James Bond – We'd Like a Word

Borders and Boundaries

On this all new episode of We’d Like A Word, we talk borders and boundaries with two authors whose work deals with separation.

Asia Mackay is the author of the highly acclaimed and witty spy thriller Killing it and its recently published sequel, The Nursery. It tells the story of Lex Tyler – covert operative, assassin … and mother. As the cover blurb says, ‘Bad guys can wait. Bedtime can’t.’ Asia tells us all about the genesis of the character and how she maintains the boundaries between being a mum and being an author while her heroine struggles not to blur her work and home life too. We also talk about real life female spies, the ‘Sexy Lamp Test’ and other measures authors can use to make sure that their work has the right balance of male and female characters.

We then turn to Brian McGilloway, New York Times bestselling author of the DS Lucy Black thrillers and Inspector Devlin mysteries. Many of his books are set on or near the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and he is fascinated by the lives of the people who live there. He is also a working teacher and has to find ways to keep his writing – which can be quite violent and visceral – separate from the rest of his life. As someone who is in a position to inspire young minds and the next generation of writers, how does he balance the two sides?

It’s a fascinating episode with two great writers and we hope you enjoy it.

Books mentioned are:

Writing advice from Anthony Horowitz

We try to ask our We’d Like A Word guests to share a writing tip for other authors and aspiring authors.

This one comes from Anthony Horowitz, who you can also hear at fascinating length on our podcast which is about Life After Death: Giving new life to classic characters after their original authors have died. Like Anthony Horowitz does with James Bond and Sherlock Holmes.

Anthony Horowitz on James Bond & giving life after death

Anthony Horowitz looking like he’s up in front of a firing squad. Picture taken at the wonderful Noireland international crime fiction festival in Belfast.

Anthony Horowitz admits he’s a killer. Dozens of times over. The thing is, we’re not just talking about the dozens and dozens he’s dispatched in the pages of his many books or TV shows like Midsommer Murders and Foyle’s War. But that’s all I’m saying here. You can hear his startling revelations from his own mouth on the latest episode of We’d Like A Word.

Our official topic is life after death – whether it’s right for new authors to give extended life to characters after their original authors have died. Anthony Horowitz does it – and does it well – with Sherlock Holmes and most recently with James Bond in Forever and A Day. (You can win a copy of that in the competition – details on the podcast.)

But we talk about a lot else and a lot of other authors, in particular Sophie Hannah, who has brought Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot back to life.

You’ll also hear Anthony Horowitz read from his James Bond book, let slip his views on Brexit, villains and where he writes.