The Writers’ Gym Podcast

Unblock your writing and your right to write: Dr Rachel Knightley identifies and debunks the myth that's most got in her way as a writer, and how believing in ourselves, not our monsters, is the purpose of the stories we tell ourselves.

Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes joins Dr Rachel Knightley on the Writers' Gym Podcast, discussing how we turn interests and passions into writing careers. Xavi is Reader in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University and a founding member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies. His publications include the monographs Contemporary Body Horror (CUP, 2024), Horror Film and Affect (Routledge, 2016) and Body Gothic (UWP, 2014) and the edited collections Twenty-First-Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (with Maisha Wester, EUP, 2019) and Horror: A Literary History (British Library, 2016). Xavier is co-president of the International Gothic Association and a founding member of the Horror Studies special interest group hosted by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies.
 
https://www.waterstones.com/author/xavier-aldana-reyes/784113
 
https://www.routledge.com/authors/i14274-xavier-aldana-reyes

Dr Rachel Knightley shares how a Writers' Gym member's fear of plagiarizing can be turned from a 'reason' not to write into a reason to write as much as possible.

Ally Wilkes joins Dr Rachel Knightley at the Writers' Gym to discuss the power of horror fiction to explore identity and the highs and lows of creating a writing life that works for the individual you are.  

 

Ally’s debut novel, All the White Spaces, was a Bram Stoker Award finalist, and her second novel, Where the Dead Wait, was one of Esquire’s best horror books of 2023. Her short fiction has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies from publishers including Nightmare Magazine, Cosmic Horror Monthly, Flame Tree Press, Eerie River, and Nepenthe Press. Her next novel, Man Eater – set in the fevered jungles of the Amazon during the late Victorian orchid-hunting craze – will be published in February 2027.

 

Visit the Writers' Gym at writersgym.com

 

Find out more about Ally at:

 

Her website:

https://allywilkes.com

 

Wikipedia:

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

 

AM Heath:

https://amheath.com/authors/ally-wilkes

Dr Rachel Knightley shares three resolutions for creative confidence on the page and in life.