Ep. 8 - Engineering Wit and Wisdom with Cat Davey & Arek Sinanian

Presented by Maria Issaris.

Do you consider yourself a literary heavyweight - someone who believes that the key components of great literature are about baring the human soul, weaving it with beautiful words, threading it with the great philosophies of all time? Well, get ready to have your world turned upside down. Welcome to episode 8 of New Voices where Maria interviews Cat Davey - a writer who uses a blend of wit, wisdom and hard-earned journalistic rigour to deliver stories.

She seduces you with humour and leads you down a flower-strewn path to gaze in the well of societal norms. Will her book - Stupefaction - about the obituary column (and its writers) of a New York newspaper - be translated into a TV series?

Enter her critiquer Arek Sinanian - an engineer and climate change expert — who is still wiping the sweat from his brow from having written a tome on climate change. But nothing beats the challenge and angst, he says, of embarking on his first novel, a mystery thriller which is steeped in classical music, art and philosophy. What does he think of Cat’s work? Well, Arek is the kind of chap who is not all that familiar with women’s fiction, let alone the fashion magazine industry. But he was mesmerised by Cat’s process, her courage, and her assiduous, almost scientific process for energising her talent in writing. 

What both have in common is that, despite all their considerable achievements in the real worlds of engineering and journalism, what has been held closest to their hearts has been to take their creative work out of the closet.

Original broadcast date: 13 July 2020