Liam Bishop curating the best writers to help you with your writing
Episodes
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2 hours ago
"It builds to women and girls choosing to hide their mouths because of the effect of this trend...things just morph and take on different meanings as they're shared in different contexts"
Marni Appleton is here to talk about her collection of short stories, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, published by The Indigo Press.
The modern world Marni presents to us in her stories is one that feels incredibly liberating, but then hinged by archaic attitudes from the past all at the same time. Women go viral on social media for seemingly innocent reasons; open and polyamorous relationships that suddenly feel shut; roles in theatre feel too close to real life. Marni holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. Her writing has been published in Banshee, The Tangerine, Contemporary Women’s Writing. This is her first collection.
You can buy I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Rippling points
2.00 - The women that inspired the stories
4.08 - Giving the characters control or not
5.41 - Moments in the Spotlight
8.26 - Marni’s bold story titles
10.47 - Public and private selves
13.17 - Social media and the writer
14.15 - Theatre in Marni’s stories
18.10 - The different lives characters have
20.15 - How Marni writes about men
23.10 - The significance of mirrors
25.30 - Safe spaces
27.07 - Different registers and discourses
29.16 - Marni's journey to getting the book published.
Reference Points
Melissa Febos
Taylor Swift
Thursday Feb 06, 2025
Thursday Feb 06, 2025
"Being published in English is a big milestone..."
Vincenzo Latronico is here to talk about his first novel translated into English - PERFECTION, published by Fitzcarraldo editions and translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes.
Welcome to Rippling Points, more content insights and inspiration into the craft of literature:
- How and why he set his novel in Berlin, or why locations don't become so important for the novel
- The global market of translation and the pleasure of being translated into English
Vincenzo is one of the most distinguished novelists writing in Italian today. He has also translated many books into Italian, by authors such as George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hanif Kureishi.
In PERFECTION, there’s something missing from Anna and Tom’s life, and they can’t quite put their finger on what it is that is missing. It drives them to impatience and to the point of leaving their apartment in Berlin. But is it merely an itch they cannot scratch, or does it relate to a deeper lack of authenticity that strikes their core?
You can buy PERFECTION from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops as all sales are from indie bookshops!
Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how:
https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages
Reference Points
Elena Ferrante
Minae Mizumura - The Fall of Language in the Age of English
Thursday Jan 23, 2025
Thursday Jan 23, 2025
“Love is a dangerous topic.”
Vincenzo Latronico is here to talk about his first novel translated into English - PERFECTION, published by Fitzcarraldo editions and translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes.
Vincenzo is one of the most distinguished novelists writing in Italian today. He has also translated many books into Italian, by authors such as George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hanif Kureishi.
In PERFECTION, there’s something missing from Anna and Tom’s life, and they can’t quite put their finger on what it is that is missing. It drives them to impatience and to the point of leaving their apartment in Berlin. But is it merely an itch they cannot scratch, or does it relate to a deeper lack of authenticity that strikes their core?
You can buy PERFECTION from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod
Buying from this link supports the podcast (I receive a 10% commission) and indie bookshops!
Rippling Points
2.18 - Desirability and Familiarity
4.27 - Driving the characters to dissatisfaction
7.05 - Does Vincenzo want us to ‘care’ about the characters?
10.20 - Any city or Berlin
12.50 - The loss of authenticity
16.20 - Are Anna and Tom in love?
21.30 - Is there another side to Berlin?
23.45 - The migrant crisis and activism
29.15 - On being translated into English
Reference Points
Hand Magnus Enzensberger
Michel Houellebecq
George Perec
Wednesday Jan 08, 2025
Wednesday Jan 08, 2025
“They had one objective - to get rid of certain men”
Welcome to the first edition of Rippling Points - bonus content from last month’s episode!
A little bit more insight and a little bit more inspiration into the craft of writing!
Here, you can hear Pola talking about her delve into the archives to learn more about Argentina in 1970s.
You’ll then hear Pola talking about her next project, Bad Hombre - which features real life accounts collected from Pola of women who were wanting to ‘ruin men’s lives’.
Pola Oloixarac, one of the most exciting voices in world literature today, was here to talk about her two novels that have been translated into English. Most recently SAVAGE THEORIES and then MONA (translated by Roy Kesey and Adam Morris). Both are published by Serpent’s Tail. She was named by Granta as one of the Best Young Spanish novelists as well as this and has written for a wide range of publications and is an Eccles Centre Fellow
SAVAGE THEORIES is a metaphysical, intertextual journey set in 1970s Buenos Aires. Rosa Ostreech struggles with her thesis on violence and culture and sleeps with a bourgeois former guerrilla while trying to kidnap her elderly professor. MONA is a satirical novel set within a global literary prize-giving event. It’s about the fetishisation of characteristics and the global market place of writers.
Buy Savage Theories here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/savage-theories-pola-oloixarac/2102898?aid=15004&ean=9781800818187
Buy Mona Here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/mona-pola-oloixarac/6331115?aid=15004&ean=9781788169899
Wednesday Dec 11, 2024
Wednesday Dec 11, 2024
“I think it’s much more interesting to explore women through their powers.”
Pola Oloixarac, one of the most exciting voices in world literature today, is here to talk about her two novels that have been translated into English. Most recently SAVAGE THEORIES and then MONA (translated by Roy Kesey). Both are published by Serpent’s Tail. She was named by Granta as one of the Best Young Spanish novelists as well as this and has written for a wide range of publications and an Eccles Centre Fellow
SAVAGE THEORIES is a metaphysical, intertextual journey set in 1970s Buenos Aires. Rosa Ostreech struggles with her thesis on violence and culture and sleeps with a bourgeois former guerrilla while trying to kidnap her elderly professor. MONA is a satirical novel set within a global literary prize-giving event. It’s about the fetishisation of characteristics and the global market place of writers.
Buy Savage Theories here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/savage-theories-pola-oloixarac/2102898?aid=15004&ean=9781800818187
Buy Mona Here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/mona-pola-oloixarac/6331115?aid=15004&ean=9781788169899
There’s also a festive treat for you in this episode. In the break, hear a reading from A POEM FOR EVERYDAY OF CHRISTMAS edited by Allie Esiri (MacMillan). I read Lemn Sissay’s ‘Let There Be Peace’.
Buy it here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-poem-for-every-day-of-christmas-allie-esiri/7738901?aid=15004&ean=9781035068388&
Reference Points
Thomas Bernhard
Robert Bolano
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Dark Constellations - Soho Press
Thursday Nov 21, 2024
Thursday Nov 21, 2024
"I think it's a story few people have told before. And it's really about, what does a defender of human rights look like?"
Iris Mwanza is here to talk about her novel, THE LION'S DEN (Canongate Books). Iris's novel is about a human rights lawyer, Grace Zulu, whose client Willbess ‘Bessy’ Mulenga, has been arrested for offences ‘against nature. It launches Grace, and Iris, into the underbelly of the legal system.
Iris is deputy director of the Gender Equality Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she leads strategy and investment for the Women in Leadership portfolio, and she has previously worked as a corporate lawyer in both Zambia and the US.
Rippling Points
01.35 - Recording on the morning of the American election
02.41 - Who are the main characters
05.45 - Public institutions, the global south and colonialism
08.59 - When Iris saw the system for what it was
11.17 - ‘True believers’ who inspired this novel
13.41 - Why Grace is the way she is
16.09 - Grace's clashes write father Sebastian
21.27 - Guilt
26.10 - The tragedy of Bessy’s case
28.01 - Challenges promoting the book in Zambia
30.23 - Writing the court room
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