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On this latest episode of We’d Like a Word, we have something of a coup! Because Steve and Paul are chatting to Kritika Pandey, overall world-wide winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize!

Kritika first won the Asian heat of the competition, which got her to the final along with winners from Canada and Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific zone. On Tuesday (30th) it was announced that her story The Great Indian Tee and Snakes – had been voted the overall winner!

The Commonwealth Foundation announced Pandey’s win in an online award ceremony which featured readings from Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo and actors Swara Bhasker, Elizabeth McGovern, Kerry Fox, and Leila Bertand.

Pandey, who hails from Ranchi, Jharkhand, was presented with the prize by Ghanaian author and Chair of the Judges Nii Ayikwei Parkes during a video call. She is the second Indian national to win the overall prize after Parashar Kulkarni in 2016.

Pandey’s winning story, The Great Indian Tee and Snakes, tells of an unlikely friendship which reaches across religious divides, set against the background of a tea seller’s stall. She writes of two young people trying to solve an age-old riddle of human existence: how can love overcome the forces of hatred and prejudice? Pandey says, ‘I created a strong-willed character of a Hindu girl who chooses to love a Muslim boy, even though she knows that she is not “supposed to”.’

You can read the winning story here on the Granta website here.

Kritika’s website is here.

You can learn more about the prize here at the Commonwealth Writers website.

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We’d Like A Word is hosted by Paul Waters and Stevyn Colgan and goes out fortnightly. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Podcast Radio and many other podcast sites. Or you can listen to it via the hosting site – Anchor FM – by clicking here.

Contact the show via Facebook or Twitter at: @wedlikeaword

Or by email: [email protected]

War Torn

Welcome to this new episode of We’d Like A Word in which Paul and Steve chat to author Geoffrey Gudgion about his new novel Draca, and to General Sir Peter Wall – ex head of the British Army and now President of the charity Combat Stress which helps people with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Geoff is an ex-Royal Navy veteran who, as you’ll hear, is no stranger to life-changing trauma himself (he’s not averse to the odd explosive prank either!). Draca is his latest novel and it tells the story of Jack, a man haunted by his past, who is rebuilding his life and a boat that belonged to his grandfather and which may have a kind of life of its own …

50% of all proceeds from the sale of the book will go to Combat Stress, a charity that means a great deal to Geoff.

For over a century the charity has been helping former servicemen and women deal with issues like PTSD, anxiety and depression. Today they provide specialist treatment and support for veterans from every service and conflict, focusing on those with complex mental health issues. They also act as advisers to people in other stressful work arenas such as the NHS frontline and police officers.

We also pay a pre-Covid visit to Geoff’s favourite bookshop in Marlow, Buckinghamshire (it’s also one of Paul and Steve’s favourite bookshops too) to have a chat and eat cake.

Combat Stress website is here.

The Marlow Bookshop is here.

Geoff’s website is here.

Buy DRACA here.

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We’d Like A Word is available from iTunes, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podcast Radio and wherever else good podcasts are found. Or you can listen to the episodes on their hosting site at Anchor by clicking here.

Working Class Hero

Welcome to another locked-down episode of WE’D LIKE A WORD with Paul Waters and Stevyn Colgan and their guest this episode – novelist and screen-writer Dougie Brimson.

Dougie is the author of several novels including The Crew, Billy’s Log, Top Dog, Wings of a Sparrow and his latest – In the Know. He’s also the author of several non-fiction books that mostly centre on the culture of football fans and explore the subject of hooliganism. He’s also a screenwriter with several films to his credit including Green Street (starring Elijah Wood) and Top Dog, directed by actor an ex-Spandau Ballet bassist Martin Kemp.

After 18 years service as an engineering sergeant with the RAF – including deployment during the Falklands conflict – Dougie’s literary career began in 1996 when he co-wrote a book exploring the culture of football hooliganism entitled, Everywhere We Go: Behind the Matchday Madness. He has subsequently written a further 14 books in a variety of genres including fiction thriller and fiction comedy.

In 2003 he made the move into screenwriting with the short film It’s a Casual Life, which looked at the world of football violence from the fans’ perspective. His first full-length feature, the Hollywood-funded Green Street won numerous awards including:

Narrative Jury Prize-SXSW Film Festival
Narrative Feature Audience-SXSW Film Festival
Best of Festival–Malibu Film Festival
Jury Award (feature)–Malibu Film Festival
Official Selection–Tribeca Film Festival

His next feature was an adaptation of his own novel Top Dog in 2014 which won ‘Best Feature’ at the British Independent Film Festival 2014 as well as a string of acting awards.

