Season 3 Episode 8: In Conversation with Kiran Millwood Hargrave
From the author’s website:
Kiran Millwood Hargrave was born in Surrey in 1990, and started writing poetry in her final year at university, producing three poetry books and a play before she turned to children’s fiction. Her first book for adults, The Mercies, debuted at number 1 on The Times Bestseller Chart, and number 5 on the Sunday Times Bestseller List. It has been longlisted for the Not The Booker Prize.
The Mercies was inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials and is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the ever dark edge of civilisation. During this episode, Kiran and Lou talk about overcoming grief, female friendships and love, faith and spirituality, as well as her cast of wonderfully complex characters.
More about Kiran’s writing career:
Her bestselling debut The Girl of Ink & Stars, about a mapmaker’s daughter who must save her island, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2017 and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year. Her second standalone story, The Island at the End of Everything, was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children’s Book Award, and long listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her third book, The Way Past Winter, was the Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year 2018.
Show Notes
Discover more of Kiran’s writing
Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women (Silvia Federici)
Whale, Woman, Smoke: Kiran Millwood Hargrave on 'The Mercies'
Dark arts: Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois’ brooding Steilneset memorial
Books that Kiran loved in 2020:
Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)
Inland (Téa Obreht)
Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart)
A Ghost In The Throat (Doireann Ní Ghríofa)
The Fever (Megan Abbott)