Litopia After Dark
The Net’s First & Foremost Literary Salon
What It Is
This is the show that started it all!
Four years ago, we thought it would be fun to assemble an eclectic crowd of writers from all over the world to create a virtual literary salon.
Today, Litopia After Dark provides essential creative sustenance for tens of thousands of listeners across the globe.
No topic is off limits.
We can leap from the bookish to the bawdy in a single bound. We frequently raise issues months before "old media" discovers them. And our aim is to keep you informed, in the know... and in stitches.
And most of the time, our listeners say we succeed!
Latest Shows
Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
How do you feel about the future? Fifty years ago, most views would probably have been rosily optimistic: our faith in science to solve the most pressing problems was mostly untarnished, and our belief in politicians to take wise and beneficent decisions not quite threadbare. Today, the clouds of doubt assail us from every quarter. [...]
Go to show »Nigel West: Spies, Lies & Chocolate
This special video edition of Litopia After Dark features acclaimed espionage writer and expert, Nigel West. ”His information is so precise” writes The Sunday Times “that many people believe he is the unofficial historian of the secret services.” Nigel’s controversial books invariably hit the headlines. His greatest coup was tracking down the wartime double agent [...]
Go to show »Said The Cabbie To Jeremy Hunt…
What with Leveson, Hunt, Murdoch… to say nothing of a double-dip recession… there’s way too much bad news around… so enough already! When life gets excessively glum – it’s time for us to dig out Litopia’s infamous Ant Game… which is exactly what we’ve done tonight, for your aural bliss. We’re delighted to be joined [...]
Go to show »Philip Reeve: Spike & Spook Go To The Moon
Philip Reeve is one of the godfathers of steampunk (although today he’s somewhat allergic to that word) with his massively successful Mortal Engines series. One of the most enduringly popular of all YA authors, Philip’s fans are everywhere – especially in our chat room tonight, as they bombard him with questions! His most recent book, [...]
Go to show »Our Man In The Cold
Tonight’s show is a real-life thriller: featuring espionage, double-dealing, murder and even a dash of Hollywood. And a British ambassador who sees things he shouldn’t – and decides to tell the world. Sounds like the plot of a movie? Craig Murray‘s amazing story has already been optioned by producers – if you can’t wait to [...]
Go to show »Papyrus to Pixels
We love to talk about story here on Litopia After Dark – and in particular, the impact that new media is having on its development, production and consumption. Are we entering a Promised Land full of storytelling richness, fuelled by ubiquitous multimedia devices – or is this merely the beginning of a new Dark Age, [...]
Go to show »A Severe, Prolonged Misunderstanding
She’s a scholar of Latin and ancient Greek, and admits to being a recovering stickler. He’s a lexicographer and dictionary editor; a profession which ranks as one of the sexiest on Earth (that’s what the chat room says, and who are we to disagree?). Together, Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett host one of the ‘net’s [...]
Go to show »Jeffrey Archer: The Archer Still Has Two Fingers
With 270 million copies of his books in circulation, Jeffrey Archer can justly claim to be one of the world’s all-time bestselling novelists. From his first book way back in 1976 – rejected by fifteen publishers – to his current worldwide hit The Sins Of The Father – his writer’s journey has been a wild [...]
Go to show »Green Chilblain Shrews
He’s worked with Bjorn and Benny from ABBA, orchestrated the music for Inspector Morse, conducted some of the world’s greatest orchestras and his dance music has been played by the likes of Sasha, John Digweed, Paul Oakenfold and Nick Warren. Matthew Slater is a professional composer, and in tonight’s fascinating show, he takes us for [...]
Go to show »Million Dollar Voice
BJ Harrison is doing what many authors dream of doing; he’s made a huge success out of recording and selling audiobooks on the net. What’s even more amazing – the texts he reads and sells are public domain and out of copyright. With seven million downloads, he’s obviously doing something right. BJ’s reading of The [...]
Go to show »The Man Behind Sherlock Holmes
What with Benedict Cumberbatch’s radical new television interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, and the recent big-screen Guy Ritchie / Robert Downey / Jude Law action movies, the Baker Street seven per-center is enjoying a major revival of interest. How appropriate, then, that the master scriptwriter of the entire Holmes canon should join us for tonight’s Litopia [...]
Go to show »Rumors Of The End Of The World
Canadian writer Margaret Atwood once noted that “the Colonies” (i.e. former British posessions) were not places where great literature was supposed to happen. That myopic view is well and truly demolished by tonight’s guest: Australian writer Chris Womersley. Chris’s fiction has appeared in Granta, and his second novel Bereft has just been published in the [...]
Go to show »Snow Business
One hundred years ago, on January 17th, 1912, Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s five-man team reached the South Pole: only to find Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it more than a month earlier. Scott’s ill-fated expedition is the stuff of legend. This week’s Litopia After Dark has two legendary guests: Dr. Huw Lewis-Jones, [...]
Go to show »Apple Pwns Education
Today, Apple made a grab at the education market. Not at part of it. No. All of it. As authors, we’ve become quite accustomed to extremely large companies appropriating things. Think about Google unilaterally grabbing eBook rights. Or consider Amazon giving away our eBooks. You get the picture. Apple, however, are going beyond all that [...]
Go to show »I Wish I’d Written It
The new year is a time to make dreams come true… and if you could make one authorial wish come true, what might it be? Perhaps you’d like the ultimate rave review from a legendary author such as Stephen King, along these lines: “this one gets the writer’s ultimate bit of praise: I wish I [...]
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