# Ann Patchett, plus why launch an all-male publishing house?

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/front-row-944015/ann-patchett-plus-why-launch-an-all-male-publishing-house
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/front-row-944015/ann-patchett-plus-why-launch-an-all-male-publishing-house.md
Podcast: [Front Row](https://stenobird.com/podcast/front-row-944015)
Published: 2026-05-27T19:07:00+00:00
Episode link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002wvft
Audio file: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0nnmt8z.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/front-row-944015/episodes/ann-patchett-plus-why-launch-an-all-male-publishing-house
Duration seconds: 2531

## Resource

Nashville-based novelist Ann Patchett tells us about her tenth novel, Whistler, in which a chance encounter between a woman and her stepfather after many years leads to unexpected revelations. As a new publisher - Conduit Books - launches with the intention of promoting work by male authors, we discuss why this might be needed, with its founder, the writer Jude Cook, and with Ellah Wakatama, Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, who has worked in the publishing industry for many years. Pioneering photographer Wendy McMurdo's exhibition The Digital Mirror opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh this weekend, and shows a body of work which responds to how digital technology such as computers, tablets and gaming has impacted on children's lives since the mid 1990s. She joins us live in the studio. And a new survey by the organisation Age Without Limits has found that hit movies are four times more likely to feature a talking animal than a female actor aged over 60. We ask why that might be, and how representation of older women on screen might be improved. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan

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