Little Atoms

Cate Baum was born in Cambridge to a magician and a big band singer. She grew up in the East Anglian countryside, spending summers roaming the wilds of the UK. She studied screenwriting at UCLA and gained a master’s with Distinction in Creative Writing from City, University of London. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her first novel Land of Hope.

Eley Williams' collection of short stories Attrib. & Other Stories won the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her writing appears in The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story, Liberating the Canon, the TLS and the London Review of Books. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is the author of the novel The Liar’s Dictionary and on this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest story collection Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good, which is out now in paperback.

Simon Park is Associate Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Portuguese at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford. He is an expert in the literature and material culture of the early modern world, particularly from Portugal and its vast global empire. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his new book Wreckers: Disaster in the Age of Discovery.

Danielle Giles is a writer and researcher based in Bristol. She has been published (writing as Danielle Vrublevskis) in Extra Teeth and Dear Damsels, shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize and the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize, and longlisted for the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize. She won the Local Prize in the 2023 Bath Short Story Award. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her first novel Mere.

Megan Hunter is a prizewinning novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The End We Start From was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Books Are My Bag Awards, longlisted for the Aspen Words Prize, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Awards finalist and won the Forward Reviews Editor’s Choice Award. It was adapted into a major motion picture by Alice Birch, starring Jodie Comer and directed by Mahalia Belo. Her second novel, The Harpy, was Indie Book of the Month; she is currently adapting it for television with Red Planet Pictures. Her dramatic monologue Salt of the Earth premiered at Venice Film Festival. Megan’s other writing has appeared in the White Review, the TLS, Literary Hub, Vogue, Elle, BOMB, and elsewhere. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her new novel Days of Light.

Ron Currie is the award-winning author of five novels. He has won the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, the Addison M. Metcalf Award, the Alex Award, and the Pushcart Prize. His books have been translated into fifteen languages, and his short fiction and nonfiction have received recognition in Best American anthologies. As a screenwriter he worked most recently on the Apple TV+ series Extrapolations and has developed projects with AMC Studios, Amblin Television, and ITV America. He lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches in the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast MFA program. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest novel The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.

Xiaolu Guo was born in China. She published six books before moving to Britain in 2002. Her books include: Village of Stone, shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the Orange Prize; and I Am China. Her recent memoir, Once Upon a Time in the East, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018. It was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her most recent novel A Lover's Discourse was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. On this week’s episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest novel Call Me Ishmaelle.

Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood), and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews, Climbing Days, and Outpost. Only After Dark, a BBC Radio 4 series about the nocturnal world, was broadcast to acclaim in 2022. Dan has written for the Guardian, Economist, Esquire and Monocle. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark.

Dani Heywood-Lonsdale has paternal roots on the tiny island of Molokai, Hawaii - referred to as the Sandwich Islands throughout her debut novel The Portrait Artist - and maternal roots in the Philippines. She is a Faber Academy alumna and teaches English Literature in Oxfordshire.