Unsound Methods

66: Sarah Bernstein

Unsound Methods — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 04:39:00 +0000

In this episode we caught up with Canadian writer Sarah Bernstein (featuring occasional contributions from her then newborn child). Sarah is the author of the novels 'the Coming Bad Days' (2021) and 'Study for Obedience' (2023) and the poetry collection 'Now Comes the Lightening' (2015).

Recorded back at the beginning of 2024, our chat covers, amongst other things, the relative importance of voice over story in Sarah’s writing, the overlap between academic writing and fiction, including references in fictional work, taking notes while reading (and the stress this can add to reading a book you’ve been looking forward to), reading the audiobook version of something you’ve written...

-

We are on Bluesky: @unsoundmethodspod.bsky.social - @jaimiebatchan.bsky.social

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are (technically) on Twitter (but not really anymore): @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

65: Ron Butlin

Unsound Methods — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 04:02:00 +0000

This month we are speaking with international prize-winning novelist and former Edinburgh Makar / Poet Laureate (2008-2014), Ron Butlin.

In 2009 he was made the first-ever Honorary Writing Fellow (together with Ian Rankin) at Edinburgh University. Much of his work — novels, short stories and poetry — has been widely broadcast and translated. In addition to his plays for BBC radio and theatre, he has written seven opera libretti, three of them for Scottish Opera. He also writes for children.

Ron has given countless readings worldwide — from a one-roomed Shetland primary school to an Arab tent in the desert (most wonderfully accompanied by a Bahraini oudplayer), from the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh to the House of Lords in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and to a waterfront festival in Sydney.

Personal Bio:
I was brought up in a small Borders village, quit school at sixteen and hitchhiked down to London. A brief period of life on the streets, (see my recent novel So Many Lives and All of Them Are Yours, 2023) came to an end when I secured the positions of valet-footman (see Billionaires’ Banquet, 2017), then barnacle scraper on Thames barges, labourer, barman, computer operator and city messenger. Becoming an associate member of a short-lived pop group started me writing song lyrics. My longest-ever job, as a model for art students, allowed me to sit (usually more or less naked) and do nothing for hours, leaving my imagination completely free. My earliest published poems date from this period.

Later, while living in Paris, in the hills above Barcelona and a commune in the Australian outback (see Belonging, 2006), I began writing fiction. My first novel, The Sound of My Voice won the Prix Mille Pages 2004 and Prix Lucioles 2005 (both for Best Foreign Novel).

For the last thirty years, my marriage to the writer and poet Regi Claire has brought stability to my life — and about time too! We live in Edinburgh (the setting for GhostMoon, nominated for the International Impac Dublin Literary Award 2016). I love the music and magic of words and am as excited now to begin writing every morning as when I first started. I also teach a course in Music Appreciation at the University of Edinburgh.

Currently I am working on The Diary I Didn't Keep. This novel-in-progress is being serialised in fortnightly instalments on Substack as I write it. This new and rather alarming venture certainly keeps me on my toes. The novel is loosely autobiographical and the first instalment was released only recently, on 12 October. Here it is:

The Diary I Didn't Keep

ronbutlin.substack.com

- - - -

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

64: Amina Cain

Unsound Methods — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 04:05:00 +0000

This month's episode features our chat with novelist and short story writer Amina Cain, the author of the novel Indelicacy, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and finalist for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, published in 2020 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and two collections of short stories, Creature and I Go To Some Hollow. Her latest book, A Horse at Night: On Writing, came out in October of 2022 with Dorothy, a publishing project in the US and Daunt Books in the UK. In 2021, she was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Her writing has appeared in Granta, The Paris Review Daily, BOMB, LA Times, Tate Etc. and other places.

Amina has also co-curated literary events, such as When Does It or You Begin?, a month long festival of writing, performance, and video at Links Hall in Chicago; Both Sides and The Center, a summer festival of readings and performances enacting various levels of proximity, intimacy, and distance at the MAK Center/Schindler House in West Hollywood; and the Errata Salon, a talk/lecture series at Betalevel in LA’s Chinatown.

Joining us towards the end of last year, Amina talked to us about writing in between teaching, using reading and looking at paintings/images to open things up, pushing through a false starts, and why she will always return to Marguerite Duras.

You can find out more about Amina and her writing here: https://aminacain.com/
- - - -
Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

63: Christopher Priest

Unsound Methods — Wed, 29 May 2024 08:30:00 +0000

This month’s episode is our chat with the late Christopher Priest, who sadly passed away on 2nd February 2024.

In what will have been one of his last interviews, we spoke to Christopher on 3rd November 2023, where he talked us through his development as a writer, his skepticism about using notebooks, dealing with dreadful editors, not writing for nine years, and how writing is like walking to Doncaster.

Christopher was a hugely acclaimed writer, and having written for nearly 60 years, his work spanned a vast universe, from hard science fiction to high profile Hollywood film adaptation by Christopher Nolan. His works include The Affirmation, Fugue for a Darkening Island, The Inverted World, The Glamour, The Prestige, and The Separation.

It was an honour to get to speak to Christopher. For those interested in his writing, his website is still online, containing a treasure trove of articles, links to all his works and his thoughts on a range of subjects: https://christopher-priest.co.uk/

- - - -
Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

62: Bill Drummond

Unsound Methods — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 04:09:00 +0000

This month we return to our first in-person recording for way too long, as we sat down with writer, musician and all-round cultural agitator Bill Drummond.
As half of the KLF, Bill produced some of the finest singles of the 1990s, before dumping a dead sheep at the door of the Brit Awards, deleting the group's back catalogue and burning a million quid on a Scottish Island. But he has a writing life so rich and interesting that we don't ask him a single question about any of that.
You can access Bill's series of spoken novels and associated material at Penkiln Burn: https://www.penkilnburn.com/home/ - as discussed, they can't be binged and are on a rotation with a new one each day.
You can read a bit more of Bill's writing about the Curfew Tower in Cushendall, and see some photos, here: https://visualartists.ie/ask-for-zippy-bill-drummond-tells-the-tale-of-how-and-why-he-established-the-artists-residency-in-a-tower-on-the-antrim-coast/

Thanks to the School of Advanced Study, University of London, for providing use of their new podcast studio to record this episode.

UPDATE 7/5

For any listeners noticing that the headshot has changed. Bill sent the following update on the new image....

Sunday the 5th of May 2024

Folks,
Anyone who grew up in the same culture as I did would know who Oor Wullie was and still is. This is along with knowing all about the dynamics of the Broon family.
If I had been a generation older, instead of Bill being the hypocorism of my name (William) it would have been Wullie. That said, if my parents had been of Irish descent, it might have been Liam.
Anyway...
Last week for my 71st birthday, my youngest son drew a picture of me for a birthday card. This picture was more of a caricature than a life like image of me. But this caricature triggered a chain of thoughts that led me to discover an inner Wullie. Maybe not the Oor Wullie of my childhood but maybe the Your Wullie of my old age.
Anyway...
A few weeks ago, I agreed for the first time ever, to be the guest on a podcast. For this they wanted a contemporary headshot of me that they could use on their site. I did not have one, so they just grabbed one off the internet.
My son’s caricature of me made me think, I should ask him to do a picture of me that I could use as my official headshot. And that every year around my birthday, for however many birthdays I have left, he does another picture of my head. Thus, the picture both reflecting me getting older and the way he makes pictures evolves.
Of course...
By the time he turns 13 (in just over a year and three months) drawing a picture of his dad might be the last thing he will want to do.
But...
Putting that to one side and allowing the construct of The Life Model to have influence, I like the idea of inviting anyone to re-interpret the picture my son has done. And this re-interpretation to be in whatever way they feel like (except of course not AI created). And for this re-interpretation to be used in whatever way they feel like. As in tear it up or use it to replace whatever headshot is being used on the Wikipedia page that has my name at the top.
I embrace lack of control, thus...
I like the idea of their being numerous versions of this image my youngest son has created and for them to evolve in different directions at the same time. From ten second scribbles to a detailed woodcut... From oil on canvas to reductive screen print. From a Steve Ditko to a Naoki Urasawa.
Thus...
Freeing me up from the vanity we might be hardwired to carry, when attempting to choose a photograph of ourselves to go public.
Also...
If you do one, please feel free to share it with admin@penkilnburn.com for a future joint Your Wullie outing.
I am...
Or at least for now...

