Kate Baer on the burden of motherhood: ‘My book is like an angry friend’
When her no-holds-barred collection of poetry came out, Kate Baer was inundated with grateful messages. Why had it hit a chord with ordinary mothers struggling to be heard?
Goosebumps author RL Stine: ‘The only lesson in my books is to run’
The veteran children’s horror writer on the fears of today’s generation, why unhappy endings are out, and what happened when he met Stephen King
Miranda Cowley Heller: ‘Writing sex scenes has never scared me’
The author on her debut novel set during a single day on Cape Cod, the pressures of growing up in a literary family, and what she’s learned from reading Ali Smith
Bryant & May author Christopher Fowler: ‘Writing the end was really emotional’
After 20 outings, the unconventional detective duo of Arthur Bryant and John May have solved their last case. But their creator is not willing to let them go entirely …
Robert Harris: ‘My method is usually to start a book on 15 January and finish it on 15 June’
The bestselling author on the dearth of top-quality politicians, his regard for diaries and letters, and his disciplined writing approach
Waterstones prize winner Elle McNicoll: ‘I never saw autistic girls in books’
The author was repeatedly told that no one wanted to read fun books with disabled heroes. Now she has won the £5,000 Waterstones children’s book prize for her debut, A Kind of Spark
Rumaan Alam: ‘Our cultural response to a crisis was to go shopping’
The author of the apocalyptic novel Leave the World Behind reflects on its parallels with the Covid pandemic, the genius of Lorrie Moore and why he is looking forward to letting his kids run feral outside
Isabel Waidner: ‘Different doesn’t need to be scary. It can be fun’
The writer of experimental fiction on their debt to America’s ‘new narrative’ tradition, the benefits of a German state education, and exploring homophobia through Franz Beckenbauer
‘We dodged a mortar round’: George Packer on America in crisis
The award-winning reporter’s new book considers threats to democracy from the right around the Capitol attack – but his view of those who seek social justice has angered some on the left
International Booker winner David Diop: ‘It’s war that’s savage, not the soldiers’
The author of At Night All Blood Is Black discusses the unheard African voices of the first world war and the inspiration for his violent antihero
‘I don’t want to remember these things’: dark pop poet John Murry on surviving rape, heroin and family strife
The singer-songwriter talks about his adoptive relative William Faulkner, his violent childhood and heroin – and saves a surprise until the end
Brandon Taylor: ‘I grew up reading my aunt’s nursing-home manuals and bodice-rippers’
The Booker-shortlisted novelist on teaching himself to read, critics who say he’s not nice enough to white people, and why the Bible still haunts him
David Eagleman: ‘The working of the brain resembles drug dealers in Albuquerque’
The neuroscientist, broadcaster and author on the evolution of the brain, the mystery of consciousnesss, and why the next generation will be much smarter than us
Neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth: ‘Coronavirus has changed us all’
The neuroscientist and psychiatrist explains Zoom fatigue - and why the conditions of the pandemic can induce an ‘altered state’
Meg Mason: ‘Sorrow and Bliss was a post-hope project. I was convinced that no one would ever see it’
A hit in Australia, where she lives, Meg Mason’s novel Sorrow and Bliss tackles marriage and mental health with humour and heart. She discusses why she wrote it in secret