‘I feel joy’: how Bisha K Ali went from struggling standup to Marvel maestro

She was living on beans. Now she’s in LA writing Ms Marvel, the eagerly awaited TV series starring MCU’s first Muslim superhero. The writer talks about joyriding premiers and how to silence trolls

David Keenan: ‘I no longer want a book with a point’

The Scottish author on life as a music journalist, writing about the Troubles and why he happily lost the plot in his new novel

Otegha Uwagba: ‘I’ve spent my entire life treading around white people’s feelings’

After George Floyd’s death, Uwagba began to think about white ‘allyship’ and why support often felt performative. She discusses why her new book offers a break from the ‘black reading list’

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘America under Trump felt like a personal loss’

As her novel Half of a Yellow Sun is hailed as the Women’s prize ‘winner of winners’, the Nigerian-born, US-based author talks about her relief over Joe Biden’s victory – and the bittersweet highs of a difficult year

Bake Off Extra’s Tom Allen: ‘I wanted to be an actor – but it turned out I was just gay’

As he publishes a moving memoir, the comedian and Bake Off contestant tormentor talks about homophobic heckles, still living with his parents – and why he’s never been in love

A new chapter in the evolution of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens

The historian and author on adapting his phenomenal bestseller into graphic format, and why science needs storytellers

Claire Messud: ‘To be a writer is to stand at the side’

The novelist and Harvard academic on her mother’s dementia, getting in touch with her teenage self, and how she reacts to bad reviews

Rumaan Alam: ‘What we are experiencing now is part of a bigger moment’

Rumaan Alam’s third novel is a dystopian page-turner, taking in themes of isolation, race and class. He could never have predicted how timely it would be

Lionel Barber: ‘I enjoyed access to thugs and the very rich. It was my job to understand power’

The former FT editor is publishing his diaries, but despite his amazing access to the great and not so great, they are remarkable for what they omit

John Lithgow: ‘Trump keeps on surviving. Karma never quite wins’

The actor on playing Churchill, almost becoming Frasier Crane, and writing satirical poems about the US president

Sinéad Burke: ‘My goal was to change the entire fashion system’

She’s a little person in big demand for her campaigning work in fashion. Mark Smith meets the Irish disability advocate, teacher and author

Jonathan Coe: ‘It’s the point in your life at which you start asking yourself, what next?’

The satirist who skewered the 1980s in What a Carve Up! is approaching elder statesman status. He talks about Brexit, prizes, cancel culture – and his Hollywood hero Billy Wilder

Caleb Femi: ‘Henceforth I’m solely preoccupied with being a merchant of joy’

The poet, film-maker, photographer and former young people’s laureate for London talks about growing up on the North Peckham estate and his debut collection, Poor

Matt Furie on life after Pepe the Frog: ‘You have to lead by example’

The gentle creator of a cartoon that became a far-right mascot talks about the years of litigation against the likes of Alex Jones, and his ambitious new book Mindviscosity

‘A roadmap to redemption’: how a photographer helped a prisoner see beyond his cage

After a Minnesota inmate wrote to Alec Soth on impulse this year, the two began a freewheeling exchange of ideas on culture and isolation that developed into an astonishing new book