Your Wullie

Post Script:
Your Wullie might be the latest inner self to reveal itself to me, but...
There is this other rather deranged and aging inner self that has been lurking the back lanes of my mind. He goes by the name of King Boy D. This King Boy D suffers from delusions that he once was something that existed on the pages of music papers in the late 1970s or was it the late 1980s (he gets confused). And in turn in the minds of those backward looking and aging individuals, that read those long-forgotten music papers.
Like other aging characters that can be found on the pages of those music papers, he shares the delusion that things, or at least music was better then, and that their genius might be rediscovered by future generations. But all this means is that they in general are tempted to plunder their so-called legacy for short term gain. Thus, be warned, if you ever come across anything being marketed to exploit whatever that King Boy D ‘legacy’ might be, ignore it...
Delete it...
Unsubscribe it...

To Unsubscribe is one of the most rewarding things you can do. I like to unsubscribe from at least one thing every week of the year. Maybe this should be National Unsubscribe Week, where we unsubscribe from everything we have ever subscribed to.
And remember, and to quote my various other selves... ‘If you can buy it, it is not worth having.’ As in the only things that one can truly have, thus own, is one’s birth and one’s death.
‘One’s birth and one’s death’ might be the cause of others’ actions but it is only you that can ever truly have, own or experience them.

- - - -
Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

61: Iman Mersal

Unsound Methods — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 04:53:00 +0000

This month, we are speaking to the Egyptian poet and author Iman Mersal. We talk about the genesis of ideas, structure and form when writing in Arabic, and the importance of urgency in directing your writing.

Iman's work includes the creative non-fiction work Traces of Enayat (2023, And Other Stories https://www.andotherstories.org/traces-of-enayat/), and her poetry
has been featured in numerous publications such as Blackbird, The American Poetry Review, Parnassus, The New York Review of Books, and Paris Review.

- - - -
Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

60: Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams

Unsound Methods — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 09:30:00 +0000

Episode 60 with Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams

This month, we are speaking to not one but two authors as we discuss collaborative writing with Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams.

Natasha and Luke are the joint authors of Diego Garcia, winner of the 2022 Goldsmiths Prize. We talk about their unique approach to crafting a novel and the differences between empathy and solidarity, as well as the current situation for the displaced Chagossian people, a key focus of their novel.

An update from the authors:

This podcast was recorded on 13 October when the UK was in active negotiations to hand back the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, whose sovereignty over the islands is internationally recognised. The then UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly’s announcement on 3 November 2022 included a statement of the UK’s will to "resolve all outstanding issues" in relation to Chagos, indicating recognition of the Chagossian people’s right to return.

In January 2024, in a Foreign Affairs Committee Meeting discussion of defence issues in relation to current world events, including Israel’s continuing violation of international law in relation to its occupation of Palestine, and its genocidal assault on the Palestinian people, the recently appointed Foreign Secretary David Cameron strongly indicated that the return of the Chagossian people to their islands was no longer a possibility, and that “the overriding question must be the safety, security and usability of this base”.

You can find out more about the Chagossian struggle for reparations and the right to return here:

thechagosrefugeesgroup.com
https://chagossianvoices.org/

- - - -
Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

59: David Shields

Unsound Methods — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

We're opening 2024 with our chat with David Shields: David is the internationally bestselling author of twenty-five books, including Reality Hunger (which, in 2020, Lit Hub named one of the most important books of the past decade), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award), Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity (PEN/Revson Award), and Other People: Takes & Mistakes (NYTBR Editors’ Choice). The Very Last Interview was published by New York Review Books in 2022.

The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, Shields—a senior contributing editor of Conjunctions—has published essays and stories in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, Tin House, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Believer, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Best American Essays. His work has been translated into two dozen languages.

The film adaptation of I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel, which Shields co-wrote and co-stars in, was released in 2017 (available on Vudu). Shields wrote, produced, and directed Lynch: A History, a 2019 documentary about Marshawn Lynch’s use of silence, echo, and mimicry as key tools of resistance (streaming on Prime Video, Peacock, AMC, Sundance Now, Apple TV, Tubi, Kanopy, Google Play, and YouTube).

In June 2023, I’ll Show You Mine, a feature film that Shields co-wrote and was produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, was released theatrically nation-wide and distributed digitally on Prime Video, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, Vudu, and Vimeo. A new film, How We Got Here, which Shields wrote and directed and which argues that Melville plus Nietzsche divided by the square root of (Allan) Bloom times Žižek (squared) equals Bannon, is streaming now on Tubi, OTT Studio, and Cineverse; the companion volume is forthcoming in January 2024.

The text of the passage that David reads out in this episode is as follows:

When a “colleague” asked if I have “any sort of tried-and-true compositional methodology when it comes to literary collage,” I found myself emailing back, in about five minutes, this curiously complete summary: “I’ll stumble into a metaphor that in my grandiosity I think explains the universe, at least for me, at least for the moment. Some large subject will represent for me a personal, cultural, and human ‘crisis’: something about which I’m confused, ambivalent, embarrassed, ashamed, excited. I’ll then ‘shoot a lot of film’—gather hundreds or even thousands of pages over years, sometimes over decades. Just stuff: stuff I’ve read, old stuff I wrote, new stuff I’m writing, emails from friends, research, etc., all of which puts ‘pressure’ on the ‘material’ (some supposedly enormous subject). I won’t really know what I want to say about it. I just know it’s tugging at me and I need to explore it and I’ve convinced myself I have something or other to add to the conversation.

“At a certain point, I’ll no longer be surprised by shooting more film. It will all be telling me the same thing. So I’ll stop and read and reread and reread what I have. Often the page count goes down very quickly—from, say 3,000 pages to, say,1000, then 500, then 300, then 140. At 140, maybe it’s a book. No literary collage can be longer than 120 pages. (Joke.) (Sort of.)

“To mix metaphors: you’re getting rid of all the dross, all the easy things, all the obvious things. You keep only what scares you. Then you start pouring the paragraphs you like into different thematic silos, different rubrics. And you organize each of these rubrics so that each of these silos or rubrics or holding tanks has its own trajectory. Each one is in a way its own mini-essay. Then you arrange the silos either vertically or horizontally. I.e., as consecutive chapters going downward—as, say, Jean Toomer does in Cane (I think of that as vertical)—or you arrange it horizontally—across space—as, say, Amy Fusselman does in The Pharmacist’s Mate. Basically, it’s either AAAAA, BBBBB, CCCC, DDDDD or A/B/C/D/A/E/B/B/D/B/C/A/D. Easiest thing in the world (nothing is more difficult and more beautiful).”

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

58: Johanna Hedva

Unsound Methods — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In this episode we're joined by Johanna Hedva, a Korean American writer, artist, and musician who was raised in Los Angeles by a family of witches, and now lives in LA and Berlin.

