Episode Ten Credits:

Producer: Sydney Walter

Readers:

Esme Rhodes: Esme Rhodes is an actress featuring herein as Eloise Weaver. She recently graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in History. Recent credits include 'Skeleton Crew' at the Edinburgh Fringe (2024), the Weston Library's 'A New Power: Photography in Britain 1800-1850' (2023), and 'Having the Last Word' (2024).

Judith Bunting: Judith Bunting is a screenwriter, with a background as a writer, director, and producer of award-winning content for TV and VOD.

Writers:

C.S. Lewis: C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) was a renowned British author, literary scholar, and Christian apologist, best known for his beloved children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia. Educated at Oxford and later a fellow and tutor at Magdalen College, he went on to become Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the University of Cambridge. Lewis was a prolific writer whose works spanned fiction, literary criticism, and theology, including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Allegory of Love. A close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, he was part of the informal Oxford literary group known as the Inklings. His writings continue to influence readers across disciplines for their imaginative power and intellectual depth.

Stephanie Norgate: Stephanie Norgate is a British poet and playwright whose work explores the intersections of nature, memory, and human experience. Born in 1957 in Selborne, Hampshire, she grew up with a deep appreciation for the natural world, influenced by naturalist Gilbert White. Norgate's poetry collections include Hidden River (2008), shortlisted for both the Forward Prize and the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, The Blue Den (2012), and The Conversation (2021), which reflects on themes of friendship and loss. Her plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and she has contributed to literary anthologies such as Poetry and Voice (2012) and Centres of Cataclysm (2016). Norgate has taught creative writing at the University of Chichester and served as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Southampton. Her poem "Ferries at Southsea" was featured as the Poem of the Month in June 2021 by the University of Portsmouth. She currently resides in West Sussex, continuing to write and teach.

Dr. April Elisabeth Pawar: April Pawar is the Founder of the Oxford Writers’ House. She graduated from St. Anne’s College, Oxford in 2016 with a DPhil in English Literature. She writes fiction, essays, and poetry.

Interviewed Expert:

Professor Simon Horobin: Professor Simon Horobin is a British philologist and author, serving as Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. His research focuses on the history of the English language, particularly during the medieval period. Horobin has published several books, including The English Language: A Very Short Introduction (2018), How English Became English (2016), and Bagels, Bumf, and Buses: A Day in the Life of the English Language (2019). He has also edited Osbern Bokenham’s Lives of the Saints (2020) and revised his earlier work Chaucer’s Language for a third edition (2025). In addition to his academic work, Horobin has curated the exhibition C.S. Lewis: Words and Worlds (2024) and authored C.S. Lewis’s Oxford (2024), exploring the influence of Oxford on Lewis's work . He has appeared on various media platforms, including BBC and NPR, to discuss language issues and has written for publications such as The Guardian and The New York Times.

Special Thanks To:

The Poetry Archive