VOCAL HEROES...
Famous faces reveal what set them on the path to become the strong communicators they are today, while fiction fans are in for a treat too
MARGARET ATWOOD had h no power of veto over the TV version of The Handmaid’s Tale – but she’d have thought the producers crazy if they had allowed her it.
This is one of the many revelations in her in-depth interview on How I Found My Voice, a podcast that goes right back to the beginning of artists’ and thinkers’ lives to work out what gave them their power to communicate.
Presenter Samira Ahmed has a way of drawing out her guests so that they barely notice she’s doing it.
Atwood also describes her upbringing in the forests of Northern Quebec where there was little to do but read, draw and write, and recounts how a university professor once informed her that her writing wasn’t for women and she should give it up. Fortunately, 81 last year with 18 books to her name, she paid no attention.
Powerful women is a theme in this podcast, which also features Israeli-born chef Yotam Ottolenghi interspersing food chat with the information that his grandmother was a Mossad spy.
WHERE TO START: Kate Winslet gets fiery over her famous airbrushed photo and explains why she hasn’t let fame go to her head. Find it on podcast apps and online at intelligencesquared.com/ how-i-found-my-voice
THE NEW YORKER: FICTION
For fans of short stories this is quite the discovery – 13 years of episodes, each featuring a piece of fiction from the New Yorker’s archive followed by a book clubstyle discussion.
So many brilliant writers are included – John Updike, Dorothy Parker, Jeffrey Eugenides, Patricia Highsmith – their stories chosen by literary guests who delight in reading their selections aloud and debating them with the magazine’s fiction editor Deborah Triesman.
It’s a thrill to hear favourite authors so inspired by those who came before them.
WHERE TO START: AM Homes reading Shirley Jackson’s creepily brilliant The Lottery, a story that continues to haunt you years after you’ve first encountered it. All podcast apps and online at newyorker. com/podcast/fiction