Category Archives: Writer

Interview with authors

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Kim Goldsmith talking walking

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Andrew Stuck planned meeting up with Australian Kim Goldsmith sometime in advance, knowing that she would be returning from a residency on Skye with her partner and would only have a short time in London. They were staying in a hotel just south of Kings Cross, so Andrew met them there, with the intention of finding quiet spaces nearby in which to record an interview. Andrew accompanied Kim on a walk towards the Camley Street Nature reserve and Old Saint Pancras Churchyard, both of which he assumed would be quiet, calm spaces.

Kim is a sound recordist and a digital storyteller, and considers herself an environmental artist, like others, whom Andrew has recorded who have a practice in sound, it would seem inevitable that wherever they go sounds and noises intrude on their conversation. The interview with Kim was no exception, as you will discover.

The good news is that Kim took it in very good spirits! What could possibly go wrong? 22’58” 10.8 MB

Andrew Howe KV Goldsmith July2023 walking on Whixall Moss
Kim by the Wambuul Macquarie River June2022
Kim listening to kelp Skye Aug2024

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Emma Griffin talking walking

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Emma Griffin is a transport journalist, turned pedestrian activist, and maker of Footways maps of London, that identify calm and pedestrian-friendly routes and streets for us on foot to enjoy. One such route is the canal-side towpath, that Emma and Andrew Stuck walk along when they meet at Haggerston in Hackney, or so it should be, however, they have to share the path with inconsiderate cyclists. Emma argues that cyclists are part of the solution towards a more pedestrian-friendly London, as are Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, and the real battle is with the car drivers. 26’09” 12.3MB

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Billboard in Aldwych
London Central map
Obverse of Hackney map

Julius Smit talking walking

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As a former specialist photographer in an academic library, Julius Smit has always been fascinated by the composition of words and pictures. Through a series of walks on the South Downs and in and around Eastbourne where he now lives, Julius has been publishing ‘zines and chapbooks of his poetry and photography, that he has printed and gives away to people he meets on his walks. Andrew Stuck meets him early on a February morning, to walk along the promenade in Eastbourne, and discuss the process Julius follows to create his ‘zines, and how he views his efforts as a way to resist the digital world and encourage us all to slow down. 29’51” 14 MB

Julius Smit

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Eye-Glass Zine covers created by Julius Smit:

Anna Luyten talking walking

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Anna Luyten is a Belgian academic working across a number of disciplines, including journalism and non-fiction writing, theatre, change management and philosophy. Her interests include teaching by wandering, creating collective confusion amongst her students, and encouraging flexible gazing of the layers of daily life, all of which is engendered through walking. Influenced as much by American war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, as by German philosopher and cultural critic, Walter Benjamin, she teaches ‘wandering as a discipline’ for which she has defined four pillars of walking. With only a narrow window of time in our busy schedules, Andrew Stuck meets Anna outside Tate Modern, in London on a busy and crowded summer Saturday, having to record snatches of their conversation when they find quieter places. The interview opens with Andrew asking Anna to explain each of the four pillars. 18’02” 8.5MB

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Charlie Lee Potter talking walking

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Charlie Lee Potter has had a lifelong passion for working with sound especially in creatively weaving soundscapes to evoke places. As a former BBC radio journalist and foreign correspondent, she knows how the sound of a place helps to tell complicated stories and has applied this to a fascinating series of podcasts recorded on walks called “Inside a Mountain”. However there is a lot more to Charlie than just working with sound, as Andrew Stuck discovers on the walk they take across Christchurch Meadows in Oxford. 25’50” 12.1MB

Inside a Mountain podcast art
Ridge & Furrow artwork
Ridge & Furrow artwork

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Martyn Howe talking walking

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There are 19 long distance national trails in the UK and you are about to hear from Martyn Howe, a man who has walked each of them, but he hasn’t stopped walking, and he is now completing the newly designated English coast path.  So what got him going in the first place, and what kept him going, and what is his advice to anyone considering walking one or more of the national trails?  Andrew Stuck tries to keep up with him as they walk through Regent’s Park in London, as Martyn explains his mantra of beast, feast and yeast and how his endeavours got published in his book, aptly called the Tales from the Big Trails. 23’10” 11.1MB

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Duncan Minshull talking walking

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“Where My Feet Fall” is an anthology of essays on walking by 20 contemporary authors, brought  together by Duncan Minshull.  Duncan was for decades an editor and senior producer for BBC Radio, and if like Andrew Stuck you are a fan of listening to books read on the radio, then it has been Duncan who is likely to have chosen them.  “Where my feet fall” is not his first anthology of writing on walking, and Andrew is keen to establish, why he chose that topic, of all the ones he could from a lifetime career of choosing books for the radio. They meet in Paddington Recreation Ground, a popular London park close to where he lives. 18’56” 8.9MB



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Published to coincide with the publication of “Where My Feet Fall” – you can join a conversation with Duncan at the Walking Writers’ Salon at 7pm BST on Tuesday 5 April – read more and book your ticket here.

