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PODCAST

Unsound Methods

Unsound Methods

A literary fiction podcast hosted by authors Jaimie Batchan and Lochlan Bloom. We talk to fellow writers of literary fiction about process, what makes fiction "real" and the motivation to sit down in front of an empty page and make things up...

arts books

All Episodes

46:46

66: Sarah Bernstein

Unsound Methods ·

2024/12/11

In this episode we caught up with Canadian writer Sarah Bernstein (featuring occasional contributions from her then newborn child). Sarah is the author of the novels 'the Coming Bad Days' (2021) and 'Study for Obedience' (2023) and the poetry collection 'Now Comes the Lightening' (2015).Recorded back at the beginning of 2024, our chat covers, amongst other things, the relative importance of voice over story in Sarah’s writing, the overlap between academic writing and fiction, including references

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51:23

65: Ron Butlin

Unsound Methods ·

2024/11/06

This month we are speaking with international prize-winning novelist and former Edinburgh Makar / Poet Laureate (2008-2014), Ron Butlin.In 2009 he was made the first-ever Honorary Writing Fellow (together with Ian Rankin) at Edinburgh University. Much of his work — novels, short stories and poetry — has been widely broadcast and translated. In addition to his plays for BBC radio and theatre, he has written seven opera libretti, three of them for Scottish Opera. He also writes for children. Ron

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50:01

64: Amina Cain

Unsound Methods ·

2024/06/26

This month's episode features our chat with novelist and short story writer Amina Cain, the author of the novel Indelicacy, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and finalist for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, published in 2020 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and two collections of short stories, Creature and I Go To Some Hollow. Her latest book, A Horse at Night: On Writing, came out in October of 2022 with Dorothy, a publishing project in the US and Daunt

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52:31

63: Christopher Priest

Unsound Methods ·

2024/05/29

This month’s episode is our chat with the late Christopher Priest, who sadly passed away on 2nd February 2024. In what will have been one of his last interviews, we spoke to Christopher on 3rd November 2023, where he talked us through his development as a writer, his skepticism about using notebooks, dealing with dreadful editors, not writing for nine years, and how writing is like walking to Doncaster. Christopher was a hugely acclaimed writer, and having written for nearly 60 years, his work

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62:53

62: Bill Drummond

Unsound Methods ·

2024/04/24

This month we return to our first in-person recording for way too long, as we sat down with writer, musician and all-round cultural agitator Bill Drummond. As half of the KLF, Bill produced some of the finest singles of the 1990s, before dumping a dead sheep at the door of the Brit Awards, deleting the group's back catalogue and burning a million quid on a Scottish Island. But he has a writing life so rich and interesting that we don't ask him a single question about any of that. You can access

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45:14

61: Iman Mersal

Unsound Methods ·

2024/03/27

This month, we are speaking to the Egyptian poet and author Iman Mersal. We talk about the genesis of ideas, structure and form when writing in Arabic, and the importance of urgency in directing your writing. Iman's work includes the creative non-fiction work Traces of Enayat (2023, And Other Stories https://www.andotherstories.org/traces-of-enayat/), and her poetry has been featured in numerous publications such as Blackbird, The American Poetry Review, Parnassus, The New York Review of Books,

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44:28

60: Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams

Unsound Methods ·

2024/02/21

Episode 60 with Natasha Soobramanien and Luke WilliamsThis month, we are speaking to not one but two authors as we discuss collaborative writing with Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams. Natasha and Luke are the joint authors of Diego Garcia, winner of the 2022 Goldsmiths Prize. We talk about their unique approach to crafting a novel and the differences between empathy and solidarity, as well as the current situation for the displaced Chagossian people, a key focus of their novel. An

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53:10

59: David Shields

Unsound Methods ·

2024/01/24

We're opening 2024 with our chat with David Shields: David is the internationally bestselling author of twenty-five books, including Reality Hunger (which, in 2020, Lit Hub named one of the most important books of the past decade), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award), Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity (PEN/Revson

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55:44

58: Johanna Hedva

Unsound Methods ·

2023/07/26

In this episode we're joined by Johanna Hedva, a Korean American writer, artist, and musician who was raised in Los Angeles by a family of witches, and now lives in LA and Berlin. Johanna is the author of the essay ‘Sick Woman Theory’, originally published in 2016, which has now been translated into ten languages. Hedva is also the author of the novel On Hell, which was one of Dennis Cooper’s favourite books of 2018, and the nonfiction collection Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain. 'Your Love is

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49:15

57: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Unsound Methods ·

2023/06/28

For episode 57 we caught up with the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, author of 8 novels, 3 collections of short stories, numerous plays and pieces of non-fiction and 5 memoirs. An indefatigable defender and promoter of African literature and language, Ngũgĩ’s writing spans from the early 1960s onwards. He talked to us about his journey to becoming a writer, from having friends who proved he didn’t need to wait for permission, then being a central figure in the emergence of African writing’s

