Paul Auster: ‘The right to own a gun in the US is seen as a kind of holy grail’

In their new book, the novelist and his photographer son-in-law document the sites of mass shootings in the US and argue for urgent change in the relationship between Americans and guns

Graphic novelist Deena Mohamed: ‘People seem to love how Egyptian my work is’

The author of the hit Cairo-set novel – set to be a future classic – on going viral with her first web comic and growing up reading Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie

Bret Easton Ellis: ‘James and the Giant Peach changed my life’

The provocative novelist on looking back at his teenage self, the sales generated by a hostile Q&A and his obsession with Marilyn Monroe

‘My father ruled through pain’: Colin Grant on the stories behind I’m Black So You Don’t Have to Be

As a child he knew both love and violence; as an adult, both recognition and rejection. The writer talks about his marijuana-dealer father, his clashes at the BBC and the police stop-and-searches that drove him out of London

Don Paterson: ‘Poetry often involves obsessive personalities’

The award-winning poet on his painful and funny new memoir about growing up in Dundee, how he’s a ‘vile separatist’ and why music is his first love

Nell Zink: ‘Guys who like Kafka are insufferable’

The American novelist on being from the wrong side of the tracks, quitting Twitter and the dangers of studying philosophy

‘I was hot-glue-gunning hair to my head’: Emma D’Arcy on their House of the Dragon audition

From viral cocktails to being scared to Google themself, the actor’s role as Rhaenyra Targaryen in the Game of Thrones prequel has made them huge. They talk violence, childbirth – and why those incest scenes are OK oh

‘I want my monkey!’ Ruth Wilson on villainy, intimacy and returning to His Dark Materials

The actor made her mark in Jane Eyre after leaving college and hasn’t stopped working since. She talks about her role in Philip Pullman’s dark fantasy, her love for the stage – and her fear of commitment

Fran Lebowitz on life without the internet: ‘If I’m cancelled, don’t tell me!’

The writer is easy to spot if you spend long enough in New York, but interviews have to be over her landline, as she is permanently offline. She reveals why Andy Warhol wasn’t so smart, and how she learned to love a good party

‘Hillary and I were both broken women’: Louise Penny on writing a political thriller with Clinton

As her most famous creation hits the screen, the author talks about the inspiration for Inspector Gamache, her fearless, fine-dining Canadian cop – and remembers how she co-wrote a hit with the presidential hopeful

Graham Coxon: ‘Music has always been there for me’

The Blur guitarist, 53, on his addictive personality, making music as you age and being a Britpop brat

‘I believe literature is in peril’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie comes out fighting for freedom of speech

As the BBC prepares to air her hard-hitting Reith Lecture, the celebrated author of Half of a Yellow Sun talks about truth, trans rights and our ‘misogyny-drenched’ planet. Plus: read an extract

Anne Glenconner: ‘It was as if I was pimping for Princess Margaret!’

The writer and socialite on surviving domestic abuse, how she stays fit at ‘90 and a half’, and why The Crown makes her mad

Will Self: ‘I’m seen as a still-walking dead white man’

The novelist on his new collection of journalism, why he regrets criticising Sally Rooney and how he’s never shaken off the influence of JG Ballard

‘All you have to do is participate’: how the Shotgun Seamstress zine made space for Black punks

As the DIY publication is collected in a new anthology, creator Osa Atoe and the musicians she inspired reflect on its defiant positivity