60 acast.com Write-Off with Francesca Steele https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele en Francesca Steele Books,Writing,Authors,Rejection Francesca Steele Rejection and how authors get past it

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]]> false Francesca Steele francesca.steele@gmail.com 608a7e839e46326c1216393a write-off-with-francesca-steele episodic https://assets.pippa.io/shows/undefined/1619688785722-bba5b02d4af07f048604840c0051ae86.jpeg https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele Write-Off with Francesca Steele REPLAY Jenny Jackson REPLAY Jenny Jackson Thu, 13 Apr 2023 04:34:53 GMT 51:27 6436ddd7280c2a0011e029f2 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/replay-jenny-jackson 6436ddd7280c2a0011e029f2 608a7e839e46326c1216393a replay-jenny-jackson full 3 Since releasing this episode in January, Pineapple Street, now out in the UK, has become a New York Times bestseller! Enjoy!


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Jenny Jackson’s forthcoming novel Pineapple Street is one of the best books I’ve read in the last year, but Jenny is also a Vice President and Executive Editor at Knopf, so she knows all about publishing from the other side of things too. She has an incredible list of authors, from Emily St John Mandel, to Cormac McCarthy, Helen Fielding, Katherine Heiny, who we’ve had on this podcast before. And she says that after 20 years in publishing writing has taught her to be a better editor. Finally, she says, she understands why it is that authors can be so reluctant to revise. 


Jenny actually wrote another novel right before Pineapple Street that she wasn’t able to publish and the experience left her heartbroken. Luckily for us, she decided to jump straight back in and write something else. 


I’m so grateful to Jenny for sharing that experience here, and also for her advice on fulfilling and subverting reader expectations, rejecting authors she’s already worked with and what it felt like to have friends in publishing pass on Pineapple Street. 


Pineappe Street isn’t out in the UK until 13 April but I really recommend that you pre-order it. It really is that good. And I will rerelease this episode coming up to publication. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Since releasing this episode in January, Pineapple Street, now out in the UK, has become a New York Times bestseller! Enjoy!


---


Jenny Jackson’s forthcoming novel Pineapple Street is one of the best books I’ve read in the last year, but Jenny is also a Vice President and Executive Editor at Knopf, so she knows all about publishing from the other side of things too. She has an incredible list of authors, from Emily St John Mandel, to Cormac McCarthy, Helen Fielding, Katherine Heiny, who we’ve had on this podcast before. And she says that after 20 years in publishing writing has taught her to be a better editor. Finally, she says, she understands why it is that authors can be so reluctant to revise. 


Jenny actually wrote another novel right before Pineapple Street that she wasn’t able to publish and the experience left her heartbroken. Luckily for us, she decided to jump straight back in and write something else. 


I’m so grateful to Jenny for sharing that experience here, and also for her advice on fulfilling and subverting reader expectations, rejecting authors she’s already worked with and what it felt like to have friends in publishing pass on Pineapple Street. 


Pineappe Street isn’t out in the UK until 13 April but I really recommend that you pre-order it. It really is that good. And I will rerelease this episode coming up to publication. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Tessa Hadley Tessa Hadley Thu, 16 Feb 2023 05:10:22 GMT 57:04 63e7560f76a4a40010f033a1 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/tessa-hadley 63e7560f76a4a40010f033a1 608a7e839e46326c1216393a tessa-hadley full 3 10 If you want to write domestic fiction I cannot recommend reading Tessa Hadley, or indeed listening to her here, enough. 


Tessa, who has been long-listed twice for what is now the Women’s Prize and whom the Washington Post called “one of the greatest stylists alive”, wrote four failed novels throughout her thirties and was finally published aged 46, with Accidents in the Home. She has now written eight novels and is one of the modern masters of domestic fiction, burrowing into the complex inner lives of middle aged women and the clashes between them, their feelings and the outer world. 


They are books of enormous sensitviy but also, as Tessa says here, born of a lot of control and labour, and while Tessa is clear about how compelled she is to write she is also keen to dispel the idea that it is in any way easy. “I’m a slow and painful writer.. writing in a knot of constipation” she says,. 


I find her story as riveting as her writing. She worked away for years on what she later realised were all the wrong sorts off things - books about big political events when really she was interested in things closer to home. I found her fascinating on how she kept going (even when someone told her nobody wanted to read stories about people in their forties) and how writing is learning to hear what you sound like in readers minds.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> If you want to write domestic fiction I cannot recommend reading Tessa Hadley, or indeed listening to her here, enough. 


Tessa, who has been long-listed twice for what is now the Women’s Prize and whom the Washington Post called “one of the greatest stylists alive”, wrote four failed novels throughout her thirties and was finally published aged 46, with Accidents in the Home. She has now written eight novels and is one of the modern masters of domestic fiction, burrowing into the complex inner lives of middle aged women and the clashes between them, their feelings and the outer world. 


They are books of enormous sensitviy but also, as Tessa says here, born of a lot of control and labour, and while Tessa is clear about how compelled she is to write she is also keen to dispel the idea that it is in any way easy. “I’m a slow and painful writer.. writing in a knot of constipation” she says,. 


I find her story as riveting as her writing. She worked away for years on what she later realised were all the wrong sorts off things - books about big political events when really she was interested in things closer to home. I found her fascinating on how she kept going (even when someone told her nobody wanted to read stories about people in their forties) and how writing is learning to hear what you sound like in readers minds.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Andrew Sean Greer Andrew Sean Greer Thu, 09 Feb 2023 05:07:54 GMT 51:46 63e3e97b1886010010cd9e40 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/andrew-sean-greer 63e3e97b1886010010cd9e40 608a7e839e46326c1216393a andrew-sean-greer full 3 9 Andrew Sean Greer is the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of six novels including Less and Less is Lost, which are both bittersweet, tragicomic road trip tales about Arthur Less, a failing and flailing mid-list novelist. But it’s not just through his fiction that Greer is familiar with mid-list despondency. He originally wrote Less when he was feeling exactly that way himself, but then, although it was rejected by 12 British publishers, felt slightly less dependent when it went on to win the Pulitzer! Last he year he published a follow-on, Less is Lost, which his agent actually advised him not to write for reasons we discuss. He did it anyway. 


I love this interview. Andrew is just such a jolly yet occasionally reassuringly despairing writer, racking up dozens of drafts and being honest about the poverty early writing can involve. I loved in particular talking to him about the details of turning the originally serious Less into a comic novel, and also about finding the diamond heist. You’ll have to listen to end to find out what that means but I think it’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard. Find the diamond heist!


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Andrew Sean Greer is the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of six novels including Less and Less is Lost, which are both bittersweet, tragicomic road trip tales about Arthur Less, a failing and flailing mid-list novelist. But it’s not just through his fiction that Greer is familiar with mid-list despondency. He originally wrote Less when he was feeling exactly that way himself, but then, although it was rejected by 12 British publishers, felt slightly less dependent when it went on to win the Pulitzer! Last he year he published a follow-on, Less is Lost, which his agent actually advised him not to write for reasons we discuss. He did it anyway. 


I love this interview. Andrew is just such a jolly yet occasionally reassuringly despairing writer, racking up dozens of drafts and being honest about the poverty early writing can involve. I loved in particular talking to him about the details of turning the originally serious Less into a comic novel, and also about finding the diamond heist. You’ll have to listen to end to find out what that means but I think it’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard. Find the diamond heist!


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Monica Heisey Monica Heisey Thu, 02 Feb 2023 05:16:59 GMT 51:27 63da661cac6f520011aaa5cd false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/monica-heisey 63da661cac6f520011aaa5cd 608a7e839e46326c1216393a monica-heisey full 3 8 Monica Heisey is the author of the very funny Really Good, Actually, which just came out a week ago and became an instant Sunday times bestseller. It’s about a woman in her twenties getting divorced, which is something that Monica herself did aged 28, weirdly just after she had begun to write a different novel in which her character Kathleen had started to have marriage problems. 


That book didn’t make it, which we talk about here, but Monica is actually pretty used to things not making it because she’s also a TV writer (her credits include Schitt's Creek) and comedian, worlds in which rejection at various stages really is par for the course. 


Monica was so great to talk to about outlines; since doing this interview I feel enthusiastic about plotting for the first time ever! We also chat about avoiding writing until characters pop up in your head all the time, and about rom coms (yes, we talk about When Harry Met Sally in this interview), and why heartbreak might actually be easier to write about than love. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Monica Heisey is the author of the very funny Really Good, Actually, which just came out a week ago and became an instant Sunday times bestseller. It’s about a woman in her twenties getting divorced, which is something that Monica herself did aged 28, weirdly just after she had begun to write a different novel in which her character Kathleen had started to have marriage problems. 


