The Writers’ Gym Podcast

Rachel Knightley in conversation with British Fantasy Award 2025 nominee Steve Toase

Steve Toase is a British Fantasy Award 2025 nominated fiction and non-fiction author. He was born in North Yorkshire, England, and now lives in the Frankenwald, Germany. Steve’s debut short story collection ‘To Drown in Dark Water’ is published by Undertow Publications, and his archaeology themed horror collection Dirt Upon My Skin is out now from Black Shuck Books. Dirt Upon My Skin is shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award 2025 Best Collection.
Steve writes for magazines, and is a regular contributor to Fortean Times. In the past he has written for Kerrang, and The Author, as well as motorbike magazines, such as BSH, 100% Biker, and The Classic Motor Cycle. fiction has appeared in Analog, Nightmare Magazine, Three Lobed Burning Eye, Shimmer, and Bourbon Penn, and Deadlands amongst others, and his stories have been selected for Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series, and Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. 
He recently worked with astrophysicist Dr Chris Harrison as script editor for a planetarium show designed for people with a vision impairment. From 2014 he worked with Becky Cherriman and Imove on Haunt, the Saboteur Award shortlisted project inspired by his own teenage experiences of being no fixed abode and vulnerably housed, about Harrogate’s haunting presence in the lives of people experiencing homelessness in the town.
He also likes old motorbikes and vintage cocktails. 

Green Ink Sponsored Write 2025

From creation to publication in 48 hours: Green Ink Sponsored write for Macmillan Cancer Support unites a team of published and developing authors at the Writers' Gym to create entirely new work on a theme inspired by Macmillan's mission of quality of life for all affected by cancer. Founded by Dr Rachel Knightley in 2009, this year's title was selected by Rhianna Pratchett: Somewhere That's Green: Paradises, Utopias and Happy Places. The cover image is by Writers' Gym member Elspeth Hannen and anthology design will be by Steve Shaw.
 
Visit and share the page here:
https://www.justgiving.com/page/somewhere-thats-green

Green Ink Sponsored Write 2025 with Sarah Brooks

From creation to publication in 48 hours: Green Ink Sponsored write for Macmillan Cancer Support unites a team of published and developing authors at the Writers' Gym to create entirely new work on a theme inspired by Macmillan's mission of quality of life for all affected by cancer. Founded by Dr Rachel Knightley in 2009, this year's title was selected by Rhianna Pratchett: Somewhere That's Green: Paradises, Utopias and Happy Places. The cover image is by Writers' Gym member Elspeth Hannen and anthology design will be by Steve Shaw.
 
Visit and share the page here:
https://www.justgiving.com/page/somewhere-thats-green
 

Building your writing world

Dr Rachel Knightley talks about how one Green Ink Sponsored Write author, actor, comedian and writer Nic Lamont, found her annual Sponsored Write stories started building a new fictional world she might never have discovered without donating time to this new writing project. 
Help your writing community help Macmillan Cancer Support at: https://www.justgiving.com/page/somewhere-thats-green

Abandon the idea of ‘enough’ time and start writing

Instead of waiting for enough time or enough confidence, Dr Rachel Knightley shares how Green Ink Sponsored Write was invented to help writers dive in and shares an example of a favourite piece that came out of the Sponsored Write. 
Help your writing community help Macmillan Cancer Support at: https://www.justgiving.com/page/somewhere-thats-green

Writing that makes a difference

 Writing that makes a difference: Green Ink Sponsored Write for Macmillan Cancer Support
Dr Rachel Knightley begins the lead-up to this year’s Green Ink Sponsored Write. 
Help your writing community help Macmillan Cancer Support at: https://www.justgiving.com/page/somewhere-thats-green

Rachel Knightley talks to award winning author Anthony McGowan

Anthony McGowan books have won several major awards, and been shortlisted for many more. He has also written highly regarded adult fiction, as well as books for younger readers. He has a PhD on the history of beauty, and has taught philosophy and creative writing. He lives in London with his wife and two children.
 
Dr Rachel Knightley met Anthony McGowan, one of the most widely acclaimed young-adult authors in the UK, by forgetting she didn’t know him already through an event around his semi-fictionalised memoir, The Art of Failing, where he appears alongside Monty, muse/canine co-author of How to Teach Philosophy to Your Dog, a series of conversational walks between Tony and Monty. Tony and Rachel discuss writing inspiration and exercise for writers, and how the stages of Tony’s career have required different routines and provided potential for the curiosity that fuels creativity.
 
