Carroll du Chateau talks to writer Stephanie Johnson about her special bond with her latest subject.

Dear Heart takes its title from a poem by Michele Leggott addressed to her dead mother and is a pointer to what makes Green's collection different from its predecessors.

Tanveer Ahmed has written a memoir that entertains but also gives you something to think about. The Exotic Rissole explores mixed cultural relations.

Lenny is "a perfectly unremarkable 20-year old who just happens to be in a wheelchair". He's there because of a rugby accident and he doesn't want to live any more. So he kills himself, in front of a parish priest.

Expat Kiwi author Adam Christopher tells Stephen Jewell how his superhero novel was born and why he won’t base a story in New Zealand.

Viva takes tea with Little & Friday - the little cafe that could.

Kim Evans of cafe, Little and Friday, celebrates the launch of her new cookbook, Treats from Little & Friday, over a spot of tea and dainty treats.

May’s Writers and Readers Festival has a diverse lineup of international guests to tempt lovers of all genres, writes Linda Herrick.

If you were to write a story set in Bombay, as the poet Jeet Thayil prefers to call the city now known as Mumbai in his outstanding debut novel, you don't have to work too hard.

Those who are nervous about speaking in public usually have the perfect way out. They simply don't do it.

He’s a yoga-loving vegan teetotaller who spent his ‘naughty boy’ youth tagging and getting arrested. Askew One talks to Greg Dixon about the importance of graffiti art, the international accolades and the health scare that almost ended it all.

Damien Hirst has gone from mouthy Young British Artist to global brand over the past 25 years - and become the world's richest living artist. He talks to Sean O'Hagan about money, mortality and his first retrospective

Santa chose the perfect present for a penguin fan like me when he put Planet Penguin in my stocking at Christmas.

Ayad Akhtar's debut novel American Dervish concerns seldom-explored territory in American literature: What does it mean to be both Muslim and American? Here's our chat with Akhtar.

The person who is not religious reading this former believer's journey to a lack of faith can be tempted to ask: "What took you so long?"

Photographer talks of bloodbath in Sicily 20 years after murder of anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone