel is Wonder Valley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Patrick deWitt is the author of The Sisters Brothers, which won the Governor General's Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Walter Scott Prize. He also is the author of Ablutions, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice, and Undermajordomo Minor. The Sisters Brothers is being adapted for film by Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone, A Prophet), to star Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, Riz Ahmed and John C. Reilly, for release in 2018. His latest novel is French Exit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.