The Verb

How determined do you have to be to become a writer? How do you return to the page every day when inspiration runs dry, or you receive a rejection? And how do you know when to step away in case your writing becomes over-determined. To answer these questions Ian McMillan is joined by guests including Paula Byrne who has just written a new biography of the British novelist Barbara Pym, who wrote for many years before being published, and was unceremoniously dropped by her publisher when her work become unfashionable.Monique Roffey's novel 'The Mermaid of Black Conch' won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2020 - but its path to publication wasn't straightforward. Here Monique discusses keeping faith in your work when it doesn't appear to fit in any boxes.And we have brand new poetry from Marvin Thompson, winner of the National Poetry Competition award for his poem '‘The Fruit of the Spirit is Love (Galatians 5:22)’ and from Iona Lee who has written us a new poem on 'Determination'.Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Jessica Treen

Ian McMillan and guests delight in the writing and naming of planets (Ian loves Neptune best), exploring how we as writers influence the perception of them, and how our perception may influence how humans treat them.Bettany Hughes is a historian, author and broadcaster. She shares her passion for Venus (planet and goddess) and looks at the first poem where the moon is depicted as 'silvery'. Bettany is exploring the big questions of the universe in films called 'Tea with B', and in her interview with author Ben Okri describes poetry as 'The Mothership'.Two of the earth's most exciting sound poets - Hannah Silva and Tomomi Adachi tell Ian how they created sound poetry for Pluto, and explored its ambiguous status (it is not officially a planet any more). They also perform a spontaneous sound poem, especially for The Verb, celebrating the vast number of icy bodies with fascinating names in the Kuiper Belt.JO Morgan's collection 'The Martian's Regress' is a remarkable thought experiment - imagining humans leaving Earth for Mars, and then returning here in thousands of years’ time, only to be disappointed by our solitary moon. In poems which explore what it means to 'subjugate' a planet to make it support life, Morgan also considers the role of myth and story in building our relationship with a planet.Kate Greene almost lived on Mars. She was one of a team selected by Nasa to take part in an experiment in Hawaii, where she lived in a geodesic dome for four months in order to simulate what it would be like on Mars. A journalist, author and poet, Kate found herself thinking differently, and considering the relationship of the body to the Earth. Her account of the experience can be found in her book 'Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars'.

Ian McMillan on how 'writing at home' inspires, constrains and infuses language and storytelling - with guests Maggie O'Farrell, whose award-winning novel 'Hamnet' takes us inside Shakespeare's home, the unofficial Poet Laureate of Twitter Brian Bilston, Berlin-based writer and football pundit Musa Okwonga, and poet Holly Peste, who has written a specially commissioned piece inspired by the sound of writing at home.Producer: Ruth Thomson

This year, F Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsby enters the public domain. What will this mean for one of America's best loved novels?Ian McMillan is joined by the academic and writer Sarah Churchwell, author of 'Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the invention of The Great Gatsby', to discuss why the language of the book is still so resonant to us today.And poet and playwright Inua Ellams considers the quality of 'emptiness' in the text and how Fitzgerald's writing made this glittering world of parties feel so hollow.Jonathan Bate's new book is 'Bright Star, Green Light: The Beautiful and Damned Lives of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald'. Bate joins us to take us on a 'Keatsian' reading of The Great GatsbyAnd to examine the idea of the public domain, we'll also be looking at what it means to remix and play around with a text with musician, broadcaster and technologist LJ Rich. LJ is a synesthete - how does she Fitzgerald's book, famously drenched in colour from green lights to yellow cocktail music?Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Jessica Treen

In a world of daily pleases and thank yous, obligatory thank-you notes, and polite appreciation how can we express authentic gratitude with sincerity? Has lockdown made us more grateful? Can the expectation of gratitude be a burden?Poet Kate Fox assesses the etiquette of writers’ acknowledgements – who to thank? How much is too much? Is there such a thing as oversharing? Comedy writer Jack Bernhardt imagines how grateful you’d have to be – forever - if Superman saved your life. Sound artist Leafcutter John makes gratitude reverberate through a sheet of steel, and poet Michael Symmons Roberts reflects on the complexity of expressing gratitude in praise poetry, in a post-secular world.Producer: Ruth Thomson

