Always Take Notes

Rachel and Simon speak with the literary agent Karolina Sutton. After a brief stint in advertising, she got a job as an agents' assistant and quickly started putting together her own list. She has worked with authors including Margaret Atwood, Ed Caesar, Anthony Doerr, Haruki Murakami, Tara Westover and Malala Yousafzai. In 2020 she won Agent of the Year at the British Book Awards. Earlier this year she moved from Curtis Brown to CAA. We spoke to Karolina about moving from advertising to agenting, working with high-profile clients and what she looks for in a book proposal. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd, and produced by Artemis Irvine. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist Ian McEwan, the critically acclaimed author of 17 novels and two short-story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, "First Love, Last Rites", won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. Ian's novels include "The Child in Time", which won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 1987; "The Cement Garden"; "Enduring Love"; "Amsterdam", which won the Booker Prize in 1998; "Atonement"; "Saturday"; "On Chesil Beach"; "Solar"; "Sweet Tooth"; "The Children Act"; "Nutshell"; and "Machines Like Me", which was a number-one bestseller. "Atonement", "Enduring Love", "The Children Act" and "On Chesil Beach" have all been adapted into films. We spoke to Ian about his experience as the first-ever student on the University of East Anglia creative-writing course, his extraordinary run of success in the 1990s and early 2000s, and about his new novel, "Lessons." You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @always

Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and short-story writer Tessa Hadley. She is the author of eight novels, including "Accidents in the Home" (2002), for which she was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and "The Past" (2015), which won a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize. Tessa regularly publishes stories in the New Yorker; a new collection of her short fiction, "After the Funeral", will be released in July. We spoke to Tessa about being published for the first time in her 40s, writing in different mediums, and her latest novel, "Free Love". You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd, and produced by Artemis Irvine. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Simon and Rachel speak to Orlando Figes, author of nine books on Russian and European history which have been translated into over 30 languages. Born in London, Figes studied history at Cambridge and, as a graduate student, completed archival research in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. He rose to prominence in 1996 with his second book, "A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924", which the Times Literary Supplement later named as one its "100 most influential books since the war". His subsequent works include "Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia", "Crimea: The Last Crusade" and "The Europeans", and until recently he was a professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London. We spoke to Orlando about reaching a popular audience with his history books, "The Whisperers" and "The Europeans", and his timely latest project, "The Story of Russia". You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is pat

Rachel and Simon speak to Moya Lothian-McLean, contributing editor at Novara Media. She began writing articles about music for Vice in 2015 while studying at university; in 2016, after graduating, she joined Stylist as an editorial assistant and wrote features as well as articles for the website. In 2020 she joined gal-dem, an independent magazine, as politics editor. Now she is contributing editor at Novara Media and writes for the New York Times and the Guardian, among other publications. Alongside her editorial work, she presents "Human Resources", a podcast about Britain's involvement in slavery, and appears on broadcast media. We spoke to Moya about breaking into freelancing, her stint at gal-dem and her current role at Novara Media, and the differences between journalism and content creation. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and

Simon and Rachel speak to the novelist Mohsin Hamid. Born in Lahore, he grew up mostly in Pakistan but spent part of his childhood in California and returned to America to attend Princeton University. He worked in New York and London as a management consultant before returning to Lahore to pursue writing full-time. Mohsin's first novel, "Moth Smoke" (2000), was published in 14 languages and won a Betty Trask Award. His second novel, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" (2007), recounted a Pakistani man’s abandonment of his life in New York in the aftermath of 9/11. Published in over 30 languages, it became a million-copy international bestseller and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A film adaptation followed in 2013 starring Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson. Mohsin's other novels include "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" in 2013, "Exit West" (2017) and most recently "The Last White Man." We spoke to Mohsin about the moving from Pakistan to America and from the corporate to the literary world, "The Reluctant Fun

Rachel and Simon speak to author, academic and literary critic Merve Emre. After a stint as a management consultant, she completed a PhD and taught English literature at McGill University in Canada, before taking up a role as an associate professor at Oxford. (This year she is a distinguished writer-in-residence at Wesleyan in the US.) Alongside her academic work, Merve has written books including "Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America", "The Ferrante Letters" and "The Personality Brokers" (published in Britain as "What's Your Type?"), about the Myers-Briggs personality test. She is also a contributing writer at the New Yorker and her essays have been published in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic and the London Review of Books. We spoke to Merve about the differences between academia in America and Britain, her books and her criticism. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our c

Simon and Rachel speak to the journalist and author Oliver Bullough. After studying history at university Oliver moved to Russia, where he worked first for an English-language magazine in Saint Petersburg, then for The Times of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, and subsequently for Reuters, where he covered the war in Chechnya. Oliver's early books - "Let Our Fame Be Great" in 2010 and "The Last Man in Russia" in 2013 - examined respectively the Caucasus and a dissident Orthodox priest. His more recent books have focused on financial crime, with "Moneyland" in 2018 and this year with "Butler to the World". Oliver's journalism also appears in the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the New York Times, and GQ. We spoke to Oliver about writing about oligarchs in the year that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, navigating the complexities of English libel law, and the response to "Butler to the World". You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding p

