Rippling Pages: Interviews with Writers

ripplingpages

Liam Bishop curating the best writers to help you with your writing

  1. 21 AUG

    Yan Ge Part 2 on Vulnerabilities, Younger Selves, Parents

    “I think when you’re young you really allow yourself to be stupid.” Welcome to part 2 of my conversation with Yan Ge. Yan Ge is here to discuss her life and writing. She was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province People’s Republic of China. Emerging as a prodigious writer in Chinese and Sichuanese, she was named as one of China’s twenty future literary masters by People Magazine. In 2012, she was chosen as Best New Writer by the Prestigious Chinese Literature Media Prize. For English language readers, Nicky Harman first translated her novella, White Horse, for Hope Road publishing in 2014, a story about young girls negotiating adolescence in the presence of a mysterious white horse. Then, four years later, Nicky translated The Chilli Bean Paste Clan in 2018, published by Balestier. Elsewhere arrived in 2023 (Faber), and Yan Ge treated us to a new dimension of her work entirely: short fiction and, for the first time, written in English.   Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink  Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how: https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages    Rippling Points Chapters  - 3.30 - writing parts of ourselves that are distinct  - 7.35 - SBoC taking off  - 10.05 - identifying vulnerabilities  - 12.15 -all consuming spells of writing  - 16.45 - finding balance  - 20.15 - inspired by a younger self - 24.40 - The Chilli Bean Paste Clan - 27.35 - food in Yan ges work - 31.35 - Yan’s parents   - 35.02 - Another Liam!   Reference Points Nicky Harman Jeremy Tiang

    37 min
  2. 7 AUG

    Yan Ge Part 1 on Happiness, Elsewhere, and Striving

    ”If I enter a project knowing what I’m going to do, confidently, I wouldn’t do it.” It’s Women in Translation Month! Yan Ge is here to discuss her life and writing. She was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province People’s Republic of China. Emerging as a prodigious writer in Chinese and Sichuanese, she was named as one of China’s twenty future literary masters by People Magazine. In 2012, she was chosen as Best New Writer by the Prestigious Chinese Literature Media Prize. For English language readers, Nicky Harman first translated her novella, White Horse, for Hope Road publishing in 2014, a story about young girls negotiating adolescence in the presence of a mysterious white horse. Then, four years later, Nicky translated The Chilli Bean Paste Clan in 2018, published by Balestier. Elsewhere arrived in 2023 (Faber), and Yan Ge treated us to a new dimension of her work entirely: short fiction and, for the first time, written in English.   Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink  Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how: https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages    Reference Points George Saunders   Rippling Points  Chapters 02.30 - connected by Leeds 4.20 - Drifting from the Chinese language 5.45 - Writing elsewhere in English 09.20 - Transforming the process 10:50 - A new relationship with language  14:05 - Linguistic and cultural experiences of the characters 16:47- Happiness 19:24 - Contentment and striving  21:00 - Rippling Pages Bookshop 23:41 - Making writing hard and easy 28:26 - Having belief

    34 min
  3. 24 JUL

    Kimberly Campanello - Bonus Content with memory, flags and music

    “She starts having an experience to see her own life as a more shifting sands that isn’t to be fear but in fact to be enjoyed.”   Kimberly Campanello is here to talk about her novel, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE (Somesuch Editions). It’s a sweltering summer in Bretagne, France. K, an American exchange student, is navigating more than just unfamiliar streets. She’s finding a new language. This is bonus content from the previous episode.  In this bonus content, I’ve asked Kimberly to provide me with some objects that Kimberly associated with writing the book, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE. It’s an interesting and new way to think about influence, and a way to understand both the book and the writer a bit more.  We talk about a flag, a musician, Alan Stivell, and something called a ‘Fest Noz’, all of them relating to the culture of Brittany where the novel is set. Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink  Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how: https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages  Rippling Points 1.54 - Proust and Memory 04.01 - Objects of influence 06.21 - Fest Noz 07.01 - Alan Stivell 08.29 - The Brittany Flag, the Blanche Ermine   Reference Point Jonathan Culler Arthur Rimbaud

    13 min
  4. 10 JUL

    Kimberly Campanello on Autofiction, the Midwest, and Notebooks

    “How do you sound like you know what you’re doing when you don’t have the words” Kimberly Campanello is here to talk about her novel, USE THE WORDS YOU HAVE (Somesuch Editions). It’s a sweltering summer in Bretagne, France. K, an American exchange student, is navigating more than just unfamiliar streets. She’s finding a new language. Kimberly’s work moves between forms, genres, and histories. She’s the author of MOTHERBABYHOME (zimZALLA), a harrowing and formally innovative response to Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes, is held in the national poetry special collections across the U.K and Ireland. Her poetry has appeared in publications like Granta, The White Review, and The Poetry Review, and essays in Tolka. And, this year, her poetry collection, AN INTERESTING DETAIL was released by Bloomsbury.  Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink  Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how: https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages  Rippling Points 01:30 - Motherbabyhome 02:07 - From motherbabyhome to Use the words you have 05:38 - What is the novel about 08:02 - Sounding like you know what you’re doing when you don’t 09:51 - Differences poetry and the novel 11:46 - Who is K 14:16 - Belief and reading 15:58 - Making sense through Rimbaud 16:28 - Life in the Midwest 20:03 - Rippling Pages Bookshop 21:05 - K in Paris 22:16 - K’s notebook 25:37 - Wonky translations 29:19 - Kimberly’s notebooks. Reference Points Hart Crane Dante Marguerite Duras Annie Ernaux Tony Harrison Marcel Proust Arthur Rimbaud  Nathalie Sarraute Bruce Omar Yates review https://thelondonmagazine.org/review-use-the-words-you-have-by-kimberly-campanello/

