Gothic Horror at its finest
Today I want to share with you a podcast put out by the National Centre for Writing, which is a Literature House in Norwich, the UK’s first UNESCO city of Literature and commonly known as the City of Stories.
I am a volunteer at the National Centre for Writing and really believe in its mission and the opportunities it affords people.
They also run the Writing Life Podcast, in the episode I’m sharing with you today author Heather Parry discusses writing the grotesque body and reimagining gothic tropes.
Below is a link to the full podcast catalogue.
The world of self-publishing: Pip Landers-Letts on Pyg – The Writing Life
In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, award-winning writer Pip Landers-Letts discusses her experience self-publishing her action-packed novel Pyg – a queer retelling of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion.
Pip Landers-Letts is an emerging queer author of contemporary sapphic fiction. Her work explores themes of love, loss and transformation, by blending emotional honesty with warm, character-driven storytelling. Her published titles include The Weight of What Was (2024), Pyg (2025), and Chameleon (2026). In 2025, she won the Kindle Storyteller Award for Pyg.
Pip sat down with fellow writer Grace Murray to share her journey through self-publishing, offering advice and insights into the process, and reflecting on how winning the Kindle Storyteller Award helped her feel recognised as a writer. Their conversation also covers working with sensitivity readers, lesbian representation in literature, and the experience of writing multiple books set within the same fictional world.
Self-published authors can enter a book of any genre into the Kindle Storyteller Award for the chance to win £20,000. To be eligible, simply publish your story via Kindle Direct Publishing by Monday 31 August 2026.
- The world of self-publishing: Pip Landers-Letts on Pyg
- Writing relationships: Jem Calder on I Want You to Be Happy
- Finding balance in writing: Sithuraj Ponraj on working across languages, jobs, and genres
- From draft to debut: Anna Goldreich on The Leveret
- Madness and Magic: Hannah Murray on her memoir The Make Believe

I’d love to hear what you think, please comment below.