The Rev Richard Coles: ‘I think my CV looks like the work of a fantasist’

The pop star turned vicar and radio host on his new career as crime novelist, missing the clergy and why his books speak to the anxiety of uncertain times

The Bee Sting’s Paul Murray: ‘Climate worry is the unavoidable background for being alive in the 21st century’

The Irish author, whose novel won the inaugural Nero Gold Prize, believes that no book can ignore the subject

Tommy Orange: ‘My whole family has had problems with addiction, including myself’

The novelist talks about his hit debut There There, and the shocking historical discovery about his tribe that inspired his follow-up novel

Joanne Harris: ‘Some of us don’t see the line between the books and the world’

As the author prepares to publish a prequel to her bestselling novel Chocolat, she explains why she engages with real-life political battles too

‘We are all mixed’: Henry Louis Gates Jr on race, being arrested and working towards America’s redemption

The US academic and TV historian’s rejection of racial categories has drawn criticism from some but his sense of mischief and underlying belief in American decency remains undimmed

Arj Barker on monkeys, nudity and men’s shorts: ‘I don’t want people to see my knees’

In a new interview series from Guardian Australia, we ask our favourite people a bunch of randomly selected questions. First up: a comedian and actor gets existential

Jon Cruddas: ‘Labour has to rediscover its moral purpose’

The Labour MP and party historian on why he worries for Keir Starmer, the decline of social democracy, and his love of Seamus Heaney

‘This secret that crippled me for 50 years has been lifted’: Lucy Sante on becoming a trans woman at 67

The American author and critic on being in a band with Jim Jarmusch, the macho pre-Aids world of the gay scene in New York, and on coming out to her wife and son

‘I wanted to save the world!’: Grace Blakeley, TikTok’s answer to Tony Benn

The millennial economist talks to Sam Leith about the perils of global capitalism, fighting her corner online and having a ‘midlife crisis’ at 29

Kathryn Scanlan: Gordon Burn prize winner on pushing the boundaries of fiction

The Iowa-born author’s winning novel Kick the Latch is typical of her practice of creating meticulously wrought work that deconstructs reality

‘We’ve all been wounded’: Patti Davis on secrets, abuse and life as Ronald Reagan’s daughter

To the outside world, she was wrapped up in the love of the perfect family. In reality, she was struggling with her father’s remoteness, her mother Nancy’s rages – and worse. The actor and author looks back on years of unhappiness

‘Musk needs to be adored … Zuckerberg is out of his depth’: Kara Swisher on the toxic giants of Big Tech

The journalist and podcaster has been scrutinising Silicon Valley for decades, knows all the big players – and once believed that tech could save the world. But that was before greed and ego got in the way

Chris Bryant: ‘I’m quite an old-fashioned gay, in a way’

The author and Labour MP on his book about the last men in Britain to be hanged for their sexuality, his misgivings about the Church of England and the novel he always goes back to

The return of Nam Le: ‘As long as I’m terrifying myself a little bit, I’m on the right track’

Sixteen years after his internationally lauded debut, the author of The Boat is back. He talks about writing under pressure, and why ‘authenticity’ is a trap

‘Being a nun was the great love story of my life’: Catherine Coldstream on why she joined – then fled – a convent

Why would a privileged, educated 27-year-old turn her back on life to join a silent order of nuns in remote Northumberland?