The Writing Life

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, Anaïs Van Ertvelde explores what it means to write about disability through her essay collection Handicap: Een bevrijding (Disability: A Liberation), which considers both what the world tells us about disability and what disability can tell us about the world.

 

Anaïs Van Ertvelde is a Belgian writer and historian. She teaches at the art college KASK and writes books, essays, columns, and podcasts focusing on sexuality, gender, the body, and disability. In 2024, she released Handicap: Een bevrijding (Disability: A Liberation), which won the prestigious J. Greshoff prize for the best essay in Dutch.

 

Anaïs sat down with Quaid Cey, a recent alumnus of our Emerging Translator Mentorships Programme, to explore her experience as a disabled writer and the process of writing this essay collection. They also explored her approach to writing about sex, her residency in Norwich and what the experience meant to her, as well as the challenges of writing for two different audiences.

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, Belgian author Dieter Rogiers explores how place shapes his writing, discussing both the locations where he writes and the international settings of his novels.

 

Dieter Rogiers is a Belgian author, film critic and copywriter from Brussels. Selected in 2004 as one of ten promising young Flemish writers, Dieter has written several award-winning short stories and graphic novels, including De Wraak van de Walgvolgel (The Dodo’s Revenge), Tunguska and De parelvisser (The Pearl Fisher). His first novel, the Brussels-based Bot Mes (Dull Blade), received the Fred Braeckman Award for best Flemish thriller debut in 2023. His residency in Norwich City of Literature was part of our exchange with Passa Porta house of literature in Brussels.

 

Dieter sat down with Quaid Cey, a recent alumnus of our Emerging Translator Mentorships Programme, to discuss the role writing residencies have played in his career and how he researches the diverse settings of his fiction. Their conversation also covers the Kishōtenketsu narrative structure, how living in Brussels has influenced and shaped his writing, and the importance of stepping away from everyday life and dedicating time to your practice.

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, bestselling novelist Isabel Allende shares insights into her creative process and craft, as outlined in her latest book Storytelling  – a profound exploration of the art and magic of writing.

 

Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist. She is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than eighty million copies of her books across forty-two languages. She is the author of several bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, Violeta, A Long Petal of the Sea, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, and Paula. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

She sat down with NCW’s Holly Ainley to reflect on what it means to be a writer, and the role that writing plays in shaping her life and identity. They also explore how to navigate self-criticism as a writer, the importance of creating complex, three-dimensional characters, and developing an authentic voice as a writer.

In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, debut novelist Ruthy Mason shares how she explores the creative possibilities of liminality and transformation in Death Do Us – a haunting story that peels back the veil from the institution of marriage and exposes the rot underneath.

 

Ruthy Mason is a writer based in North London. After studying archaeology and anthropology at University College London, she completed a master’s in creative writing at the University of Cambridge, and is now working towards her PhD at Anglia Ruskin University. She won the Michael Holroyd Prize for Re-creative Fiction and was shortlisted for the Mslexia Fiction Competition. Death Do Us is her first novel.

 

She sat down with NCW's Steph McKenna to discuss why she chose to focus on the period between engagement and marriage in her protagonist’s life, the parallels between the work of archaeologists and writers, the challenges of second-person narration, and much more.

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.