"Meet the Writers"

I have been putting interviews up on soundcloud through this site for a while, but now they will be carried on the Monocle 24 site. If you have enoyed the programmes here, do consider subscribing for free to the itunes feed of my newly renamed show "Meet the Writers". There will be some material there you have heard before, mixed with some brand new interviews.

This is the blurb about it:

Monocle 24 is the ​radio ​station

​brought to you by the editors behind Monocle magazine​,and it has been keeping an eye and an ear on the world since its launch back in 2011. M24 covers everything from international affairs to ​culture​from ​

design to urbanism

,​and now it's ​

addinga new literary strand, Meet the Writers.

​

 The show, hosted by Monocle's Georgina Godwin, who regularly catches up with the key figures on the circuit at literary festivals around the world,is an in-​depth discussion about the life and work of a different writer every week. The show airs 

every Saturday

at 1500 London time ​

and is then available as a podcast on monocle.com/24. 

The first episode features the Dutch born Australian writer Michel Faber, author of “The Crimson Petal and The White” as well as  “Under the Skin”. He talks about his latest work  “The Book of Strange New Things”. There is also a report back from The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. You can download this episode here  http://monocle.com/radio/shows/meet-the-writers/1/and subscribe for free to make sure you never miss the show, which in the coming weeks will feature Generation X-er himself, Douglas Coupland, Erica Jong, Justin Cartwright. There are many others, and the link to the free download is:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1066877934 

"Meet the Writers"

I have been putting interviews up on soundcloud through this site for a while, but now they will be carried on the Monocle 24 site. If you have enoyed the programmes here, do consider subscribing for free to the itunes feed of my newly renamed show "Meet the Writers". There will be some material there you have heard before, mixed with some brand new interviews.

This is the blurb about it:

Monocle 24 is the ​radio ​station

​brought to you by the editors behind Monocle magazine​,and it has been keeping an eye and an ear on the world since its launch back in 2011. M24 covers everything from international affairs to ​culture​from ​

design to urbanism

,​and now it's ​

addinga new literary strand, Meet the Writers.

​

 The show, hosted by Monocle's Georgina Godwin, who regularly catches up with the key figures on the circuit at literary festivals around the world,is an in-​depth discussion about the life and work of a different writer every week. The show airs 

every Saturday

at 1500 London time ​

and is then available as a podcast on monocle.com/24. 

The first episode features the Dutch born Australian writer Michel Faber, author of “The Crimson Petal and The White” as well as  “Under the Skin”. He talks about his latest work  “The Book of Strange New Things”. There is also a report back from The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. You can download this episode here  http://monocle.com/radio/shows/meet-the-writers/1/and subscribe for free to make sure you never miss the show, which in the coming weeks will feature Generation X-er himself, Douglas Coupland, Erica Jong, Justin Cartwright. There are many others, and the link to the free download is:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1066877934 

"Meet the Writers"

I have been putting interviews up on soundcloud through this site for a while, but now they will be carried on the Monocle 24 site. If you have enoyed the programmes here, do consider subscribing for free to the itunes feed of my newly renamed show "Meet the Writers". There will be some material there you have heard before, mixed with some brand new interviews.

This is the blurb about it:

Monocle 24 is the ​radio ​station

​brought to you by the editors behind Monocle magazine​,and it has been keeping an eye and an ear on the world since its launch back in 2011. M24 covers everything from international affairs to ​culture​from ​

design to urbanism

,​and now it's ​

addinga new literary strand, Meet the Writers.

​

 The show, hosted by Monocle's Georgina Godwin, who regularly catches up with the key figures on the circuit at literary festivals around the world,is an in-​depth discussion about the life and work of a different writer every week. The show airs 

every Saturday

at 1500 London time ​

and is then available as a podcast on monocle.com/24. 

The first episode features the Dutch born Australian writer Michel Faber, author of “The Crimson Petal and The White” as well as  “Under the Skin”. He talks about his latest work  “The Book of Strange New Things”. There is also a report back from The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. You can download this episode here  http://monocle.com/radio/shows/meet-the-writers/1/and subscribe for free to make sure you never miss the show, which in the coming weeks will feature Generation X-er himself, Douglas Coupland, Erica Jong, Justin Cartwright. There are many others, and the link to the free download is:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1066877934 

Upcoming Book Events

Some interesting events coming up:
Write on Kew is a new festival being held at Kew Gardens from Thursday 24 - Sun 27 September.
There are more details here http://www.kew.org/visit-kew-gardens/whats-on/write-on-kew
I'll be talking to the Director of Horticulture there, Richard Barley, and the 2 Michelin Star chef, Raymond Blanc about the Kew on Plate project: the making of a kitchen garden, a television series and a book. That's on Thursday 24th at 4pm.

