The Writing Life

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, Polly Barton andCharlotte Goff discuss their paths into literary translation and their experience translating Nao-Cola Yamazaki’s novels from Japanese into English.

 

Polly Barton is a writer and literary translator from Japanese into English. Her translations include Butter by Asako Yuzuki, Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda and There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. Her debut novel, What Am I, A Deer?, was published in April 2026. Her most recent translation is Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives by Nao-Cola Yamazaki.

 

Charlotte Goff is an Edinburgh-based Japanese-English literary translator. Her first translations are Nao-Cola Yamazaki’s Beautiful Distance (Daunt, Zando 2026) and Aya Koda’s Tree (Penguin 2026). Charlotte was selected for one of the National Centre for Writing’s 2024 Emerging Translator Mentorships, which involved six months’ mentoring by Polly Barton.

 

They sat down with NCW’s Rebecca DeWald to reflect on their journey from working together on the Emerging Translator Mentorship programme to translating books from the same author. They also explore translating books written from the male perspective, balancing staying faithful to the original text with interpretive freedom, and learning to trust yourself as a literary translator.

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, Norfolk-based writer Laurence Mitchell reveals how he brought the spirit of landscape and place onto the page in his award-winning book, Flint Country: A Stone Journey.

 

Laurence Mitchell is a travel writer with a number of guidebooks and walking guides to his name. He also writes features for magazines like Geographical, Walk and Discovering Britain. He has contributed to Echtrai Journal, Elsewhere: a journal of place and several anthologies, and was a regular guest writer for the Berlin-based magazine hidden europe for many years. His first book for Saraband, Westering, was published in 2021 and his second, Flint Country, published in 2025. Flint Country won the General Non-Fiction category in the East Anglian Book Awards 2025.

 

He sat down with NCW’s Holly Ainley to discuss the ‘spirit of place’ and how writers can weave culture, folklore, and personal memory into their portrayal of landscape. They also explore his decision to write about Norfolk flint, how writers can bring their own personality to the narrative, and what it means to think about landscape as a character.

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, award-winning writer Sarah L. Kaufman discusses mastering the art of the verb and transforming your writing with language, grammar, and style.

 

Sarah L. Kaufman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, an award-winning author and a writing teacher. As the Washington Post’s chief dance critic she wrote about the arts, entertainment, and society for 27 years. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Review of Books and Boston Globe, among others. Sarah’s latest book, Verb Your Enthusiasm, is a clarion call for all of us to get back to basics: to mean what we say and say what we mean.

 

Sarah sat down with non-fiction writer Dan Richards to share her research and findings on how powerful verbs drive great storytelling. Their conversation explores the nine categories of language, why protecting human creativity matters in the age of AI, and how expressive language helps writers connect more deeply with readers.

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, award-winning writer Pip Landers-Letts discusses her experience self-publishing her action-packed novel Pyg – a queer retelling of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. 

 

Pip Landers-Letts is an emerging queer author of contemporary sapphic fiction. Her work explores themes of love, loss and transformation, by blending emotional honesty with warm, character-driven storytelling. Her published titles include The Weight of What Was (2024), Pyg (2025), and Chameleon (2026). In 2025, she won the Kindle Storyteller Award for Pyg.

 

Pip sat down with fellow writer Grace Murray to share her journey through self-publishing, offering advice and insights into the process, and reflecting on how winning the Kindle Storyteller Award helped her feel recognised as a writer. Their conversation also covers working with sensitivity readers, lesbian representation in literature, and the experience of writing multiple books set within the same fictional world. 

 

Self-published authors can enter a book of any genre into the Kindle Storyteller Award for the chance to win £20,000. To be eligible, simply publish your story via Kindle Direct Publishing by Monday 31 August 2026.

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, debut novelist Jem Calder shares insights into developing the complex central relationship in his novel, I Want You to Be Happy – a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but trying.

 

Jem Calder was born in Cambridge, and lives and works in London. His fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly and Granta, and his debut short story collection, Reward System, was published by Faber in 2022. I Want You to Be Happy is his debut novel.

 

He sat down with NCW’s Lucy May to discuss his approach to crafting the novel’s relationship, from shaping two distinct characters to exploring the dynamic that unfolds between them. Their conversation also covers writing with the reader in mind, the appeal of writing about writers, and his advice for creating convincing relationships in fiction.