November 2014 saw the release of We Still Kill The Old Way, a vigilante thriller starring Ian Ogilvy, Chris Ellison, Steven Berkhoff and Lysette Anthony.

On this episode we discuss the differences between writing for books and writing for the screen. We also talk about the difficulties faced by working-class writers who have huge audiences but almost no representation among traditional publishers.

Mentioned on the show:

Kit de Waal’s excellent Common People: An Anthology of Working Class Writers

Paul McVeigh’s The Good Son

Sabrina Mafouz’s Smashing It: Working Class Artists on Life, Art and Making It Happen

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WE’D LIKE A WORD is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Pods, Apple Music, and wherever good podcasts are hosted. We’re also to be found at Podcast Radio and here on our host site, Anchor. Or just click here!

We’re also on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as @wedlikeaword

The name’s Rain. John Rain.

Welcome back for another lockdown episode of WE’D LIKE A WORD. And, before we start, may we ask a favour? This podcast has been nominated in the ‘People’s Choice’ category of the British Podcast Awards. Yay! So, if you think we’re worthy of a vote, pop along to this webpage and sling our name in the ballot box. Thank you. You’re lovely.

Now, on with this week’s pod. And this episode we’re lucky to have James Bond aficionado and host of SMERSHPOD, Mister John Rain.

John loves films. And, in particular, he loves the James Bond films. So he started a podcast called SMERSHPOD where he discusses the films, one per episode, with such people as Mark Gatiss, Rufus Wright, Samira Ahmed, Joel Morris, Dan Tetsell. Al Murray and more. He also does ‘side projects’ with episodes looking at films starring Bond actors. Or just action films that he likes.

And last year, he put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and wrote a love paean to Bond in the form of THUNDERBOOK, a series of very funny essays in which he pulls each film apart in turn and fills the reader with fun trivia, fascinating facts and unexpected insights. It’s a great book.

We’re beginning to hate Zoom. Roll on the days when we can record properly again and not have to cope with Steve’s bad wifi, barking dogs and children asking what’s for dinner.

We also talk about the problems of translating books to film (and vice-versa), John’s second love (H G Wells’s War of the Worlds) and who might, or might not, be suitable to be the next Bond.

We’d Like A Word is available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts or wherever else good podcasts lurk. or you can click here and hear us on our host site at Anchor.

Oh, and VOTE FOR US!

Mentioned in this episode:

The Empire Strikes Door – a film by Jamie Stangroom (it’s great!)

Judith O’Reilly – A great thriller writer

A Question of Us – Mary Jayne Baker’ award-winning comedy novel

Loving the Laughter

In this new episode of We’d Like a Word Paul Waters and Stevyn Colgan talk to authors Lisa Firth (aka Lisa Swift and Mary Jayne Baker) and Sue Clark about romantic comedy and a much bigger question … where have all the comic novels gone?

Lisa is the author of eight novels (under her two pen names) including The Honey Trap, Meet me at the lighthouse, Runaway Bride and The School of Starting Over. Her book A Bicycle Made for Two was a finalist in the Romantic Novelists’ Association ‘Romantic Comedy of the Year 2019’ award and in 2020, she scooped the award with A Question of Us. Her new novel The Never Have I Ever Club is published in June.

Sue is a comedy writer with many TV and radio credits to her name including The News Huddlines, Alas Smith and Jones, Three of a Kind, Weekending and many more. Her first novel Note to Boy is published in July 2020.

This episode tackles the vexing question … where have all the comedy novels gone? Wind the clock back just twenty years to the start of this century and the bookshops were full of works by people like Sue Townsend, Terry Pratchett, Stella Gibbons, Douglas Adams, Tom Sharpe, Helen Fielding, George McDonald Fraser, David Nobbs and so many more. and if you ask people what their favourite books are, there’s nearly always a comedy novel in the list. But where are all the funny novels now?

We discuss the dearth of comic novels and why things are so bad for comedy novelists right now. However, one area of fiction where comedy is still thriving is the ‘romcom’ and we discuss such topics as: Why are romcom books packaged so differently for male and female authors? Why is romcom often sniffily viewed as ‘fluff’ by reviewers and even TV presenters? And should you include pets as characters?

Books mentioned in this podcast

Also mentioned …

You can find We’d Like A Word on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Google Pods, Podcast Radio and pretty much anywhere that good podcasts are found. Or you can listen buy visiting our hosts at Anchor.

Writing in the Deep South (and a visit to deep South Buckinghamshire)

Welcome to a new episode of We’d Like A Word featuring acclaimed and award-winning American writer Taylor Brown, joining us all the way from Georgia, and listener Jason Grubbs from Michigan. We discuss Taylor’s books, particularly his latest novel Pride of Eden, and also river monsters, the joy of cafes, how a sense of place can define your writing style and why you should never give your dog a new squeaky toy just before a podcast recording.

