Interviews
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‘A Wildflower, a Wasp, a Worm, or Some Dirt’: In Conversation with Matt Berninger
Artwork by Natasha Kawalek (2026) Matt Berninger is an American writer and singer. He is the frontman of The National, a rock band founded in New York in the early 2000s. Since then, the band has released ten studio albums and has collaborated with the likes of Taylor Swift and Sufjan Stevens. As well as…
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Woolf’s Modernist Megalith: In Conversation with Tom Crewe
Artwork by Bradley Richards (2026) Tom Crewe (b.1989) is novelist and contributing editor for the LRB. I first came across Crewe’s work via his short story ‘The Room Service-Waiter’, featured in Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists 2023’, which stood out among that talented cohort for its deftness of style and quiet poignancy. Crewe’s debut…
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Literature should be a qualification for political office: Nicola Sturgeon
Artwork by Pia Blondel (2025) In September 2014, Nicola Sturgeon stood at the centre of one of the most consequential political moments in modern Scottish history. The independence referendum, held after years of mobilisation and debate, ended in defeat, with a slim majority (55%) voting to remain in the United Kingdom. For many politicians, such…
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Poetry in Pilgrimage: In Conversation with Camille Ralphs
Artwork by Paolo Floriano Beneforti In a lecture hosted by the Whichcote Society last May, Camille Ralphs shared her experience as a poet walking the Camino de Santiago. Delivered in Ralphs’s full-bodied cadence (so very her own that I no longer find it possible to read her poetry without hearing it) and dense with journal…
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Life Lines: In Conversation with Ania Ready
Artwork by Kevin Lim It began, for Ania Ready, with a small sheet of paper. ‘There was a discovery made fairly recently’, she explains to me over Zoom, recalling how a historian, Dr. Myfanwy Lloyd, came upon a ‘folded up paper note in the archive of soldier, Arthur Tyler’. Tyler had been part of the…
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Vanishing Landscapes: In Conversation with Bonnie Lander Johnson
Artwork by Steven Mardones (2025) Bonnie Lander Johnson’s Vanishing Landscapes: The Story of Plants and How We Lost Them (Hodder Press, 2025) explores the histories of seven plants in Britain – apples, saffron, woad, reeds, oak, grapes and wheat. The book documents Bonnie’s conversations with people who keep traditional, local techniques of working with plants…
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Sometimes Politicians Have To Lead: In Conversation with Diane Abbott
Troy Fielder sits down with Diane Abbott to discuss her new book, A Woman Like Me
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Our Material Dependency: in conversation with Ed Conway
Carmen Vintro sits down with Ed Conway, the economics editor of Sky News, to discuss his book, Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future
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Seascraper
Caitlin Kawalek speaks with Benjamin Wood, novelist and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at King’s College London, about his fifth novel, Seascraper
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Muckle Flugga
Caitlin Kawalek speaks with Michael Pedersen, Edinburgh Makar and writer-in-residence at The University of Edinburgh, about his upcoming novelistic debut.
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Playing Psychosis: A Conversation with Lara Derham
Rosie Williams speaks with Lara Derham, Writer of Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga
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Whimsy and Wonder
Kiana Rezakhanlou on Daniel McKay’s Whimwondery: An Alphabetarium of Useful Nonsense Inventions
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Rewilding the Everyday: Robert Macfarlane and The World to Come
Carmen Vintro on Robert Macfarlane at the Southbank Centre
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The Art of Slow Burn Looking
Carmen Vintro on Art Loan Schemes and acts of looking, in Cambridge and beyond.
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Wood, Sapling Tubes, and Chimney Pots
Troy Fielder interviews Martha Minton as she develops a student-led pavilion, The Stack, at Jesus College, Cambridge.
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Intimate detail
Caitlin Helena speaks to Sophie Haydock about her novel The Flames, and the untold lives of the women painted and loved by Egon Schiele.
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“Collective tissue”
Rachel Rees speaks to Helen Charman about her new book Mother State, and ideas of motherhood through Thatcher, austerity — and tradwives.
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“The salt in the story”
Hope Nicholson speaks to the author and screenwriter Rebecca Frayn about her novel Lost in Ibiza, and environmental activism.
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“Out of a locked box”
Rosa Appignanesi speaks to Octavia Bright about her memoir This Ragged Grace, addiction, and loving through bodily anguish.
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Earthly rhythms: In Conversation with Robert Macfarlane
On tour for his latest album, Robert Macfarlane speaks to Elizabeth Murphy about the strange challenge of lyrics, mythic forms having unexpected urgency, and his pre-show playlist.
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Andrew O’Hagan: “it’s just not natural to me to be morose”
Rachel Rees speaks to the Scottish writer about his new novel Caledonian Road, his career at the LRB, and his favourite works.
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Peak Goop
Elizabeth Murphy and Troy Fielder speak to James Riley about his new book Well Beings, a cultural history of wellness from the 1970s to modern-day Goop-mania.
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George the Poet: “this feels like a time where we need to be talking more about the world than ourselves, as poets”
Troy Fielder speaks to the poet and performer about his memoir Track Record, his time at Cambridge University, and the importance of music.
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Flicker, flutter
Matilda Sykes speaks to the artist Tom Fairlamb about his work, humans and technology, and stolen artworks.
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In the Studio with John Tordoff
Troy Fielder visits the studio of Cambridge-based artist John Tordoff and speaks about routine, gardening, and creating art.
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Siobhán McSweeney: “I’ve ended up doing a lot of comedy, and not because I’m a trivial person”
Rachel Rees speaks to the Bafta-winning Irish actress about confronting industry sexism and classism, and what she has taken from Derry Girls.
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Stirrings of hope: In Conversation with Jacqueline Rose
Sarah Jean Abernethy speaks to writer and critic Jacqueline Rose about The Plague, complexity as resistance, and fostering hope.
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By dint of geology: In Conversation with Andrew McMillan
Troy Fielder speaks to Andrew McMillan, award-winning poet and author, about his debut novel, Pity.
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History as story, story as history
Elizabeth Murphy and Rachel Rees speak to Professor Clair Wills about her memoir Missing Persons, reframing illegitimacy, and the intertwining of familial and national secrets in 20th century Ireland.
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“Cosmic. Generous. Experimental.”
As Making New Worlds comes to an end at Kettle’s Yard, Rachel Rees speaks to one of the co-curators about friendship as artistic practice, art in the North, and the exhibition’s future.
The Camera 