We’ve all been to a pub. They’re places to meet friends, meet lovers, to celebrate, commiserate and even do weekly trivia. But do you REALLY know pubs? This is the question author Philip Howell poses and attempts to answer in his latest book, the aptly named Pub. Philip joins us to discuss the inspiration for this book, the pitching process, researching topics and his overwhelming love of one particular app!
You can listen to the episode below, on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or add the podcast RSS feed manually to your favourite podcast app.
00:00 Welcome
05:12 Writing tip: Night-time whiteboards
07:49 WIN: The Butterfly Thief by Walter Marsh
10:09 Word of the week: ‘Vexillology’
12:10 Writer in residence: Philip Howell
12:55 Describing ‘Pub’ as a concept and book
14:00 History vs Geography in this book
15:33 Inspirations for writing this book
19:06 The pitching process
21:53 The structure of the book
23:30 Choosing what to leave out
28:05 Range of writing topics and side hustles
30:42 The social dynamics of pubs
32:52 Writing popular geography vs academic
34:49 Research methods and tools
36:53 The importance of readability in writing
37:21 Love of Scrivener
40:35 Repurposing cut content
42:41 Australian pubs?
43:20 On being an expert in ‘pubs’
45:40 Future projects
48:31 Philip’s writing tip
52:17 Final thoughts
Links mentioned in this episode
- WIN The Butterfly Thief by Walter Marsh
- Buy So You Want to be a Writer – the book!
- Facebook group for So You Want to be a Writer
Writer in residence: Philip Howell
Philip Howell is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Cambridge, UK. He is the author of At Home and Astray: The Domestic Dog in Victorian Britain (2015) and Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire (2009).
Follow Bloomsbury Publishing on Twitter and Instagram.
This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre and our course Anatomy of a Crime: How to Write About Murder.
Find out more about your host, Valerie Khoo (@valeriekhoo on Twitter and @valeriekhoo on Instagram).