Johanna is the author of the essay ‘Sick Woman Theory’, originally published in 2016, which has now been translated into ten languages. Hedva is also the author of the novel On Hell, which was one of Dennis Cooper’s favourite books of 2018, and the nonfiction collection Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain. 'Your Love is Not Good' is out now, available from And Other Stories: https://www.andotherstories.org/your-love-is-not-good/

Johanna's website: https://johannahedva.com/

Johanna’s Nine Inch Nails piece in the White Review is here: https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/theyre-really-close-to-my-body/
Johanna's latest record: https://bighedva.bandcamp.com/album/black-moon-lilith-in-pisces-in-the-4th-house
A new piece called "scream demo": https://www.amant.org/publications/10-scream-demo
"Why it's taking so long" (essay): https://topicalcream.org/features/why-its-taking-so-long/
"Sick Woman Theory" (essay): https://topicalcream.org/features/sick-woman-theory/

Author photos credit: Ian Byers-Gamber

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

57: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Unsound Methods — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 04:09:00 +0000

For episode 57 we caught up with the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, author of 8 novels, 3 collections of short stories, numerous plays and pieces of non-fiction and 5 memoirs.

An indefatigable defender and promoter of African literature and language, Ngũgĩ’s writing spans from the early 1960s onwards. He talked to us about his journey to becoming a writer, from having friends who proved he didn’t need to wait for permission, then being a central figure in the emergence of African writing’s recognition across the world, being imprisoned for writing a play in his native Kikuyu language, to then receiving a medical diagnosis that meant he had a very short amount of time to write his ‘final’ book. It’s quite a ride.

Technical note: Due to some kind of infrastructural fault at his home, Ngũgĩ spoke to us from a hotel room and we had to record via MS Teams, so the audio is not quite up to our usual standards. There's also something odd with the audio at the very beginning, apologies!

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

56: Daisy Hildyard

Unsound Methods — Wed, 17 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

For episode 56 we're joined by Daisy Hildyard, the author of two novels – Emergency (2022) and Hunters in the Snow (2013) – and one work of nonfiction, The Second Body (2017).

Daisy’s first novel, Hunters in the Snow, received the Somerset Maugham Award and a ‘5 under 35’ honorarium at the USA National Book Awards. Her essay The Second Body, a brilliantly lucid account of the dissolving boundaries between all life on earth, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2017. She lives with her family in North Yorkshire, where she was born. Emergency was published last year by Fitzcarraldo Editions: https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/emergency

This episode took us on a ride through shutting out the world during your writing time, having a spouse as your first reader, how notes come together, and the different nudges that fiction and non-fiction give you as a writer.

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

55: Ewan Fernie & Simon Palfrey

Unsound Methods — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 05:05:00 +0000

This month marks the fifth anniversary of Unsound Methods - thank you to everyone who's joined us along the way, and hello to any new arrivals...

In this episode we speak to Ewan Fernie and Simon Palfrey about the writing of their collaboratively composed novel 'Macbeth, Macbeth' (available from Boiler House Press, here: https://www.boilerhouse.press/product-page/macbeth-macbeth-by-ewan-fernie-simon-palfrey)

'Macbeth, Macbeth' is described by its authors as a critical fiction. A sequel, critique, and repetition of Shakespeare’s play. Slavoj Žižek has described it as: ‘a miracle, an instant classic… as close as one can come to a quantum physics literary criticism’.

A video trailer for the book is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru-seZCr3Ho

Ewan Fernie is Director of the 2-million-pound lottery-funded ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project (everythingtoeverybody.bham.ac.uk), which is reviving the world’s first great Shakespeare library and Birmingham’s broader reputation as a pioneering modern city. It was a major influence on the Cultural Programme and the Opening Ceremony of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. His day-job is as Chair, Professor and Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon and Culture Lead for the College of Arts and Law, University of Birmingham. Ewan's books include: Shame in Shakespeare, The Demonic: Literature and Experience, Shakespeare for Freedom, Spiritual Shakespeares, Redcrosse: Remaking Religious Poetry for Today’s World, Thomas Mann and Shakespeare: Something Rich and Strange, and New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity. For many years, he co-edited the groundbreaking ‘Shakespeare Now!’ series with Simon Palfrey. In 2018, he hosted Radical Mischief: Inviting Experiment in Theatre, Thought and Politics with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Deputy Director, Erica Whyman at The Other Place. He is now leading a new project, Serious About Comedy, with Sean Foley, Artistic Director of Birmingham REP, as well as an ambitious cross-cultural initiative with the Birmingham-based artist and curator, Mohammed Ali of Soul City Arts. He is writing a book about the Scottish writer and philosopher, Thomas Carlyle, provisionally entitled The Dirty History of Hope.

Simon Palfrey is Professor of English at Brasenose College Oxford University. His recent work explores the unique kinds of life generated by dramatic, poetic, and fictional forms, and the opportunities this opens up for more imaginative, philosophically adventurous, and politically engaged critical work. His books include Doing Shakespeare (Arden, 2004; 2nd ed. 2011), a TLS International Book of the Year; Shakespeare in Parts (Oxford, 2007, with Tiffany Stern), the MRDS Book of the Year; Poor Tom: living King Lear (Chicago, 2014); Shakespeare's Possible Worlds (Cambridge, 2014) Simon’s current projects are inspired by Spenser’s Faerie Queene, including a new bestiary, A Poem Come True, and the twice AHRC-award winning Demons Land, a mixed media event (film, drama, dance, paintings, sculptures, soundscapes, text) that imagines an island built in the image of Spenser’s epic poem (demonsland.com).

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

54: Jenny Landreth

Unsound Methods — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 05:00:00 +0000

In a slight shift from our literary fiction focus, we caught up with writer and script editor Jenny Landreth - one of the driving forces behind the brilliant children's animated TV show 'Hey Duggee'. Having both become fathers only weeks apart in the summer of 2018, Hey Duggee was one of the most joyful discoveries in the often barren wastelands of our young daughters' TV choices...

We learnt about how script editing works and how a show like Hey Duggee is put together, as well as speaking a little about Jenny's work on the upcoming reboot of the Magic Roundabout. Jenny also spoke about balancing non-fiction writing with children's TV and the feast and famine nature of freelance work.

WARNING: for those of you who might want to listen with Duggee loving children around, there is a small sprinkling of the kind of language you wouldn't hear in the Squirrels' clubhouse...

Jenny is on Twitter (although she uses it more for her personal life than professional): @jennylandreth

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

53: Etgar Keret

Unsound Methods — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 04:22:00 +0000

In this episode with chatted with Etgar Keret, writer of short stories, comics, a children's book and a memoir. Etgar's books have been published in fifty languages. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Le Monde, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Paris Review and Zoetrope. He is currently a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

He has received the Book Publishers Association's Platinum Prize several times, the St Petersburg Public Library's Foreign Favourite Award (2010) and the Newman Prize (2012). In 2010, he was honoured in France with the decoration of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2007, Keret and Shira Geffen won the Cannes Film Festival's "Camera d'Or" Award for their movie Jellyfish, and Best Director Award of the French Artists and Writers' Guild. His latest collection "Fly Already" won the most prestigious literary award in Israel, the Sapir prize (2018), as well as the National Jewish Book Award of the Jewish Book Council.

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Or at jaimiebatchan.com and lochlanbloom.com

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

52: Daniel Davis Wood

Unsound Methods — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 04:21:00 +0000

Our guest in this episode is Australian writer Daniel Davis Wood, author of Blood and Bone (2014) which won the Viva La Novella Prize and At the Edge of the Solid World (2020), which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.

