Interviews

One of the country's most cherished and lauded authors, Sarah Hall has recently released her debut collection of short stories, The Beautiful Indifference. Seven stories of female strength and sexuality, the collection is a powerful piece of work. We sat down with Sarah to talk about short stories, the advent of the digital and her own work.

Over a Skype call while Hurricane Irene waged outside, Nikesh Shukla spoke to Hari Kunzru and this is what they said to each other. He wrote Gods Without Men, a series of fragments, stories, tableaus of life in the Mojave desert, of the search for a connection, of the search for self, to fill the empty void, a series of interconnecting systems all vying for supremacy. It's a startlingly brilliant piece of work - one of the year's best.

Jon McGregor is one of the country's best authors. Having written some of the most remarkable books of the last ten years, including the sublime and dark Even the Dogs, and been twice runner-up to the BBC National Short Story Award, we thought it was about time we sat down with him for a chat. Then we discovered he has a short story collection out early next year. It was time, we decided, to talk short story.

Gavin James Bower's second novel, Made In Britain, couldn't be timelier. In the wake of the riots, everyone wants to get to the heart of just who exactly this feral underclass is, what these young people are thinking and what is their capacity for violence, love, consumerism and industry? Made In Britain addresses these issues with a prescient watchful eye that follows three very different but very trapped teenagers in an unnamed Northern town, where the only opportunities available are escape, auditioning for the X Factor or illegal activities.

Poet, rapper and now book-scribe, Scroobius Pip has led a versatile life since he, alongside co-hort dan le sac, blazed a trail with electro-spoken word track, Thou Shalt Always...

He has helped to raise awareness of live literature and performance poetry, bringing a spotlight to fellow poets Kate Tempest, Polarbear and Inua Ellams. Now, with a second album out and an illustrated book of poems released through Titan books, he has invigorated a generation's interest in spoken rhyming couplets. We talked to him about the book, his lyrical influences and who to look out for in the current stream of performance poets out there at the moment.

D W Wilson was this week announced the youngest ever winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2011 for his story 'The Dead Roads'.

The story is a classic North American road trip story with a difference. Three already seems like company as two old school buddies try to win the affections of a free-spirited girl; when a mysterious man enters the picture, things become even tenser.

We spoke to the 26-year-old Canadian the day after his win to get the skinny on this young hot talent.

Self-professed author of 'fairy tales' Erin Morgenstern has written a brilliant first novel. The Night Circus is bewitching, magical, thrilling and intense - a wonderful period piece about two rival magicians locked in a competition neither of them can abandon despite their feelings for each other.

Comic book supergod Grant Morrison tells us about his book, Supergods

Ben Myers, an already well-known music journalist for NME, The Quietus, Melody Maker and more, has courted controversy with his second novel, Richard - a fictionalised imagining of the final days of tragic Manic Street Preachers lyricist, Richey Edwards. What the controversy around the novel has missed seems to be the tenderness with which Myers treats his main protagonist. Obviously a fan of the man and the period, Myers paints Edwards as sensitive and passionate, almost as revered as a French philosopher. It's certainly a brave premise.

Amy Sackville has won this year's John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her debut novel, The Still Point.