Sunday with Bill Bailey: ‘I’ll head up to the Ridgeway and watch the red kites’

The comedian tells Rich Pelley he likes to stay in and takes it easy, or else heads out of London to see some amazing fork-tailed birds of prey

‘It’s got everything you want, plus dragons’: Brandon Sanderson on the joy of writing fantasy

The hugely popular author reveals his excitement at the release of his latest Stormlight saga, how he extracted himself from Amazon and why JK Rowling should have stuck to novels

‘Scotland has always been multilingual’: new Scottish makar Peter Mackay

As new national poet, the Gaelic speaker is looking at all of the languages spoken in the country, to see ‘what we can learn between them’

‘I had this animal, physical desire to be with my child’: author Rachel Yoder on writing Nightbitch

The novelist’s cult book about a stay-at-home mother who turns into a dog is now a film starring Amy Adams. She talks about modern parenting, breaking taboos, and how Trump’s win spurred her to write

‘I’m writing a memoir. It’s a pack of lies’: John Banville on a lifetime in books, bereavement, and the Irish love of words

The acclaimed novelist thought he had finished with ‘serious’ books. But now, at 78 and still grieving the loss of his wife, he has a new project on the go

Novelist Maggie O’Farrell: ‘Children don’t just need butterflies and rainbows’

The Hamnet author talks about bringing her bestselling Shakespeare novel to the screen, working with Paul Mescal, and how her speech disorder inspired her latest children’s book

David Nicholls: ‘I’m genuinely deathly at a dinner party’

The bestselling author on why he finds it easier to be funny on the page, being inspired by Sue Townsend and Victoria Wood, and his struggle with the ending of You Are Here

Charlie and Lola author Lauren Child: ‘My greatest achievement is adopting my daughter’

The author on the power of having regrets, striving to adopt her daughter, why she changed her name – and why she gave up gymnastics

Haruki Murakami: ‘My books have been criticised so much over the years, I don’t pay much attention’

As his new novel is published, the acclaimed author discusses complexity, writing female characters and meeting his fans

‘I’m not saying I’m not scarred. But scars do fade’: Baroness Lola Young on her childhood in care

The crossbench peer grew up in care and went on to become an actor, an academic and one of the first black women in the House of Lords. Now she has written a memoir documenting her remarkable story

Colm Tóibín: ‘Ireland today is a much freer place’

The Irish author on how the sequel to his bestselling novel Brooklyn was inspired by the film, life in LA, and his thoughts on Trump’s victory

Richard Flanagan: ‘I’m not sure that I will write again’

The Tasmanian novelist – whose latest book, Question 7, is up for both fiction and nonfiction prizes – on HG Wells, the TV adaptation of his Booker prize winner The Narrow Road to the Deep North… and his much-missed parrot, Herb

‘We’ve become distrustful of each other’: Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer on Trump, rural America and resistance

Her last book sold 2m copies. Now the Native American ecologist is taking on capitalism. She talks about how the ‘gift economy’ could heal divisions across the US

Peter Carey on Jack Maggs and snubbing the Queen: ‘I thought she was a relic’

As the stage version of his take on Great Expectations opens in Adelaide, the novelist looks back at a right royal kerfuffle – and a memorable encounter with a London cabby

‘I’m so not an astronaut!’ Samantha Harvey on her Booker-winning space novel – and the anxiety that drove it

She won the top prize with a time-distorted novel set on the International Space Station. Yet, the writer reveals, Orbital is actually ‘a celebration of Earth’s beauty with a pang of loss’ – fuelled by her anxiety-induced insomnia