Our chat with Daniel covered unconventional composition techniques derived from artistic practice, the difference between writing novellas and novels, reading your work out loud and plenty more. We also briefly covered Daniel's work as a publisher with his press Splice.

The Garielle Lutz essay that Daniel references can be found here: https://culture.org/the-sentence-is-a-lonely-place/

You can find out about Daniel, his writing and his publishing via his website: https://danieldaviswood.com/

Daniel is on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/DanielDavisWood

And his books (aside from At the Edge of the Solid World) are available via Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/daniel-davis-wood - or your local bricks and mortar book shop...

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

51: Claudia Durastanti

Unsound Methods — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 03:53:00 +0000

Episode 51 with Claudia Durastanti.

This month we speak to writer and translator Claudia Durastanti. We cover the importance of travel and geography in writing, mapping fictional spaces, translation and the overlap of metaphor between languages.

Claudia is the author of Strangers I Know and Cleopatra Goes To Prison, translated to English, as well as well as Un giorno verrò a lanciare sassi alla tua finestra and A Chloe, per le ragioni sbagliate.

Claudia is on twitter here: https://twitter.com/CDurastanti

And her books are available via Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/books?keywords=claudia+durastanti - or your local bricks and mortar book shop...

50: Miguel Cullen

Unsound Methods — Wed, 18 May 2022 04:03:00 +0000

Hitting the half century, we speak to British-Argentine poet and journalist Miguel Cullen, author of collections including Wave Caps (2014), Paranoid Narcissism! (2017) and, most recently, Hologram (2022). Miguel's work has involved integrating sound chips and video-screens into the bound collections, raising some interesting blends of form. He has been published by Caught by the River, Abridged, Lunar Poetry, Magma Poetry, Purple Fashion Magazine and Stand. He was shortlisted for the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Award 2020.

Ambit magazine wrote about his latest book, Hologram: "Is this the first ever poetry book with a film screen? Psychedelic modernity, embracing London meets LatinX, a collage of myths in language medium and form."

Our chat (somewhat truncated by some sound issues) covered the factors that lead to pieces becoming a collection, the confrontation between competing attitudes towards the canon (whatever that means!), what artists from other forms can bring to written work, and the potential fire risk of pushing formal boundaries.

Miguel's collections are available through Odilo Press: https://www.odilopress.com/ - Hologram is also available through Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/miguel-cullen - or your local bricks and mortar book shop...

Miguel's website is here: https://miguelcullen.com

Miguel is also on Twitter: @MiguelCullen2

49: Sara Baume

Unsound Methods — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 04:01:00 +0000

This month we speak to writer and artist Sara Baume. Sara is the author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither (2015), A Line Made by Walking (2017), the non-fiction handiwork (2020) and Seven Steeples, which is released this month on Tramp Press, who have published all of her work so far.

Amongst much else, we cover: living a creative life that combines writing and visual art; learning narrative from arthouse cinema; finding a form from the original idea; writing slowly; abandoning work that doesn’t feel right.

Sara's Instagram is: @saraofthebaumes

Sara's books are available directly from Tramp Press: https://tramppress.com/writer/sara-baume/ or through Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/sara-baume - or your local bricks and mortar book shop...

48: Richard Beard

Unsound Methods — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 05:12:00 +0000

In this episode we speak to writer Richard Beard. Richard’s six novels include Lazarus is Dead, Dry Bones and Damascus, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His novel Acts of the Assassins was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, and he is the author of five works of narrative non-fiction. His memoir The Day That Went Missing won the 2018 PEN Ackerley Award for literary autobiography and in the US was a National Book Critics Circle finalist. His latest memoir/polemic is Sad Little Men.

Subjects covered include: tricking yourself into starting a writing project, how Richard's approach has changed over the course of nearly a dozen books (is 11 'a writer's dozen?'), youthful experimentation with squared paper, and knowing if the proportions of a novel feel right at the end of the first draft.

Richard has a website: https://www.richardbeard.info/

And he's on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeardRichard

Richards's books are available through Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/richard-beard - or your local bricks and mortar book shop...

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We have loosely teamed up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. You can find out about the IES here: https://ies.sas.ac.uk/

47: Sam Byers

Unsound Methods — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 05:27:00 +0000

In our latest episode we had a chat with novelist Sam Byers, author of Idiopathy (2013), Perfidious Albion (2018) and last year's Come Join Our Disease.

We talked about needing to write ideas down and how they eventually demand it, using a journal while writing a novel, getting the voice right before venturing too far and the vast gulf between dialogue on the page and in the real world.

Sam has a website: http://sambyers.co.uk/

Sam's books are available through Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/sam-byers - or your local bricks and mortar book shop...

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We have loosely teamed up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. You can find out about the IES here: https://ies.sas.ac.uk/

46: Keith Ridgway

Unsound Methods — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 05:19:00 +0000

Our first guest of 2022 is the novelist Keith Ridgway, author of, among other works, 'the Long Falling' (1998), 'the Parts' (2003), 'Animals' (2006), 'Hawthorn and Child' (2012) and, most recently, 'A Shock' (2021), which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. Keith was awarded the Rooney Prize in 2001.

Our chat with Keith took us through the daily fight with the concept of routine, specificity of place, giving up writing and returning, and experiencing a reading crisis - followed by being knocked off the wagon by Georges Simenon.

Keith's books are available through Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/keith-ridgway - or your local book shop...

Keith is on Twitter: @rid9way

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We have loosely teamed up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Now that some form of normality has (possibly temporarily) returned to the U.K., why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

45: Jenn Ashworth

Unsound Methods — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 05:10:00 +0000

Our guest this month is Jenn Ashworth, author of A Kind of Intimacy (2009), Cold Light (2011), The Friday Gospels (2013), Fell (2017) and the non-fiction work Notes Made While Falling (2019). Her latest novel is Ghosted: A Love Story out now with Sceptre. She lives in Lancashire and is a Professor of Writing at Lancaster University.

Amongst much else we talk about: getting through lockdown with the support of an online writing group, 100 days of writing, how to trick yourself into writing, not being a morning person, interrupting the previous day's writing and stopping in a good place, drowning in post-it notes, describing your writing problems as a way of solving them, and how the novels you’re writing make you sit in the nastiness of your own filth for several years...

You can find out more about Jenn and her writing at her website: https://jennashworth.co.uk/

Jenn is on Twitter: @jennashworth
And Instagram: @jennashworth82

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We have loosely teamed up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Now that some form of normality has (possibly temporarily) returned to the U.K., why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

44: Lucie Elven

Unsound Methods — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

This month we are joined by Lucie Elven, short-story writer and author of the Weak Spot, the debut novel published earlier this year by Prototype in the UK. Lucie has written for publications including the London Review of Books, Granta and NOON.

Our chat took us on an Alpine tour through topics including: how notes demand to be put into short stories or novels, developing a long-term relationship with an editor, the function of ambiguity in fiction, and plenty more.

The Weak Spot is available through Prototype: https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/the-weak-spot/

Lucie is on Twitter: @lucieelven
And Instagram: @lucieelven

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We have loosely teamed up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Now that some form of normality has (possibly temporarily) returned to the U.K., why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

43: Rebecca Watson

Unsound Methods — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 04:27:00 +0000

As we roll into autumn, we're joined by Rebecca Watson, novelist and arts writer. Rebecca's debut novel, Little Scratch, grew from a short story that was shortlisted for the White Review short story prize and the novel itself was shortlisted for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize.

