Sweeping and Editing

From A Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally Bayley by Sally Bayley, Andrew Smith

January 24, 2026 · 22 min · Episode 92

About this episode

Sally Bayley discusses the editing process of her upcoming work, focusing on the creation of space and time in writing.

‘A paragraph made up of waiting…’ We join Sally this week in the process of editing her forthcoming work, Mrs Parnell, focusing in particular on a single paragraph. Listen for a meditation on the creation of space and time in writing, and how a text can carve out a space to pause. The wonderful piano music in the opening section is ‘Doubt’, by Paul Seba. More on Paul and his work can be found here. This episode was edited and produced by James Bowen. Special thanks to Andrew Smith, Violet Henderson, Kris Dyer, and Maeve Magnus.

People in this episode

Hosts: Sally Bayley, Andrew Smith

Topics covered

editing
writing process
meditation on writing
space in text
creative process

Keywords

editing
writing
Mrs Parnell
creative process
meditation
space in writing
Paul Seba

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Mrs Parnell, Doubt