Rachel and Simon speak to the journalist, author and editor Tina Brown. She began working as a freelance journalist as a student and contributed to publications including the New Statesman, the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph; in 1973 she won the Catherine Pakenham award for the most promising female journalist under the age of 25. In 1979 she was invited to edit Tatler, in 1984 she took over at Vanity Fair and in 1992 she became the first woman to become editor-in-chief of the New Yorker, a position she held until 1998. She was inducted into the Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame in 2007—the same year "The Diana Chronicles", her bestselling biography of the Princess of Wales, was published. In 2008 she set up the Daily Beast, a news website. We spoke to Tina about breaking into journalism and running Tatler in her 20s, editing marquee American publications in the 1980s and 1990s, and her latest book on the British royal family, "The Palace Papers". You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter

Simon and Rachel speak with the academic and author Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. After undergraduate studies and a PhD at Cambridge, Robert moved to Oxford in 2002, where he is a professor of English Literature and a fellow of Magdalen College. His previous books include "Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist", which won the Duff Cooper Prize for biography in 2011; "The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland" in 2015, which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize, and most recently "The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World" (2021). Robert has edited editions of Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley and J.M. Barrie, and is a regular contributor to the Times, Guardian, Spectator, Literary Review, New Statesman and TLS. He has worked as a historical advisor on BBC adaptations of "Jane Eyre" (2006), "Emma" (2009) and "Great Expectations" (2011); acted as a consultant to the "Enola Holmes" film franchise; and served as a judge for the Man Booker and Baillie Gifford priz

Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist and short-story writer Kit de Waal. Born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father, she worked for several years in criminal and family law, sitting on adoption panels and writing manuals on foster care. Her experience in this field informed her debut novel, "My Name is Leon", which was published in 2016 after a six-way auction and was adapted into a television film this year. Kit has also worked to increase diversity in publishing, using some of her advance from "My Name is Leon" to fund a creative-writing scholarship and editing "Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers" in 2019. We spoke to Kit at Wimbledon BookFest about getting published for the first time in her 50s, about class and publishing and "Without Warning and Only Sometimes", her new memoir. This episode is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative, the writing school attached to the major literary agency. CBC has provided an exclusive discount for Always Take Notes listeners. You can

Simon and Rachel speak with novelist Marlon James. Born in Jamaica in 1970, his novel "A Brief History of Seven Killings" won the Man Booker Prize in 2015, and was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the United States and a New York Times Notable Book. Marlon is now working on a trilogy of African fantasy novels, which began with "Black Leopard, Red Wolf", a finalist for the US National Book Award for fiction in 2019, followed by "Moon Witch, Spider King" in 2022. His earlier novels include "The Book of Night Women", which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2010, and "John Crow’s Devil", his debut in 2005. We spoke to Marlon about growing up in Jamaica and his decision to leave the country, winning the Booker Prize in 2015, and his new "Dark Star" trilogy. This episode is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative, the writing school attached to the major literary agency. CBC has provided an exclusive discount for Always Take Notes listeners. You can use the code ATN20 for £20 off the f

Rachel and Simon speak with Perminder Mann, CEO of Bonnier Books UK. She was the first member of her family to go to university, where she studied drama; after declining an unpaid internship in the media, she turned to publishing, working in sales first at Macmillan, then Transworld and Bonnier. She left Bonnier for a stint in the toy industry, but returned to the company several years later. In 2015 and 2016 she was included on the Bookseller's list of the most influential people in publishing. She became CEO of Bonnier Books UK in 2018, and is also chair of the Publisher’s Association Consumer Publishers Council. We spoke to Perminder about her entry into publishing, her work at Bonnier, now the seventh-largest publisher in Britain, and the idea of author as brand. This episode is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative, the writing school attached to the major literary agency. CBC has provided an exclusive discount for Always Take Notes listeners. You can use the code ATN20 for £20 off the full price of Creati

Rachel and Simon speak with novelist and screenwriter Irvine Welsh. Born in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Welsh moved to London in 1978 where he immersed himself in the punk scene. He returned to Edinburgh in the late 1980s, studied for an MBA, spent 18 months addicted to heroin and worked in the council's housing department. His debut novel, "Trainspotting", an account of heroin addicts written in a thick Leith dialect, was published in 1993. It became a cult success, helped by a film adaptation in 1996, directed by Danny Boyle. Welsh subsequently wrote two sequels and a prequel to "Trainspotting", as well as a number of standalone novels, including "Glue" (2001) and "The Blade Artist" (2016). His new novel, "The Long Knives", is a sequel to both "Filth" from 1998 and "Crime" from a decade later, which he has also adapted as TV drama. We spoke to Irvine about the impact of "Trainspotting", getting into the minds of violent characters, and why he does not have a literary agent. This episode is sponsored by Cu

