“It doesn’t interest me to know how a book will end, I have to discover that for myself.” In this video from the National Centre for Writing, Eimear McBride, who won the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut novel, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, speaks about how character and story and the process of discovery are the keys to her writing process.

“She wasn’t sure if we were real, but nothing about us felt false.” Akwaeke Emezi, a 2018 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree nominated by Carmen Maria Machado, reads from their debut novel, Freshwater (Grove Press, 2018). The novel has been longlisted for the 2019 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

“There are big questions about where I take my career, how one makes that decision; to be able to talk about that with somebody who really understands those business questions, as well as the creative questions, is wonderful.” Naomi Alderman, who received the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for The Power (Viking, 2017), and Margaret Atwood talk about their experiences being paired together as mentee and mentor, respectively, under the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative program.