That book didn’t make it, which we talk about here, but Monica is actually pretty used to things not making it because she’s also a TV writer (her credits include Schitt's Creek) and comedian, worlds in which rejection at various stages really is par for the course. 


Monica was so great to talk to about outlines; since doing this interview I feel enthusiastic about plotting for the first time ever! We also chat about avoiding writing until characters pop up in your head all the time, and about rom coms (yes, we talk about When Harry Met Sally in this interview), and why heartbreak might actually be easier to write about than love. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Alan Garner Alan Garner Thu, 26 Jan 2023 05:08:34 GMT 46:26 63d0f9651b2cf50011482a34 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/alan-garner 63d0f9651b2cf50011482a34 608a7e839e46326c1216393a alan-garner full 3 7 Last year, Alan Garner became the oldest person ever to be shortlisted for the Booker prize, at the age of 87, for his novel Treacle Walker. Alan has been writing novels and other books for more than 60 years, many of them rooted in the folklore and mythology of Cheshire where he is from. His first novel The Weirdstone of Brisingamen had people calling him the new Tolkien and he received an OBE in 2001 for services to literature. 


Among Alan’s books is his incredible memoir Where Shall We Run To, in which he describes his childhood. He was a very sick child and spent days, weeks, staring at the wall of his bedroom during the second world war, thinking and dreaming, and perhaps sowing the seeds of becoming an author years later, But he also describes the pain of being cast out of his community when he got into grammar school. A rejection that still seems to pain him today and which feeds into the type of writing that he does. 


Alan has an unusual writing process, that often involves years of what he calls gestation, where he barely writes at all, waiting for the subconscious part of the brain to come up with the goods, and I think there’s something to learn from this - that a writer’s work really isn’t all done at the desk, and that patience isn’t just a virtue but a necessity. 


I loved chatting to Alan about writing swear words on the first manuscripts he was throughly dissatisfied with, thinking T.S. Eliot’s wasteland was a load of rubbish and giving up academia to write even when he had no idea whether he’d be any good. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Last year, Alan Garner became the oldest person ever to be shortlisted for the Booker prize, at the age of 87, for his novel Treacle Walker. Alan has been writing novels and other books for more than 60 years, many of them rooted in the folklore and mythology of Cheshire where he is from. His first novel The Weirdstone of Brisingamen had people calling him the new Tolkien and he received an OBE in 2001 for services to literature. 


Among Alan’s books is his incredible memoir Where Shall We Run To, in which he describes his childhood. He was a very sick child and spent days, weeks, staring at the wall of his bedroom during the second world war, thinking and dreaming, and perhaps sowing the seeds of becoming an author years later, But he also describes the pain of being cast out of his community when he got into grammar school. A rejection that still seems to pain him today and which feeds into the type of writing that he does. 


Alan has an unusual writing process, that often involves years of what he calls gestation, where he barely writes at all, waiting for the subconscious part of the brain to come up with the goods, and I think there’s something to learn from this - that a writer’s work really isn’t all done at the desk, and that patience isn’t just a virtue but a necessity. 


I loved chatting to Alan about writing swear words on the first manuscripts he was throughly dissatisfied with, thinking T.S. Eliot’s wasteland was a load of rubbish and giving up academia to write even when he had no idea whether he’d be any good. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Jenny Jackson Jenny Jackson Thu, 19 Jan 2023 05:11:39 GMT 50:59 63c80bf3636a950010532267 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/jenny-jackson 63c80bf3636a950010532267 608a7e839e46326c1216393a jenny-jackson full 3 6 Jenny Jackson’s forthcoming novel Pineapple Street is one of the best books I’ve read in the last year, but Jenny is also a Vice President and Executive Editor at Knopf, so she knows all about publishing from the other side of things too. She has an incredible list of authors, from Emily St John Mandel, to Cormac McCarthy, Helen Fielding, Katherine Heiny, who we’ve had on this podcast before. And she says that after 20 years in publishing writing has taught her to be a better editor. Finally, she says, she understands why it is that authors can be so reluctant to revise. 


Jenny actually wrote another novel right before Pineapple Street that she wasn’t able to publish and the experience left her heartbroken. Luckily for us, she decided to jump straight back in and write something else. 


I’m so grateful to Jenny for sharing that experience here, and also for her advice on fulfilling and subverting reader expectations, rejecting authors she’s already worked with and what it felt like to have friends in publishing pass on Pineapple Street. 


Pineappe Street isn’t out in the UK until 13 April but I really recommend that you pre-order it. It really is that good. And I will rerelease this episode coming up to publication. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Jenny Jackson’s forthcoming novel Pineapple Street is one of the best books I’ve read in the last year, but Jenny is also a Vice President and Executive Editor at Knopf, so she knows all about publishing from the other side of things too. She has an incredible list of authors, from Emily St John Mandel, to Cormac McCarthy, Helen Fielding, Katherine Heiny, who we’ve had on this podcast before. And she says that after 20 years in publishing writing has taught her to be a better editor. Finally, she says, she understands why it is that authors can be so reluctant to revise. 


Jenny actually wrote another novel right before Pineapple Street that she wasn’t able to publish and the experience left her heartbroken. Luckily for us, she decided to jump straight back in and write something else. 


I’m so grateful to Jenny for sharing that experience here, and also for her advice on fulfilling and subverting reader expectations, rejecting authors she’s already worked with and what it felt like to have friends in publishing pass on Pineapple Street. 


Pineappe Street isn’t out in the UK until 13 April but I really recommend that you pre-order it. It really is that good. And I will rerelease this episode coming up to publication. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Robert Webb Robert Webb Thu, 12 Jan 2023 05:12:38 GMT 55:41 63beb1cde761a60011e0815b true https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/robert-webb 63beb1cde761a60011e0815b 608a7e839e46326c1216393a robert-webb full 3 5 Good news for Peep Show fans! I am so delighted to have Robert Webb on the podcast today. Rob's memoir How Not To Be A Boy is one of my favourite books ever, a brilliant look at Rob's background and what I think we would now call toxic masculinity – it's the best exploration I've ever seen of how gender stereotypes serve men as badly as they serve women. Rob has also written an excellent novel, Come Again, about a woman grieving her late husband who suddenly finds herself back at university meeting him for the first time.


Rob is, of course, best known as the star of the comedy Peep Show, which he worked on with David Mitchell for 12 years, before which the duo spent years in the wilderness taking random writing jobs and being rejected all over the place, like most freelancers. Rob talks insightfully about that time, and also about how hard it is trying to write a second novel when the idea for the first came to you like a lightning bolt.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Good news for Peep Show fans! I am so delighted to have Robert Webb on the podcast today. Rob's memoir How Not To Be A Boy is one of my favourite books ever, a brilliant look at Rob's background and what I think we would now call toxic masculinity – it's the best exploration I've ever seen of how gender stereotypes serve men as badly as they serve women. Rob has also written an excellent novel, Come Again, about a woman grieving her late husband who suddenly finds herself back at university meeting him for the first time.


Rob is, of course, best known as the star of the comedy Peep Show, which he worked on with David Mitchell for 12 years, before which the duo spent years in the wilderness taking random writing jobs and being rejected all over the place, like most freelancers. Rob talks insightfully about that time, and also about how hard it is trying to write a second novel when the idea for the first came to you like a lightning bolt.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Deesha Philyaw Deesha Philyaw Thu, 05 Jan 2023 05:10:34 GMT 56:31 63b59f9767a7000011c9814b true https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/deesha-philyaw 63b59f9767a7000011c9814b 608a7e839e46326c1216393a deesha-philyaw full 3 4 The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Deesha Philyaw’s book of deliciously vibrant and rebellious short stories about sex and black women navigating social pressures, won the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2021, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020. What I love about Deesha’s writing journey is that she did so much other stuff before she even thought about writing. It was only really when she quit her more high-flying job and began teaching the creative processes of writing as an English teacher that Deesha began to learn those creative processes herself. She’s now 50 and her debut, that award-winning book, Church Ladies – which was initially roundly rejected by mainstream publishers – was published in the UK last year. It’s now being turned into an HBO show. 


