"This book is begging to be written...It has this a frontier-ness to it..." Bruce Omar Yates is here to discuss his upcoming novel published by Dead Ink Books, THE MUSLIM COWBOY .

In a contemporary and entertaining novel set in aftermath of the Iraq war, a man who is obsessed with old Western movies dresses in double denim and roams a lawless landscape in search of his own Western story. Rippling Points 1.32 - Bruce's family and how these fed into ideas about a 'muslim cowboy' 4.30 - Nameless and speechless: playing with the archetype of the cowboy 6.20 - Song writing in Nashville to writing this novel 8.40 - Iraq as the setting for the novel 12.00 - Removing binaries around what is good and not good 17.33 - A camel and child - the other characters 20.53 - The novel as a sandbox 25.30 - The act of making his characters watch westerns Reference Points Aladdin (1992. Dir: John Musker and Ron Clements) David Foster Wallace Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Lucky Luke - Goscinny Once Upon a Time in the West (1969. Dir: Sergio Leone) The Road - Cormac McCarthy (2006) Shane (1953. Dir: George Stevens) True Grit (1969. Dir: Henry Hathaway) Zadie Smith

"The smotheringly neutral voice" Claire Carroll is here to talk about her new and debut collection of short stories THE UNRELIABLE NATURE WRITER. A truly candid insight into the workings of craft and being a writer from one of the most exciting and upcoming fiction writers today. THE UNRELIABLE NATURE WRITER is published by Scratch Books - more here

Rippling Points 2.00 - Claire's dreams and reading. 4.55 - The different personal and impersonal voices in Claire's work 10:37 - Being a writer and knowing or not knowing answers 13:12 - Unreliable narrators and what they mean to Claire 18:00 - How and why Claire writes about animals. 24:30 - The challenge of having 'authority' on the climate crisis 28.40 - Giving the stories a sense of wonder 30:00 - Claire's book tour!

Reference Points

Franz Kafka Cormac McCarthy - The Road Ben Pester Saba Sams Samantha Walton - The Nature Cure

"The garden is a co-author" Marchelle Farrell is here to talk about her essay in a new anthology from Daunt Books, BY THE RIVER: ESSAYS FROM THE WATER'S EDGE. I've wanted to talk to Marchelle since the publication of UPROOTING: FROM THE CARIBBEAN TO THE COUNTRYSIDE - Canongate Books), so it was great to have her here when she's part of an anthology featuring the likes of Caleb Azumah Nelson and Tessa Hadley. Marchelle, a consultant psychiatrist as well as a writer, often blends personal history with reflections on how colonial history has shaped the world and behaviour Rippling Points 1.25 - The rivers that Marchelle writers about in her essay, 'Memory River 4.06 - the noise of the river and how it infiltrated Marchelle's dreams 7.08 - A sense of renewal and writing about childhood 9.00 - The pain and joy in revisiting childhood 12.34 - Marchelle's belief on balancing both pain and joy in life. 15.04 - The story of Marchelle's family and forgotten stories 18.23 - Can anything ever be permanently erased? 20.22 - Leaving space for the reader to make interpretations. 22.13 - The river and its links to colonial history. 25.22 - How the 'English' garden isn't so English. 28.20 - What is play and why is it important Reference Points Jo Hamya Amy Key Donald Winnicott