Little Atoms

Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist based in London. She has a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology from St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in London, and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College London. She has worked as an editor at New Scientist and at Nature and her articles have appeared in publications including The Guardian, Wired, and The Observer Review. She’s the author of Decoding the Heavens, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books, and The Shadow King. Her latest book is Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maria Konnikova was born in Moscow, Russia and came to the United States when she was four years old. She is a contributing writer for The New Yorker, where she writes a regular column with a focus on psychology and culture, and has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, The Observer, and Scientific American, among numerous other publications. She is the author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes and her latest book is The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con, and Why we Fall For it Every Time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kathryn Harkup is a chemist and author. Kathryn completed a PhD then a postdoc at the University of York before realising that talking, writing and demonstrating science appealed far more than spending hours slaving over a hot fume-hood. She went on to run outreach in engineering, computing, physics and maths at the University of Surrey, and is now a freelance science communicator delivering talks and workshops on the quirky side of science. Kathryn is the author of A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of Dead Lovely (2007) and nine other adult and young adult thrillers, including My Last Confession (2009), The Donor (2011) and most recently The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Helen has worked as a criminal justice social worker for over ten years. Now based in Scotland, she grew up in Victoria, Australia as one of thirteen children. Her latest novel is Viral. This show also features a repeat of our recent interview with Francesca Kay on her novel The Long Room. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew Kneale studied Modern History at Oxford University. He is the author of several novels, including English Passengers which won the Whitbread Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His latest book is An Atheist’s History of Belief: Understanding Our Most Extraordinary Invention. Also this week, columnist Suzanne Moore on A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Philip Hoare is the author of seven works of non-fiction, including an acclaimed biography of Noel Coward, and Leviathan or, The Whale, which won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. An experienced broadcaster, Hoare wrote and presented the BBC Arena film The Hunt for Moby-Dick, and directed three films for BBC’s Whale Night. He is Visiting Fellow at Southampton University, and Leverhulme Artist-in-residence at The Marine Institute, Plymouth University, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2011. He is also co-curator of the Moby-Dick Big Read. His latest book, The Sea Inside, was published by Fourth Estate in June 2013. Also this week, columnist Deborah Orr talks about Kate Bush’s debut album The Kick Inside. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rana Dasgupta won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book for his debut novel Solo. He is also the author of a collection of urban folktales, Tokyo Cancelled, which was shortlisted for the 2005 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi is his first work of non-fiction. Born in Canterbury in 1971, he has lived in Delhi for 13 years. Also this week, writer Sarah Ditum talks about Andrea Dworkin’s Intercourse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Owen Hatherley writes regularly on architecture and cultural politics for Architects Journal, Architectural Review,Icon, The Guardian, The London Review of Books and New Humanist, and is the author of several books, including Militant Modernism, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain and A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain. His latest books are Landscapes of Communism, and The Ministry of Nostalgia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A special edition of Little Atoms for Resonance FM’s fundraising week. Recorded live at The Slaughtered Lamb on 10th February 2014.Is Music Journalism in a Critical Condition?The UK music scene once supported four weekly music papers, which wielded the power to form the musical agenda in a way that’s unimaginable today. Of these, only the NME staggers on in managed decline, along with an ever dwindling number of monthly magazines. The changing ways we consume music and the rise of the internet have radically changed the musical landscape, and perhaps this is a good thing. Those weeklies were notoriously bad at covering certain genres, and the internet has enabled a much wider range of writers to share the music they love. On the other hand it has yet to find a reliable way to pay them to do so. Are the days of making a living from music journalism over?Joining Neil Denny of the Little Atoms Radio Show to explore this question, and to share tales of private jets and rainy nights at the Northampton Roadmender, are the journalists Andrew Mueller, Charles Shaar Murray, Jude Rogers and David Stubbs.Andrew Mueller is a rock critic, travel writer, foreign correspondent, columnist, pundit and author. He is a Contributing Editor at Monocle, and also writes for The Guardian, The Telegraph, Uncut, and The New Humanist among others. His latest book is the memoir It’s Too Late to Die Young Now. When not writing, Andrew Mueller is the singer and songwriter with alt-country band The Blazing Zoos. Defunct music papers he’s written words for include Melody Maker, Vox and The Word.Charles Shaar Murray is an author, broadcaster and former NME journalist. He is the author of several books, most recently Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-war Pop. A founding contributor to Q and Mojo magazines, he made his print debut in 1970 in the notorious “Schoolkids Issue” OZ. Currently he’s a regular contributor to Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge on Resonance FM.Jude Rogers is a columnist and music writer for The Guardian, Observer, The Quietus and the New Statesman. She’s the co-founder of quarterly magazine Smoke: A London Peculiar. She’s been on the Mercury Music Prize judging panel since 2007. Her radio documentary Mad About the Boy was on Radio 4 at the beginning of February.David Stubbs joined the music magazine Melody Maker in 1986, where he worked for 12 years. His most famous creation, Mr Agreeablehas recently reawakened over at The Quietus. He has also written for The Guardian, NME, The Wire, When Saturday Comes and Uncut, and was a presenter of the Resonance FM football show Café Calcio. David is the author of numerous books, including the upcoming Future Days, a history of Krautrock which is published in August by Faber. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aleks Krotoski is an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity. She is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute. Aleks writes for the Guardian and Observer newspapers, and hosts Tech Weekly, their technology podcast. She presented the Emmy and Bafta-winning BBC 2 series Virtual Revolution, and more recently the BBC Radio 4 series Digital Human. Her first book is Untangling the Web: What the Internet is Doing to You. Also this week, critic Matthew Sweet on the Ealing WW2 propaganda film Went The Day Well? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.