S2 Ep16: Will Harris, poet and essayist

06/19/20 • 47 min

This week I chat to Will Harris, a London-born poet and essayist of mixed Anglo-Indonesian heritage. Will’s debut poetry collection RENDANG came out in February; previously he was perhaps best known for the essay Mixed-Race Superman, which was published in 2018, and which The New York Times called “A zany, exuberant and highly original meditation on what it means to come of age as a mixed-race person in a predominantly white world.” He spoke to me about how engaging with his family history helped his poetry, the value of therapy as a writer, and why in his work, the political can’t be separated from the personal.

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S2 Ep15: Alexandra Shulman, editor, novelist and memoirist

Alexandra Shulman joins me this week to talk about life on both sides of the divide: editor and writer. At the helm of Vogue, she spent 25 years herding journalists. Now she has a column in the Mail on Sunday and has this year published a book that blends memoir with fashion history, Clothes and Other Things that Matter. We talk about the article that changed her career, the challenge of writing two novels with a full-time job, and the value of storytelling in journalism.

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S2 Ep17: Mhairi McFarlane, novelist

Mhairi McFarlane is the author of six great novels in the genre of romantic comedy/chick lit (delete as preferred), including her most recent, If I Never Met You. This week she speaks to me from her front room – she does not have or want a study – about the process of rewriting her first book, You Had Me At Hello, and what she learned along the way, plus the essential components of a good romcom.