Among all the other talking our chat took us through: expanding a short story into a novel. Investigating how writing can replicate the immediacy of thought. Playing with fiction and reality, and much more.

You can find out more about Rebecca and her writing at her website here: https://www.rebeccawatson.co.uk/

Rebecca is on Twitter: @rebeccawhatsun
And Instagram: @rebeccawhatsun

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Now that some form of normality is cautiously being introduced in the U.K., why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

42: Natasha Brown

Unsound Methods — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

For our August '21 episode we're joined by Natasha Brown, the author of Assembly, which is published by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and will be released in the U.S. on 14th September 2021 by Little, Brown.

Our discussion with Natasha includes workshopping at different stages, making speech real on the page, liberal use of index cards, and being in the enviable position of having a novel translated into other languages while it was still being edited.

You can find out more about Natasha and her writing at her website here: https://npbrown.com/

Natasha is also on Instagram: @wordsbynatasha

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Now that some form of normality is cautiously being introduced in the U.K., why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

41: Sophie Mackintosh

Unsound Methods — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

In this month's episode we're joined by the novelist Sophie Mackintosh, who is the author of 'the Water Cure' (2018) and 'Blue Ticket' (2020).

Topics covered with Sophie include (alongside much more): the shift to writing full time, the importance of music and having a bespoke playlist for each book, and writing a synopsis at the very beginning to help visualise the shape of a project.

You can find out more about Sophie at her website here: https://www.sophiemackintosh.co.uk/

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With (almost certainly reckless) unlocking on the horizon, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

40: David Goldblatt

Unsound Methods — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

“If Adorno was alive today, he’d be writing about football. I don’t think he’d like it… but he’d be writing about it. And Gramsci for sure”

In this, our 40th episode, we've got a special Euro 2020 edition of Unsound Methods, where we speak to writer and academic David Goldblatt. David is the author of non-fiction works which cover sport, particularly football, through a fascinating lens of history, sociology and politics. His books include the Ball is Round (2006), the Game of our Lives (2014) and, most recently, the Age of Football (2020).

Our discussion takes us on a path through football and the Frankfurt school, the Colonization of the Life-world, the roots of Anthony Powell’s antipathy to sport, the growth of interest in football from Britain’s literary culture, and sport as an entry point to Bretton Woods, the IMF and Globalisation.

The Age of Football is published by Picador - you can find out more here.

You can find more about David Goldblatt at his website here: https://davidstephengoldblatt.com/

David is also on Twitter: @Davidsgoldblatt

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

39: DBC Pierre

Unsound Methods — Wed, 19 May 2021 04:30:00 +0000

In this episode we speak with DBC Pierre, author of Vernon God Little (for which he won the Booker Prize in 2003), Ludmila's Broken English (2006), Lights Out in Wonderland (2010), Breakfast with the Borgias (2014) and most recently, Meanwhile in Dopamine City which was published in 2020.

Pierre joined us fresh off a bout of working on a non-fiction work and we discussed how this writing differed from fiction, how constantly reworking sections is a gift that provides intimacy with the text rather than drudgery, the perils of using two columns per page in a novel, using lockdown as a chrysalis for the next chapter and much more besides.

Meanwhile in Dopamine City is published by Faber - you can find out more here.

You can find more about DBC Pierre, including his writing and some of the finest book-related merch we've seen in a long while, at his website: http://www.dbcpierre.com/

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

38: Jon McGregor

Unsound Methods — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 04:55:00 +0000

In this month's episode, we speak to Jon McGregor, whose latest novel Lean, Fall, Stand is published by Fourth Estate on 29th April.

Jon joined us in the midst of full fat lockdown to discuss how he constructs his novels, his writing residency in Antarctica and the research with people who suffer from aphasia and their carers that informed Lean, Fall, Stand.

Jon's novels include: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2002), So Many Ways to Begin (2006), Even the Dogs (2010) and Reservoir 13 (2017). Jon has won the IMPAC Dublin Literature Prize, the Betty Trask and Somerset Maugham awards, been longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.

Photo credit: Jo Wheeler

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

37: Thomas Bernhard mit Douglas Robertson

Unsound Methods — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 05:00:00 +0000

In episode 37 we're joined by Douglas Robertson to celebrate the publication of his brand new translation of Thomas Bernhard's Die Billigesser (the Cheap Eaters) and to discuss our favourite Austrian monologuing misanthrope.

Douglas is a writer and translator based in Keystone, Florida. He studied British and American Literature at the New College of Florida and Johns Hopkins University. He has translated works from German into English by authors including E. T. A. Hoffmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Christian Morgenstern, Novalis, and Ludwig Tieck, and he has studied Thomas Bernhard’s work for over ten years.

Thomas Bernhard was one of the most important and unique writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1931, Bernhard published numerous novels and autobiographical writings, as well as short stories, plays, and poetry, including The Loser and Extinction. After years of chronic lung illness, Bernhard died in Austria in 1989.

Douglas would like to give a shout out to his friend flowerville, a native German speaker who proofread the entire rough draft of the translation and was particularly helpful in offering pointers on register; particularly the level of formality or informality of specific expressions in the original German.

The Cheap Eaters by Thomas Bernhard, translated by Douglas Robertson, is published by Spurl Editions, and is available here: https://spurleditions.com/cheap-eaters

Douglas has a blog, The Philosophical Worldview Artist (http://shirtysleeves.blogspot.com).

And he's also on Twitter: @shirtysleeves

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

Image of Thomas Bernhard: By Monozigote - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85846453

36: Jaimie Batchan - Siphonophore

Unsound Methods — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 05:05:00 +0000

Something a little different for the first pod of 2021: Lochlan and Jaimie get together (remotely) and have a couple of drinks to celebrate the launch of Jaimie's debut novel 'Siphonophore' - which is out now through Valley Press.

The chat covers Jaimie's approach to writing, a bit of his history, sacrilegious suggestions of cuts to Finnegans Wake and a discussion of the fundamental weakness of analogies highlighting unnecessary cruelty to both cats and frogs.

If you are interested in reading Siphonophore (and huge thanks if you are - JB), then you can find the book here: https://www.valleypressuk.com/book/154/siphonophore - by using the discount code 'SAVEMACG' listeners can get 10% off the price.

The documentary that Jaimie refers to is called 'Nothing Changes: Art for Hank's Sake' (2018, dir. Matthew Kaplowitz) about the artist Hank Virgona.

We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We have teamed up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

35: John Englehardt

Unsound Methods — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 05:05:00 +0000

In this month's episode, we caught up with John Englehardt, author of 'Bloomland' (2019, Dzanc Books). John has also written for Vol.1 Brooklyn, Sycamore Review, The Stranger, Seattle Review of Books, Conium Review, Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere.

Bloomland deals with the lead-up and fall-out of a college shooting through three separate narratives, told in the second person. Spanning two decades, Bloomland interrogates the social roots of the shooting and its effect on a community struggling to use violence as a catalyst for self-reflection and change.

John is on Twitter: @johnenglehardt1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.englehardt.7

Instagram: @john.englehardt

His website is: https://johnenglehardt.com/

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We have teamed up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

34: David Keenan

Unsound Methods — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 04:55:00 +0000

In this month's episode we took a wild ride with David Keenan. David was born in Glasgow and grew up in Airdrie, in the west of Scotland, in the late-70s and early-1980s. He is the author of three novels, the cult classic This Is Memorial Device, which won the Collyer Bristow/London Magazine Award for Debut Fiction 2018 and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, For The Good Times, which won the Gordon Burn Prize in 2019, and Xstabeth.