Rachel and Simon speak with children's author and illustrator Lauren Child. She set up her own lampshade company and worked at a design agency before turning to books, publishing “I Want a Pet!” and “Clarice Bean, That's Me” in 1999. As well as the Clarice Bean series, Lauren is the author of the award-winning “Charlie and Lola” books (adapted into a television series which ran from 2005-08) and the Ruby Redford detective series. To date she has sold more than 6 million books in 19 languages worldwide. Between 2017 and 2019 she was the British Children's Laureate, a position awarded to a “writer or illustrator of children's books to celebrate outstanding achievement in their field”. We spoke to Lauren about her process of writing and illustrating, the impact of celebrity authors on children's literature and her bestselling series. This episode is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative, the writing school attached to the major literary agency. CBC has provided an exclusive discount for Always Take Notes listeners

Simon and Rachel speak with the novelist and travel writer Colin Thubron. Colin worked in publishing in London and New York before writing his first travel book, "Mirror to Damascus", in 1967. Other early books continued to focus on the Middle East, but later he was drawn towards the Soviet Union and Communist China. In 1982 Colin travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey described in "Among the Russians". His best-known travel books include "Behind the Wall" (winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Award), "In Siberia" (which won the Prix Bouvier) and "Shadow of the Silk Road". Colin has also written eight novels, and between 2008 and 2017 he served as president of the Royal Society of Literature. We spoke to Colin about exploring Russia, China and central Asia, his latest book, "The Amur River", and his parallel career as a fiction writer. This episode was produced in conjunction with the London edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival, and is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative,

Rachel and Simon speak with the historian and novelist Antonia Fraser. She began her career in the 1950s as an assistant to George Weidenfeld, the co-founder of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, a British publishing house. Lady Antonia wrote her first book, "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", in her early twenties; her first major historical work, "Mary Queen of Scots", was published in 1969. Since then she has written biographies of Oliver Cromwell, Charles II, the six wives of Henry VIII and Marie Antoinette, the last of which was adapted into a film directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Kirsten Dunst. She has also written two volumes of autobiography, including "Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter". Lady Antonia has served as President of English PEN and Chairman of the Society of Authors. We spoke with her about the success of "Mary Queen of Scots", her research process and her new book, "The Case of the Married Woman". This episode is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative, the writing school attach

Simon and Rachel speak with journalist, author and film-maker Sebastian Junger. Attracted since childhood to “extreme situations and people at the edges of things,” Sebastian grew up in New England and worked as a high-climber for tree removal companies. After a chainsaw injury, he decided to focus on journalism, primarily writing about people with dangerous jobs. That led to his debut book in 1997, "The Perfect Storm", an account of the loss of a fishing boat, which went on to sell over 3.5 million copies and was made into a film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Sebastian has reported on conflict in the Balkans, West Africa and Afghanistan, and as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair established a partnership with British photographer Tim Hetherington, with whom he collaborated on the documentary "Restrepo" in 2010. The film was nominated for an Oscar before Hetherington's death in Libya in 2011. Sebastian's other books include "War", "Tribe" and most recently "Freedom". We spoke to Sebastian about

Rachel and Simon speak with the novelist Monica Ali. Granta named her one of their brightest young British novelists in 2003 ahead of the publication of her first book, “Brick Lane”, which was then adapted into a film in 2007. She is also the author of “Alentejo Blue”, “In the Kitchen”, “Untold Story” and “Love Marriage” and has been nominated for awards including the Booker prize, the Orwell prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. We spoke to Monica about her smash-hit debut, her screenwriting work and her latest book, “Love Marriage”. This episode is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative, the writing school attached to the major literary agency. CBC has provided an exclusive discount for Always Take Notes listeners. You can use the code ATN20 for £20 off the full price of Plot & Story – The Deep Dive, or any other four- or six-week online writing course. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways and on Instagram @alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com

Simon and Rachel speak with novelist David Mitchell. Raised in Worcestershire in England, Mitchell later spent eight years living in Japan. The author of nine novels, including "Cloud Atlas", "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" and most recently "Utopia Avenue", David has been nominated for the Booker prize five times. His work has appeared in over 30 languages. David's novel "The Bone Clocks" (2014) won the World Fantasy Book Award and his screenwriting credits include "Matrix: Resurrections". We spoke to David about his 'multiverse' approach to fiction, the smash hit that was "Cloud Atlas", and his screenwriting work. This episode is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative, the writing school attached to the major literary agency. CBC has provided an exclusive discount for Always Take Notes listeners. You can use the code ATN20 for £20 off the full price of Plot & Story – The Deep Dive, or any other four- or six-week online writing course. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenote