In this episode of The Writing Life Podcast, Norfolk-based writer Laurence Mitchell reveals how he brought the spirit of landscape and place onto the page in his award-winning book, Flint Country: A S...

I'm delighted to announce that Flint Country has won the Ellingworth Prize 2026 presented by Kett's Books in Wymondham, Norfolk. The judges said: “Developing a story that goes across history, the book returns to Norfolk to include each topic’s relevance here in our county. From Palaeolithic times, to tools and weapons, to houses of worship and art sculpture, the book argues that the stone beneath our feet has been formative, constructive, and beautiful.

Trinity Buoy Wharf, down by the River Thames on the Leamouth peninsula in Poplar, is a place where the past is deeply layered. It is also somewhere that seems to beckon an uncertain future. Even to reach it is to cross some sort of temporal boundary, from humdrum modern metropolis to another London where the past and future converge. Waters come together here too: Trinity Buoy Wharf lies at the end of Bow Creek, the meandering estuarine section of the River Lea, the city’s largest tributary.

I had been keen to revisit Avebury for a while. This Neolithic stone circle, a World Heritage Site set within the rolling chalk country of north Wiltshire, holds a special place in my heart. This time I planned to approach it differently. Rather than just park up at the English Heritage car park and do the usual day trip thing, I wanted to arrive there on foot by way of the ancient ritual landscape that held it.

Esfahan nasf-e jahan est ('Isfahan is half the world') '... and rank Isfahan among those rarer places, like Athens and Rome, which are the common refreshment of humanity.' Robert Byron The Road to Oxiana Isfahan, so the Persian phrase goes, is 'half the world'. This, the third largest city in Iran, has quite a reputation to live up to. But it doesn't disappoint.

I am currently involved in an art exhibition at St Margaret's Gallery, St Benedicts St, Norwich. The exhibition is mixed media, with paintings by Poppy Mathews (@poppymathewsart) and photographs and text by me. It is all very flint-themed and, for my part at least, relates closely to my recent book. Some of the text is taken from the book, Flint Country…

LATEST NEWS I'm delighted to announce that Flint Country has won the the General Non-Fiction category for the 2025 East Anglian Book Awards. It was up against some very worthy opposition and I am thrilled that it has been chosen by the prize committee. The 2025 category winners are: Biography & Memoir: Named: A Story of Names and Reclaiming Who We Are…