The Writers’ Gym Podcast

Dr Rachel Knightley is joined at the Writers' Gym by Emmy award winning script-writer, novelist and director Doug Naylor. He co-created the long running hugely successful sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf, has written or co-written every episode across thirteen series and has directed over twenty episodes. Doug also co-founded Grant Naylor Productions in 1991 which made series IV to X of Red Dwarf. Doug has also written three best selling novels, and a few non-best selling ones too. He co-wrote a number one single which shall remain nameless, but has the words Song and Chicken in the title. Doug also co-created the Carlton TV series The 10 Percenters, for which his script Table 11 won a British Comedy award. Formerly he was Head writer and Script editor on the original run of the hugely popular satirical puppet show Spitting Image and he has also written a number of award winning radio shows. His alma mater was Liverpool University where he claims he was thrown out, at the end of his second year, for drinking too slowly. In September 2025, Doug’s children’s novel Sin Bin Island was published by David Fickling Books and he is currently working on the second in the series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Naylor
 
https://www.pbjmanagement.co.uk/artists/doug-naylor

Dr Rachel Knightley is joined at the Writers' Gym by Lee Murray ONZM (Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit) . Lee is a writer, editor, poet and screenwriter from Aotearoa New Zealand, a Shirley Jackson Award and five-time Bram Stoker Award® winner. A USA Today bestselling author with more than forty titles to her credit, including novels, collections, anthologies, nonfiction, poetry, and several books for children, Lee holds a New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction, and is an Honorary Literary Fellow of the New Zealand Society of Authors. Among her recent works are feature film Grafted (directed by Sasha Rainbow), horror anthology This Way Lies Madness (Flame Tree Press) co-edited with Dave Jeffery, and prose-poetry collection, NZSA Cuba Press Prize-winner Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud (The Cuba Press). 
 
Read more at https://www.leemurray.info/

What do the words we really hate, really want to tell us? Dr Rachel Knightley takes the word that annoys her the most and spends time listening to what it might have wanted to tell her – and what listening to it might mean for her confidence and creativity.

Multi-award-winning novelist Lavie Tidhar is Dr Rachel Knightley's guest on the Writers' Gym Podcast. Lavie’s work encompasses literary fiction (Maror, Adama, Golgotha and Six Lives), cross-genre classics such as Jerwood Prize winner A Man Lies Dreaming and World Fantasy Award winner Osama, and genre works like the Campbell and Neukom winner Central Station. His work has been translated into multiple languages. He lives in London.

 

https://lavietidhar.wordpress.com

https://www.instagram.com/lavietidhar/?hl=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavie_Tidhar

One thing at a time, or freedom to flip between? What system of working really summons your creativity and what gets in the way? Dr Rachel Knightley wants to hear from you.