Riot Women with Sally Wainwright Sally Wainwright and Emma Barnett

Sally Wainwright is a Yorkshire-born writer, producer and director who was awarded an OBE in 2020 for her contributions to writing and television. She began her career with the stage play Hanging On at the Edinburgh Festival before writing on BBC Radio 4’s The Archers and ITV’s Coronation Street.  In 2000, she created At Home with the Braithwaites, her first original drama for ITV, which was swiftly followed by Sparkhouse and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard for the BBC and Jane Hall for ITV. 2009 saw her win the RTS Writer of the Year Award for Unforgiven. Sally went on to create a host of returning series including Scott & Bailey; Last Tango in Halifax which won BAFTAs for Best Drama and Best Drama Writer in 2013; and Happy Valley, which received multiple BAFTAs, RTS and Broadcasting Press Guild awards over its three series including BAFTAs for Best Drama and Best Writer in 2015 and 2017.  Sally then wrote and directed To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters for BBC1 and created, wrote and executive produced Gentleman Jack (also directing four episodes) for BBC1 and HBO, winning the RTS Award for Best Drama Series in 2020. Most recently, Sally created, wrote and executive produced the historical fantasy drama Renegade Nell for Disney+ and Riot Women (also directing three episodes) for BBC1 and Britbox. She is currently working on a second series of Riot Women as well as her first feature film with James Norton’s company, Rabbit Track.

Emma Barnett is an award winning broadcaster and journalist. Named Interviewer of the Year at the British Journalism awards and twice speech radio presenter by the Radio Academy, she presents BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today Programme and hosts TV interviews and documentaries across the BBC.  Her new BBC podcast has just launched: Ready to Talk with Emma Barnett - in which she interviews someone about a major moment in their lives and what they learned. Bold questions, unexpected truths and lots of tea are very involved. Previously she was the chief presenter of Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4, and has presented Newsnight, as well as her eponymous BBC Radio 5 Live’s mid-morning weekday programme.  Emma writes a twice weekly newsletter called Trying on Substack and a bi-weekly newspaper column for the i Paper. She was previously a columnist for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph - where she was also the Women’s Editor. She co-founded the publisher Colour Your Streets with her husband in 2023, now the largest local and bespoke colouring book company in the UK. With more than 200 books, they are mapping the whole of the UK and beyond so everyone can have a colouring book of their area.  After the birth of her first child, she wrote the book Period. It’s About Bloody Time. After the birth of her second, she penned Maternity Service - A Love Letter to Mothers From the Front Line of Maternity Leave. Emma grew up in Manchester and now lives in London with her family.