Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S2 Ep1: Bookshelfie: Liv Little

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

In this episode Zing Tsjeng is joined by Liv Little, editor-in-chief of gal-dem, a media empire run exclusively by women and non-binary people of colour. Liv shares with us the story of her life through five brilliant books which have meant something to her. Every fortnight, join Zing Tsjeng, editor at VICE, and inspirational guests, including Dolly Alderton, Stanley Tucci, Liv Little and Scarlett Curtis as they celebrate the best fiction written by women. They'll discuss the diverse back-catalogue of Women’s Prize-winning books spanning a generation, explore the life-changing books that sit on other women’s bookshelves and talk about what the future holds for women writing today. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and this series will also take you behind the scenes throughout 2020 as we explore the history of the Prize in its 25th year and gain unique access to the shortlisted authors and the 2020 Prize winner. Sit back and enjoy. This podcast is produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit Harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com.com. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Zing Singh, your host once again for a brand new season of the Women's Prize podcast, coming to you every fortnight throughout 2020. You've joined me for a special bookshelfy episode in which we ask an inspiring woman to share the story of her life through five.

brilliant books by women. Today's guest is Liv Little. She's an audio producer, filmmaker and editor-in-chief of Gowdem, a media empire run exclusively by women and non-binary people of colour. Liv, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So bookshelfy is all about books that have been important in people's lives. But I want to know first what kind of a book reader are you? What kind of a book reader am I? I'm trying to read more books. Definitely trying to carve space for more book type literature. I read a lot obviously of content and articles in my day to day. But I think my favorite type of content to read are fiction books.

Oh, well you're always a big reader? Was I always a big reader? I think I was probably a bigger reader when I was really young. And I probably slightly lost it. I became obsessed with TV and documentaries and all that kind of fun stuff and film. So I spent a lot of time doing that, but I'm definitely getting back into the swing of just reading a good old fashioned book, a good old fashion novel. Yeah, in physical form as well, that's important. Do you, oh, so you're not a Kindle fan?

I don't like the Kindle, no. I mean, I don't have a Kindle. I've never used a Kindle, but I've decided that I absolutely don't want to see one. I think there's something about reading a physical book that you feel really satisfied when you finish it. Exactly. You can lend a book as well. It's nice. You can kind of share your experience of the book and pass it on.

That's true. Is that how you find the majority of your books? Sometimes, yeah, like I read one of the books that is on the list, an American marriage, I read and then I lent it to someone in the office. Someone in the office was reading ordinary people, and then we kind of all got the book and we're trying to read it at the same time, like a kind of fake book club type thing. So definitely, yes, it's a case of passing things around

and a lot of the earlier books that I read were from my mum's bookshelf. But are you a kind of person who's really territorial about their books like if someone returns a book to you and it's got you know folded edges i mean don't fold too much um but no i'm not i'm not as stressful but my girlfriend is like very like meticulous so if ever i borrow her books i'm really kind of making sure that i do not return them with folded edges because i would not go down well i think folded edges are fine to be honest yeah i don't i don't i'm not too mad about them but um but yeah it's it's the people who write in books i'm like what are you doing yeah yeah yeah yeah

Yeah, yeah. No, hate it. So as part of bookshelfy, we ask you to go back and think about five books that meant a lot to you at various points in your life. Let's talk about the first one, the earliest one, which is On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Yeah, that was something that was taken from my mom's bookshelf. Like my mom is the person that introduced me to Zadie Smith's books. And when I was a teenager, maybe like mid-teens, that was the kind of literature that I was reading. I liked how kind of dialogue. I like the fact that it was. was simple, straightforward and telling stories that I wasn't necessarily hearing told elsewhere or from characters or perspectives that I could relate to or understand in some way.

And yeah, it was my mum that recommended that to me and I really enjoyed it and I read through a lot of her books. Her most recent book I didn't, I tried to start reading and I couldn't really get into it. Was it NW? Yeah. Yeah, it didn't speak to me. Sometimes, you know, your authors that you love, their books don't necessarily all speak to you. Oh, yeah.

I mean, exactly. In the early days, yeah. If you have an author who's been writing for so long as well, there's going to be at least one book you aren't quite down with. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I think at that point it was important for me to be able to read stories like that. I think now I have a lot more kind of options to choose from. I think it's amazing with Queenie and an American marriage

and ordinary people at all of these books and Roxanne Gay. And there are so many authors that I vibe with in a very strong way and who's writing I love. and really does speak to me. Whereas then I don't think, I can't really think of who else, you know, was speaking to me in a way

that Zadie Smith did at the time. Yeah, I mean, on Beatty, I think is quite unique in the sense that it's also about two mixed race families. So there's one, there's one spouse who's black and another spouse who's white. And they kind of have this weird rivalry

slash interconnected, tangled relationship with the children, the spouses, their careers and everything. what about that do you think spoke to you even though you were so young and you know obviously you didn't have a family or anything far far removed maybe it was my family infrastructures and and seeing that growing up in like a mixed race kind of parent household as well with my little sister and my mum so maybe there were some parallels that I was drawing in that but yeah it was it wasn't necessarily that what was happening in the book like you say was directly speaking to my lived

experience as like a 15 or 16 year old but definitely things that could be drawn from it. Was your mum a big reader? Is your mum a big reader as well? My mum, oh my god, huge reader. She has so many amazing like feminist text. She's the one who gave me like Maya Angelou and all of that kind of stuff. She has just like so many books that are written by these incredible black women. So at home she had this like amazing kind of colour coded bookshelf and there was so much just so much content in it. Yeah and she's kind of past, various bits down over the years. Like she even had these amazing, like, old kind of, like, pamphlets.