Guilty pleasure. Airport novel. Holiday reading.The language used to describe crime fiction often suggests that there's something throwaway in the ability to craft a gripping story that keeps the reader guessing. There's a suggestion that creating "a page-turner" is something of a lesser skill when it comes to writing. Creeping up on that idea from behind and leaving its body in the library, we have three women who know a thing or two about the literature of crime. Val McDermid is a powerhouse of popular fiction, with works translated into 40 languages and more than 16 million books sold. She tells us about the narrative techniques she uses to keep us up late reading "just one more chapter" of novels like "Still Life".Sophie Hannah has been trusted with one of the crown jewels of detective fiction - Hercule Poirot. She tells us about the responsibility of taking on Agatha Christie's beloved character, and about how she switches modes for nail biters like "Haven't they Grown". Katherine Stansfield writes the historical crime series The Cornish Mysteries - and tells us about one of the initial efforts to make the crime genre "respectable" - formalised techniques and rules drawn up by a collection of some of the greatest popular fiction writers in the world - The Detection Club. Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Kevin Core

You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk? At The Verb, we do both, as Ian McMillan is joined by guests who consider the deep connection between writing and walking. From the strut to the swagger, the amble to the lope, English has many words to get from A to B - all conveying a slightly different meaning. So where does writing and the physical journey meet?Jini Reddy talks about the quest for magic in the great outdoors, which is the subject of her Wainwright shortlisted book Wanderland. Theatre maker Testament tells us about his work "Black Men Walking" and proves that the inspirations and insights of a walk don't have to be based in the countryside, with a performance of his work City Song, a rap which sees us float through an urban landscape almost in a sleepwalk. Ira Lightman has recorded a special reaction to Wordsworth - surely the poet who is most often associated with the restorative powers of a walk - but the relationship with walking and feeling good is more nuanced for Ira. And Stuart Maconie gives us his insights into the ramble, stressing that walking should be all about inclusion. He asks us to be wary of language that suggests anyone is not welcome in the outdoors, and considers stepping out as a spur to creativity. Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Kevin Core

Join Ian McMillan for a celebration of remarkable poets and poetry as he presents readings from all the collections shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. The prize is awarded annually by the T.S. Eliot Foundation for the best collection of the year - and the winner receives £25,000. Bhanu Kapil was declared this year's winner by the judges, for her 'invigorating' collection 'How to Wash a Heart'.Alongside readings from the poets themselves, Ian reflects on the resonance of their poems during this period of uncertainty. In keeping with our season 'Experiments in Living', he asks, "how do these poems ask us to see the world?", what do they tell us about how we might live?Glyn Maxwell - How the hell are you (Picador Poetry) Ella Frears - Shine, Darling (Offord Road Books) Shane McCrae - Sometimes I Never Suffered (Corsair Poetry) Sasha Dugdale - Deformations (Carcanet Press) J O Morgan - The Martian’s Regress (Cape Poetry) Daisy Lafarge - Life Without Air (Granta Poetry) Natalie Diaz - Postcolonial Love Poem (Faber & Faber) Wayne Holloway Smith - Love Minus Love (Bloodaxe Books) Will Harris - RENDANG (Granta Poetry) Bhanu Kapil - How to Wash a Heart (Pavilion Poetry)

