Podcast Episodes

Writing and Holding

Episode 51

‘Let words pass through you in a small contained space’

This week, we join Sally for a meditation on creating and inhabiting a space in which to write, and to be held, via the work of the novelist V.…

Published on 1 year, 10 months ago

Insomnia

Episode 50

‘Perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.’

This week, Sally is reading Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Insomnia’, a poem full of shifting, uncertain geographies and marvellous depths. How do we navigate the strange la…

Published on 1 year, 11 months ago

The White Rabbit

Episode 49

‘I shall be late!’

Sally has been following the White Rabbit this week, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and reflecting on the ever-increasing demands on the writer’s time. Follow her down the …

Published on 1 year, 11 months ago

New Year’s Night

Episode 48

‘How do you remember people first?’

We join Sally on New Year’s Night, staying with a relative in Chichester, a familiar city from her childhood. Join her for a meditation on embodiment, memory, and …

Published on 2 years ago

In the Bleak Midwinter

Episode 47

This week, we join Sally in the middle of a winter night. Follow her reflections on festive traditions, via Christina Rossetti, and on seeing the world through illness, with Emily Brontë, and John Mi…

Published on 2 years ago

A Difficult Balance With Pain

Episode 46

For Demi.

‘And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating / Of dark habits, / keeping their difficult balance.’

This week, Sally has been living with Richard Wilbur’s ‘Love Calls Us to the Things of t…

Published on 2 years ago

What are Days For?

Episode 45

For Keyang.

‘Where can we live but days?’

This week, Sally has been reading and living with Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Days’, from The Whitsun Weddings. Join her for a meditation on how we spend our days,…

Published on 2 years, 1 month ago

The Narrow Passage

Episode 44

‘This is how I prefer to live…inside a narrow passage…’

Sally is still living with Wuthering Heights this week, as she meditates on the nature of life in confined spaces, both in fiction and on her n…

Published on 2 years, 1 month ago

An Announcement, and a Story

Episode 43

‘I can’t live without story now…it feels like breathing.’

This week, Sally is travelling to Sicily, for a conversation with Marina Warner on ‘Life Writing, Memory and Fiction.’ Before leaving, she of…

Published on 2 years, 1 month ago

Wuthering Heights

Episode 42

‘Are you brave enough to follow me there?’

This week, Sally has been reading Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights. Fixated on the dreams of its narrator, join her for her reflections on rage,…

Published on 2 years, 1 month ago