    35 min
  5. 26 JUN

    Uttama Kirit Patel on Letters, Motherhood, and Mother-in-Laws

    “I found myself writing an apology letter…and I didn’t know what I was apologising for.” In Uttama Kirit Patel’s novel, The Shape of an Apostrophe (Serpent’s Tail), Lina is pregnant, and she’s finding that this seemingly salubrious society is not congenial and accommodating to the difficult challenges of an unplanned pregnancy. Uttama, born to Gujarati parents who then since found their way to the United Arab Emirates via Kampala, Surat, Pondicherry and Colchester. Her short fiction was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for emerging writers. Remember, if you buy from Rippling Pages Bookshop on bookshop.org.uk are all sourced from indie bookshops! https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink  Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how: https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages  Reference Points Helen Phillips - The Need Rippling Points .30 - Uttama's life living around the world. 2.47 - An unexpected pregnancy 3.45 - Limited reproductive rights and setting the novel in Dubai 5.47 - writing a novel about someone who doesn't want children 6.30 - Uttama writing an apology letter to herself 7.59 - On desire 11.17 - Lina's relationship with her parents 12.57 - Does Lina have a support network? 14.03 - Lina's husband and her mother-in-law 16.44 - Is Lina's mother-in-law a feminist? 22.27 - Uttama's interest in sea-life. 24.10 - Lina's feeling of loss 26.41 - Lines, traces and artistry of Lina in the novel. 32.45 - Uttama's writing journey

    36 min
  6. 12 JUN

    Roisin Dunnett on Time Travel, Protest, and Littering

    "It is also difficult to imbue the people and the movements of the past with the complexities we offer ourselves."  If you were to meet a time traveller from the future, what would you ask them? This is the question Roisin Dunnett asks in her novel, A LINE YOU HAVE TRACED (Magpie Books/Oneworld Publications). Spanning over three centuries, three women are connected by forces they, at first, don’t understand. From post-WWI Britain, to East End London’s modern queer scene, to a portentous dystopian future, Roisin’s novel is coded with messages between the past, present and future. It's published by Magpie Books, an imprint of Oneworld.   You can buy A LINE YOU HAVE TRACED from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod Support the Rippling Pages on a new Patreon https://patreon.com/RipplingPagesPod?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink   Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how: https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages    Rippling Points 2.01 - the past, present and future. 3.55 - is there a past event that influenced this novel? 6.45 - Narratives of women 10.16 - which character did Roisin write first? 11.33 - Why do characters feel out of time 13.02 - Visions and dreams in Roisin's novel 19.24 - what would we do if we could actually see the future? 24.30 - The marshes in Roisin's novel.  29.24 - Does your dad pick up litter? 30.59 - Roisin's writing journey     Reference Points Charles Dickens

    35 min
  7. 29 MAY

    Rippling Pages Live with Katharina Volckmer Part 2 - On Clowns, Mothers and Part Time Jobs

    “They got fired for that!” Katharina Volckmer is here to discuss her second novel, Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes (Indigo Press) and it was live at the Hyde Park Book Club! Thank you to the Hyde Park Book Club for hosting us and Next Chapter Books for supporting the event. This is the second part of our conversation.  Katharina’s first novel, THE APPOINTMENT, was translated into over fifteen languages, it was adapted for the stage starring Camille Cottin and was nominated for several prizes. Katharina is in ribald mode in this funny, outlandish, and yet, very melancholic novel about a man called Jimmie who works in a call centre. Jimmie helps holiday makers.  He placates their fears about sharks in the waters of Mykonos, Greece, among many other strange and wonderful challenges.  He also manages a complicated relationship with his mother and has a traumatic memory of an electric carving knife that threatens to burst to the surface. The Irish writer, Colm Tóibín, said the book is ‘filled with brilliant dialogue, unexpected turns, some very dirty talk with sudden bursts of hilarity, and then fierce sadness.’ A special treat here - Leeds based poet Kirsty Went gave a reading for, some of her work to open the event. We’ve re-recorded for the purposes of the podcast. You can buy CALLS MAY BE RECORDED FOR TRAINING AND MONITORING PURPOSES from the Rippling Pages bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/ripplingpagespod Interested in hosting your own podcast? Follow this link and find out how: https://www.podbean.com/ripplingpages  Where to find Next Chapter Books:  https://www.nextchapterleeds.co.uk/    Rippling Points  1.35 - writing about mothers and fathers 5.03 - clowns 9.45 - on jokes and fantasies  11.23 - Kirsty Went reading  14.19 - questions from the audience - where does the relentless comic vulgarity come from? 20.10 - question from the audience - does this book fit into the wonderfully weird fiction category? Can we have more daring takes in fiction?  23.35- question from the audience - did Katharina know the book would end in this subversive way?  Reference points Thomas Bernhard

    26 min

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Liam Bishop curating the best writers to help you with your writing

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