Jennifer Lucy Allan in conversation with Isabella Smith

Archaeology, history and Jennifer’s lived experience as an amateur potter are blended in Clay: A Human History, her love letter to the material that illuminates the way we make and create, live and die. Isabella and Jennifer unravel the themes of the book in more detail, such as how clay preserves our histories, how it shapes what we know, how we have developed different making techniques and some of the sprawling histories that connect us to this material that accompanies us through life.

Jennifer Lucy Allan is a non-fiction writer, broadcaster and amateur potter. Her most recent book, Clay: A Human History was published in 2024. Her first book, The Foghorn’s Lament, which was published in 2021, traced histories of coastal sounds. She is a presenter on BBC Radio 3’s long-running music show Late Junction, and regularly writes on experimental music, art and culture. She also runs the mentoring scheme Interior Motive.

Isabella Smith is a freelance arts journalist and editor. She was previously senior editor at Apollo magazine, and before that deputy editor at the Crafts Council’s magazine, Crafts. Her book Lucie Rie was published by Eiderdown Books in 2022.