Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast/ Bird Lime Media

From home cook to food journalist and eventually chef and restaurateur, Ravinder Bhogal reflects on her own experiences as an immigrant in London and how it influenced a ‘no borders’ kitchen in her own restaurant.

Live from Bailey’s HQ, Louise Minchin, former BBC Breakfast Presenter, endurance athlete, writer and podcaster reveals how she coping with her kids flying the nest, finding time to judge the Women’s Prize and she discusses her new book, Fearless: Adventures with Extraordinary Women.

Louise is someone whose warmth, empathy and journalistic prowess will be familiar to millions of people across the UK, she presented BBC Breakfast for almost twenty years, lighting up TV screens across the nation and negotiating the delicate balance of being both someone who can ask difficult questions to those in power and someone you'd actually like to have breakfast with. In 2021 she decided to finally give herself a lie-in, though hasn’t exactly slowed down. She’s a keen - and incredibly successful triathlete and fitness ambassador, presenter of the Push Your Peak endurance podcast and is the chair of this year’s Women’s Prize judging panel. Plus she’s written two books - Dare to Tri followed her journey from the BBC Breakfast sofa to team GB triathlete and her new book, Fearless: Adventures with Extraordinary Women, is published at the end of May. 

Louise’s book choices are: 
**Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton
** The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende
** Room by Emma Donohue
** The Beasts of Clawstone Castle by Eva Ibbotson
** The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women.


Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Six? Listen and subscribe now!


This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Ruth Ozeki, winner of the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction discusses the power of meditation, the importance of writing beautiful lists and how novels eventually take on a life of their own. 

Not only an award winning writer, Ruth is also a filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. She is the author of five novels, The Book of Form and Emptiness, My Year of Meats, All Over Creation, A Tale for the Time Being, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and translated into 28 languages. She has also written a short memoir, Timecode of a Face. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she teaches creative writing at Smith College and is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities.

Ruth’s books:
** The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon 
** A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara 
** Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
** Piranesi by Susannah Clarke
** A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf 


Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women.


Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Six? Listen and subscribe now!


This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

In this very special bonus episode, Vick sits down with this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted authors, Jaqueline Crooks, Louise Kennedy, Barbara Kingsolver, Priscillla Morris, Maggie O’Farrell, and Laline Paull.

The locations of their books span the globe, from Renaissance Italy and Northern Ireland during The Troubles, to opioid-infested Virginia and even an underwater world populated with extraordinary creatures, and we’ll be finding out more about these phenomenal books and why they deserve a spot on your bookshelf during the episode.

The 2023 winner will be announced on Wednesday 14th June.

The shortlist:
**Fire Rush by Jaqueline Crooks
**Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
**Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
**Black Butterflies by Priscillla Morris
**The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
**Pod by Laline Paull


Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women.


Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Six? Listen and subscribe now!


This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Comedian Josie Long joins Vick to discuss internal monologues, her big move to Scotland and how ADHD is changing the way she sees the world and herself.

She may be best known for her standup comedy but she is also a podcaster, playwright, co-founder of the education charity Arts Emergency, and now an author, with her very own debut book , Because I don't know what you mean and what you don't - a brilliant, richly-drawn collection of short stories.

Josie started doing stand up at the tender age of  just 14 years old and by the time she was 17 - shortly before heading to Oxford University to study English - she won the BBC New Comedy Award. After graduating, she returned to the standup circuit and was named best newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006. She’s since become the first woman to be a triple nominee for the Edinburgh comedy award.

Josie’s book choices are:
** Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
** Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
** Experiments in Imagining Otherwise by Lola Olufemi
** New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver
** Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women.


Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Six? Listen and subscribe now!


This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Author, journalist and powerlifter Poorna Bell discusses love, loss, the depiction of South India in literature and female representation in the male-dominated world of sports.

Poorna Bell is an award-winning journalist, author and powerlifter(!) who writes across mental and physical wellbeing, women and diversity. Poorna has published three works of non-fiction: Chase The Rainbow, In Search of Silence and Stronger, which is part memoir, part manifesto about women's strength and fitness. In 2019 she won Stylist's Rising Star award, Red magazine's Big Book Award and secured a Sunday Times Sports Book Accolade in 2022. Her debut novel In Case of Emergency is out now.

Poorna’s book choices:
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Beloved by Toni Morrison
My Fight, Your Fight by Ronda Rousey
Luster by Raven Leilani
Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey

Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women.


Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Six? Listen and subscribe now!


This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.