Meet the Writers
Georgina Godwin in conversation with top authors. Explore their inspirations, writing processes, and the stories behind their books.
Latest Episodes
Monocle Reads: Maggie O’Farrell
Georgina Godwin speaks to the newly crowned winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction, Maggie O’Farrell. Her winning novel, ‘Hamnet’, was inspired by the life and death of Shakespeare’s only son.
Vanessa Branson
Vanessa Branson is a champion of numerous cultural and ecological initiatives. A trustee for the charitable Virgin Unite organisation that was started by her brother Richard, she has now written a frank and highly entertaining memoir about her family, called ‘One Hundred Summers’.
Monocle Reads: Jini Reddy
Georgina Godwin speaks to author and journalist Jini Reddy about her latest book ‘Wanderland’, which has been shortlisted for the Wainwright prize for nature writing. Described as “eco-spiritual nature writing”, the book follows Jini as she heads off to search for the magic in the UK landscape.
Jess Phillips
Labour front bench MP Jess Phillips talks about telling truth to power, her political ambition, those that inspire her and how to call time on bullshit.
Monocle Reads: Harriet Tyce
Georgina Godwin speaks to Harriet Tyce about her latest thriller, ‘The Lies You Told’, which draws inspiration from her background as a criminal barrister. Tyce’s debut, ‘Blood Orange’, was a Sunday Times bestseller.
DBC Pierre
Georgina Godwin talks to DBC Pierre, who won the Booker prize with his debut novel ‘Vernon God Little’. He has gone on to write five more books, including his latest: dystopian satire ‘Meanwhile in Dopamine City’. It is a darkly funny, brilliantly clever and utterly terrifying vision of technology in…
Monocle Reads: Bolu Babalola
Georgina Godwin speaks to writer, commentator and ‘romcomoisseur’ Bolu Babalola about her debut novel, ‘Love in Colour’, a collection of beautifully reimagined folklore from across the world. A previous work, ‘Netflix & Chill’, was shortlisted for the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize.
Tsitsi Dangarembga
Georgina Godwin meets filmmaker, playwright and writer Tsitsi Dangarembga, whose 1988 novel ‘Nervous Conditions’ was the first published in English by a black Zimbabwean woman and won the Commonwealth Writers’ prize. Thirty years on, at a time of political turmoil in the country, her follow-up, ‘This Mournable Body’, has been…
Monocle Reads: Lamorna Ash
Georgina Godwin speaks to Lamorna Ash about her debut book, ‘Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Town’. Shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright prize for nature writing, it offers a glimpse at life in Newlyn.
Romesh Gunesekera
The accolades that Sri Lankan-born novelist Romesh Gunesekera has received include being shortlisted for the Booker prize and having a novel on the ‘New York Times’ list of notable books. He joins Georgina Godwin – and her dog – for a walk and a discussion about home, identity, conflict and…