Hugh Lupton talking walking

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Hugh Lupton is a storyteller, living in East Anglia, who has been walking the lanes and ways of Norfolk learning stories through walking, and sharing them across the globe. We meet on a cold and windy day in April on one of his favourite walks, beside the River Bure, and talk about how people can value place in a different way if they have a sense of the narratives that are associated with it.

View of the River Bure in Norfolk

It is not the first time that Andrew Stuck and Hugh have met. Both of them took part in the Sideways nomadic art festival, that included a walk across Belgian Flanders in 2012. 20’27″ 9.6MB

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Kerri Andrews talking walking

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Writer and academic Kerri Andrews has recently written “Wanderers: A History of Women Walking” that challenges the male-dominated history of walking. Drawing on her own experience of hill walking and through research, she has written a compelling book that includes intriguing stories about women walkers since the early 18th century. She focused on women writers who reflected on what walking meant to them, many of whom have been overlooked or ignored.

Unlike the majority of Talking Walking interviews that are undertaken out and about on foot, the COVID pandemic has meant that this interview had to be recorded over the Internet. The interview opens with Andrew Stuck asking Kerri about her own passion for walking and how it began. 24’33” 11.5MB

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Photo: Beinn a’Bheithir near Ballachulish Credit: Ewan Tait

Peter Fiennes talking walking

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Peter Fiennes, former publisher of Time Out Travel Guides, has turned his hand to writing books. Reviewers and book readers have loved his engaging and humorous prose, so it was a pleasure for Andrew Stuck to record an interview with him to talk about the travel writers that he most admires, a dozen of whom he has ‘accompanied’ in his latest bestselling book: “Footnotes: A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers”, the paperback of which will publish in August 2020 .Recorded on Clapham Common, in south London on a windy February day in 2020, pre-pandemic lockdown, when frequent jet planes and a helicopter interrupted the recording. 19’57” 9.3MB

Order from One World Publishers

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Lizzy Stewart talking walking

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Children’s book illustrator and comic book artist, Lizzy Stewart, when drawing herself, draws herself walking – striding confidently across the urban scene. Her latest book, called “Walking Distance” is a personal account of the way she sees her life out and about on foot – she argues that walking is the ‘clearest way to participate in life’. Her work touches on themes of how women are observed in the city, both in reality and on film, as well as revealing insights into her creative process and her own ways of working. Recorded in and around the gardens surrounding the Horniman Museum in south east London on a February day in 2020. 22’08” 10.4MB

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Justin Butcher talking walking

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Walking for 5 months and covering 2,000 miles across Europe from London to Jerusalem, the Just Walk marked the centenary of the Balfour Declaration in which the British Government announced their support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. In this episode Andrew Stuck catches up with Justin Butcher, who conceived and led it, who describes the Just Walk as a ‘pilgrimage of penance’ and a ‘march of solidarity’. Crossing the Alps by the St Bernard Pass to north western Italy was rivaled in its beauty by the Albanian countryside. Accompanied by groups of walkers of different faiths and nationalities, a core group walked the whole distance, meeting refugees making journeys in the opposite direction, and being welcomed as celebrities by Palestinians. It is an extraordinary undertaking, chronicled by Justin in his best selling book entitled “Walking to Jerusalem”. The interview took place on a cold winter morning on the Parkland Trail, from Finsbury Park to Highgate Woods in London. 22’38” 10.6MB Feature image credit: Eleanor Butcher

Photo credit: Mark Kensett

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Image credit: © Jeremy Sancha

In 2020-21 Justin Butcher will be touring his critically acclaimed stage show, which premiered at Dublin Theatre Festival 2017, more details here.

Watch the 4-minute film of Just Walk to Jerusalem

Download the Walking to Jerusalem 2020-21 tour guide here