This week I’m joined by musician and artist Susan O’Neill. We had a wonderfully in-depth conversation about the creative process, and particularly the environments that have inspired her to compose music. We also dive deep into what it means to collect and gather objects around us, and how those objects – particularly the books that we pick up for ourselves or have gifted to us - come to tell a story about our lives.

Susan recently released an album called Now In A Minute, which I’d thoroughly recommend finding on youtube, spotify, or on her website susanoneill.ie

This week I talked to Bettina Farack who has spent the last few years telling the story of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin. The Higher Institute was a centre for learning and a really important cultural hub for the Jewish community in Berlin before it was looted by the Nazis during the holocaust, and its books confiscated and distributed. Remarkably, in the last few years thousands of those original books have been collected from around the world, with each one not only telling the story of its origins, but also tracing a fascinating line to the present of books lost travelling around the world to private collections, libraries and flea markets.

This is a fascinating conversation with someone who is wholly engrossed in the lives of lost books.

This week I caught up with Meg Rees – who’s known as one of the most creative and expressive tattoo artists in London, and puts an element of the personal into everything that she does. People also may recognise her from her sex and relationships podcast – You’ve Gotta Be Joking – which dives deep into the trials of dating, and will be really relatable to a lot of young Londoners.

Find her on Instagram @bunnystattoos to see more of her tattoo work, painting, and fits from her ever-expanding wardrobe.

This week I was so lucky to be joined by author, artist and academic Amy Jeffs. Amy’s work centres around the medieval world of the British Isles, and looks to capture and give in her own words the sense of wonder that she finds in the foundations of our own mythologies.

Amy's writing takes you deep into the landscape - both physical and psychological - of Medieval Britain. Re-telling myths and legends from the 7th to the 14th Centuries, Amy makes these foundational stories accessible to a modern audience, and accompanies this with her own artwork and music.

Her latest work - Saints - takes us through the calendar year of Saints days and feasts - re-telling the stories that inspired followers in Medieval Britain and across the world.

In this episode, Amy tells me about some of the books, places and memories that have inspired her and that bring her closer to the world that she creates for her readers – as well as some of her favourite stories and characters that she came to know while writing Saints. In the second half, she builds her perfect garden writing shed, and talks about the objects and the books she would fill it with.

You can pre-order Saints here: https://geni.us/saints

This week, I was joined by author and Art Historian Ferren Gipson who’s written some amazing books including ‘Women’s Work – From Feminine Art to Feminist Art’ and The Ultimate Art Museum – where she curates 4,000 years of Art History into a dream museum that tells its story – correcting some of the wrongs of the past and highlighting overlooked pioneers.

We start off going into her journey into Art History and the objects, artists and books that have inspired her throughout her life. We then go on in Part 2 to discuss a little bit about what our book collections can mean to us, before building up a dream library-cum-gallery-cum-studio-loft that has all of the things she would need to keep on exploring her interests and exploring new types of creative projects.

If you enjoy this episode and want to find out more about the work that I do as a Library Curator, do visit my website - AROYO

This week, I was joined by author and comedian Rosie Wilby. Rosie through her podcast and subsequent book ‘The Breakup Monologues’ has been dubbed the ‘Queen of Breakups’. Her work brings together her own journey as a queer woman in London, the testimonies and stories of heartbroken guests, and the science of love and relationships – to create a relatable and funny approach to how we think about love in the modern world.

In the following conversation we discuss some of the places and books that have inspired her writing – particularly the parks and open spaces of South London. She then guides us through some of the queer venues that were such an important facet of life and identity to so many in the nineties and noughties, and what their disappearance means to the community today.

In the second half, we build what we call the ‘Heartbreak Clinic’ – a place to relax and recuperate should she ever need that kind of comfort again. I found it so interesting to consider for myself what would be my go-to comforts to set me back on track.

To order her latest book, follow the link below:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1472982282/

In this week’s episode I was joined by tattoo artist, ex-musician, bookshop owner and owner of micro-publisher Moonlight Editions – Liam Sparkes. Liam is best known for his work as a tattoo artist, having set up one of London’s most famous studios – Old Habits.

Liam describes himself as a bibliophile, and in this episode we delve deep into the ways that books have influenced his approached to tattoo art. Having roamed around and explored for years, I catch him in a reflective mood, and we discuss the different stages of life, and the figures that he has looked up to and whose biographies have inspired him to live in his own way.

I really enjoyed my time chatting to Liam, and he doesn’t hold back on questioning himself and really thinking through what I’m asking. If you’re interested in his work, go and visit his Instagram page @liamsparkesok, where you can also find links to old habits tattoo studio, as well as his book shop and publishing house.

Today’s episode is the second half of my chat with Professor Edward Hollis of Edinburgh University’s Interior Design program. 