Deehsa and I talk about how her mum’s life and death affected her writing, about learning to write as an adult and about trying again and again to write the novel that she kept on not getting quite right. I so enjoyed this interview and I hope you do too.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Deesha Philyaw’s book of deliciously vibrant and rebellious short stories about sex and black women navigating social pressures, won the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2021, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020. What I love about Deesha’s writing journey is that she did so much other stuff before she even thought about writing. It was only really when she quit her more high-flying job and began teaching the creative processes of writing as an English teacher that Deesha began to learn those creative processes herself. She’s now 50 and her debut, that award-winning book, Church Ladies – which was initially roundly rejected by mainstream publishers – was published in the UK last year. It’s now being turned into an HBO show. 


Deehsa and I talk about how her mum’s life and death affected her writing, about learning to write as an adult and about trying again and again to write the novel that she kept on not getting quite right. I so enjoyed this interview and I hope you do too.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> REPLAY Meg Mason REPLAY Meg Mason Thu, 29 Dec 2022 05:11:46 GMT 52:28 63a476029f41db0010ec011f false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/replay-meg-mason 63a476029f41db0010ec011f 608a7e839e46326c1216393a replay-meg-mason full 3 I am on a little break from Season 3 for Christmas this week, but I thought you might enjoy a replay of my interview with Meg Mason in July last year, in which she talks about the traumatic experience of writing her "untitled Christmas novel"!


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> I am on a little break from Season 3 for Christmas this week, but I thought you might enjoy a replay of my interview with Meg Mason in July last year, in which she talks about the traumatic experience of writing her "untitled Christmas novel"!


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Sarah Turner Sarah Turner Thu, 22 Dec 2022 05:02:08 GMT 54:19 63a1eb61b9e6b00011c0c3c4 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/sarah-turner 63a1eb61b9e6b00011c0c3c4 608a7e839e46326c1216393a sarah-turner full 3 3

Who deserves to be a writer? When Sarah Turner was in her early twenties she had a baby, found it challenging and, unable to find writing online to match her experience, set up a blog. A couple of years later that blog, The Unmumsy Mum, had nearly 100,000 readers and landed Sarah a book deal. Her three very funny, honest non-fiction books about parenting have all been bestsellers, as has her debut novel Stepping Up, which came out this year. 


So why is Sarah on Write-Off. Well, because of that question: who deserves to be a writer? Sarah has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram and is famous to many people as an influencer, posting frequently about her three adorable sons, the daily difficulties and the magic of parenting and their house renovation in Exeter. As such she knows she’s seen by some as someone who has just been handed book deals, someone who maybe can’t or shouldn’t be allowed to write. But Sarah got the book deal because she was already writing stuff that resonated with people. And those books are really well written.


I absolutely loved dissecting this question of who deserves their place in publishing with Sarah and discussing all the self-doubt that comes with this sort of advantage. Because whatever you think of this sort of route in in the end putting a pen to paper as it were and hoping to do a good job is never easy. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]>

Who deserves to be a writer? When Sarah Turner was in her early twenties she had a baby, found it challenging and, unable to find writing online to match her experience, set up a blog. A couple of years later that blog, The Unmumsy Mum, had nearly 100,000 readers and landed Sarah a book deal. Her three very funny, honest non-fiction books about parenting have all been bestsellers, as has her debut novel Stepping Up, which came out this year. 


So why is Sarah on Write-Off. Well, because of that question: who deserves to be a writer? Sarah has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram and is famous to many people as an influencer, posting frequently about her three adorable sons, the daily difficulties and the magic of parenting and their house renovation in Exeter. As such she knows she’s seen by some as someone who has just been handed book deals, someone who maybe can’t or shouldn’t be allowed to write. But Sarah got the book deal because she was already writing stuff that resonated with people. And those books are really well written.


I absolutely loved dissecting this question of who deserves their place in publishing with Sarah and discussing all the self-doubt that comes with this sort of advantage. Because whatever you think of this sort of route in in the end putting a pen to paper as it were and hoping to do a good job is never easy. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Ian Rankin Ian Rankin Thu, 15 Dec 2022 02:05:00 GMT 57:18 6399c3430e0ac10010a76b8b false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/ian-rankin 6399c3430e0ac10010a76b8b 608a7e839e46326c1216393a ian-rankin full 3 2 My guest this week is so well-known that his unfinished manuscripts and first drafts have been displayed at the National Library of Scotland. Sir Ian Rankin has published more than 35 books in his 36 years of writing. That includes 24 novels about the Edinburgh police detective John Rebus, which have sold over 30 million copies around the world. His latest, A Heart Full of Headstones, came out this year. 


What is so interesting about Rankin’s publishing history is that he really didn’t make it straight out the gate. In fact it took him a while writing in quite difficult circumstances, including a time when he suffered panic attacks in London and a period living as an impoverished artist with his wife in France, where he was living in fear of not being published again before the Rebus series really took off. 


I love talking to him about the rejections for the first Rebus novel and how he still receives rejections today (can you imagine?!), about how he turned to thrillers thinking he’d write the next big airport book, before find his way back to Rebus and, about how writers are the weird kids at school. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> My guest this week is so well-known that his unfinished manuscripts and first drafts have been displayed at the National Library of Scotland. Sir Ian Rankin has published more than 35 books in his 36 years of writing. That includes 24 novels about the Edinburgh police detective John Rebus, which have sold over 30 million copies around the world. His latest, A Heart Full of Headstones, came out this year. 


What is so interesting about Rankin’s publishing history is that he really didn’t make it straight out the gate. In fact it took him a while writing in quite difficult circumstances, including a time when he suffered panic attacks in London and a period living as an impoverished artist with his wife in France, where he was living in fear of not being published again before the Rebus series really took off. 


I love talking to him about the rejections for the first Rebus novel and how he still receives rejections today (can you imagine?!), about how he turned to thrillers thinking he’d write the next big airport book, before find his way back to Rebus and, about how writers are the weird kids at school. 


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear your stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Bonnie Garmus Bonnie Garmus Thu, 08 Dec 2022 02:23:51 GMT 46:48 638f88be96d1480011b04d56 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/bonnie-garmus 638f88be96d1480011b04d56 608a7e839e46326c1216393a bonnie-garmus full 3 1 My guest today is the fabulous Bonnie Garmus! Despite wanting to be a writer all her life, Bonnie’s debut Lessons in Chemistry was published when she was 64. The book, about Elizabeth Zott, a formidable 1950s chemist and reluctant cooking show host, has gone on to sell in 40 countries, has been sitting on the bestseller lists for months and is being made into a TV show.


But before this Bonnie wrote several books, the last of which was sent out to and rejected by 98 agents. Wow! We talk about her husband asking her why she was continuing to send things out amidst all that rejection, repurposing stuff from past books in new ones, and the best advice she’s ever been given – if you get stuck make something happen.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear you stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!


Many thanks to The Novelry for sponsoring this episode of Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> My guest today is the fabulous Bonnie Garmus! Despite wanting to be a writer all her life, Bonnie’s debut Lessons in Chemistry was published when she was 64. The book, about Elizabeth Zott, a formidable 1950s chemist and reluctant cooking show host, has gone on to sell in 40 countries, has been sitting on the bestseller lists for months and is being made into a TV show.


But before this Bonnie wrote several books, the last of which was sent out to and rejected by 98 agents. Wow! We talk about her husband asking her why she was continuing to send things out amidst all that rejection, repurposing stuff from past books in new ones, and the best advice she’s ever been given – if you get stuck make something happen.


Do come find me on Twitter - @francescasteele - or Instagram - @francescasteelewrites - I'd love to hear you stories about self-doubt, rejection and – of course – success!


Many thanks to The Novelry for sponsoring this episode of Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Liane Moriarty Liane Moriarty Thu, 28 Apr 2022 04:00:59 GMT 51:15 62698359504dee00135b0637 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/liane-moriarty 62698359504dee00135b0637 608a7e839e46326c1216393a liane-moriarty full 2 10 It’s hard to express quite how much I love Liane Moriarty's writing. I have read all of her books, some of them many times, and I just think she combines such a good eye for women's interior lives and the complex issues we confront in ordinary, everyday life with a great sense of humour and unique momentum. Liane published her first novel at 38, spurred on when her sister Jaclyn, also an author, was published. Her first attempt, though – a children’s book – was, she says, rejected by everyone. I love listening to Liane talk about sibling rivalry and support and the embarrassment of that first rejection.