We travelled far and wide in this episode, covering, amongst much else: using faith in your writing as your only compass, performing a DJ set in Tolstoy’s front garden, the beauty of a character from a previous novel turning up unexpectedly in later work and lucky cap disposal.

“Research is an excuse for not inventing.”

If you'd like to take a step into David's personal chill-space, the books he mentioned are: ‘Incised Effigial Slabs’ by F. A. Greenhill (1976) and ‘Monastic Architecture in France’ by Joan Evans (1964).

Xstabeth is published by White Rabbit on 12th November 2020. Pre-order XSTABETH in paperback, ebook or audio before 1 November to access the exclusive digital prequel, THE TOWERS THE FIELDS THE TRANSMITTERS. Full details: bit.ly/XstabethPreOrder

David is on Twitter: @reversediorama

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

33: Gabriel Josipovici

Unsound Methods — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 04:44:00 +0000

In this month's episode we speak to Gabriel Josipovici. Gabriel's first novel was published in 1968 and his writing career spans over twenty works of fiction, numerous works of criticism and non-fiction, and regular articles in the TLS.

Continuing our current coronavirus set-up, Gabriel joined us remotely from Sussex and our discussion covered how his writing has developed over six decades, the perils of writing an unexpectedly backlash-provoking book on Modernism, the creative possibilities revealed by examining painters & composers and much more.

The 'acceptably long' novel we briefly discussed was George Perec’s ‘Life: A User’s Manual’

The vast majority of Gabriel's work is published by Carcanet: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=368

Gabriel's website is here: http://www.gabrieljosipovici.org/

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

32: Anakana Schofield

Unsound Methods — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 04:55:00 +0000

“What you push against is as important as what you reach towards”

On this month's episode we speak to Irish-Canadian author Anakana Schofield, author of Malarky (2013), Martin John (2016) and Bina (2020).

Anakana joined us from the West Coast of Canada to discuss representations of older women in fiction, the musical score of the novel and missing out on multiple Christmases to complete her work, plus much else besides.

In the UK, Anakana has written for the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/07/what-we-gain-from-keeping-books-and-why-it-doesnt-need-to-be-joy-marie-kondo
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/20/unsinkable-characters-anakana-schofield-top-10

Her website is here: www.anakanaschofield.com

And she is on Twitter: @anakanaschofiel

Instagram: @anakana.schofield

Bina is published in the UK by Fleet (Little Brown), in Canada by Knopf Canada and will be published in the U.S. by New York Review of Books (out in early 2021).

There's a great video interview with Anakana courtesy of Toronto Public Library, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxelTvXgzkI

Author photo credit: Arabella Campbell

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With the current uncertainty in the world, why not check out their Literature in Lockdown page? : https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/about-us/ies-virtual-community/literature-lockdown

31: Lockdown Reading and Writing

Unsound Methods — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 04:50:00 +0000

Something a little different this month as Lochlan and Jaimie pause to review how the COVID-19 lockdown has impacted their reading and writing, and to take a look back at the teenage reading paths that led them to experimental/innovative fiction.

We'd love to hear about your lockdown reading and writing and the reading path you've taken through the fiction forest. Contact us through Twitter, or email us at: unsoundmethodspod@gmail.com

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

30: Jen Calleja

Unsound Methods — Wed, 13 May 2020 04:15:00 +0000

In episode 30, we speak to writer, translator and musician, Jen Calleja, author of the short story collection 'I'm Afraid that's All We've Got Time For' (2020, Prototype).

We (remotely, respecting social distancing!) discuss bus travel as fertile ground for creativity, writing across different forms - from translation to poetry, novels and short stories, and the insight gained from working with writers whose work you are translating - and plenty more besides.

*** There is a very slight technical glitch with this episode's sound, but we've fixed it as best we can - apologies if the sound isn't quite as clean as it usually is ***

You can buy 'I'm Afraid that's All We've Got Time For' here: https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/im-afraid-thats-all-weve-got-time-for/

You can find out more about Jen's writing at her website: www.jencalleja.com

She's on Twitter: @niewview and Instagram: @jencalleja_

29: Hamid Ismailov

Unsound Methods — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 04:05:00 +0000

In episode 29, we speak to writer and broadcaster Hamid Ismailov. Hamid joined us pre-Covid-19-lockdown, on his way to the Faversham Literature Festival.

Hamid's novels include 'the Devil's Dance' and 'of Strangers and Bees', both available through Tilted Axis Press in the UK. More info at: https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/hamid-ismailov

As a writer who works in Uzbek, Russian and English, our discussion took us on a Eurasian tour of societies, cultures and languages. Hamid outlined his 'writing a book during autumn and winter' approach, and we learnt a bit more about what it's like to be banned in your own country (not just his work, Hamid continues to be prohibited from entering Uzbekistan to this day).

Author image credit: Amos Chapple

Hamid is on Twitter: @ismailov_writer

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

28: Jonathan Simons / The Analog Sea

Unsound Methods — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 05:00:00 +0000

This episode is a little different to our usual output as we speak to Jonathan Simons: publisher, writer, editor, musician, occasional translator, and the person behind the Analog Sea Review.

The Analog Sea is an 'offline publisher of printed books', but there's much more to it that that - as you will hear, Jonathan's entire approach involves shunning the online world, almost as a revolutionary act. We discuss the reasons behind this approach, the insights it provides and the contradictions that it inevitably involves.

The Analog Sea's sprawling comprehensive* website (as discussed in the show) is available here: https://www.analogsea.com/

To receive a copy of the latest Analog Sea Bulletin, send a letter to.

PO Box 11670
Austin, Texas 78711
United States

or

Basler Strasse 115
79115 Freiburg
Germany

For obvious reasons, Jonathan is not on social media, but we are:

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

*neither sprawling nor comprehensive

27: Caleb Klaces

Unsound Methods — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 05:00:00 +0000

In episode 27 we speak to Caleb Klaces, poet, academic and author of 'Fatherhood' (2019, Prototype). Caleb is also the author of 'Bottled Air' (2013), winner of the Melita Hume Prize and an Eric Gregory Award, as well as two chapbooks: 'All Safe All Well' (2011) and 'Modern Version' (2018). He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and English Literature at York St John University, and runs the York Centre for Writing Poetry Series.

Fatherhood is available here: https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/fatherhood/

The book discussed during the AI chat is 'the Bestseller Code' by Jodie Archer and Matthew Jockers.

You can read some of Caleb's poetry here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/caleb-klaces

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

26: Vesna Main

Unsound Methods — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 05:00:00 +0000

In Episode 26, we speak to Vesna Main, author of Good Day? (Salt, 2019) which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize last year. Vesna has previously published A Woman with No Clothes On (Delancey Press 2008) and The Reader the Writer (Mirador, 2015). Temptation: A User’s Guide, a collection of her short stories, was published by Salt in January 2018.

https://www.saltpublishing.com/collections/author-vesna-main

Vesna is on Twitter @VesnaMain

Photo credit: Chris Gilbert

25: Tony White

Unsound Methods — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 05:07:00 +0000

In episode 25, we speak to Tony White, author of ‘The Fountain in the Forest’ (Faber, 2018) as well as ‘Road Rage’, ‘Satan Satan Satan’, ‘Charlieunclenorfolktango’, ‘Foxy-T’, ‘Shackleton’s Man Goes South’, the non-fiction title ‘Another Fool in the Balkans’, and many other short stories, novellas and collaborations. He was writer in residence at the Science Museum, and his novella with artists Blast Theory, ‘Zombies Ate My Library’, was shortlisted for for best novella in the Saboteur Awards 2017.

