Trans writer Juno Dawson: ‘The Spice Girls were my female awakening!’

The ‘Queen of Teen’ has written a trans Alice in Wonderland, full of cocaine, cosmetics and the sexually abusive Tweedle twins. She talks about taboos, tattoos – and dating terrible men

Linda Boström Knausgård: ‘I would like to be seen as a person and author in my own right’

The Swedish author, whose life was laid bare in controversial novels by her ex-husband, is successfully reviving her own career

Not now, Bernard … I’m on my iPhone: classic children’s text reissued for digital era

Author David McKee reveals why, 40 years on, his cautionary tale of the perils of ignoring children is still relevant

Richard Ford: ‘I didn’t finish a book until I was 19’

The Pulitzer prize winner on the freedom that comes with age, how he reinvented his writing life and overcoming childhood dyslexia

Mem Fox on fear, creativity and Covid-19: ‘What if I die with the story unfinished?’

After a dangerous illness the children’s author is high-risk for coronavirus, but she insists there’s a positive side to lockdown

‘It’s unnerving’: Lawrence Wright on the eerie prescience of his pandemic novel

In the End of October, a horrifying virus brings the world to standstill, a situation that the author has now seen for himself

‘The police force desperately needs more black, brown and gay recruits’

Kevin Maxwell was forced to quit the service after years of abuse. Now he has written a book chronicling his experiences

Michael Frayn: ‘There’s something slightly disgraceful about old folks having fun’

The writer talks about his new collection of comic pieces, why he loves iPhones, and why Covid-19 may spell doom for stage comedy

Lionel Shriver: ‘Some people think I’m evil incarnate’

The author on publishing when bookshops are closed, being an ‘exercise nut’ and the dangers posed to writers by mob rule

Michael Lewis: ‘Trump is like a psycho dad to America’

The uncannily prescient author Michael Lewis explains how Donald Trump’s ‘appallingly bad’ handling of the Covid outbreak could finally undo him

NK Jemisin: ‘It’s easier to get a book set in black Africa published if you’re white’

The three-time Hugo award winner is one of the biggest names in modern scifi. She talks about overcoming racism to rewrite the future

A new Mapplethorpe? The queer zine legend reinventing the nude

Paul Mpagi Sepuya started out taking shots of his friends naked. His work, in which sitters often face away, has now earned comparisons with Robert Mapplethorpe – and even Caravaggio

Philippe Sands: ‘When the virus crisis is over, nationalism could be rampant’

The barrister and writer discusses his gripping new book, about Nazi Otto von Wächter’s postwar years on the run, and the ever-present threat of antisemitism

‘People fell under its spell’: Shelley Klein on growing up in one of Britain’s finest modernist houses

Textile designer Bernat Klein found solace in High Sunderland, his minimal 1950s house in the Scottish Borders. In her memoir, his daughter recalls returning to her childhood home

Naoise Dolan: ‘I’m not good at presenting myself as likable’

The young Irish writer, who has won acclaim for her debut novel, on writing in a time of crisis and finding comfort in small routines