Before The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies became bestsellers, Liane spent years as a mid-list author and is very honest about the little humiliations she endured before hitting the big time, like doing events where no one turned up. I love Liane’s observation that she’s always trying to get back to the simple joy of writing as a child, unencumbered by publishing needs or expectations. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did. 


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Please do rate or review the podcast on your Apple podcast app – it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> It’s hard to express quite how much I love Liane Moriarty's writing. I have read all of her books, some of them many times, and I just think she combines such a good eye for women's interior lives and the complex issues we confront in ordinary, everyday life with a great sense of humour and unique momentum. Liane published her first novel at 38, spurred on when her sister Jaclyn, also an author, was published. Her first attempt, though – a children’s book – was, she says, rejected by everyone. I love listening to Liane talk about sibling rivalry and support and the embarrassment of that first rejection.


Before The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies became bestsellers, Liane spent years as a mid-list author and is very honest about the little humiliations she endured before hitting the big time, like doing events where no one turned up. I love Liane’s observation that she’s always trying to get back to the simple joy of writing as a child, unencumbered by publishing needs or expectations. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did. 


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Please do rate or review the podcast on your Apple podcast app – it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> David Duchovny David Duchovny Thu, 21 Apr 2022 04:00:20 GMT 45:47 625e7d17cb07ea0013859a9a true https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/david-duchovny 625e7d17cb07ea0013859a9a 608a7e839e46326c1216393a david-duchovny full 2 9 You probably know David Duchovny from decades on our screens as the FBI agent Fox Mulder in The X-Files and the TV show Californication, as well as the recent Judd Apatow film The Bubble and last year's Netflix hit The Chair, a campus comedy in which David plays himself – taking the mick out of himself.


It’s not often that Hollywood and literary fiction collide in this way but David Duchovny is in fact now a successful novelist as well as a musician and actor, with four novels under his belt and a new novella, The Reservoir, out this June. 


We talk about how David originally intended his debut, Holy Cow, to be a film until it was turned down everywhere he took the idea, how he planned to be a professor and use holidays to write – his father was a magazine writer and playwright so it was a long held dream of David’s to be a writer too – and how his teenage poetry was bad, just like (he says) his early acting skills. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Please do rate or review the podcast on your Apple podcast app – it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> You probably know David Duchovny from decades on our screens as the FBI agent Fox Mulder in The X-Files and the TV show Californication, as well as the recent Judd Apatow film The Bubble and last year's Netflix hit The Chair, a campus comedy in which David plays himself – taking the mick out of himself.


It’s not often that Hollywood and literary fiction collide in this way but David Duchovny is in fact now a successful novelist as well as a musician and actor, with four novels under his belt and a new novella, The Reservoir, out this June. 


We talk about how David originally intended his debut, Holy Cow, to be a film until it was turned down everywhere he took the idea, how he planned to be a professor and use holidays to write – his father was a magazine writer and playwright so it was a long held dream of David’s to be a writer too – and how his teenage poetry was bad, just like (he says) his early acting skills. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Please do rate or review the podcast on your Apple podcast app – it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Joanne Harris Joanne Harris Thu, 14 Apr 2022 04:00:06 GMT 47:45 6256da5eea4f57001224d526 true https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/joanne-harris 6256da5eea4f57001224d526 608a7e839e46326c1216393a joanne-harris full 2 8 This interview has a special place in my heart because Joanne Harris, the prolific author known for the gorgeous Chocolat, among other things, was the first person I ever interviewed. I spoke to her for my university newspaper 20 years ago, and she was, thankfully, very nice then and remains very nice today. 


I’m not sure I’ve spoken to a more adventurous novelist. Joanne fearlessly tackles whichever genre she is interested in at the time and indeed isn’t fond of the notion of genres at all actually. We talk about her excellent new thriller, A Narrow Door, and how it felt to write that compared with, for example, her 'gastromances' (not a word she’s keen on, completely understandably) such as Chocolat. We also discuss her making (and burning) a sculpture out of rejection letters, rewriting her fantasy novel Runemarks from scratch because her daughter wanted to see it published and how mistakes are all signposts on the road to success. Oh, and also the time she met Harvey Weinstein. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Please do rate or review the podcast on your Apple podcast app – it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> This interview has a special place in my heart because Joanne Harris, the prolific author known for the gorgeous Chocolat, among other things, was the first person I ever interviewed. I spoke to her for my university newspaper 20 years ago, and she was, thankfully, very nice then and remains very nice today. 


I’m not sure I’ve spoken to a more adventurous novelist. Joanne fearlessly tackles whichever genre she is interested in at the time and indeed isn’t fond of the notion of genres at all actually. We talk about her excellent new thriller, A Narrow Door, and how it felt to write that compared with, for example, her 'gastromances' (not a word she’s keen on, completely understandably) such as Chocolat. We also discuss her making (and burning) a sculpture out of rejection letters, rewriting her fantasy novel Runemarks from scratch because her daughter wanted to see it published and how mistakes are all signposts on the road to success. Oh, and also the time she met Harvey Weinstein. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Please do rate or review the podcast on your Apple podcast app – it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Jeffrey Archer Jeffrey Archer Thu, 07 Apr 2022 04:02:53 GMT 45:04 624da9b7468b8900121f2585 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/jeffrey-archer 624da9b7468b8900121f2585 608a7e839e46326c1216393a jeffrey-archer full 2 7 Jeffrey Archer is a bit different from many of my usual guests. He’s not at all sentimental, he’s very confident – I mean this is a former MP who went to prison for perjury after all – and in many ways that confidence seems impenetrable. But this is, I think, what makes him so interesting to listen to because even Jeffrey Archer is afflicted by self-doubt and even Jeffrey Archer has had to come up with strategies for dealing with it, even if sometimes the strategy is basically just being ferociously productive. Since his first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was rejected by 17 publishers before selling in 1976, he has sold more than 300 million copies of his books worldwide, which makes him one of the top 25 fiction authors of all time.


We talk about his incredible self-discipline when it comes to his writing routine, how lots of editors rejected his debut because none of them believed he would write a second book and how he would not have made a good prime minister! 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Jeffrey Archer is a bit different from many of my usual guests. He’s not at all sentimental, he’s very confident – I mean this is a former MP who went to prison for perjury after all – and in many ways that confidence seems impenetrable. But this is, I think, what makes him so interesting to listen to because even Jeffrey Archer is afflicted by self-doubt and even Jeffrey Archer has had to come up with strategies for dealing with it, even if sometimes the strategy is basically just being ferociously productive. Since his first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was rejected by 17 publishers before selling in 1976, he has sold more than 300 million copies of his books worldwide, which makes him one of the top 25 fiction authors of all time.


We talk about his incredible self-discipline when it comes to his writing routine, how lots of editors rejected his debut because none of them believed he would write a second book and how he would not have made a good prime minister! 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Abi Elphinstone Abi Elphinstone Thu, 31 Mar 2022 04:05:52 GMT 38:36 62448e442c665d0012a5c02a false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/abi-elphinstone 62448e442c665d0012a5c02a 608a7e839e46326c1216393a abi-elphinstone full 2 6 I loved talking to Abi Elphinstone, a bestselling children’s author who writes about dreamsnatchers and sky gods and wildcats. She has been called a worthy successor to C.S. Lewis by The Times, and talks regularly at schools about her writing process, with great enthusiasm even when the kids mistake her for JK Rowling. I was especially grateful to Abi for fitting me in when she was practically moments from giving birth, and I think that’s testament to how she’s always keen to chat about her work whenever she can. 


We actually haven’t had an author on Write-Off before talking about rejection at the agent stage specifically but Abi is an extremely good example. She was rejected a grand total of 96 times before she got her first book deal, and she is not afraid to talk about it, once posting some of those rejections online. We talk about what she learnt from all that feedback, how her dyslexia stood her in good stead for years of hard work and mapping out stories before she starts. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> I loved talking to Abi Elphinstone, a bestselling children’s author who writes about dreamsnatchers and sky gods and wildcats. She has been called a worthy successor to C.S. Lewis by The Times, and talks regularly at schools about her writing process, with great enthusiasm even when the kids mistake her for JK Rowling. I was especially grateful to Abi for fitting me in when she was practically moments from giving birth, and I think that’s testament to how she’s always keen to chat about her work whenever she can. 