Find out more about Tony:
 
Tony’s website
https://web.archive.org/web/20141021115523/http://anthonymcgowan.com/anewsite/
 
Tony’s Wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McGowan
 
Authors Aloud: Speaker visits
https://authorsalouduk.co.uk/speaker/anthony-mcgowan/
 
 
Carnegie-winning novella: Lark
https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/blog/lark-a-carnegie-winning-novel-by-anthony-mcgowan-6274
 
Hellbent
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/324997/hellbent-by-anthony-mcgowan/9780099482130
 
 
Join the Writers’ Gym for more writing and creative confidence workouts at www.writersgym.com or sign up to our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com
 
Get in touch with us at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
 
 
 
 
“I don't think there's any art of fiction, piece of fiction that doesn't involve a strong truth quotient. We always use our experiences, the stuff around us.” Anthony McGowan
 
Writers’ Gym Workout:
 
Pick an event or conversation you’ve experienced (let it pick you: go with the thought that arrives).
 
Warm-up: Let yourself write freely. Let the characters speak, think, feel. Mix reality with fiction, or just let your memories out. There are no rules except Writers’ Gym mantra ‘Think On The Page.
 
Read it to yourself as if you’re seeing it for the first time.
 
What is the story trying to ask?
 
What do you want to expand on, or change, to liberate the story?

Rachel Knightley talks to BAFTA-winning writer, director and producer Dan Berlinka

BAFTA-winning writer, director and producer joins Dr Rachel Knightley on the Writers’ Gym. Dan co-created and co-wrote “The A List” for Kindle Entertainment/Lionsgate/CBBC, for which he also directed six episodes, including both season finales. After series one it was picked up and recommissioned by Netflix worldwide, with Dan as an EP over the series. Award-winning online mystery drama “Dixi” ran for four series on CBBC and won a Bafta in 2014. Dan’s 10 x 30’ original children's comedy series “Lagging” debuted on CBBC in 2021 and ran for two more series, the third airing at the end of 2023. Dan was head writer for “Itch”, an adaptation of the Simon Mayo novel he developed for Komixx, now broadcasting on ABC Me, and which has been acquired by CBBC. Dan also developed “Rhyme Time Town”, an animation series for Dreamworks/Netflix which is now streaming on Netflix. Original projects are in development with Carnival, Caligari Films, I-gen and King Bert. Dan also wrote “Inspector Sunshine”, a family movie produced by Perplexia Pictures/Great Point Media. His TV credits include episodes of “Thunderbirds are go” (ITV), “Casualty” (BBC) – for which he recently also directed an episode he wrote, “Get Even” (CBBC / Netflix), BBC iPlayer, “Shaun the Sheep” (Aardman/CBBC), “Hollyoaks” (Lime/C4), amongst many others.
 
 
Find out more about Dan:
 
Dan’s website
https://danberlinka.com/
 
Dan’s IMBb page
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3752043/
 
 
Join the Writers’ Gym for more writing and creative confidence workouts at www.writersgym.com or sign up to our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com
 
Get in touch with us at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
 
 
 
 
Writers’ Gym Workout:
 
 
 
“It’s important to have some boundaries around you. I don't think writers necessarily do their best work when they have absolute complete freedom. It's about having the right tension between your desire to write your vision. but a little bit of pushback, little bit of limitation.” Dan Berlinka
 
Warm-up:
 
Set yourself a random even number between 2 and 6.
 
Now write a dialogue between two characters, that lasts no longer than that number of lines.
 
See what you can show yourself/the reader about who they are and what they want, just with what they say.
 
“I work basically a nine to five day… I would say that writing is structured a lot like a day of test cricket: nothing really starts until 11. I've realized that I can't really productively write more than about five or six hours a day.”
 
Think On The Page:
 
What are your most creative hours of the day?
 
How many hours are too many?
 
What’s one step you can take to set yourself (for example) less high word-counts, more often?
 
Or let yourself write less complete passages, knowing your can edit more later?
 
 
“Not waiting for inspiration to strike [is vital]: I used to be very bad at allowing myself the time, sometimes I’d try and force it. So that's the thing: being aware that just going for a walk could actually also count as working. I do my morning exercises… I don't deliberately try and think about the thing I'm working on but on it sometimes it will just pop into my head and a problem will get solved that way.” Dan Berlina
 
Think On the Page:
 
What, for you, are the activities that aren’t technically writing but create mental space for writing?
 