In this episode, we discuss some of his favourite depictions of place in literature and how he thinks we should think of space to make it work for us, before delving into the multi-sensory landscapes of his remembered childhood dreams, and a ‘dream cabinet of curiosities’ to house all of his treasured personal objects and heirlooms. 

If you want to find out more about the work I do, please do visit my website at www.aroyo.org or contact me on my email address: arroyo.podcast@gmail.com

I’m so excited for this episode though – it’s a chat that I had a couple of weeks ago with Edward Hollis – who’s the Professor of Interior Design at Edinburgh University, and the author of books exploring the influence of our surroundings on our lives. His work delves into what’s left behind of historic sites that we know throughout history, and re-constructs them so his readers can find new ways of imagining themselves into them. His books include The Secret Lives of Buildings, The Memory Palace – which we cover a lot in this episode, and more recently ‘How To Make a Home’ for The School of Life.

I enjoyed speaking to him so much because of how his answers span so many creative worlds to link back to the meaning of space – especially music. This made for some quite weird turns – as we go from discussing the Palace of Versailles to talking about Berghain and Ibiza.

I’ve split this into two parts. In part 1, we discuss his work and his approaches to making meaningful spaces, both in his writing, and how he teaches. In Part 2, next week – we’ll go much more into the history of interiors in literature, and the different ways that they’ve been channeled by different authors at different times – covering some of his favorites, before digging into what the settings that we imagine in our dreams mean, and digging into his own.

My favourite thing about our chat was that he talks in the same way that he writes, which is precise and lyrical. To give you a taster, I think this quote from the Memory Palace sums this – and his philosophy of space.- up perfectly.

He writes: “There’s nae pockets in shrouds, they say, and none of our things belong to us. We have borrowed, inherited, and purchased them all, and one day we shall lose them. In the meantime, the rooms we live in are dolls’ houses and memory palaces. We arrange their worthless elements as shrines to departed shades – temporary meeting places, cabinets of curiosity. Settings for tiny plays and reveries, items of exchange, electronic images, texts like the one you are reading now, and ultimately, ringings that fade on the ear even as they are heard.”

Apologies for the slightly strange timing of this episode – I’m doing some work in China for the next month – which has been amazing and I hope to create some great content to share with you – but it’s also completely wrecked my schedule.

I was very lucky to be joined this week by Christen Pears. Christen is known for having created a beautiful home that she has created in the West of Cornwall, and for sharing this space with guests at her B’n’B. More recently, she has announced that she will be running reading retreats - for guests to unwind in an inspiring atmosphere, to take time for themselves.

In this episode we talk about how Christen has found creating her own home and sharing her lifestyle online, as well as what inspired her to make her space available for reading retreats, and the pleasure that comes with dedicating time to carving out that time for yourself.

If you want to find out more about these reading retreats, do follow Christen on Instagram at ‘christenpears’, or go to her website middlecolensofarm.co.uk.

I was very lucky to be joined this week by author Alice Maddicott - whose work explores and mulls over our search for the meaning of place, largely through travels and the places that she has fallen in love with - Tblisi, Belgrade, Istanbul - as well as her own home deep in the West Country.

We go on to have a really important discussion on the therapeutic role that the mind can play when creating an imaginary world as a refuge that can’t be touched by the outside.

If you want to understand more about the process of building dream reading spaces in your home and how I can work with you, do see contact information below:

Instagram

In this week’s episode I’m joined by Dr Isabella Rosner - who holds the impressive title of curator at the Royal School of Needlework. Once I managed to drag her away from her favourite topics of 18th Century tea-caddies, we discussed her favourite reading spaces - and took a long tangent to imagine the dream bathroom.

Isabella is a proper expert as well as an extremely lively, approachable and funny person. It was such a pleasure to have her on.

If you want to understand more about the process of building dream reading spaces in your home and the process involved, do see contact info below:

Website - www.aroyo.org

Instagram - @aroyo.pod

Email - aroyo.podcast@gmail.com

In this week’s episode, I’m joined by author and columnist for Country Living Magazine Sally Coulthard.

Sally is the author of over 20 non-fiction titles on nature, craft, design and the history of the countryside. Her latest book - A History of the Countryside in 100 Objects - delves deep into 100 curious objects that act as keys to the past.

In this episode, we will take all of those themes discussed in part 1, and build Sally’s dream family drawing room. A rag-tag collection of worn and comfortable furniture all pointing towards a large open fire, surrounded by walls of books, family photographs and fascinating objects dug up or recovered.

If you want to understand more about the process of building dream reading spaces in your home and the process involved, do see contact info below:

Website - www.aroyo.org

Instagram - @aroyo.pod

Email - aroyo.podcast@gmail.com