London Writers' Salon

Debut novelist Tara Menon on writing friendship as a life-shaping bond, the emotional architecture of grief, and researching the natural world for her novel Under Water.

You’ll learn

Why a platonic friendship can shape a life as profoundly as any romance

How to build tension in a story when the reader already knows what’s coming.

What an unexpected sea creature reveals about writing the bonds between women.

The difference between endless research and knowing just enough to write the scene.

Why fiction demands a kind of surrender that criticism never asks for.

How grief for a lost friend and grief for a vanishing natural world can become one story.

When self-doubt is evidence you’re taking the work seriously.

Why cutting a novel down to its essentials can matter more than what you leave in.

A writing rhythm that looks nothing like “500 words every morning” (and works anyway).

What finally makes the writing worth it, long before publication does.

Resources & Links

📄 Interview Transcript

Under Water

Jane Austen collection

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Middlemarch by George Eliot

In Memoriam by Lord Tennyson

I Can’t Let Kobe Go by Tara Menon

The Fall (2013)

Tara’s Website

About Tara Menon

Tara Menon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Nation, Paris Review and Public Books, where she co-edits the Literary Fiction section. Tara was born in India, grew up in Singapore, spent a decade in New York, and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her debut, Under Water, is out now.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.
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Bestselling fantasy authors Holly Black and Samantha Shannon on building believable magic systems, researching and constructing immersive worlds, and why the right book often only emerges once you’ve written the wrong one.

 

You’ll learn

Why the most convincing magic on the page often starts with something you once half-believed was real.

How writing the wrong version of a book can be the only route to the right one.

What the texture of a world quietly promises a reader before the plot even begins.

Why putting a character through the worst is often the best thing you can do for a story.

When the certainty that your draft is a disaster is just a normal part of the process.

What early hype can do to a writer, and why other writers are the antidote.

Where to draw the line between research that serves the book and a rabbit hole that doesn’t.

A method for plotting a long series when you know the destination but not the route.

What happens when a character starts refusing what you try to make it do.

Episode Links

Holly Black — original LWS episode: https://londonwriterssalon.simplecast.com/episodes/127-holly-black-crafting-bestselling-fantasy-world-building-character-development-and-the-prisoners-throne

Samantha Shannon — original LWS episode: https://londonwriterssalon.simplecast.com/episodes/068-samantha-shannon-the-art-of-writing-fantasy-fiction-plotting-mental-health

About the Guests

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fantasy books, including the Novels of Elfhame, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, the Spiderwick Chronicles, her adult debut, Book of Night, as well as an Arthurian picture book called Sir Morien. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library. She invites you to visit her online at blackholly.com or follow her @Hollyblack @blackholly.

Samantha Shannon is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Bone Season and The Priory of the Orange Tree. Born in West London, she studied English Language and Literature at St Anne’s College, Oxford, from 2010 to 2013, specialising in the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Principles of Film Criticism.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.
For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.
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Award-winning novelist and founder of The Novelry Louise Dean on what separates storytelling from beautiful prose, planning a novel without killing the joy, and how to edit your own first draft.

You'll learn

Why learning to craft perfect sentences can quietly delay your path to publication.

How a single shift from style to storytelling turns a promising writer into a published one.

What treating each chapter like a short story does to the terror of a blank novel.

The reason every novel is a moral journey (and why you have to throw rocks at your hero).

A one-page planning method that steers a draft without smothering the joy of writing it.

The one question every writer should be able to answer about their reader.

Why your main character should never be a thinly veiled version of yourself.

When you can’t afford an editor, how to run a developmental edit on your own work.

What to do in the month after finishing a first draft

A five-part structure built for the long moral journey of a novel, and why three acts fall short.

Resources & Links

📄 Interview Transcript

The Great Gatsby

The Novelry

The Novelry Blog

Louise’s books

The Novelry Contact — hello@thenovelry.com

About Louise Dean

Louise Dean is a British author, born in Hastings, who read History at Cambridge University. An award-winning novelist, she is the winner of the Betty Trask Prize and Le Prince Maurice Prize, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her novels have been published internationally. The Wall Street Journal described Louise Dean as one of the world’s top five most under-rated authors. Louise is the founder of the creative writing school The Novelry.

