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Nathan

Coming Soon!

Event, Update

Today I’m sharing a few upcoming events and resources – a few save the dates if you like! 🙂

 

Viva Survivors Select

First, the next few issues of my curated zine series, Viva Survivors Select, will be released on the following dates:

  • Wednesday 13th May 2026, The Submission Issue – next week!
  • Wednesday 10th June 2026, The Examiners Issue
  • Wednesday 15th July 2026, The Contribution Issue

If you’ve not seen it, The 2025 Issue is already out and there will be more issues from August through to November. I’ll share more about The Submission Issue when it releases next week. For now, here’s the cover:

Cover image for Viva Survivors Select 10, The Submission Issue, May 2026. Image shows a red game-piece looking down a dark hallway to light at the end of the tunnel

I’m really pleased with how the cover worked out. I’m still finding my way as an artist and love having this opportunity to make so much art regularly.

 

7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva

I have five independent viva help webinars happening in the not-too-distant future!

I regularly deliver Viva Survivor and 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva sessions for universities and programmes around the UK. However, not every university engages me to deliver sessions – and sometimes even when they do there’s limited availability.

To create opportunities for PhD candidates to access viva help sessions I’m offering a range of dates and times for my 1-hour 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva live webinar in June and July:

I’ve run an evening session before but for the first time ever I’m also offering a Saturday morning session for people who might struggle to attend during weekdays. Registration for a 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva live webinar is £20 and includes follow-up resources and access to a catch-up recording of the session.

Booking for all of these sessions will open on Tuesday 26th May 2026. I’ll share reminders when registration opens for 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva but if you follow my profile on Eventbrite then that should alert you when registration opens for all. You can also use a “remind me” button on a registration page if there’s a particular date you want a reminder for.

Thank you for reading this post and I hope that these announcements are of some help. More details and help to follow! 🙂

Nathan

January Sale! (and Update)

Update

Happy New Year!

Let’s start with something fun 🙂 If you want to save yourself some money on viva preparation books then go check out Books right now! The Viva Prep Handbook is £2.49 delivered to your door and you can get that and Fail Your Viva for only £8.99. They’re on this special offer until my birthday on January 18th; do check them out!

2016 on the podcast micro-review!

Last year was a good one on the podcast. There were fewer visitors to the site but there were also fewer new episodes because of work and time commitments at my end. Despite that, there was a greater number of downloads and listens than 2015! So fewer people visiting, but people exploring a lot more of the archive, listening to stories of PhD research and viva experience. The number one episode of 2016 was Episode 59, where I chatted to @DrHelenKara about life as an independent researcher. Plus we talked about our book that we published in May, Self-Publishing For Academics!

Coming up in 2017!

I’m planning the schedule now and I’ll record new episodes soon. The first new episode will debut in February, and I’m looking for people who want to share their story in the next few months. One of the first episodes will be a second Q&A episode. I’ll write a post in the next few weeks to start getting your questions about the viva, the podcast and anything you want to know that I might be able to help with. If there are any questions in your head now then email or tweet at me!

Back to the Sale!

That’s nearly all for this post, but please do go and check out my January Sale of viva preparation books: the ultra-concise Viva Prep Handbook is £2.49 delivered! 3000 words of viva preparation help condensed down from six years of workshops that I’ve delivered all around the UK.

Plus you can get that bundled with Fail Your Viva for £8.99. Fail Your Viva first came out four years ago as an ebook in the Kindle Store. It has some pretty good reviews on the Kindle Store, but since Day 1 of the release I’ve had people asking about a print edition. Very happy to have helped people with that in the last year, and you can get it now bundled with The Viva Prep Handbook, delivered, for £8.99. All of these offers are only for the next two weeks, so get them at these prices while you can.

If your viva is coming up, check out the archive for stories of people who have been there and got it done. If you need some more help then either email me or check out one of my books or ebooks. And if you want to share your research journey and viva experiences then drop me a line and come on the podcast.

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)