I have spent years interviewing people for a living, but a while ago, I started questioning one of the most basic rules of the trade. Why do we always expect someone to answer us instantly?
That single question inspired me to create a live interview format conducted entirely through standard messaging apps. There is no studio, no bright lights, and no camera. For one hour, my guest and I simply text back and forth.
It changes the intimacy and tone of a conversation in ways I never could have anticipated.
Without a microphone in their face, someone can actually pause and collect their thoughts. A silence does not feel awkward. A question can sit softly for a moment. Guests feel free to edit their words, wander down unexpected tangents, or circle back to something we touched on twenty minutes earlier. Even the little animated dots showing that someone is typing start to carry a quiet anticipation.
In this talk, I will share what I have learned from interviewing writers, musicians, and artists this way, exploring the deep, quiet spaces that text can open up where cameras and microphones fall short. It is a warm invitation to view interviewing as an art form, and a reminder that changing the medium can completely reshape the human connection itself.
Views: 71 | Enquiries: 0Hello! I am an arts and culture journalist, podcast producer, and tarot researcher based in Nottinghamshire.
I founded the British Tarot Archive and created Tarot Interviews: a world-first international interview platform where tarot cards guide conversations with best-selling authors, musicians, and cultural leaders.
At the heart of everything I do is a fascination with hidden stories sitting just beneath familiar things: the real human lives that might be tucked away in century-old tarot cards, the gentle ways traditions survive as they are passed from hand to hand, and the magic that happens when you approach an interview or a piece of technology fitting into your work like a jigsaw piece.
Much of my research focuses on the iconic Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, the extraordinary life and world of artist Pamela Colman Smith, and tarot as a vibrant, continuous thread in Britain’s cultural history. I have presented my research at places like Goldsmiths, University of London, and my day-to-day work spans writing, producing podcasts, digging through archives, and speaking at festivals.
My talks almost always start with a spark of curiosity. I find a little thread, pull on it, and see where it leads us. Sometimes that thread is an easily overlooked detail in a single card. Other times it is a 400-year-old witchcraft trial, or the simple question of whether an everyday mobile phone can pull off the job of thousands of pounds’ worth of studio tech.
Above all, these sessions are crafted for curious minds. You do not need to arrive knowing anything about tarot or history, so just bring your enthusiasm and we will explore it together.
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