Patrick McCabe: ‘Even today you can walk into some Irish bars and be in a different dimension’
In his hometown bar in Clones, the Butcher Boy novelist talks about the nature of memory and surreal 1960s ‘happenings’
PJ Harvey, poet: ‘Dorset is light and dark, ecstasy and melancholy’
The singer-songwriter has written an extraordinary narrative poem that glories in the landscape and dialect of her home county
Yara Rodrigues Fowler: ‘Revolution – that’s what I’m hungry for’
The young Brazilian-British writer on wanting to agitate readers with her new Brexit-era novel and how MSN Messenger has informed her writing style
Stella Rimington: ‘I fell into intelligence by chance’
The 86-year-old novelist and former head of M15 on the Blitz, claustrophobia – and a new lease of life in her marriage
Snip it up and start again: the woman who’s reworking the photography canon
Photographer Justine Kurland has sliced and collaged images from 150 renowned books by white male photographers from Brassaï to Stephen Shore. She explains why
Candice Carty-Williams: ‘It’s time to write a book just about Black people’
How do you follow a game-changing, award-winning debut? Candice Carty-Williams on Queenie, binning her second novel, and how People Person draws on life with eight siblings
Margo Jefferson on Will Smith, TikTok and identity: ‘I don’t like the sense that we are so fragile’
Ahead of her new memoir, the critic talks about her current pop culture obsessions and why she identifies with Nina Simone
Nina Stibbe: ‘In fiction, female friendships are either ridiculously saintly or psychopathic’
The bestselling author of Love, Nina on her first non-autobiographical novel, the pros and cons of living in Cornwall, and never being the adult in the room
Don Winslow: ‘I’m a cupcake. I certainly couldn’t be a leg-breaker’
The American crime writer on the inspiration for his new book about warring gangs, his sudden thirst for poetry and why reading Jane Austen wears him out
Dr Suzie Sheehy: ‘The eureka moment may come once in your career, or never’
The Australian physicist on the small victories that make lab work fulfilling, how she found forgotten female scientists to include in her first book, and why research is an investment
Jennifer Egan: ‘Twitter doesn’t make me feel optimistic about human nature’
The Pulitzer prize-winning author discusses her follow up to A Visit from the Goon Squad and how imagining a new technology set her writing free
Jeweller Theo Fennell: ‘Being called the king of bling is better than the prince of darkness’
The high-class jeweller on switching from silversmithing to memoir-writing to keep up with his daughters, including the film-maker Emerald, in lockdown
Harald Jähner: ‘American culture had a very pacifying effect on Germany’
The German author on struggling to forgive his parents’ generation, postwar Germany’s adoption of liberalism and his fondness for 1920s fiction
Cathy O’Neil: ‘Big tech makes use of shame to profit from our interactions’
The mathematician and author talks about the exploitation of our feelings, cancel culture, and why she believes JK Rowling is an example of ‘punching-down shame’
Emily St John Mandel: ‘Readers have tattoos from Station Eleven. It blows my mind’
The Canadian author on how her pandemic novel became a lockdown phenomenon and inspired a hit TV series