Mohsin Hamid: ‘When the political pollen gets high, I’m going to sneeze’

The writer’s new novel is about white Americans suddenly becoming dark-skinned. He talks about resisting categorisation, moral responsibility and why imagining dystopias is dangerous

Linton Kwesi Johnson: ‘I certainly did not see myself as an angry young black poet’

The poet and activist’s life in verse has chronicled black British history. He talks about remaining hopeful, integrity, and taking 20 years to find his voice

Sloane Crosley: ‘I don’t think America deserved a birthday party this year’

The US essayist and novelist on giving dating a literary treatment, spoofing wellness culture and what she learned about romance from watching Seinfeld

Anton Du Beke: ‘I’d clear the floor if I danced at a disco’

The dancer, 56, on channelling his creativity, doing his best, never replying to emails and being mistaken for Rob Brydon

‘I can’t do superheroes, but I can do gods’: Neil Gaiman on comics, diversity and casting Death

Graphic novel The Sandman made its author into an icon. He talks about his big break in comics, the genre’s long struggle for respectability and the lavish Netflix adaptation that’s bringing his gothic hero to life

Oliver Mol on surviving a 10-month migraine: ‘If I didn’t tell this story it would rot inside me’

Suddenly unable to write, the acclaimed young author took a job on the railway. His memoir Train Lord tells of the refuge and reckoning he found there

Malcolm Nance: ‘The Republican party is an insurgent party’

The author, pundit and soldier, recently fighting a war in Ukraine, talks about his incendiary new book and his alarming predictions

‘I was not being loved. I was just a body’: Mena Suvari on surviving sexual abuse, acting and American Beauty

The model and actor’s shocking memoir tells how shame and denial prevented her from telling anyone she was raped when she was 12, which led to another abusive relationship – with an older man – and years of drug addiction

Brenda Hale: ‘There’s absolutely no need to scrap the Human Rights Act’

The former supreme court president on the government’s Rwanda plan, her star status among law students and her latest brooch

Austin Duffy: ‘I wanted to immerse the reader in the terror of being on call’

The novelist and oncologist on capturing the shock of interning in a hospital, how he fits writing around medicine, and being blown away by Fernanda Melchor

Tess Gunty: ‘I was an almost freakishly devout child’

The Indiana-born author on the midwest setting of her acclaimed debut novel, her fascination with rabbits, and the ‘dazzling’ poetry of Tayi Tibble

Why is God a man? The woman who searched the world for a feminist religion

Disillusioned with Pentecostalism, Louise Omer decided to find a religion where women were not subordinate

From Curb to Kurt: Larry David’s director on how his literary hero helped him through personal pain

When Robert Weide read Kurt Vonnegut as a teenager, he never dreamed he would one day make a film about the author – or become a longstanding friend

James Ellroy: ‘I’m trying to have a strong third act. I’m in competition with Philip Roth’

The author of LA Confidential and Black Dahlia on falling in love with a murder victim, not owning a computer and his new true-crime podcast series

Mick Herron: ‘I’m interested in incompetence, things going wrong’

The Slow Horses author on the ‘virtue of limitations’ and drawing life lessons from The Wind in the Willows