I'll be back there for a couple of events on Sat 26th, in conversation with the author of One Day, Starter for Ten and Us, David Nicholls at 11.45 in the morning, and fellow Southern African, actor Richard E Grant, in the evening at 6.30. Steve Martin has just written a new forward to his film diaries With Nails and the book is being republished as a Picador Classic. I understand all tickets include entry to the gardens - and there are some really wonderful events, it is well worth browsing the programme to see what else is on.

The London Literature Festival takes place at the Southbank centre from 28th of September to the 12th of October. On the theme of Tell Me Something I Don't Know, one of the highlights is a spectacular 4 day performed reading of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. I'm thrilled to be taking part in that on Thursday 1October. I'm also hosting the Cocktail Hours Series at the festival at which one can enjoy a cocktail demonstration by a leading drinks writer followed by a spirited reading from a celebrated author. These take place on the 6th, 7th and 8th of October. They open for drinks at 6 and at the first one, Alice Lascelles, Financial Times drinks writer and former  Times cocktail columnist, will be mixing things up, followed by a reading and interview with Patrick deWitt, whose previous novel The Sisters Brothers was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. De Witt will be reading from his new book Undermajordomo Minor and telling us something we didn’t know about his offbeat fictional universe.

On Wednesday the 7th, author of The Spirits and Evening Standard columnist Richard Godwin (this not nepotism, we haven't even met yet, though perhaps we'll discover we are long lost cousins...) shows some flare with a cocktail shaker, followed by a reading and interview with Ann Morgan – an explorer of world literature who wrote about the discoveries she made whilst reading a book from each and every country on the planet.

The final Cocktail hour is on Thursday 8th  and the guest author for this evening is Louise Stern, whose most recent novel Ismael and His Sisters was written and set in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Stern, a deaf writer, tells us something we don’t know about her striking fictional world and is joined by mixologist and drinks industry expert Tristan Stephenson.

More details and tickets here: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/festivals-series/london-literature-festival

In the middle of the LLF, I'm off to Cheltenham, one of the highlights of my year, for the Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, running from Oct 2 until the 11th.
On Friday the 2nd, at 2.15 I'm really looking forward to talking to Frederick Forsyth. For over forty years, Forsyth has written real-world tales of intrigue, from The Day of the Jackal to The Kill List. The Outsider tells his most captivating story yet: his own.

 On Saturday 3rd of October I'll be talking to Anita Shreve in an exclusive and very special event, looking back at and raising a toast to her much-loved novel, The Pilot’s Wife.

 And that evening, I'm so pleased to be chatting again to Audrey Niffenegger, the bestselling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife who presents Ghostly, her edited and illustrated selection of creepy and witty ghost stories: from M. R. James and Neil Gaiman to tales of her own.

Tickets and info about the wealth of other events here: http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/literature

Then it is a new a festival for me, in Chester, which runs from the 10th to the 25th of October.
Lots of information and tickets here: http://www.chesterperforms.com/literature/
I'm doing 3 events, the first is on the 11th of Oct when I'll be chatting to actor and comedian Nick Frost who has a brand new memoir out entitled Truths, Half Truths and Little White Lies.

Then I'll be back in town on the 22nd to talk to Dom Joly, the comedian and journalist about his latest work, Here Comes The Clown, and the following day, I'm really looking forward to meeting Ranulph Fiennes, the world’s greatest living explorer,  who talks about Heat.

I'll still be presenting the Globalist on Monocle 24 at 7am , usually on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and I'll if I'm not in the studio live for The Weekend Edition on Saturdays, the book interview will still be going out at around 15.15. Highlights coming up include Booker Prize Shortlisters Hanya Yanagihara and Marlon James and Richard Cockette on Burma.

On The Weekend Edition on Saturday May 9th on www.monocle.com/24 we have a great day of broadcasting lined up.
At 8am London time, we'll start with highlights from our playlist - so, that is music from Japan, Scandinavia, South Korea, Brazil and Germany, as well as Britain and America.
I'll be bringing you news at the top of every hour, between scheduled programming.
Live highlights will include, at 11am, the writer and broadcaster Michael Goldfarb who will be in the studio with me to look through the papers. We'll be flicking back over the week and seeing what the broadsheets have to say about the issues of the day - and of course, that is likely to be dominated by the British Election. More about Michael and his award winning career here: michael-goldfarb.com

