Unsound Methods

Our first guest of 2022 is the novelist Keith Ridgway, author of, among other works, 'the Long Falling' (1998), 'the Parts' (2003), 'Animals' (2006), 'Hawthorn and Child' (2012) and, most recently, 'A Shock' (2021), which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. Keith was awarded the Rooney Prize in 2001. Our chat with Keith took us through the daily fight with the concept of routine, specificity of place, giving up writing and returning, and experiencing a reading crisis - followed by being knocked off the wagon by Georges Simenon. Keith's books are available through Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/keith-ridgway - or your local book shop... Keith is on Twitter: @rid9way Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Method

Our guest this month is Jenn Ashworth, author of A Kind of Intimacy (2009), Cold Light (2011), The Friday Gospels (2013), Fell (2017) and the non-fiction work Notes Made While Falling (2019). Her latest novel is Ghosted: A Love Story out now with Sceptre. She lives in Lancashire and is a Professor of Writing at Lancaster University. Amongst much else we talk about: getting through lockdown with the support of an online writing group, 100 days of writing, how to trick yourself into writing, not being a morning person, interrupting the previous day's writing and stopping in a good place, drowning in post-it notes, describing your writing problems as a way of solving them, and how the novels you’re writing make you sit in the nastiness of your own filth for several years... You can find out more about Jenn and her writing at her website: https://jennashworth.co.uk/ Jenn is on Twitter: @jennashworth And Instagram: @jennashworth82 Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's

This month we are joined by Lucie Elven, short-story writer and author of the Weak Spot, the debut novel published earlier this year by Prototype in the UK. Lucie has written for publications including the London Review of Books, Granta and NOON.   Our chat took us on an Alpine tour through topics including: how notes demand to be put into short stories or novels, developing a long-term relationship with an editor, the function of ambiguity in fiction, and plenty more. The Weak Spot is available through Prototype: https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/the-weak-spot/ Lucie is on Twitter: @lucieelven And Instagram: @lucieelven Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https:/

As we roll into autumn, we're joined by Rebecca Watson, novelist and arts writer. Rebecca's debut novel, Little Scratch, grew from a short story that was shortlisted for the White Review short story prize and the novel itself was shortlisted for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize.  Among all the other talking our chat took us through: expanding a short story into a novel. Investigating how writing can replicate the immediacy of thought. Playing with fiction and reality, and much more. You can find out more about Rebecca and her writing at her website here: https://www.rebeccawatson.co.uk/ Rebecca is on Twitter: @rebeccawhatsun And Instagram: @rebeccawhatsun Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcas

For our August '21 episode we're joined by Natasha Brown, the author of Assembly, which is published by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and will be released in the U.S. on 14th September 2021 by Little, Brown. Our discussion with Natasha includes workshopping at different stages, making speech real on the page, liberal use of index cards, and being in the enviable position of having a novel translated into other languages while it was still being edited. You can find out more about Natasha and her writing at her website here: https://npbrown.com/ Natasha is also on Instagram: @wordsbynatasha Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/ We are teaming up with

In this month's episode we're joined by the novelist Sophie Mackintosh, who is the author of 'the Water Cure' (2018) and 'Blue Ticket' (2020). Topics covered with Sophie include (alongside much more): the shift to writing full time, the importance of music and having a bespoke playlist for each book, and writing a synopsis at the very beginning to help visualise the shape of a project. You can find out more about Sophie at her website here: https://www.sophiemackintosh.co.uk/ Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/ We are teaming up with the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. With (almost certainly r

“If Adorno was alive today, he’d be writing about football. I don’t think he’d like it… but he’d be writing about it. And Gramsci for sure” In this, our 40th episode, we've got a special Euro 2020 edition of Unsound Methods, where we speak to writer and academic David Goldblatt. David is the author of non-fiction works which cover sport, particularly football, through a fascinating lens of history, sociology and politics. His books include the Ball is Round (2006), the Game of our Lives (2014) and, most recently, the Age of Football (2020). Our discussion takes us on a path through football and the Frankfurt school, the Colonization of the Life-world, the roots of Anthony Powell’s antipathy to sport, the growth of interest in football from Britain’s literary culture, and sport as an entry point to Bretton Woods, the IMF and Globalisation. The Age of Football is published by Picador - you can find out more here. You can find more about David Goldblatt at his website here: https://davidstephengoldblatt.co