We spoke to Tony about using mandated vocabulary, how working with artists who use other forms can lead to new approaches, writing a novel in Multicultural London English, and much more.

Tony is on Twitter: @tony_white_
Instagram: @pieceofpaperpress
Website: https://pieceofpaperpress.com/

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

24: Yara Rodrigues Fowler

Unsound Methods — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 04:25:00 +0000

In Episode 24, we speak to Yara Rodrigues Fowler, the author of Stubborn Archivist (Fleet, 2019).

We spoke to Yara about publisher demands to make her novel at least twice as long, the power of white space, developing a two-headed bildungsroman, the challenges facing contemporary Brazil and how writers are facing them.

You can buy Stubborn Archivist via this page: https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/yara-rodrigues-fowler/stubborn-archivist/9780708899076/

Yara is on Twitter @yazzarf
Instagram @yararodriguesfowler
And her website is: yararodriguesfowler.com

Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

23: Mazin Saleem

Unsound Methods — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 10:37:00 +0000

In Episode 23 we speak to Mazin Saleem, the author of 'the Prick', published as part of Open Pen's series of novelettes.

We speak to Mazin about discovering that you're not really a night-owl, using software to improve your writing productivity, and the freedom of jumping around the manuscript while editing to keep things fresh.

You can buy the Prick here: https://www.openpen.shop/store/p9/theprick.html

You can find out more about Mazin and his writing at: www.mazinsaleem.com

The online poetry magazine that Jaimie mentions at the end is called Harana Poetry, and can be found here: https://www.haranapoetry.com/

Mazin isn't on Twitter, but we are: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

22: Shiromi Pinto

Unsound Methods — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 04:05:00 +0000

In episode 22, we speak to Shiromi Pinto, the author of 'Plastic Emotions' (2019, Influx Press) and 'Trussed' (2006, Serpent's Tail). You can order Plastic Emotions here.

We spoke to Shiromi about her use of real letters to produce fiction; what she does with her writing offcuts; how far 500 words a day can get you; and losing faith, spiking a project, and then finding the courage to pick it up again to drag it all the way to publication.

Shiromi is on Twitter @blimundaseyes

As are we: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom

Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan

Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

21: Mathias Énard

Unsound Methods — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 04:00:00 +0000

In episode 21 we sit down with Mathias Énard, winner of the Prix Goncourt, to speak to him about his process, the line between history and fiction and the benefits of a good pair of slippers.

Mathias' work includes the novels ‘Zone’, ‘Compass’, ‘Street of Thieves’ and ‘Tell them of Battles, Kings and Elephants’ which he was promoting when we spoke to him towards the end of last year. All of these novels have been published by Fitzcarraldo Editions and can be purchased here: https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/authors/mathias-enard

Apologies once more for a couple of audio glitches on this episode - we're working on it.

To find out more about the podcast, follow us on twitter @UnsoundMethods or go to unsoundmethods.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, please 'like and subscribe' wherever you listen.

20: Edy Poppy

Unsound Methods — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 04:00:00 +0000

This month we speak to Norwegian author and artist Edy Poppy.

Edy's debut novel Anatomi. Monotoni. won the Gylendal Prize in 2005 and was recently published in English as Anatomy. Monotony. by Dalkey Archive. Tr. May-Brit Akerholt.

Anatomy. Monotony. is available at Dalkey Archive Press, who will also publish the collection Coming. Apart. (containing the 'Dungeness' short story that we discuss)

More information about Edy and her writing is available at: https://eng.gyldendal.no/Gyldendal/Authors/Poppy-Edy
Interview with Siri Hustvedt: Edy Poppy Talks Sex, Love, and Boredom with Siri Hustvedt

Photo of Edy Poppy taken by Julie-Christine Krøvel

Thanks to Edy Poppy and Katrin Meynarth at Dalkey Archive.

19: Samuel Fisher

Unsound Methods — Wed, 15 May 2019 04:00:00 +0000

In this episode we speak to novelist, bookseller and publisher Samuel Fisher.

Sam's debut 'the Chameleon' was published by Salt in 2018.

You can buy the Chameleon here: Salt - the Chameleon

As we mention at the beginning, there were some technical issues with the sound on one of the microphones in this episode - apologies, but it should sound ok if you're listening on earphones/headphones.

You can follow Sam on Twitter: @fishersamuk

To find out more about the podcast, follow us on twitter @UnsoundMethods or go to unsoundmethods.co.uk

18: Marc Nash

Unsound Methods — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 05:00:00 +0000

In episode 18, we speak to Marc Nash, most recently author of 'Three Dreams in the Key of G', published by Dead Ink in 2018.

Marc joined us in London to discuss choosing the playlist to write to, intense bursts of writing during the summer holidays, using the editing process to add material rather than remove, playing through language, writing across gender and plenty more.

You can follow Marc @21stCScribe on Twitter

To find out more about the podcast, follow us on twitter @UnsoundMethods or go to unsoundmethods.co.uk

17: Eimear McBride

Unsound Methods — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 22:00:00 +0000

Welcome all to the first Unsound Methods of 2019! This month, we are delighted to be joined for a second time by Eimear McBride. In episode 12 we spoke to Eimear alongside Noémi Lefebvre but we didn't have much time to speak to them before that evening's event, so Eimear was kind enough to come to the studio for a more extended chat.

Among other subjects in this episode we discuss Eimear's process, experimental fiction and the role of the novel in modern life.

Thanks again to Eimear for her generosity with her time.

To find out more about the podcast, follow us on twitter @UnsoundMethods or go to unsoundmethods.co.uk

16: Christmas Special 2018

Unsound Methods — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 05:00:00 +0000

No guest this month (don't worry, more fantastic writers will be appearing here starting again in January). In this Xmas '18 special edition, Lochlan and Jaimie get tanked up on port and mince pies to conduct a brief dissection of the first year of Unsound Methods as well as a review of what they've learnt before getting stuck in to a couple of most commonly quoted lists of writing advice from Messers Vonnegut and Orwell.

Full of the Christmas spirit, this episode contains many swears…

Thank you to all of our listeners for a great first year, have a very Merry Christmas and see you in 2019.

15: Tom Lee

Unsound Methods — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 05:04:00 +0000

This month we speak to Tom Lee award-winning short fiction writer and author of The Alarming Palsy of James Orr.

We talk about Tom's approach to writing and how he finds new ideas, the impact of ill-health on his writing as well as the difficulties in moving from short stories to longer form fiction.

Tom's work has appeared in The Sunday Times, Esquire and Prospect in the UK, The Dublin Review in Ireland and in Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope All Story in the United States, among others.

In 2012 he was shortlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the largest prize for a single short story in the world and in 2015 his non-fiction account of spending 51 days in intensive care was longlisted for The Notting Hill Essay Prize.

Tom is on twitter @TomLeeStories and more about his writing at www.tomleestories.com

14: Lars Iyer

Unsound Methods — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 04:00:00 +0000

In this month's episode we speak to Lars Iyer, weaver of fiction in blog-form, novelist and erstwhile philosopher.

Among many other things we talked to Lars about turning blogs into novels (as he did with his first three novels 'Spurious', 'Dogma' and 'Exodus'), his path to being a serial producer of trilogies and making the most of your spouse as your first reader and editor.

Post-interview, Lars confirmed for us that 'Nietzsche in the Burbs' will be coming out next year on Melville House.

You can follow Lars on Twitter: @UtterlySpurious - he also wrote an interesting piece for the White Review on the health of the contemporary novel in 2011, which can be read here.

13: Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi

Unsound Methods — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 04:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the second series of Unsound Methods. In this episode we speak to Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi, the author of Call Me Zebra from Alma Books (in the UK).

