With Melissa away at YALC, Jamie and Naomi tackle the week's biggest publishing controversies, industry trends, and adaptation news.

Episode Breakdown:

• James Patterson's Co-Author Contracts: Author Gina Maxwell alleges Patterson offered a flat $10,000 with no royalties for a romance novel and contractually threatened to remove her name if he significantly edited the manuscript.
• Baldur's Gate 3 Fandom Outrage: T. Kingfisher's Astarion prequel novel faces intense online backlash over IP-mandated backstory changes and narrator Neil Newborn's jarring third-person audiobook delivery.
• The "Trad Wife" Literature Trend: Exploring the Waterstones Book of the Year 2026 shortlist and the sudden wave of fiction deconstructing traditional housewife communities, driven by hits like Yesteryear.
• Sarah J. Maas Formatting Drama: Fans express frustration that Bloomsbury printed the highly anticipated Splintered Harmony noticeably taller than previous books in the series.
• David Walliams Industry Fallout: The children's author is dropped from a major animated movie and loses independent bookshop shelf space as misconduct allegations continue to impact his backlist.
• Hollywood's "Safe" Adaptations: Discussing upcoming screen versions of Dolly Alderton's Pride and Prejudice, Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, and John Gwynne's completed epic fantasy series The Faithful and the Fallen.
• Bridget Jones Prize: Helen Fielding launches a £2,000 Northern Comedy Writing prize to support unpublished writers from the North of England.
• Publishing Q&A: Advice on navigating the mental toll of losing literary representation multiple times and how to successfully leverage past agency experience when querying new agents.

@naomigwrites - Naomi Gibson, author of Every Line of You, Game Over Girl, Man Muse Monster

@melliver - Melissa Welliver, author of The Undying Tower, My Love Life and the Apocalypse, Soulmates and Other Ways to Die, To the Death

@writeandwrongpodcast - Jamie Greenwood, creator & host of The Write and Wrong Podcast