We actually haven’t had an author on Write-Off before talking about rejection at the agent stage specifically but Abi is an extremely good example. She was rejected a grand total of 96 times before she got her first book deal, and she is not afraid to talk about it, once posting some of those rejections online. We talk about what she learnt from all that feedback, how her dyslexia stood her in good stead for years of hard work and mapping out stories before she starts. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Chris Paling Chris Paling Thu, 24 Mar 2022 05:00:01 GMT 41:03 623b783efc925100123eaaa8 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/chris-paling 623b783efc925100123eaaa8 608a7e839e46326c1216393a chris-paling full 2 5 Chris Paling, a BBC radio producer, had an auspicious start as a writer, accidentally stumbling across a very starry agent with his first attempt at writing a novel. That novel didn’t actually sell though, along with several others, and later in his career, after he had been published, Chris began to keep a diary of his musings about the industry. Not originally intended for publication, that diary is in fact now published as A Very Nice Rejection Letter, a lovely, very funny book. Chris is really good on that sort of sixth sense as to whether something is working or not, and we also talked a lot about whether writing is really a dialogue with yourself or something you are desperate for other people to hear.


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Chris Paling, a BBC radio producer, had an auspicious start as a writer, accidentally stumbling across a very starry agent with his first attempt at writing a novel. That novel didn’t actually sell though, along with several others, and later in his career, after he had been published, Chris began to keep a diary of his musings about the industry. Not originally intended for publication, that diary is in fact now published as A Very Nice Rejection Letter, a lovely, very funny book. Chris is really good on that sort of sixth sense as to whether something is working or not, and we also talked a lot about whether writing is really a dialogue with yourself or something you are desperate for other people to hear.


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Sandra Newman Sandra Newman Thu, 17 Mar 2022 05:00:00 GMT 43:27 6231c4b9c8420e0012ceda48 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/sandra-newman 6231c4b9c8420e0012ceda48 608a7e839e46326c1216393a sandra-newman full 2 4 If you don’t already know Sandra Newman, you are going to be hearing a lot about her in the next year or so. Her new book, The Men, about a world in which everyone with a Y chromosome vanishes, is out this June, and she is also currently writing a much anticipated feminist retelling of George Orwell’s 1984. 


Sandra has experienced plenty of failure, notably when her publisher declined to publish the second book in her two book deal, We discuss unlikeable books, and she tells me all about the time she pulled off a remarkable publicity stunt fort her first ever play when she was a creative writing student, only for it to get savaged in the press. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> If you don’t already know Sandra Newman, you are going to be hearing a lot about her in the next year or so. Her new book, The Men, about a world in which everyone with a Y chromosome vanishes, is out this June, and she is also currently writing a much anticipated feminist retelling of George Orwell’s 1984. 


Sandra has experienced plenty of failure, notably when her publisher declined to publish the second book in her two book deal, We discuss unlikeable books, and she tells me all about the time she pulled off a remarkable publicity stunt fort her first ever play when she was a creative writing student, only for it to get savaged in the press. 


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Paula Hawkins Paula Hawkins Thu, 10 Mar 2022 05:00:00 GMT 45:51 62286de06361080013cba29e false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/paula-hawkins 62286de06361080013cba29e 608a7e839e46326c1216393a paula-hawkins full 2 3 When The Girl on the Train came out in 2015 and went straight to number one on global bestseller lists Paula Hawkins was pitched like a debut. But in fact Paula had written several previous novels, romantic comedies, under a pseudonym, the last of which hadn’t done well at all, leaving Paula feeling seriously rejected. What I loved about talking to Paula is they even though she is now one of the most famous thriller writers alive, she remains extremely cautious and circumspect, with vivid recollections of how it felt before she was successful and before she started to really love what she was writing,  


Her latest book, A Slow Fire Burning, is out now and is, I think, her best yet, a really clever mystery with a lot of subverted tropes and jokes about book writing. We talk too about not being able to give publishers what they want, the horror of bad reviews - yep, she had them - and the book that The Girl on the Train very nearly was until another author wrote it.


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> When The Girl on the Train came out in 2015 and went straight to number one on global bestseller lists Paula Hawkins was pitched like a debut. But in fact Paula had written several previous novels, romantic comedies, under a pseudonym, the last of which hadn’t done well at all, leaving Paula feeling seriously rejected. What I loved about talking to Paula is they even though she is now one of the most famous thriller writers alive, she remains extremely cautious and circumspect, with vivid recollections of how it felt before she was successful and before she started to really love what she was writing,  


Her latest book, A Slow Fire Burning, is out now and is, I think, her best yet, a really clever mystery with a lot of subverted tropes and jokes about book writing. We talk too about not being able to give publishers what they want, the horror of bad reviews - yep, she had them - and the book that The Girl on the Train very nearly was until another author wrote it.


You can find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


Don’t forget that I list my guests' books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews!


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Matt Cain Matt Cain Thu, 03 Mar 2022 05:00:47 GMT 37:47 621f39115b04b90013441964 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/matt-cain 621f39115b04b90013441964 608a7e839e46326c1216393a matt-cain full 2 2 I find this interview so inspiring. Matt Cain is a successful arts journalist and at the time of his first book submission he was Culture Editor for Channel 4, praised in particular for his coverage of the Woman’s Prize for Fiction. But 2010, the semi-autobiographical book Matt had been working on about a child growing up -like himself - gay in the north of England - was rejected in part for being what he says were coded ways of saying it was “too gay”. Matt’s book was put up for submission three times over the next decade and rejected by more than 50 agents and editors. Matt didn't give up though and today that book is published as the wonderful The Madonna of Bolton with the crowdfunding publisher Unbound. We talk about how he really tried to learn from the feedback on early submissions, how creative rejection changed him - almost more than homophobic bullying did - and how his therapist made it into his book.


Don’t forget that I list my guest’s books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews! You can also find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> I find this interview so inspiring. Matt Cain is a successful arts journalist and at the time of his first book submission he was Culture Editor for Channel 4, praised in particular for his coverage of the Woman’s Prize for Fiction. But 2010, the semi-autobiographical book Matt had been working on about a child growing up -like himself - gay in the north of England - was rejected in part for being what he says were coded ways of saying it was “too gay”. Matt’s book was put up for submission three times over the next decade and rejected by more than 50 agents and editors. Matt didn't give up though and today that book is published as the wonderful The Madonna of Bolton with the crowdfunding publisher Unbound. We talk about how he really tried to learn from the feedback on early submissions, how creative rejection changed him - almost more than homophobic bullying did - and how his therapist made it into his book.


Don’t forget that I list my guest’s books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews! You can also find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Clare Chambers Clare Chambers Wed, 23 Feb 2022 06:00:12 GMT 47:07 621505bdc51c240013d41a8d false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/clare-chambers 621505bdc51c240013d41a8d 608a7e839e46326c1216393a clare-chambers full 2 1 Welcome back! Clare Chambers is kicking off this season. Clare has written nine published novels - her first when she was just 26 and her latest, Small Pleasures, a wonderful book long-listed for the Woman’s Prize last year. But just before Small Pleasures there was a failed novel that nearly caused Clare to give up on writing altogether. It took her five years to write and then no one wanted to buy it.


We talked about her feeling her career was over aged 50, working as an editor herself for the legendary publisher Diana Athill, how she switched from being a pantser to being a committed plotter and being given permission not to be funny.  


Don’t forget that I list my guest’s books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews! You can also find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Welcome back! Clare Chambers is kicking off this season. Clare has written nine published novels - her first when she was just 26 and her latest, Small Pleasures, a wonderful book long-listed for the Woman’s Prize last year. But just before Small Pleasures there was a failed novel that nearly caused Clare to give up on writing altogether. It took her five years to write and then no one wanted to buy it.


We talked about her feeling her career was over aged 50, working as an editor herself for the legendary publisher Diana Athill, how she switched from being a pantser to being a committed plotter and being given permission not to be funny.  


Don’t forget that I list my guest’s books at my online shop https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele. This helps fund the podcast so please do buy there! Also do rate or review the podcast on your app - it helps more people find out about Write-Off, and also I just really like seeing the reviews! You can also find me on Twitter at @francescasteele and Instagram at @Francesca_steele


The lovely Scott Elliott helped me produce this season. Please do consider him for all your pod needs. https://www.podcastconsultant.co.uk


This season is sponsored by the wonderful Jericho Writers https://jerichowriters.com. Listeners of the podcast can get an exclusive 15% discount on membership by going to  www.jerichowriters.com/join-us and entering the code Write-Off.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Meg Mason Meg Mason Wed, 07 Jul 2021 21:03:36 GMT 52:17 60e5fcc88ba7af0012979aaa false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/meg-mason 60e5fcc88ba7af0012979aaa 608a7e839e46326c1216393a meg-mason full 1 11 What do you do when you've written an entire book you hate?