We also take a nostalgic last visit to the iconic but now sadly closed Cottage Bookshop in Penn where we speak to previous owner Alan Campbell and new owner Daniel Upwood. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we also have a special guest appearance by comedian and co-host of BBC R4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage, Robin Ince, to share some memories of the shop.

The episode was recorded via a video sharing app during the current Coronavirus lockdown restrictions so the sound quality does vary at times (and we lose Stevyn on a couple of occasions).

Taylor Brown is a recipient of the Montana Prize in Fiction, and he’s been a finalist for the Press 53 Open Awards, Machigonne Fiction Contest, and Doris Betts Fiction Prize. He is the author of In the Season of Blood and Gold (Press 53, 2014), Fallen Land (St. Martin’s Macmillan, 2016), The River of Kings (St. Martin’s, 2017), Gods of Howl Mountain (St. Martin’s, 2018), and Pride of Eden (St. Martin’s, 2020). He lives in Savannah, Georgia, and is the founder and editor of BikeBound, a custom motorcycle blog.

We were introduced to Taylor’s work by listener Jason Grubbs and figured that it might be nice to have him on the show too as it gave him a chance to put some questions to a writer he admires.

Paul, Alan Campbell, Daniel Upwood and Stevyn at the Cottage Bookshop in Penn

As mentioned above, we also visited (before the lockdown) a bookshop – as we do in most episodes – because we love them. However, this visit was tinged with some sadness as the Cottage Bookshop in Penn – a vast storehouse of second-hand books crammed into a tiny, gutted 19th century cottage – finally closed its doors in 2018 after being open since 1951. We were allowed a final rummage among the books – now being sold off to warehouses and collectors or being donated to charities – and reflect on what the place meant to us and to famous regular visitors such as the late Terry Pratchett and Robin Ince. Robin joins us by phone for a few reminiscences.

The kitchen corner so beloved of Robin Ince was through the white stable door

The ‘secret’ attic room – now cleared – that Robin mentions … but, luckily, no vases.

We’d Like a Word is available from everywhere that good podcasts are found including iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Podcast Radio and our host, Anchor.

If you’d like to get in contact with us (like Jason did) we’re [email protected] or you can find us on Facebook and Twitter as @wedlikeaword

Tinker. Tailor. Barrister. Boxer. Crime Writer.

On the latest episode of We’d Like a Word – the first to be recorded in lockdown conditions due to Coronavirus – Paul and Stevyn talk to thriller writer Tony Kent via the magic of social media.

Tony is a renowned English writer of mystery, thriller, and crime fiction novels, a barrister and a former boxer. He is particularly famous for his book Killer Intent, which became one of the must-reads of 2018. It was followed by Marked for Death and, just released, Power Play.

He also has one of the most colourful back-stories of any author who has been interviewed on the podcast. Tony grew up in a close-knit Irish family in London and studied law in Scotland. He is a top-ranking barrister and former champion boxer who brings a wealth of detail and personal insight to his unputdownable thrillers. A regular at London’s Old Bailey, Tony’s case history includes prosecuting and defending many high-profile, nationally reported trials. Before his legal career, Tony boxed internationally as a heavyweight and won a host of national amateur titles.

Like many authors, Tony has been hit by the Covid-19 virus. However, in his case, it was a double punch – he actually had the virus and recovered and then saw all of the plans for the launch of Power Play go down the pan.

Another author in the same boat is thriller-writer Judith O’Reilly, author of Killing State and Curse the Day. She pops in to tell us about it and about her favourite bookshop (the boys hope to have her on the podcast for a proper chat sometime soon).

And, in our regular bookshop visit segment, Paul went to Waterstones, High Wycombe (before the current restrictions) to chat to Ben Churchill about the current and future state of the book business. Ben is responsible for a number of branches across Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.

We wish you all well in these difficult times and, if it’s possible to get new episodes out to you fortnightly, we will do so. Meanwhile, there’s our back catalogue to listen to!

Find us on iTunes, Spotify, Anchor and wherever good podcasts are hosted.

Help Yourselves

Welcome to the wonderful world of self-help! On this new episode Paul and Steve chat to self-help gurus Daniel Fryer and John Williams.

Daniel is a highly experienced and much sought-after psychotherapist and the author of ‘The Four Thoughts that F*ck you up and How to Fix them’. John, meanwhile, is a one-man inspiration industry and has published two bestsellers, ‘Screw Work, Let’s Play’ and ‘Screw Work, Break Free’ and also runs such projects as The Ideas Lab, The Love Challenge and the Five Day Startup Challenge.

