‘She brought so little personality with her that she seemed scarcely to disturb the air…’

This week, marking the arrival of Autumn, Sally has been thinking about literary arrivals, in particular those in L.P. Hartley’s 1957 novel, The Hireling. Listen for a meditation on the choreography of writing and the arrangement of characters, including those featured in Sally’s forthcoming work, Mrs Parnell.

This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.

Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.

‘From Waterloo Station to the small country town of Ramsgard in Dorset is a journey of not more than three or four hours, but having by good luck found a compartment to himself, Wolf Solent was able to indulge in such an orgy of concentrated thought, that these three or four hours lengthened themselves out into something beyond all human measurement.’

We rejoin Sally this week in conversation with the producer, James Bowen, discussing how to navigate, and ultimately teach, ‘difficult’ literature, drawing on John Cooper Powys’ Wolf Solent (1929) and James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). Listen for a discussion of ambiguity, pedagogy, and the role of the author in narrative resolution.

More information on Powys can be found here.

Sally’s fable, Worm in the Bud, will be published in November of this year by The New Menard Press. It will be available from all good booksellers.

You can also find out more about James and his work here.

This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.

Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.

‘The fate of the writer is to dwell in that realm of shadows and apparitions and half-seen thoughts…’

This week, we join Sally sketching a scene for her new novel, Mrs Parnell, in which the stern housekeeper Mrs Parsons encounters a figure on the stairs. But who is this figure? An intruder? A suitor? Or even, perhaps, a reimagining of Gabriel Conroy, from Joyce’s short story ‘The Dead’ (1914)? Listen for an immersion in Sally’s creative process, developing an image and its home in a narrative.

Gabriel was previously the topic of Sally’s conversation with the producer in the last episode. Listen here.

This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen.

Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.