Martha, the narrator or Sorrow and Bliss, is intelligent, critical, loving, cruel: an incredibly nuanced unforgettable character. She suffers from an undiagnosed mental health condition and when we meet her she has just split up with her husband Patrick. It's a very wise, sad funny book, with a unique, dry tone. I absolutely loved it.


I love it perhaps even more now that i know it was born of failure. Meg Mason is a journalist, originally from New Zealand now living with her family in Australia, who had previously published two books: a memoir about young motherhood called Say It Again In Nice Voice and a novel, also about young motherhood, called You Be Mother. Under contract to write a third book, Meg laboured over a project she loathed for a year before handing it in and feeling so wretched that she declared that she was done with fiction altogether. Until suddenly she found herself sneaking back out to her writing she’d and writing secretly just for her own pleasure about two characters called Martha and Patrick and how their marriage had failed.


Meg is very gentle, self-deprecating, insightful and very surprised and curious herself about this extraordinary U-turn. We talked about how Martha and Patrick actually existed in her failed novel in a different form, banning thesaurus.com and how to tell the difference between a difficult project that's worth pushing on with, and one that isn’t.


You can buy Sorrow and Bliss and books by all my guests here, along with the excellent George Saunders book and the Ann Patchett essay collection Meg mentions in this episode: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele





Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> What do you do when you've written an entire book you hate?


Martha, the narrator or Sorrow and Bliss, is intelligent, critical, loving, cruel: an incredibly nuanced unforgettable character. She suffers from an undiagnosed mental health condition and when we meet her she has just split up with her husband Patrick. It's a very wise, sad funny book, with a unique, dry tone. I absolutely loved it.


I love it perhaps even more now that i know it was born of failure. Meg Mason is a journalist, originally from New Zealand now living with her family in Australia, who had previously published two books: a memoir about young motherhood called Say It Again In Nice Voice and a novel, also about young motherhood, called You Be Mother. Under contract to write a third book, Meg laboured over a project she loathed for a year before handing it in and feeling so wretched that she declared that she was done with fiction altogether. Until suddenly she found herself sneaking back out to her writing she’d and writing secretly just for her own pleasure about two characters called Martha and Patrick and how their marriage had failed.


Meg is very gentle, self-deprecating, insightful and very surprised and curious herself about this extraordinary U-turn. We talked about how Martha and Patrick actually existed in her failed novel in a different form, banning thesaurus.com and how to tell the difference between a difficult project that's worth pushing on with, and one that isn’t.


You can buy Sorrow and Bliss and books by all my guests here, along with the excellent George Saunders book and the Ann Patchett essay collection Meg mentions in this episode: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele





Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Douglas Stuart Douglas Stuart Wed, 30 Jun 2021 21:06:31 GMT 47:31 60dcdcd7082305001223e2c4 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/douglas-stuart 60dcdcd7082305001223e2c4 608a7e839e46326c1216393a douglas-stuart full 1 10 What a year the Booker prize winning author Douglas Stuart has had. Born on a housing estate in Glasgow Douglas and his siblings were raised by a single mum who died of alcoholism when he was 16. In his 30s, by this time working in fashion in New York, fouglas started writing a book about a little boy similar to him - Shuggie Bain, a kind, resilient, gay child struggling to fit in to his working class Thatcherite community and trying to take care of gregarious, well-meaning, alcoholic mother. Ten years later, the novel finally finished, it was rejected first by agents, then by 32 editors in the US alone. some of them even told his agent that the book was likely to win a big prize but that they didn’t know quite how to sell it. Then last year at the age of 44, Douglas won the £50,000 Booker prize, the second Scot ever to do so. Judges said itwas destined “to be a classic”.


It’s a remarkable reminder of how even the most accomplished books still have to find the right desk at the right time.


You can buy Shuggie Bain – and books by all my guests – here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> What a year the Booker prize winning author Douglas Stuart has had. Born on a housing estate in Glasgow Douglas and his siblings were raised by a single mum who died of alcoholism when he was 16. In his 30s, by this time working in fashion in New York, fouglas started writing a book about a little boy similar to him - Shuggie Bain, a kind, resilient, gay child struggling to fit in to his working class Thatcherite community and trying to take care of gregarious, well-meaning, alcoholic mother. Ten years later, the novel finally finished, it was rejected first by agents, then by 32 editors in the US alone. some of them even told his agent that the book was likely to win a big prize but that they didn’t know quite how to sell it. Then last year at the age of 44, Douglas won the £50,000 Booker prize, the second Scot ever to do so. Judges said itwas destined “to be a classic”.


It’s a remarkable reminder of how even the most accomplished books still have to find the right desk at the right time.


You can buy Shuggie Bain – and books by all my guests – here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Michèle Roberts Michèle Roberts Wed, 23 Jun 2021 21:00:22 GMT 49:16 60d364197963c7001b0c0328 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/michele-roberts 60d364197963c7001b0c0328 608a7e839e46326c1216393a michele-roberts full 1 9 The Booker longlisted, Women’s Prize shortlisted Michèle Roberts is, like her books, wonderfully erudite, perceptive and expressive. Michèle has been writing professionally for more than 40 years and has published 17 novels, 2 memoirs and has contributed to many poetry and essay collections too. She was once poetry editor at the feminist magazine Spare Rib and her 2007 memoir Paper Houses is a vivid account of her involvement is 70s socialism and feminism. Her new novel Cut Out, about the women who helped Matisse create his art, is out in August. She is by any metric a literary success.


But it is her second memoir that we discuss in this interview. Negative Capability, which came out last year, kicks off with a series of personal and professional rejections - including her publisher saying no to her latest manuscript - and which sent Michèle into a spiral of self doubt and panic where she initially thought she was having a breakdown. Negative Capability is the story of her recovery and it is a joyful, amusing account of a rich everyday life, but also an honest, clear-eyed view of what it feels like to fail at something that, 16 books in, you think you’ve become pretty adept at doing. I found Michèle a funny and fascinating guest - and particularly enjoyed her advice about how to make a friend of your inner critic.


You can find and buy books by Michèle and all my guests here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> The Booker longlisted, Women’s Prize shortlisted Michèle Roberts is, like her books, wonderfully erudite, perceptive and expressive. Michèle has been writing professionally for more than 40 years and has published 17 novels, 2 memoirs and has contributed to many poetry and essay collections too. She was once poetry editor at the feminist magazine Spare Rib and her 2007 memoir Paper Houses is a vivid account of her involvement is 70s socialism and feminism. Her new novel Cut Out, about the women who helped Matisse create his art, is out in August. She is by any metric a literary success.


But it is her second memoir that we discuss in this interview. Negative Capability, which came out last year, kicks off with a series of personal and professional rejections - including her publisher saying no to her latest manuscript - and which sent Michèle into a spiral of self doubt and panic where she initially thought she was having a breakdown. Negative Capability is the story of her recovery and it is a joyful, amusing account of a rich everyday life, but also an honest, clear-eyed view of what it feels like to fail at something that, 16 books in, you think you’ve become pretty adept at doing. I found Michèle a funny and fascinating guest - and particularly enjoyed her advice about how to make a friend of your inner critic.


You can find and buy books by Michèle and all my guests here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Alex Wheatle Alex Wheatle Wed, 16 Jun 2021 20:08:40 GMT 45:48 60ca50b2bc20ef001afacd84 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/alex-wheatle 60ca50b2bc20ef001afacd84 608a7e839e46326c1216393a alex-wheatle full 1 8 The British novelist Alex Wheatle has such an extraordinary backstory that when he was working in the writers’ room for Steve McQueen’s BAFTA winning film series Small Axe, McQueen ended up making one of the films about Alex’s own life. Alex was raised in a care home where he was abused. He emgered as teenager in Brixton under-educated and ill-prepared for adulthood, and in 1981 was sent to prison for a year for his involvement in the Brixton Riots. Prison though turned out to be Alex's salvation. There he met a man who encouraged him to revive his childhood love of reading – and from that came his writing.

He's now written 17 novels, has an MBE, and in 2016 won the Guardian’s Children’s Fiction Prize for his YA novel Crongton Knights.


