Award-winning novelist and founder of The Novelry Louise Dean on what separates storytelling from beautiful prose, planning a novel without killing the joy, and how to edit your own first draft.

We discuss

• Why learning to craft perfect sentences can quietly delay your path to publication.
• How a single shift from style to storytelling turns a promising writer into a published one.
• What treating each chapter like a short story does to the terror of a blank novel.
• The reason every novel is a moral journey (and why you have to throw rocks at your hero).
• A one-page planning method that steers a draft without smothering the joy of writing it.
• The one question every writer should be able to answer about their reader.
• Why your main character should never be a thinly veiled version of yourself.
• When you can’t afford an editor, how to run a developmental edit on your own work.
• What to do in the month after finishing a first draft
• A five-part structure built for the long moral journey of a novel, and why three acts fall short.

Resources & Links

• 📄 Interview Transcript
• The Great Gatsby
• The Novelry
• The Novelry Blog
• Louise’s books
• The Novelry Contact — hello@thenovelry.com

About Louise Dean

Louise Dean is a British author, born in Hastings, who read History at Cambridge University. An award-winning novelist, she is the winner of the Betty Trask Prize and Le Prince Maurice Prize, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her novels have been published internationally. The Wall Street Journal described Louise Dean as one of the world’s top five most under-rated authors. Louise is the founder of the creative writing school The Novelry.

About The Novelry

Founded by award-winning author Louise Dean, The Novelry is the only writing school where bestselling authors and Big Five editors guide you every step of the way.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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Writer Katie da Cunha Lewin on how physical spaces shape creative work, why the perfect writing room is a myth, and the rituals and routines that sustain a writing life.

We discuss

• Why the perfect writing space is largely a myth (and why that can set you free).
• How physical environments quietly shape creative practice and identity.
• What our fascination with visiting writers' houses reveals.
• The cultural baggage around “the writer's room,” and who it quietly excludes.
• The way motherhood compresses time and forces a new kind of creative discipline.
• A concept of psychological distance between domestic life and creative work.
• When creative rituals help (and when writers thrive without them).
• How to begin designing a writing space that actually works for you.
• What it takes to find the story inside a work of nonfiction.
• Why putting yourself on the page makes nonfiction stronger.

Resources & Links

• 📄Interview Transcript
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
• Murder She Wrote (1984-1996)
• Underworld by Don DeLillo
• White Noise by Don DeLillo
• The Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize
• A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
• Lives of Houses Edited by Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee
• Downhill All The Way, An Autobiography of the Years 1919 To 1939 By Leonard Woolf
• The British Library
• My Work by Olga Ravn
• The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel, Translated by Rosalind Harvey
• Amber Medland
• The Years by Annie Ernaux
• The Society of Authors

About Katie da Cunha Lewin

Katie da Cunha Lewin’s writing has appeared in leading publications such as The Times Literary Supplement, The White Review, Financial Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Prospect. She is the editor (with Kiron Ward) of Don DeLillo: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Her book, The Writer’s Room: The Hidden Worlds That Shape the Books We Love, is out now.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON

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YA masters Krystal Sutherland (The Invocations), Joanna Nadin (author of 90+ books for children and adults) and Moira Buffini (Songlight) on hooking teen readers from the very first page, plotting methods that tame a whole novel, and why stories matter so much to young people.

You'll learn

• What sparks the magic system of a supernatural thriller.
• What it means to find your writing home, and how to know when you've arrived.
• Why readers decide within the first ten pages, and how visceral detail keeps them hooked.
• A pantser's case for careful plotting when you're juggling multiple points of view.
• The most common mistake adults make when writing for young readers.
• What screenwriters know about tight writing, and what teen TV can teach you about voice.
• Why treating writing as a job, not a calling, makes rejection survivable.
• Whether writers should think about their audience.
• How writing toward a feeling, not a plan, creates cliffhangers you don't see coming.

Episode Links

• #105: Krystal Sutherland
• #61: Joanna Nadin
• #179: Moira Buffini

About the Guests

Krystal Sutherland is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of House of Hollow, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares and Our Chemical Hearts, which was adapted into a film by Amazon Studios. Her books have been published in more than twenty countries and nominated for the Carnegie Medal and YA Book Prize, among others. Her latest YA novel, The Invocations — the centerpiece of this conversation — won the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Award for young adult literature. Originally from Australia, she has lived on four continents and currently calls London home.

Joanna Nadin has written more than 90 books for children and adults, including the Rachel Riley series, the Penny Dreadful series, and the Sunday Times bestselling Worst Class in the World series. She holds a doctorate in adolescent identity and YA literature and is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. Her books have garnered a number of prizes including the Fantastic Book Award and the Surrey Book Award, and she has been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Booktrust Best Book Award, the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year, the Hearst Big Book Awards, and Queen of Teen. She has been nominated six times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, including for Everybody Hurts and for Joe All Alone, which was made into a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC drama series.

Moira Buffini is an Olivier Award–winning UK playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter, writing many plays for the National Theatre and the West End. Films include Tamara Drewe, Jane Eyre, Byzantium, and The Dig. She cocreated and was showrunner of Hulu's Harlots. Her YA debut Songlight — the first in The Torch Trilogy — won the 2025 YA Book Prize, and its sequel Torchfire is out now. She lives in London.

For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.

For free writing sessions, join free Writers’ Hours: writershour.com.

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FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS’ SALON

Twitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalon

Instagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalon

Facebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalon

If you’re enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!