Azareen's debut novel was Fra Keeler. Topics covered in our chat included research, working with editors and the paths that reading can take while putting a novel together. Thanks to Burley Fisher bookshop for providing us with the recording space for this episode.

You can find Call Me Zebra here: https://almabooks.com/product/call-me-zebra/

And follow Azareen on twitter: @avandervliet

12: (Event) Beyond Words: Noémi Lefebvre and Eimear McBride

Unsound Methods — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 04:00:00 +0000

This is the audio recording of the event at the Institut Francais that followed our chat with Noémi Lefebvre and Eimear McBride.

The Institut Francais have kindly shared the audio of this event which took place on 17th May 2018.

Thanks to: Nicci Praca, Cecile Menon, Sophie Lewis (who hosted the event), Axelle Oxborrow (translation) and Lucie Campos.

12: Beyond Words: Noémi Lefebvre & Eimear McBride

Unsound Methods — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 04:00:00 +0000

This episode was recorded at the Beyond Words Festival at the Institut Francais on Thursday 17th May 2018. We sat down with Noémi Lefebvre, the author of 'Blue Self-Portrait' (available from Les Fugitives: http://www.lesfugitives.com/books/#/blue-self-portrait/) and Eimear McBride, author of 'A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing' (Galley Beggar Press/Faber) and 'The Lesser Bohemians' (Faber). It was hot, and there was a lot of noise in the street, so the sound is not 100%, but we found it very interesting to speak to both writers about the similarities and differences in their approaches.

We caught Noémi and Eimear just before they went on stage, so this is a brief chat. At times Noémi preferred to speak in French, so we have included the translations from her interpreter Axelle Oxborrow in this audio.

The Institut Francais have kindly shared the audio of the event that followed, which will be released a few days after this one as a bonus episode.

Thanks to: Nicci Praca, Cecile Menon, Sophie Lewis (who hosted the event), Axelle Oxborrow (translation) and Lucie Campos.

11: Olga Tokarczuk & Jennifer Croft

Unsound Methods — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 04:00:00 +0000

We speak to Olga Tokarczuk and Jennifer Croft, fresh from winning the International @ManBookerPrize for the superb 'Flights', out now on @FitzcarraldoEds - https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/flights

Among other things we discuss the whirlwind of prize-winning, composing constellation novels, suppressing your first published book, and the challenges of translating a title.

You can find Jennifer on twitter: @jenniferlcroft

Photo credit: Janie Airey

10: Joanna Kavenna

Unsound Methods — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 04:00:00 +0000

In this week's episode we speak to novelist and essayist, Joanna Kavenna.

We talk about beginnings, finding a voice in fiction and taking a Wittgensteinian view of reality, as well as how to deal with Polar Bears while conducting research and the ways in which literature can help us understand and limit technology before the machines destroy us.

Joanna is the author of the Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule and A Field Guide to Reality (riverrun, 2016) as well as three other novels and non-fiction essays.

Find out more about Joanna at joannakavenna.com

Photo credit: A Michaelis

9: Patrick Langley

Unsound Methods — Wed, 23 May 2018 04:00:00 +0000

This week we speak to Patrick Langley, author of Arkady from Fitzcarraldo Editions.

With a background in art criticism and radio production, Paddy talks to us about drafting and structuring a work, finding inspiration from the urban backwaters of London and the problem with building elaborate memory palaces…

You can find Arkady here: https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/arkady

And follow Paddy on twitter: @PaddyLangley

8: Will Eaves

Unsound Methods — Wed, 09 May 2018 04:00:00 +0000

This week we speak to novelist, poet and teacher, Will Eaves.

We discuss his approach to structuring a novel, turning notes into a finished work and capturing the dream-like state of the unconscious in prose.

Will was Arts Editor of the TLS from 1995 to 2011 before moving to Warwick, where he is now Associate Professor.

Most recently he is author of the Murmur from CB Editions.

7: Daniel Levin Becker

Unsound Methods — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 04:00:00 +0000

Something slightly different this week, as we speak to Daniel Levin Becker. Daniel doesn't consider himself primarily a fiction writer, but as a member of the OuLiPo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or 'Workshop for potential literature') he is in the company (spiritually if not temporally) of writers such as Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec and Italo Calvino.

Daniel talks to us about the attraction of writing with constraints, his journey to France and the Oulipo and gives us a flavour of how the group operates (including a membership cancellation policy that Mark Zuckerberg can only dream of).

Daniel is the author of 'Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature' (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674065772). You can read more about him and his work at his website: http://dinnerlunchbreakfast.com/ or follow him on twitter @dlb

Si vous parlez français, the Oulipo site is: http://oulipo.net/

6: Alex Pheby

Unsound Methods — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 04:03:00 +0000

This week we speak to Alex Pheby about having different editing and writing persona, blending fiction with historical research and whether it's rational to have any faith in an external reality.

Alex's novels include 'Grace' (Two Ravens Press), 'Playthings' and the forthcoming 'Lucia' (both Galley Beggar Press - https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/alex-pheby)

You can follow Alex on Twitter @alexpheby

5: Esther Kinsky

Unsound Methods — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 04:02:00 +0000

This week we speak to Esther Kinsky, recent winner of the Leipziger Buchmesse Prize and author of River from Fitzcarraldo Editions.

We talk about the interplay between memory and writing, walking the river Lea and urban change in London and trying to apprehend the gap between sensation and the experience of language.

River is available in English: https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/river

Follow Fitzcarraldo Editions on twitter: @FitzcarraldoEds

4: Michael Stewart

Unsound Methods — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 05:04:00 +0000

This week we speak to Michael Stewart. Michael is the author of the novels 'King Crow' and 'Cafe Assassin' (both with Bluemoose Books - https://bluemoosebooks.com/books) and the collections 'Couples' and 'Mr Jolly' (both Valley Press - http://www.valleypressuk.com/author/51/michael_stewart)

Michael's latest novel 'Ill Will' is published this month by HarperCollins - https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008248154/ill-will/

You can follow Michael on Twitter @headspam

3: Iosi Havilio

Unsound Methods — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 05:00:00 +0000

This week we speak to Argentine author Iosi Havilio.

We speak about his upbringing in Paris and Buenos Aires, the links between music and literature and the process of creating and exploring a unique new universe with each progressive novel.

Open Door, Paradises and Petit Fleur are all published by And Other Stories, you can buy them here: http://www.andotherstories.org/book/petite-fleur/

2: Megan Dunn

Unsound Methods — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 05:00:00 +0000

This week we speak to Megan Dunn, author of Tinderbox (Galley Beggar, 2017).

We cover the act of balancing fiction and non-fiction, wrestling with the estate of Ray Bradbury and writing the great mermaid novel of the Western canon.

You can find Megan's website at: https://www.megandunn.org/

Follow her on Twitter: @MeganDunn90

Tinderbox is available from Galley Beggar Press: https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/shop-1/z7du0g4kxeypqtatvaftcnxrjqil2d

1: Neil Griffiths

Unsound Methods — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 05:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the first episode of Unsound Methods. In this episode we speak to Neil Griffiths, author of Betrayal in Naples, Saving Caravaggio and As A God Might Be.

We discuss the ecosystem of fiction, the present golden age of indie publishing and the Republic of Consciousness prize, which Neil founded.

As A God Might Be is published by Dodo Ink: http://www.dodoink.com/shop/pre-order-as-a-god-might-be-neil-griffiths

Find out more about the Republic of Consciousness Prize here: http://www.republicofconsciousness.com/prize/