Meet Stephen Mellor, Author

Author of From Where We Threw Dogs

Today I met for a coffee and chat with my friend and author Stephen Mellor - he wanted to give me a copy of his new book From Where We Threw Dogs, and it was a perfect day to sit outside in the sunshine for a good old chat.

We met at the Botanical Gardens to revisit the newly opened cafe, which is great!

This is a bit of an experiment, to allow you to connect with Stephen by eavesdropping in on our conversation… it’s inspired by The Listening Project, and extremely topical.

Here is a summary of our 90 minute chat :

• Our conversation covered a wide range of topics, including writing, artificial intelligence, education, politics, media, philosophy, religion, society, and more.

• Stephen talked about his new novel "From Where We Threw Dogs" which is about grief, loss, and becoming a man after the sudden death of his father. It involves two intertwining timelines and characters going through similar struggles.

• We discussed the challenges for writers dealing with AI tools like ChatGPT that can generate content. But Stephen believes human creativity, imagination and caring will still be key.

• We touched on how universities, media, and civic institutions like the NHS have become more corporate, transactional and profit-driven, treating people like "customers." This has eroded a sense of shared social values.

• The importance of philosophy and the humanities was emphasised, teaching critical thinking and what it means to be human. But education has become more politicised and functional.

• Kindness, compassion and creativity were highlighted as important shared values to focus on. As was the power of community and human connection to create positive change.

• Being open, imperfect, and able to laugh at yourself was seen as beneficial. Stephen described embracing the idea of being a "f***wit" - i.e. not pretending you know everything.

• The rapid development of AI and automation was discussed. This could free up human time and creativity, but also threatens many jobs and institutions not adapting fast enough.

Overall, we had an interesting free-flowing conversation about changes in society and technology, and how we can maintain meaning, community and humanity.

I will be sure to update this article with my review of Stephen’s latest book here in a few days - I hope you enjoyed listening to our chat.

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