Alex defines himself as a survivor not a victim, and I found him an inspiring reminder of what can be achieved through perservance. We talked a lot about the difficulties for black authors in publishing both 20 years ago and now, and also about the extraordinary advantage a love of reading can give kids in even the direst circumstances.


Just a reminder that you can buy Alex's books – and those by my other authors – here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> The British novelist Alex Wheatle has such an extraordinary backstory that when he was working in the writers’ room for Steve McQueen’s BAFTA winning film series Small Axe, McQueen ended up making one of the films about Alex’s own life. Alex was raised in a care home where he was abused. He emgered as teenager in Brixton under-educated and ill-prepared for adulthood, and in 1981 was sent to prison for a year for his involvement in the Brixton Riots. Prison though turned out to be Alex's salvation. There he met a man who encouraged him to revive his childhood love of reading – and from that came his writing.

He's now written 17 novels, has an MBE, and in 2016 won the Guardian’s Children’s Fiction Prize for his YA novel Crongton Knights.


Alex defines himself as a survivor not a victim, and I found him an inspiring reminder of what can be achieved through perservance. We talked a lot about the difficulties for black authors in publishing both 20 years ago and now, and also about the extraordinary advantage a love of reading can give kids in even the direst circumstances.


Just a reminder that you can buy Alex's books – and those by my other authors – here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Ann Napolitano Ann Napolitano Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:00:43 GMT 45:27 60c094aac5b5270019567995 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/ann-napolitano 60c094aac5b5270019567995 608a7e839e46326c1216393a ann-napolitano full 1 7 Ann Napolitano is the author of three novels, including Dear Edward, which spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and which is the heart-breaking story of a boy who loses his parents and brother in a plane crash, of which he is the only survivor. 


Ann wanted to be a writer from the age of ten, but after graduating from her MFA programme in her twenties had her first book rejected by 80 agents. Her second book found her an agent but then failed to sell. Ann was extremely honest about how tough that was, and so interesting too on how raw talent isn’t actually the most crucial thing when it comes to a writing career. 


You can buy Ann’s books and those by my other other guests here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


Here is the wonderful essay Ann mentions in the podcast about how she writes letters to her future self, to open every ten years. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/books/review/emily-of-new-moon-montgomery-letters-ann-napolitano.html

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Ann Napolitano is the author of three novels, including Dear Edward, which spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and which is the heart-breaking story of a boy who loses his parents and brother in a plane crash, of which he is the only survivor. 


Ann wanted to be a writer from the age of ten, but after graduating from her MFA programme in her twenties had her first book rejected by 80 agents. Her second book found her an agent but then failed to sell. Ann was extremely honest about how tough that was, and so interesting too on how raw talent isn’t actually the most crucial thing when it comes to a writing career. 


You can buy Ann’s books and those by my other other guests here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


Here is the wonderful essay Ann mentions in the podcast about how she writes letters to her future self, to open every ten years. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/books/review/emily-of-new-moon-montgomery-letters-ann-napolitano.html

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Julian Fellowes Julian Fellowes Wed, 02 Jun 2021 21:00:56 GMT 46:58 60b74af38c26f80013d5ebb7 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/julian-fellowes 60b74af38c26f80013d5ebb7 608a7e839e46326c1216393a julian-fellowes full 1 6 Julian Fellowes is, of course, rather well known for creating a little TV series you might have heard of called Downton Abbey. And that wasn’t his first screen success either, having already won an Oscar for his screenplay for Gosford Park in 2002. Julian has had an eclectic career, appearing on the long-running series Monarch of the Glen and a Bond movie. His accent, his family background, the subjects of class that fascinate him - all of these have sometimes led to people accusing him of being a snob and perhaps assuming that everything has come easy to him. And yet. In the late 90s, despairing of an acting career that wasn’t going so well at that point, Julian wrote a novel called Snobs, a book that looks at the flailing British aristocracy of the late 20th century through the eyes of a sort of outsider. He sent it out - and no one wanted it. In fact, some people said some pretty mean things, Several years later, after the success of Gosford Park, a publisher took it on and it became a bestseller, as did Julian’s two later novels. Just as I was talking about last week with the writer and editor, Phoebe Morgan, sometimes it really is a matter of getting a book on the right desk at the right time.


Believe it or not Julian Fellowes found rejection as hard as the next person, although he is, I think, an optimist at heart. We talk about that, Downton Abbey, his upcoming show The Gilded Age, about how people have always told him every project of his was unlikely to work out and about the difference between putting something in the bin and putting it in a drawer. Here’s Julian.


You can find Julian's books, and those by all my guests, at my online bookshop here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Julian Fellowes is, of course, rather well known for creating a little TV series you might have heard of called Downton Abbey. And that wasn’t his first screen success either, having already won an Oscar for his screenplay for Gosford Park in 2002. Julian has had an eclectic career, appearing on the long-running series Monarch of the Glen and a Bond movie. His accent, his family background, the subjects of class that fascinate him - all of these have sometimes led to people accusing him of being a snob and perhaps assuming that everything has come easy to him. And yet. In the late 90s, despairing of an acting career that wasn’t going so well at that point, Julian wrote a novel called Snobs, a book that looks at the flailing British aristocracy of the late 20th century through the eyes of a sort of outsider. He sent it out - and no one wanted it. In fact, some people said some pretty mean things, Several years later, after the success of Gosford Park, a publisher took it on and it became a bestseller, as did Julian’s two later novels. Just as I was talking about last week with the writer and editor, Phoebe Morgan, sometimes it really is a matter of getting a book on the right desk at the right time.


Believe it or not Julian Fellowes found rejection as hard as the next person, although he is, I think, an optimist at heart. We talk about that, Downton Abbey, his upcoming show The Gilded Age, about how people have always told him every project of his was unlikely to work out and about the difference between putting something in the bin and putting it in a drawer. Here’s Julian.


You can find Julian's books, and those by all my guests, at my online bookshop here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Phoebe Morgan Phoebe Morgan Wed, 26 May 2021 21:00:09 GMT 43:23 60ae53f46e123a001477f44e false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/phoebe-morgan 60ae53f46e123a001477f44e 608a7e839e46326c1216393a phoebe-morgan full 1 5 My guest this week is Phoebe Morgan, the author of four books and Editorial Director at HarperCollins. Phoebe's first book, The Doll House, was published just five years after she left university, and quickly became a Kindle bestseller. Her books since then have been published in several languages and this year, she got her first US deal for The Wild Girls, a pacy thriller about friendship souring in Botswana (great for you summer holiday!).


Phoebe has written about how it felt to finally get that US deal in her blog, which is full of really honest and useful information about writing and publishing. You can find that here: https://phoebemorganauthor.com


We talk about how editors choose books to publish, how she handles rejection as both a writer and editor and how goal posts for success are always changing. You can find Phoebe's books, along with those of my other guests, at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> My guest this week is Phoebe Morgan, the author of four books and Editorial Director at HarperCollins. Phoebe's first book, The Doll House, was published just five years after she left university, and quickly became a Kindle bestseller. Her books since then have been published in several languages and this year, she got her first US deal for The Wild Girls, a pacy thriller about friendship souring in Botswana (great for you summer holiday!).


Phoebe has written about how it felt to finally get that US deal in her blog, which is full of really honest and useful information about writing and publishing. You can find that here: https://phoebemorganauthor.com


We talk about how editors choose books to publish, how she handles rejection as both a writer and editor and how goal posts for success are always changing. You can find Phoebe's books, along with those of my other guests, at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Harry Parker Harry Parker Wed, 19 May 2021 23:05:39 GMT 36:58 60a5425cb836800012237a0c false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/harry-parker 60a5425cb836800012237a0c 608a7e839e46326c1216393a harry-parker full 1 4 My guest this week is Harry Parker, a writer and artist who had a very interesting route to becoming an author.


Harry is an army veteran who lost his legs following an IED explosion while on tour in Afghanistan. Several years later and back in the UK, Harry wrote a novel, Anatomy of a Solider, which tells the story of Sergeant Tom Barnes, who also loses his legs in an explosion, through the perspectives of 45 inanimate objects: a gun, a bag of fertiliser, a prosthetic leg, a grieving mother’s handbag and so on. It’s an extraordinary book, disorienting and incredibly moving, and in 2016 when it was published, Harry was featured as one of The Observer's new faces of fiction. the book got rave reviews and won the Waverton Good Read Award the following year. Overall, a pretty incredible experience for a debut novelist. 