Ian McMillan and guests including Jenny Offill, Alice Oswald and Wayne Binitie discuss weather writing.Alice Oswald The Oxford Professor of Poetry, Alice Oswald is a great listener to the weather, something she has written about as being part of her experiences as a gardener. She has shown great attentiveness to water in all forms – with books like ‘Dart’ her long river poem and with her writing on rain for Radio 3. Along with her co-editor Paul Keegan, Alice has put together an anthology of weather writing called ‘Gigantic Cinema ‘. For The Verb she reads from Daniel Defoe’s 'The Journal of the Plague year'; and from her own book ‘Nobody’. She also shares the following works: ‘My Cocaine Museum’ by Michael Taussig , ‘Gargantua and Pantagruel IV’ by Francois Rabelais , ‘Conversation about Dante’ by Osip Mandelstam, and ‘Trees in the Garden’ by DH Lawrence. The anthology is described as a 'bare-headed' collection, which in part means that titles from the selections are only referred to on the contents page - this allows the reader to experience the weather writing as if it all takes place on a single day.Wayne Binitie Artist Wayne Binitie bring us the sounds of ancient weather. He has been collaborating with the British Antarctic Survey, and shares with us original compositions (made with his collaborator Art Lewy ) that allow us to hear a soundtrack of air bubbles being released from Antarctic ice cores which are thousands of years old. The compositions (Ice Fragments 1 and 2) also weave the music of Ravel and Debussy into these bubble sounds, as a way of exploring memory. Wayne is fascinated by the different states of water, and his work explores freezing and melting, condensation and evaporation, sublimation and deposition states. We are focusing on his sound art, but Wayne’s work takes in other senses, as his exhibitions have demonstrated ( http://waynebinitie.com/ ). All of Wayne’s work with the BAS helps us reflect on what it means to talk about the weather at a time when the climate is changing in profound ways.Jenny Offill Jenny Offill thought deeply about how we talk about the weather in ways that are true to our experiences and our thoughts, in order to write her novel ‘Weather’. ‘Weather’ is narrated by Lizzie a librarian who ends up answering the mail for a doom-laden podcast called 'Hell and High Water'. Soon she is fielding questions from those worried about climate change. The novel is written in fragmented paragraphs which show how weather thoughts move through our thinking – and contain beautiful and comic observations. She discusses humour, the difficulty of talking about glaciers and the pleasure of manifestos. Jenny’s previous novel is the equally playful ‘The Department of Speculation’.

How do you give hope to children when you're not feeling hopeful? What's the difference between optimism and hope? How do children's writers balance light and dark, joy and sadness? And what kind of language sustains and nurtures us through difficult times when we're young? Smriti Halls, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Kate Fox and Gaia Vince join Ian McMillan for a 'hope-ist' Verb. Smriti Halls Smriti’s books often seek to acknowledge loss and sadness whilst suggesting through image, rhythm and story that we are never truly alone. Smriti reads from ‘Rain Before Rainbows’ and explains how carefully she thought about the balance of dark and light in this book for young children, and about the nature of time. Smriti shares the language that sustained her as a child – Louise May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’ and Oscar Wilde's ‘The Happy Prince’. Books by Smriti are read all over the world: ‘I’m Sticking with You’ was a number one bestseller in the U.S.A and recent stories include ‘The Little Island’ and ‘Elephant in my Kitchen’.Frank Cottrell-Boyce Screenwriter and author of children’s books Frank Cottrell-Boyce, reads us his story about a world surrounded by cloud and a girl called Sunny who realises there's life beyond it. ‘Murcaster’ is a story written as a ‘hope’ to give to children during this pandemic (it’s one of over 100 such ‘hopes’ included in an anthology by Katherine Rundell ). Frank explains how the writing process itself is inevitably an act of hope, and discusses the influence of hymns – the way even their rhythms can communicate a kind of hopefulness. Frank also considers the way ‘hope’ is integral to the DNA of the ‘Doctor Who’ (he has written for the series) . His most recent book for children is ‘The Runaway Robot’.Gaia Vince Gaia is an award-winning science journalist, author, and broadcaster. She’s interested in how human systems and Earth’s planetary systems interact. Her book ‘Adventures in the Anthropocene” won the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. She discusses her writing on co-operation and on the idea that we are now part of a collective she's named ‘Homni’ (explored in her new book 'Transcendence') . Gaia reads a special commission for The Verb – a letter to her children for them to open when they're in their eighties.Kate Fox Fresh from captaining Loughborough University on University Challenge, stand-up poet and Verb regular Kate Fox shares the most interesting comments on hope she has come across this year, and quotations from her own childhood reading. These include the extended railway metaphor employed by Government scientist Jonathan Van-Tam, ideas about hopeful journeys from 'Jane Eyre' and 'Alice in Wonderland' and the enduring resonance of 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich’s phrase ‘All shall be well’.