In this episode we speak with DBC Pierre, author of Vernon God Little (for which he won the Booker Prize in 2003), Ludmila's Broken English (2006), Lights Out in Wonderland (2010), Breakfast with the Borgias (2014) and most recently, Meanwhile in Dopamine City which was published in 2020. Pierre joined us fresh off a bout of working on a non-fiction work and we discussed how this writing differed from fiction, how constantly reworking sections is a gift that provides intimacy with the text rather than drudgery, the perils of using two columns per page in a novel, using lockdown as a chrysalis for the next chapter and much more besides. Meanwhile in Dopamine City is published by Faber - you can find out more here. You can find more about DBC Pierre, including his writing and some of the finest book-related merch we've seen in a long while, at his website: http://www.dbcpierre.com/ Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan We have a store p

In this month's episode, we speak to Jon McGregor, whose latest novel Lean, Fall, Stand is published by Fourth Estate on 29th April. Jon joined us in the midst of full fat lockdown to discuss how he constructs his novels, his writing residency in Antarctica and the research with people who suffer from aphasia and their carers that informed Lean, Fall, Stand. Jon's novels include: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2002), So Many Ways to Begin (2006), Even the Dogs (2010) and Reservoir 13 (2017). Jon has won the IMPAC Dublin Literature Prize, the Betty Trask and Somerset Maugham awards, been longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. Photo credit: Jo Wheeler Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound

In episode 37 we're joined by Douglas Robertson to celebrate the publication of his brand new translation of Thomas Bernhard's Die Billigesser (the Cheap Eaters) and to discuss our favourite Austrian monologuing misanthrope. Douglas is a writer and translator based in Keystone, Florida. He studied British and American Literature at the New College of Florida and Johns Hopkins University. He has translated works from German into English by authors including E. T. A. Hoffmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Christian Morgenstern, Novalis, and Ludwig Tieck, and he has studied Thomas Bernhard’s work for over ten years. Thomas Bernhard was one of the most important and unique writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1931, Bernhard published numerous novels and autobiographical writings, as well as short stories, plays, and poetry, including The Loser and Extinction. After years of chronic lung illness, Bernhard died in Austria in 1989. Douglas would like to give a shout out to his friend flowerville, a native German

Something a little different for the first pod of 2021: Lochlan and Jaimie get together (remotely) and have a couple of drinks to celebrate the launch of Jaimie's debut novel 'Siphonophore' - which is out now through Valley Press. The chat covers Jaimie's approach to writing, a bit of his history, sacrilegious suggestions of cuts to Finnegans Wake and a discussion of the fundamental weakness of analogies highlighting unnecessary cruelty to both cats and frogs. If you are interested in reading Siphonophore (and huge thanks if you are - JB), then you can find the book here: https://www.valleypressuk.com/book/154/siphonophore - by using the discount code 'SAVEMACG' listeners can get 10% off the price. The documentary that Jaimie refers to is called 'Nothing Changes: Art for Hank's Sake' (2018, dir. Matthew Kaplowitz) about the artist Hank Virgona. We have a store page on Bookshop, where you can find our books, as well as those of previous guests: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/unsoundmethods Find us on Twitte

In this month's episode, we caught up with John Englehardt, author of 'Bloomland' (2019, Dzanc Books). John has also written for Vol.1 Brooklyn, Sycamore Review, The Stranger, Seattle Review of Books, Conium Review, Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere. Bloomland deals with the lead-up and fall-out of a college shooting through three separate narratives, told in the second person. Spanning two decades, Bloomland interrogates the social roots of the shooting and its effect on a community struggling to use violence as a catalyst for self-reflection and change. John is on Twitter: @johnenglehardt1 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.englehardt.7 Instagram: @john.englehardt His website is: https://johnenglehardt.com/ Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/ We have teamed up with the Institute o

In this month's episode we took a wild ride with David Keenan. David was born in Glasgow and grew up in Airdrie, in the west of Scotland, in the late-70s and early-1980s. He is the author of three novels, the cult classic This Is Memorial Device, which won the Collyer Bristow/London Magazine Award for Debut Fiction 2018 and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, For The Good Times, which won the Gordon Burn Prize in 2019, and Xstabeth. We travelled far and wide in this episode, covering, amongst much else: using faith in your writing as your only compass, performing a DJ set in Tolstoy’s front garden, the beauty of a character from a previous novel turning up unexpectedly in later work and lucky cap disposal. “Research is an excuse for not inventing.” If you'd like to take a step into David's personal chill-space, the books he mentioned are: ‘Incised Effigial Slabs’ by F. A. Greenhill (1976) and ‘Monastic Architecture in France’ by Joan Evans (1964). Xstabeth is published by White Rabbit on 12th Nove

In this month's episode we speak to Gabriel Josipovici. Gabriel's first novel was published in 1968 and his writing career spans over twenty works of fiction, numerous works of criticism and non-fiction, and regular articles in the TLS. Continuing our current coronavirus set-up, Gabriel joined us remotely from Sussex and our discussion covered how his writing has developed over six decades, the perils of writing an unexpectedly backlash-provoking book on Modernism, the creative possibilities revealed by examining painters & composers and much more. The 'acceptably long' novel we briefly discussed was George Perec’s ‘Life: A User’s Manual’ The vast majority of Gabriel's work is published by Carcanet: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=368 Gabriel's website is here: http://www.gabrieljosipovici.org/ Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever

