With a range of literary prizes aimed at under 35s, and a bidding war for the next great 20- or 30-something writer rarely far from industry headlines, we hear from a stellar range of novelists about what greater life experience can bring to fiction and the crafting of characters.

Anna Rawhiti-Connell meets master novelist and PEN/Faulkner award-winner Ann Patchett, phenomenally successful (and debut novelist at 64) writer of Lessons in Chemistry Bonnie Garmus and esteemed Aotearoa New Zealand author Patricia Grace (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Te Āti Awa) to discuss what a longer life view can bring to the page.