From L to R: Paul, John Williams, Stevyn, Daniel Fryer

There’s a lot of great advice in this episode about good mental health and how to turn your passions into a career. We also hear how John used his skills to find love, what Daniel contributed to the Bingo industry and Paul visits the quite lovely Book House in Thame, Oxfordshire – a popular haunt of Roald Dahl – and chats to owner, Brian Pattinson.

Podcast available from iTunes, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Listen Notes, Podtail, Anchor and anywhere else that good podcasts are found.

Now, how will we create the next episode while we’re all on self-isolating lock down due to COVID-19? Watch this space …

Meanwhile, you can contact us on Facebook or Twitter as @wedlikeaword or email us at [email protected] – we’d love to hear from you.

We’re all in this together

Hello m’lovelies.. Paul and Stevyn here.

Are you an author whose book launch and/or tour was cancelled/postponed because of the Coronavirus pandemic? That sucks and, as authors ourselves, we feel for you.

We can’t hope to replace what you’ve lost but we’d like to help, in some small way, if we can.

Over the next few weeks our (nearly award-winning – we were so close!) podcast WE’D LIKE A WORD is offering you another platform to tell the world about your new book. All we need from you is a short audio clip telling us:

Who you are;
The title of your book;
A brief summary of what it’s about;

And because we also want to support small indie bookshops in these troubled times …

The name of a bookshop that’s dear to you.

You can record it any way you like – your smartphone has a pretty good record function. Then email your file to us at [email protected] and we’ll do the rest.

As sound files can be quite large, we recommend using the free service WeTransfer.com to send us files over 20mb in size. Other services are available, of course.

We can’t guarantee to play every single one though we will do our best!

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WE’D LIKE A WORD is written and presented by authors Stevyn Colgan and Paul Waters and is available fortnightly on Wednesdays from iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast FM and most other podcast platforms. Former guests have included Graham Norton, Denise Mina, Anthony Horowitz, Asia Mackay, Joel Morris, Helen Cullen, Peter May, Dr Erica McAlister, Adrian McKinty, Alison Finch, Will Dean, Isi the Scribe, Belinda Bauer and many more. It was shortlisted for the 2020 London Book Fair Books Podcaster of the Year Award.

Kids’ Stuff

Paul. Stevyn, Serena Patel and Fritha Lindqvist

On the latest episode of We’d Like A Word, Paul and Stevyn chat to children’s author Serena Patel about her new book Anisha: Accidental Detective (excellently illustrated by Emma McCann). Books for children and young adults are as popular as ever so we talk about how to write for a younger audience and Serena’s dramatic life story and how it shaped her character (and the character of her book’s hero, Anisha). She also reads from her book and talks about her childhood experiences of racism, homelessness and being bullied. We also hear about the detective books she read as a child and the inspirational British Asians she looked up to.

We also go behind the scenes of children’s book promotion with freelancer Fritha Lindqvist (who helped Cressida Cowell train her dragon). Fritha also tells us about the various campaigns that exist to get children reading and learning from stories (see links below).

And in the second of an occasional series of bookshop visits, Paul goes to the beautiful Daunt Books in Marylebone High Street to chat to bookseller Rose Cole & book lovers from the USA.

Go listen now! Click here or find us on iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts or wherever good podcasts lurk.

Links

National Literacy Trust

The NLT are an independent charity dedicated to giving disadvantaged children the literacy skills they need to succeed. They work to improve the reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in the UK’s poorest communities, where one in three people have literacy problems. Because low literacy is inter-generational, they focus their work on families, young people and children. They help to transform lives through literacy and have stacks of research that shows that reading for pleasure has a significant impact on a child’s future socio-economic chances. Encouraging and nurturing reading for pleasure benefits the whole economy and country.

More information here

The current Waterstones Children’s Laureate is Cressida Cowell author of the How to Train your Dragon books. Her laureate charter is a powerful ten point action plan that champions the creativity, intelligence and empathy skills reading books nurtures. It’s a call to action for all of us to realise the magic of reading for everyone. You can download the charter here

EmpathyLab

EmpathyLab is the first organisation to build children’s empathy, literacy and social activism through a systematic use of high quality literature. Their strategy builds on new scientific evidence showing the power of reading to build real-life empathy skills. They believe that empathy is a beacon of hope in a divided world. They produce an annual Read for Empathy book collection and run an annual Empathy Day to shine a light on the power of reding to build empathy – it’s in 9 June this year.

More information here