About The Novelry

Founded by award-winning author Louise Dean, The Novelry is the only writing school where bestselling authors and Big Five editors guide you every step of the way.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.
For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.
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Writer Katie da Cunha Lewin on how physical spaces shape creative work, why the perfect writing room is a myth, and the rituals and routines that sustain a writing life.

You'll learn

Why the perfect writing space is largely a myth (and why that can set you free).

How physical environments quietly shape creative practice and identity.

What our fascination with visiting writers' houses reveals.

The cultural baggage around “the writer's room,” and who it quietly excludes.

The way motherhood compresses time and forces a new kind of creative discipline.

A concept of psychological distance between domestic life and creative work.

When creative rituals help (and when writers thrive without them).

How to begin designing a writing space that actually works for you.

What it takes to find the story inside a work of nonfiction.

Why putting yourself on the page makes nonfiction stronger.

Resources & Links

📄Interview Transcript

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Murder She Wrote (1984-1996)

Underworld by Don DeLillo

White Noise by Don DeLillo

The Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Lives of Houses Edited by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee

Downhill All The Way, An Autobiography of the Years 1919 To 1939 By Leonard Woolf

The British Library

My Work by Olga Ravn

The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel, Translated by Rosalind Harvey

Amber Medland

The Years by Annie Ernaux

The Society of Authors

About Katie da Cunha Lewin

Katie da Cunha Lewin’s writing has appeared in leading publications such as The Times Literary Supplement, The White Review, Financial Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Prospect. She is the editor (with Kiron Ward) of Don DeLillo: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Her book, The Writer’s Room: The Hidden Worlds That Shape the Books We Love, is out now.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.
For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.
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FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON
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If you’re enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

YA masters Krystal Sutherland (The Invocations), Joanna Nadin (author of 90+ books for children and adults) and Moira Buffini (Songlight) on hooking teen readers from the very first page, plotting methods that tame a whole novel, and why stories matter so much to young people.

You'll learn

What sparks the magic system of a supernatural thriller.

What it means to find your writing home, and how to know when you've arrived.

Why readers decide within the first ten pages, and how visceral detail keeps them hooked.

A pantser's case for careful plotting when you're juggling multiple points of view.

The most common mistake adults make when writing for young readers.

What screenwriters know about tight writing, and what teen TV can teach you about voice.

Why treating writing as a job, not a calling, makes rejection survivable.

Whether writers should think about their audience.

How writing toward a feeling, not a plan, creates cliffhangers you don't see coming.

Episode Links

#105: Krystal Sutherland

#61: Joanna Nadin

#179: Moira Buffini

About the Guests

Krystal Sutherland is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of House of Hollow, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares and Our Chemical Hearts, which was adapted into a film by Amazon Studios. Her books have been published in more than twenty countries and nominated for the Carnegie Medal and YA Book Prize, among others. Her latest YA novel, The Invocations — the centerpiece of this conversation — won the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Award for young adult literature. Originally from Australia, she has lived on four continents and currently calls London home.

Joanna Nadin has written more than 90 books for children and adults, including the Rachel Riley series, the Penny Dreadful series, and the Sunday Times bestselling Worst Class in the World series. She holds a doctorate in adolescent identity and YA literature and is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. Her books have garnered a number of prizes including the Fantastic Book Award and the Surrey Book Award, and she has been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Booktrust Best Book Award, the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year, the Hearst Big Book Awards, and Queen of Teen. She has been nominated six times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, including for Everybody Hurts and for Joe All Alone, which was made into a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC drama series.

Moira Buffini is an Olivier Award–winning UK playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter, writing many plays for the National Theatre and the West End. Films include Tamara Drewe, Jane Eyre, Byzantium, and The Dig. She cocreated and was showrunner of Hulu's Harlots. Her YA debut Songlight — the first in The Torch Trilogy — won the 2025 YA Book Prize, and its sequel Torchfire is out now. She lives in London.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.
For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.
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FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON
Twitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalon
Instagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalon
Facebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalon
If you’re enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!