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56:20

56: Daisy Hildyard

Unsound Methods ·

2023/05/17

For episode 56 we're joined by Daisy Hildyard, the author of two novels – Emergency (2022) and Hunters in the Snow (2013) – and one work of nonfiction, The Second Body (2017). Daisy’s first novel, Hunters in the Snow, received the Somerset Maugham Award and a ‘5 under 35’ honorarium at the USA National Book Awards. Her essay The Second Body, a brilliantly lucid account of the dissolving boundaries between all life on earth, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2017. She lives with her family

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51:22

55: Ewan Fernie & Simon Palfrey

Unsound Methods ·

2023/01/18

This month marks the fifth anniversary of Unsound Methods - thank you to everyone who's joined us along the way, and hello to any new arrivals... In this episode we speak to Ewan Fernie and Simon Palfrey about the writing of their collaboratively composed novel 'Macbeth, Macbeth' (available from Boiler House Press, here: https://www.boilerhouse.press/product-page/macbeth-macbeth-by-ewan-fernie-simon-palfrey) 'Macbeth, Macbeth' is described by its authors as a critical fiction. A sequel,

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49:28

54: Jenny Landreth

Unsound Methods ·

2022/11/16

In a slight shift from our literary fiction focus, we caught up with writer and script editor Jenny Landreth - one of the driving forces behind the brilliant children's animated TV show 'Hey Duggee'. Having both become fathers only weeks apart in the summer of 2018, Hey Duggee was one of the most joyful discoveries in the often barren wastelands of our young daughters' TV choices... We learnt about how script editing works and how a show like Hey Duggee is put together, as well as speaking a little

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59:38

53: Etgar Keret

Unsound Methods ·

2022/10/19

In this episode with chatted with Etgar Keret, writer of short stories, comics, a children's book and a memoir. Etgar's books have been published in fifty languages. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Le Monde, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Paris Review and Zoetrope. He is currently a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has received the Book Publishers Association's Platinum Prize several times, the St Petersburg Public Library's Foreign Favourite Award (2010) and

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57:24

52: Daniel Davis Wood

Unsound Methods ·

2022/08/17

Our guest in this episode is Australian writer Daniel Davis Wood, author of Blood and Bone (2014) which won the Viva La Novella Prize and At the Edge of the Solid World (2020), which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Our chat with Daniel covered unconventional composition techniques derived from artistic practice, the difference between writing novellas and novels, reading your work out loud and plenty more. We also briefly covered Daniel's work as a publisher with his press Splice.

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61:21

51: Claudia Durastanti

Unsound Methods ·

2022/07/13

Episode 51 with Claudia Durastanti. This month we speak to writer and translator Claudia Durastanti. We cover the importance of travel and geography in writing, mapping fictional spaces, translation and the overlap of metaphor between languages. Claudia is the author of Strangers I Know and Cleopatra Goes To Prison, translated to English, as well as well as Un giorno verrò a lanciare sassi alla tua finestra and A Chloe, per le ragioni sbagliate. Claudia is on twitter here:

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41:37

50: Miguel Cullen

Unsound Methods ·

2022/05/18

Hitting the half century, we speak to British-Argentine poet and journalist Miguel Cullen, author of collections including Wave Caps (2014), Paranoid Narcissism! (2017) and, most recently, Hologram (2022). Miguel's work has involved integrating sound chips and video-screens into the bound collections, raising some interesting blends of form. He has been published by Caught by the River, Abridged, Lunar Poetry, Magma Poetry, Purple Fashion Magazine and Stand. He was shortlisted for the Canterbury

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45:01

49: Sara Baume

Unsound Methods ·

2022/04/20

This month we speak to writer and artist Sara Baume. Sara is the author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither (2015), A Line Made by Walking (2017), the non-fiction handiwork (2020) and Seven Steeples, which is released this month on Tramp Press, who have published all of her work so far. Amongst much else, we cover: living a creative life that combines writing and visual art; learning narrative from arthouse cinema; finding a form from the original idea; writing slowly; abandoning work that doesn’t feel

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49:19

48: Richard Beard

Unsound Methods ·

2022/03/16

In this episode we speak to writer Richard Beard. Richard’s six novels include Lazarus is Dead, Dry Bones and Damascus, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His novel Acts of the Assassins was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, and he is the author of five works of narrative non-fiction. His memoir The Day That Went Missing won the 2018 PEN Ackerley Award for literary autobiography and in the US was a National Book Critics Circle finalist. His latest memoir/polemic is Sad Little

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53:11

47: Sam Byers

Unsound Methods ·

2022/02/23

In our latest episode we had a chat with novelist Sam Byers, author of Idiopathy (2013), Perfidious Albion (2018) and last year's Come Join Our Disease. We talked about needing to write ideas down and how they eventually demand it, using a journal while writing a novel, getting the voice right before venturing too far and the vast gulf between dialogue on the page and in the real world. Sam has a website: http://sambyers.co.uk/ Sam's books are available through Bookshop:

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