But his second book did not go so well. It didn’t sell and Harry, who is clearly an extremely resilient guy, is nonetheless very candid here about how personal that rejection felt, and how hard it has been to get over. It’s a great reminder, I think, that writing success is not linear, even for established authors. You have to be prepared for bumps in the road and allow yourself time to accommodate them. Thank you so much to Harry for being so open about it all.


You can find Anatomy of a Soldier and books by my other guests at my online bookstore: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


You can also find me on Twitter - @francescasteele. Do come along and let me know what you think of the podcast and the authors' experiences.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> My guest this week is Harry Parker, a writer and artist who had a very interesting route to becoming an author.


Harry is an army veteran who lost his legs following an IED explosion while on tour in Afghanistan. Several years later and back in the UK, Harry wrote a novel, Anatomy of a Solider, which tells the story of Sergeant Tom Barnes, who also loses his legs in an explosion, through the perspectives of 45 inanimate objects: a gun, a bag of fertiliser, a prosthetic leg, a grieving mother’s handbag and so on. It’s an extraordinary book, disorienting and incredibly moving, and in 2016 when it was published, Harry was featured as one of The Observer's new faces of fiction. the book got rave reviews and won the Waverton Good Read Award the following year. Overall, a pretty incredible experience for a debut novelist. 


But his second book did not go so well. It didn’t sell and Harry, who is clearly an extremely resilient guy, is nonetheless very candid here about how personal that rejection felt, and how hard it has been to get over. It’s a great reminder, I think, that writing success is not linear, even for established authors. You have to be prepared for bumps in the road and allow yourself time to accommodate them. Thank you so much to Harry for being so open about it all.


You can find Anatomy of a Soldier and books by my other guests at my online bookstore: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


You can also find me on Twitter - @francescasteele. Do come along and let me know what you think of the podcast and the authors' experiences.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Katherine Heiny Katherine Heiny Wed, 12 May 2021 23:01:59 GMT 39:08 609bdeec68b9313b317acefd false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/katherine-heiny 609bdeec68b9313b317acefd 608a7e839e46326c1216393a katherine-heiny Interview with the author Katherine Heiny full 1 3 My guest this week is Katherine Heiny, who I’m happy to report is as funny in person and she is on the page. When I first approached Katherine for this podcast she told me that she had 9 million insecurities but rejection wasn’t one of them, and I thought, ok, maybe she’s not right for Write-Off. But then she kept writing back over the next couple of days adding caveats and comments and it became clear that in fact she did have things to say about rejection but perhaps not things that we all usually think of. 


In a way that makes a lot of sense. Katherine had her first published short story - How To Give the Wrong Impression, about a woman secretly in love with her flatmate, published in The New Yorker when she was 25 and had recently finished a writing masters at Columbia. She’s since written a short story collection that is one my favourites ever, Single Carefree Mellow, and two novels, Standard Deviation, a tender, hilarious book about marriage and parenting that Kate Atkinson called "a marvel", and her latest recently released novel, Early Morning Riser, which is also so incredibly funny, wise and warm. Katherine is very good at finding the comedy in everyday life. 


But there were two decades between that precocious New Yorker success and the publication of Single Carefree Mellow - Katherine was in her forties with she became a debut author under her own name - and they were not always easy years. Katherine and I talked about how she writes jokes, writing YA under a pseudonym in her twenties, what it felt like to take years off from writing to raise her children and the meanest knock backs she’s ever had.


Just a reminder that you can find and buy books by all my guests here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


You can find me on Twitter here: @francescasteele

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]]> My guest this week is Katherine Heiny, who I’m happy to report is as funny in person and she is on the page. When I first approached Katherine for this podcast she told me that she had 9 million insecurities but rejection wasn’t one of them, and I thought, ok, maybe she’s not right for Write-Off. But then she kept writing back over the next couple of days adding caveats and comments and it became clear that in fact she did have things to say about rejection but perhaps not things that we all usually think of. 


In a way that makes a lot of sense. Katherine had her first published short story - How To Give the Wrong Impression, about a woman secretly in love with her flatmate, published in The New Yorker when she was 25 and had recently finished a writing masters at Columbia. She’s since written a short story collection that is one my favourites ever, Single Carefree Mellow, and two novels, Standard Deviation, a tender, hilarious book about marriage and parenting that Kate Atkinson called "a marvel", and her latest recently released novel, Early Morning Riser, which is also so incredibly funny, wise and warm. Katherine is very good at finding the comedy in everyday life. 


But there were two decades between that precocious New Yorker success and the publication of Single Carefree Mellow - Katherine was in her forties with she became a debut author under her own name - and they were not always easy years. Katherine and I talked about how she writes jokes, writing YA under a pseudonym in her twenties, what it felt like to take years off from writing to raise her children and the meanest knock backs she’s ever had.


Just a reminder that you can find and buy books by all my guests here: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


You can find me on Twitter here: @francescasteele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Andy Weir Andy Weir Wed, 05 May 2021 23:05:29 GMT 46:01 609267a8975a99095e6c13ab true https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/andy-weir 609267a8975a99095e6c13ab 608a7e839e46326c1216393a andy-weir full 1 2 Andy Weir is best known for his novel The Martian, a very clever and funny book about an astronaut stranded on Mars, which was made into a (2015) Ridley Scott film starring Matt Damon.


Andy had two failed novels behind him before he self-published The Martian and even when it became an e-book bestseller didn't think to find an agent because earlier attempts had left him feeling like he wasn't good enough. (An agent an traditional publisher later approached him.) We talk about Andy's struggle with rejection and about his new (third published) book, Project Hail Mary, which is also a very funny and inventive space mission story.


Many thanks to Scott Elliott for his editing advice (and sorry for the tinny audio in this one, Scott!) and thanks also to Robin Stannard for my lovely logo.


You can find and buy books by all my guests at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


Find me on Twitter: @francescasteele #writeoff

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]]> Andy Weir is best known for his novel The Martian, a very clever and funny book about an astronaut stranded on Mars, which was made into a (2015) Ridley Scott film starring Matt Damon.


Andy had two failed novels behind him before he self-published The Martian and even when it became an e-book bestseller didn't think to find an agent because earlier attempts had left him feeling like he wasn't good enough. (An agent an traditional publisher later approached him.) We talk about Andy's struggle with rejection and about his new (third published) book, Project Hail Mary, which is also a very funny and inventive space mission story.


Many thanks to Scott Elliott for his editing advice (and sorry for the tinny audio in this one, Scott!) and thanks also to Robin Stannard for my lovely logo.


You can find and buy books by all my guests at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteele


Find me on Twitter: @francescasteele #writeoff

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Anna Hope Anna Hope Wed, 05 May 2021 06:01:25 GMT 41:17 609164b231d3954893cc8851 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/anna-hope 609164b231d3954893cc8851 608a7e839e46326c1216393a anna-hope full 1 1 Anna Hope has written three very successful novels, the last of which, Expectation, was published to much fanfare in 2019 and which has been optioned for film. But before that Anna experienced plenty of rejection as an actor, and then when she turned to writing her first novel failed to sell.


Anna was such a joy to speak to and she felt like the perfect first guest for Write-Off, talking openly and honestly about quite how difficult that experience was and how she got through it to become the hugely successful novelist she is today.


Anna's novels are Wake, The Ballroom and Expectation and you can find them in all good bookshops as well as my own online bookstore link: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteel


Many thanks to Scott Elliott for his invaluable podcast advice, and to Robin Stannard for my lovely Write-Off logo.

Find me on Twitter @francescasteele #writeoff.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Anna Hope has written three very successful novels, the last of which, Expectation, was published to much fanfare in 2019 and which has been optioned for film. But before that Anna experienced plenty of rejection as an actor, and then when she turned to writing her first novel failed to sell.


Anna was such a joy to speak to and she felt like the perfect first guest for Write-Off, talking openly and honestly about quite how difficult that experience was and how she got through it to become the hugely successful novelist she is today.


Anna's novels are Wake, The Ballroom and Expectation and you can find them in all good bookshops as well as my own online bookstore link: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/francescasteel


Many thanks to Scott Elliott for his invaluable podcast advice, and to Robin Stannard for my lovely Write-Off logo.

Find me on Twitter @francescasteele #writeoff.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

]]> Trailer Trailer Fri, 30 Apr 2021 07:27:20 GMT 1:15 608bb1586bae694b9287cb51 false https://shows.acast.com/write-off-with-francesca-steele/episodes/trailer 608bb1586bae694b9287cb51 608a7e839e46326c1216393a trailer trailer 1

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