Where is one more place you could give yourself time and space this week?

Rachel Knightley talks to British Fantasy, Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Award winner Priya Sharma

Priya Sharma's fiction has appeared in  Interzone, Black Static, Nightmare, Weird Tales, and Tor.com (now Reactormag.com). She's been anthologised in many Best of series by editors such as Ellen Datlow and Paula Guran.
 
Priya is the recipient of several British Fantasy Awards and Shirley Jackson Awards, and a World Fantasy Award. She is a Locus Award and a Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire finalist. Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Czech, and Polish.
 
She lives in the UK where she works as a medical doctor. More information can be found at www.priyasharmafiction.wordpress.com 
 
In this episode, Priya and Rachel discuss the variety of writerly relationships between life as inspiration and how who we are fuels what we create, though the origins remain our own.
 
Join the Writers’ Gym for more writing and creative confidence workouts at www.writersgym.com or sign up to our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com
 
Get in touch with us at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
 
Writers’ Gym Workout:
 
Priya: I get a real kick out of walking around a gallery because there's always a story there that I want to take away. Look as well as read. And photojournalism,
another example of great storytelling… Because they spend as much time not just looking for that moment, for that story, but actually doing what a brilliant writer would do. They're looking at visuals, they're thinking about construction, framing, all of those things.”
 
Warm-up:
 
Close your eyes and picture a gallery, or a museum, or a monument, or a picture that means something to you. Notice what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, the story you’re telling yourself already. Transcribe that, just thinking on the page.
 
Exercise 1:
Re-read your warm-up piece. What character could you give those thoughts to? Or are the thoughts already about another character you could write?
“Sometimes just going back to why you fell in love with writing… for me, that's reading a book t or rereading something by a writer that I love and just getting in touch with what made me think I wanted to pick up a book and just remembering what it is about what you do that you love.”
Exercise 2
Book an hour – or a day – or ten minutes – out of your work and life. Gift that time to rereading a book you love, just as you’d gift it to someone you were meeting for coffee. Allow yourself to meet those words again for the first time.

Rachel Knightley talks to Tiny Pieces of Skull author and 2016 Lambda winner Roz Kaveney

“I have a long and complicated personal history which I am in the process of turning into a huge memoir; crucial facts are that I was reared Catholic but got over it, was born male but got over it, stopped sleeping with boys about the time I stopped being one and am much happier than I was when I was younger.” Poet, novelist and critic Roz Kaveney’s iography on her Glamorous Rags website is a brilliant beginning for anyone wanting to understand the struggles and celebrations of becoming the writer you are and the person you are. In this episode of The Writers’ Gym podcast, Dr Rachel Knightley talks to Roz about her novel Tiny Pieces of Skull (winner of the Lambda in 2016), her recent novel Revelations and a poetic memoir The Great Good Time. In 2018 she published original versions of the complete poems of the Roman poet Catullus with Sad Press.
self-knowledge of what it is you want your writing and your writing life to be.
 
Find out more about Roz:
https://glamourousrags.dymphna.net
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roz_Kaveney
https://university.open.ac.uk/arts/research/pvcrs/2023/kaveney
 
Join the Writers’ Gym for more writing and creative confidence workouts at www.writersgym.com or sign up to our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com
 
Get in touch with us at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
 
 
Writing Workout based on Roz’s interview
 
Warm-up: “I have a long and complicated personal history, which I'm in the process of turning into a memoir. Crucial facts are that I was really Catholic, but got over it was born male but got over it, stopped sleeping with boys about the time I stopped being one, and I'm much happier than I was when I was younger.” Roz Kaveney biog, Glamorous Rags Imagine you’re looking back at your writing and personal growth, not just what’s happened so far but what will have happened. What have you ‘got over’? What have you claimed as part of your newer, truer identity
 
Main Exercise : “Research more than you need, and then throw half your research away.” Roz Kaveney
 
Choose an area of interest you don’t normally get to spend much time with. Go to the British Library website, or Google, and let yourself wander. Keep everything that fascinates you.
 
Choose a scene to create in that world or around that idea. Include what you like. Exclude what doesn’t fit or feel relevant. And know that whatever is still there has had that research support it – even if it doesn’t make the final draft.
 
 
Take a blank sheet of paper and choose one of these questions:
 
Who have I been told I am?
What do I agree is true?
What do I not agree is true?
If I were to take one step towards something truer today:
-what would it be towards?-what would that step be?