Errol Brown, of Hot Chocolate died this week. In tribute, we'll hear some of his music and also chat to Paul Blezard. Until a couple of days ago, I knew Paul as a writer and chair of literary events - but it turns out he also played the guitar for Brown in the 90's. He'll be telling us about the experience, and also about his book, Saving Grace. More here unbound.co.uk/saving-grace

Finally, a package I am really excited about, that chimes with the anniversary of VE day. This is a story which was given to me in Cartagena, Colombia over a Peruvian meal. I know it sounds slightly unlikely that the Second World war was the topic of this late night festive gathering, but it was here that my friend Lyndy Cooke told me about her father, Bert Fitches and his lifelong friend Dieter Bosecker. I don't want to ruin it for you - but do listen if you can. We'll broadcast it at about 15.15 London time, and then it will go on my website georginagodwin.com.

Hay 2014

BRYONY GORDON
THE WRONG KNICKERS: A DECADE OF CHAOS

Event 381 • Saturday 31 May 2014, 11.30am • Venue: The Oxfam MootLike Carrie Bradshaw, Gordon may have had a column in a national newspaper, but her twenties weren’t one long episode of Sex and the City. They were a decade of hangovers, heartbreak, and hideously awkward mornings-after, all over her overdraft limit. She tells the tales to Georgina Godwin.

MONIQUE ROFFEY AND MITCH CULLIN
FICTIONS – INVENTIONS

Event 389 • Saturday 31 May 2014, 1pm • Venue: Good Energy StageSet on the fictional Caribbean island of Sans Amen, Roffey’s House of Ashes tells the story of three characters, a gunman, a hostage and a boy soldier, caught up in a botched coup d’etat. Cullin’s A Slight Trick of the Mindintroduces a nonagenarian Sherlock Holmes. In the twilight of his life, as people continue to look to him for answers, Holmes revisits a case that may provide him with answers of his own to questions he didn’t even know he was asking – about life, about love, and about the limits of the mind’s ability to know. The authors talk to Georgina Godwin.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
THRIVE: THE THIRD METRIC TO REDEFINING SUCCESS AND CREATING A HAPPIER LIFE

Event 410 • Saturday 31 May 2014, 7pm • Venue: The Tata TentThe Huffington Post founder argues that a successful life is made up of more than just money and success and must also include what she calls The Third Metric: personal care, health, and fulfillment. She talks to Georgina Godwin.

ALEX MONROE
TWO TURTLE DOVES: A HISTORY OF MAKING THINGS

Event 430 • Sunday 1 June 2014, 10am • Venue: The Oxfam MootGrowing up in 1970s Suffolk in a crumbling giant of a house with wild, tangled gardens, the celebrated jeweller was left to wreak havoc by invention. Without visible parental influence but with sisters to love him and brothers to fight for him, he made nature into his world. Creation became a compulsion, whether it was go-karts and guns, cross-bows and booby-traps, boats, bikes or scooters. And then it was jewellery. He talks to Georgina Godwin.

ATEF ABU SAIF AND ABDALLAH TAYEH
FICTIONS – THE BOOK OF GAZA

Event 444 • Sunday 1 June 2014, 1pm • Venue: Good Energy StageThe novelist Atef Abu Saif introduces his groundbreaking anthology of ten Palestinian writers who have been translated into English for the first time. Each story takes place in a different part of the Strip and provides a ‘literary map’, navigating its readers around the cities. He is joined by one of the contributing short story writers, Abdallah Tayeh. They talk to Georgina Godwin.

Here are a few highlights you can expect on The Weekend Edition on Saturday 12th April. Between 8 and 9 London time I'll be going through the papers and playing some relevant music.

At 12.30 an ABBA special on the 40th anniversary of their Eurovision win. We feature the Swedish Cultural Attache from Paris and the Ambassador to London talking about the Soft Power effect of music and how social democracy in Sweden meant the group were always lauded more abroad. I talk to the author of a new book about ABBA backstage stories, hear from their manager, lighting designer, and the publisher of a photographic tome about the group. I speak to producer Pete Waterman, interview a Swedish Vicar about how he whirled Queen Silvia round the floor at his wedding, to the tune of Dancing Queen, talk to Katrina of Katrina and the Waves about her Eurovision win in '97, and ask Frida herself what ABBA's favourite ABBA tune is.

Then, at 14. 15 I speak to Maureen Freely. She has just been appointed President of English PEN. She's also an author and the translator of Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk.

Those are just some of the highlights you can expect on Saturday on The Weekend Edition on www.monocle.com/24. Hit listen live....and it would be great if you felt like voting for us in the Webby Awardshttp://pv.webbyawards.com/2014/web/general-website/radio-podcasts