“What you push against is as important as what you reach towards” On this month's episode we speak to Irish-Canadian author Anakana Schofield, author of Malarky (2013), Martin John (2016) and Bina (2020). Anakana joined us from the West Coast of Canada to discuss representations of older women in fiction, the musical score of the novel and missing out on multiple Christmases to complete her work, plus much else besides. In the UK, Anakana has written for the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/07/what-we-gain-from-keeping-books-and-why-it-doesnt-need-to-be-joy-marie-kondo https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/20/unsinkable-characters-anakana-schofield-top-10 Her website is here: www.anakanaschofield.com And she is on Twitter: @anakanaschofiel Instagram: @anakana.schofield Bina is published in the UK by Fleet (Little Brown), in Canada by Knopf Canada and will be published in the U.S. by New York Review of Books (out in early 2021).  There's a great video interview with Ana

Something a little different this month as Lochlan and Jaimie pause to review how the COVID-19 lockdown has impacted their reading and writing, and to take a look back at the teenage reading paths that led them to experimental/innovative fiction. We'd love to hear about your lockdown reading and writing and the reading path you've taken through the fiction forest. Contact us through Twitter, or email us at: unsoundmethodspod@gmail.com Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/

In episode 30, we speak to writer, translator and musician, Jen Calleja, author of the short story collection 'I'm Afraid that's All We've Got Time For' (2020, Prototype). We (remotely, respecting social distancing!) discuss bus travel as fertile ground for creativity, writing across different forms - from translation to poetry, novels and short stories, and the insight gained from working with writers whose work you are translating - and plenty more besides. *** There is a very slight technical glitch with this episode's sound, but we've fixed it as best we can - apologies if the sound isn't quite as clean as it usually is *** You can buy 'I'm Afraid that's All We've Got Time For' here: https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/im-afraid-thats-all-weve-got-time-for/ You can find out more about Jen's writing at her website: www.jencalleja.com She's on Twitter: @niewview and Instagram: @jencalleja_ Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_bat

In episode 29, we speak to writer and broadcaster Hamid Ismailov. Hamid joined us pre-Covid-19-lockdown, on his way to the Faversham Literature Festival. Hamid's novels include 'the Devil's Dance' and 'of Strangers and Bees', both available through Tilted Axis Press in the UK. More info at: https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/hamid-ismailov As a writer who works in Uzbek, Russian and English, our discussion took us on a Eurasian tour of societies, cultures and languages. Hamid outlined his 'writing a book during autumn and winter' approach, and we learnt a bit more about what it's like to be banned in your own country (not just his work, Hamid continues to be prohibited from entering Uzbekistan to this day). Author image credit: Amos Chapple Hamid is on Twitter: @ismailov_writer Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https

This episode is a little different to our usual output as we speak to Jonathan Simons: publisher, writer, editor, musician, occasional translator, and the person behind the Analog Sea Review. The Analog Sea is an 'offline publisher of printed books', but there's much more to it that that - as you will hear, Jonathan's entire approach involves shunning the online world, almost as a revolutionary act. We discuss the reasons behind this approach, the insights it provides and the contradictions that it inevitably involves. The Analog Sea's sprawling comprehensive* website (as discussed in the show) is available here: https://www.analogsea.com/ To receive a copy of the latest Analog Sea Bulletin, send a letter to. PO Box 11670 Austin, Texas 78711 United States or Basler Strasse 115 79115 Freiburg Germany For obvious reasons, Jonathan is not on social media, but we are: Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan Thanks for listening, p

In episode 27 we speak to Caleb Klaces, poet, academic and author of 'Fatherhood' (2019, Prototype). Caleb is also the author of 'Bottled Air' (2013), winner of the Melita Hume Prize and an Eric Gregory Award, as well as two chapbooks: 'All Safe All Well' (2011) and 'Modern Version' (2018). He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and English Literature at York St John University, and runs the York Centre for Writing Poetry Series. Fatherhood is available here: https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/product/fatherhood/ The book discussed during the AI chat is 'the Bestseller Code' by Jodie Archer and Matthew Jockers. You can read some of Caleb's poetry here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/caleb-klaces Find us on Twitter: @UnsoundMethods - @JaimieBatchan - @LochlanBloom Jaimie's Instagram is: @jaimie_batchan Thanks for listening, please like, subscribe and rate Unsound Methods wherever you get your podcasts. Our website is: https://unsoundmethods.co.uk/