"Ladies who longform": Getting bookish with Emma-Lee Moss and Kathryn Williams

Books may be the main draw for literary festivals like Hay-on-Wye, but what's written is often just a jumping off point for chats that wander way beyond the page and into other creative domains, sizing up their shared foundations as well as their distinctions. It’s at this inquisitive crossroads that Emma-Lee Moss and Kathryn Williams meet as “two musicians undercover” to examine their own journeys as recording artists turned authors, or “ladies who longform” as Moss deadpans – Moss with her recently released memoir My Cantopop Nights, her first book, and Williams tentatively writing a follow-up to her 2021 novel The Ormering Tide. Both have decades of music making behind them, with Moss making waves as Emmy the Great across five albums, a soundtrack, and a handful of EPs, and Williams, whose discography now spans a massive 18 studio albums if you include her many side projects, like 2024’s Willson Williams. Moss retired the Emmy the Great name with a farewell show in 2023, but even at Hay she still brings her gear to play a few songs, not quite ready to believe she can do without the callback.That feeling may or may not fade as time goes on, but what’s refreshing about sitting in ...