“Failure” isn’t the word you’d naturally attribute to multi-million copy best-selling espionage writer Mick Herron or double Jann Medlicott Acorn Fiction Prize-winning novelist Catherine Chidgey.

But success – much like life – is not always linear.

Herron’s journey to the top of the charts was a circuitous one, and his love of writing about life’s rejects and underdogs fuelled his Slough House series, now in a BAFTA-winning TV adaptation, Slow Horses.

Chidgey had a 13-year gap between her first three published novels, and her extraordinary return with The Wish Child, Remote Sympathy, The Axeman’s Carnival, Pet and The Book of Guilt.

They join Petra Bagust to discuss navigating life’s harder parts, and how the twists and turns have shaped them into the writers they are today.