Always Take Notes

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#117: Val McDermid, novelist Sep 21, 2021

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Rachel and Simon speak with novelist Val McDermid. After graduating from university Val worked as a journalist for 16 years, earning the nickname “Killer” on account of her determination to always get the story. She left journalism to pursue novel-writing full-time, and to date has sold more than 17m books across the world. Dubbed the “Queen of Crime”, Val is the author of several acclaimed series, following Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, private detective Kate Brannigan, journalist Lindsay Gordon, and cold-case detective Karen Pirie. In August she published “1979”, the first in a new strand about Allie Burns, a reporter. We spoke with Val about her years as a tabloid journalist, the art and the necessity of juggling multiple book series at once and how attitudes towards crime writing have changed in recent decades.
This episode of Always Take Notes is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Go to www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more about their creative writing courses. Use code ATN20 for £20 off the full price of any six-week online course.

You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd, and produced by Artemis Irvine. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar.

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#116: William Dalrymple, historian and travel writer Sep 07, 2021

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Simon and Rachel speak with William Dalrymple, the award-winning historian and travel writer. While still at university in 1986, William set off to follow on foot the outward route of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Mongolia and wrote a bestselling account of the journey, "In Xanadu". In 1999, after three other books of travel, he concentrated on writing history. "White Mughals", published in 2003, won the Wolfson Prize. "The Last Mughal" won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize. These books have now been combined with two others, "The Return of a King"and "The Anarchy," to form a quartet on the rise and fall of the East India Company. We spoke to William about "In Xanadu", his Company Quartet of history books, and the art of writing a book proposal.

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#115: Aminatta Forna, novelist and non-fiction writer Aug 24, 2021

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Simon and Rachel speak with Aminatta Forna, a novelist and non-fiction writer. She is the author of a memoir, “The Devil that Danced on the Water”, about her father—a dissident who was executed in Sierra Leone—as well as several award-winning novels, including “Happiness”, “The Hired Man”, “The Memory of Love” and “Ancestor Stones”. She has recently published “The Window Seat”, a collection of essays. Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages and she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. We spoke to Aminatta about her early work at the BBC, the similarities between creative non-fiction and fiction and her decision to take up a post at Georgetown University.

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#114: Henry Winter, chief football writer, The Times Aug 10, 2021

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Rachel and Simon speak with Henry Winter, chief football writer at the Times. Henry has been writing about football for 35 years, covered England since 1994 and attended eight World Cups. He joined the Independent at its launch in 1986, moved to the Daily Telegraph in 1994, and joined the Times in 2015. Alongside his newspaper journalism, Winter ghost-wrote the autobiographies of Liverpool players Kenny Dalglish, John Barnes and Steven Gerrard, and co-wrote "FA Confidential" with former FA chief executive David Davies. He is also the author of "Fifty Years of Hurt: The Story of England Football". We spoke with Henry about the art of the match report, the progression of his career, and both writing and ghost-writing books.

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#113: Lennie Goodings, chair of Virago Press Jul 27, 2021

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Simon and Rachel speak with Lennie Goodings, chair of Virago Press. Born in Canada, Lennie came to Britain in the 1970s and joined Virago as a publicist in 1978. In subsequent roles—first in marketing, then as publisher—Lennie has worked with authors including Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Sarah Waters and Linda Grant. She won the Bookseller's Industry Award for Editor and Imprint of the Year in 2010, a Lifetime's Achievement Award at the Women of the World festival in 2018 and was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020. Her book, "A Bite of the Apple", a memoir-cum-history of Virago, was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press. We talked to Lennie about the early years of her career, the intimacy of editing a writer's work and how the business of feminist publishing has evolved.

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#112: Simon Scarrow, novelist Jul 13, 2021

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Rachel and Simon speak with historical novelist Simon Scarrow. Simon worked first as a schoolteacher, before becoming a full-time writer. His Roman-era "Eagles of the Empire" series has sold over 4 million copies in the UK alone, and his work has been translated into 24 languages. His other work includes a quartet of novels about the lives of the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte, a novel about the 1565 Siege of Malta, a contemporary thriller written with Lee Francis, and "Blackout", the first in a new series set in Berlin during the early months of the Second World War. We spoke to Simon about his interest in historical fiction, the surprisingly varied readership of his novels and the financial benefits of writing a series.

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#111: Kate Mosse, novelist and founder of the Women's Prize For Fiction Jun 29, 2021

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Simon and Rachel speak with novelist Kate Mosse. The author of nine novels and short-story collections, as well as four plays and three works of non-fiction, her writing has been translated into 38 languages and published in more than 40 countries. "Labyrinth", the first volume in her hit "Languedoc Trilogy", was the bestselling title in Britain in 2006. Kate is also the founder and director of the Women's Prize for Fiction, the largest annual celebration of women's writing in the world. We spoke to Kate about the history and future of the Women's Prize, her years in publishing and crafting historical fiction.

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#110: William Boyd, novelist and screenwriter Jun 15, 2021

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Rachel and Simon speak with William Boyd, bestselling novelist and prolific screenwriter. William was born in Ghana and grew up there and in Nigeria. His novels include "A Good Man in Africa," "The New Confessions," "Any Human Heart," "Restless" and most recently "Trio." He has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Jean Monnet. Twenty of his screenplays have been filmed, including "The Trench", which he also directed, and he has published five collections of short stories. We spoke to William about starting out as a novelist while working as an academic, his parallel screenwriting career and the experience of writing a James Bond novel.

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#109: Terri White, editor-in-chief, Empire magazine, and author Jun 01, 2021

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Rachel and Simon speak with Terri White, editor-in-chief of Empire magazine and author. She began her journalism career working on titles including Woman & Home and Marie Claire before joining the launch team of Nuts in 2003. In 2010, aged 29, Terri became the editor of ShortList, a men's lifestyle magazine, and moved to New York in 2014 to run Time Out New York. During that time, Terri's mental health deteriorated and she ended up in a psychiatric ward—an experience she chronicled in her acclaimed recent memoir, “Coming Undone”. We spoke to Terri about her rapid career progression, the challenges of confessional writing and her vision for Empire.

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#108: Jonny Geller, literary agent, Curtis Brown May 18, 2021

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Rachel and Simon speak with Jonny Geller, one of the best known literary agents in London. Jonny joined Curtis Brown in 1993 as an assistant after a short career as an actor. He became a literary agent in 1995 after discovering a novel on the unsolicited pile which went on to sell rights worldwide. He became CEO of the agency in 2012 and is now also CEO of the overall Curtis Brown Group. Jonny's clients include novelists William Boyd, Monica Ali, Tracy Chevalier, David Mitchell and Elif Shafak, as well as former British prime minister Gordon Brown and the musician Bono. He represented David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, until his death last year and now represents his estate, as well as that of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. We spoke to Jonny about his unusual entry into the world of literary agenting, his approach to selling books, and how he combines the role of CEO with handling his authors. Jonny's agent's manifesto is available here and his Tedx Talk is here.

This episode of Always Take Notes is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Go to www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more about their creative writing courses. Use code ATN20 for £20 off the price of any four-week, six-week or ten-week online course.

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