She went to film school, so she had these old amazing pamphlets on, like, black women in film, like, proper, like, old-looking stuff from the, from the 80s. And, and, yeah, amazing, amazing. She's got a lot of, a lot of resources there, which is really nice. Was she always trying to get you to read the stuff that she wanted you to read? So would she, like, snatch Sweet Valley high out of your hands? That was not my flavour. No, I don't think, I don't think she forced, I don't think she forced literature on me.

I think as you grow up, you kind of maybe develop more questions about yourself and your surroundings and your kind of identity. And I think those things weren't necessarily things that were coming into question in my earlier teens. But as I, as I moved through my teenhood, especially like into my early 20s, I really wanted to discover more about myself. I wanted to read more from authors who looked like me or had a similar lived experience or just learn more about, you know, varying perspectives from people who look like me. And so at that point when I was like, Mom, I want some stuff to read. She was like, well, look at my bookshelves. So that was amazing.

That was great. I think it's also, you know, it must be in reaction as well because I'm assuming you didn't get that kind of knowledge from school. No, you don't get any of that kind of knowledge from school. It's very limited. Like even the recommended reading list that you would get at school, remember we'd have like reading competitions. I don't think any of those, that kind of literature would have been on there.

I mean, what kind of books do you remember reading for school? Oh, my God. Yeah, Shakespeare. Yeah, yeah, Shakespeare. And I remember reading of Misenmen. But yeah, that kind of stuff. There weren't, I actually genuinely can't think of a text that probably wasn't written by Smold White. That was on the curriculum.

And then that translated to university. And then that's when I was like, oh, my God. Again, I need to find, you know, varying perspectives. And that doesn't mean books which are only focusing on race. and gender and that kind of thing. It's just to hear from stories from people who who look like you is important. Do you think that kind of impulse is what led you to start Gowdham as well? Yeah, definitely. That was like a direct response to me being like, I'm sad, where's the text, I'm feeling really sorry for myself. And then it got to a point where I was

like, you can't just cry and feel sorry for yourself. You have to do something about it. And I was making my own reading list, but then I was like, I don't just want to be reading this stuff on my own. I want to be talking to people about it as well. So you kind of decided to make this community. Exactly. Exactly. Where we could talk on many different levels, you know. I think that's great though because I feel like so many people must go to university

who are really alienated by what they're told are the important books and the things that you're going to be assessed on because they're important. And they just don't really do anything with that feeling because it's so overwhelming. It is so overwhelming. I remember coming back to London, my friend was like, how are you coping? I was like, I don't know. And then I think I went to a talk, I went to Sessa Lameke's a talk about Aki and saltfish and I was like wow she just didn't see herself and she did something about it she's

a filmmaker yeah she's a filmmaker like amazing filmmaker and I and I think that was like the kind of tipping point where I was like come on what can you do and our and a website is free meeting people is free okay cool let's tell some story and from there gal damn was born yeah and you let's move on to the second book which I think difficult women yes rock sang gay so it's like a collection of short stories about different, difficult women. They kind of vary in length and in structure and in perspective. But short stories was never a format of kind of writing that I'd really gotten into. And this book, granted, I read it because I was going to interview her at the South Bank. But I think out of all of the books that I read by her, this was definitely one of my favourite. There were

like lots of weird parallels between like twin relationships as well and my mum is a twin. So that was really interesting to me. Just yeah, it was gory man. It was like it was, it's pretty dark. My 14-year-old sister loves Roxange. And sometimes I'm like, I don't know if you should read everything that she writes. I was like, I don't know if you should read hunger. It's quite painful and traumatic and important, but is it okay at 14 for you to read it?

But she kind of, my sister's just next level. but she loves difficult women as well and it was nice to be able to pass that one to her. Is there a short story that sticks out in your head from difficult women? There is one and it probably is the story about the twins and one of the twin sisters gets kidnapped and what kind of happens in trying to get her sister back and I then wrote a short story,

my first short story, which I was terrified to write, but I then wrote a short story where I kind of had some of those parallels between this kind of this twin relationship without making it super stereotypical because my mom's like everyone loves to write about twins and this kind of oh they've got a psychic connection yeah yeah yeah exactly but i'm like but you do have a psychic connection so some of that needs to be in there but i think that was one of that was one of my um one of my favorite stories there's another one about a couple and i think sisters but not twins and where one of the sisters kind of had a family and children and the other sister like kind of failed to get pregnant and really wanted to get pregnant.

And there's this really just gross scene where things are being cut open. But I love the fact that it was so dark as much as it potentially being, yeah, very, very heavy. Yeah, I sometimes think families can get quite dark. Yeah, yeah, to be honest. Yeah, family relationships. What about meeting Roxanne gay in person? What was that like? Oh, my God, I was so shook, obviously.

and like I'd read every single book that she that she had written and I had done so much research and I was like this is someone that you want to have done all your research for right because she's no nonsense yeah am I right and I was really nervous and like it was there was this weird moment backstage where I was freaking out and she was like you'll be fine and I was like oh my god live you have to pull it together um but then what it was was a really wonderful conversation. I was really happy with the kind of questions and I think she really enjoyed it as well. And then she became one of our investors which was lovely. Oh my God. That's amazing. So that was really cool and she's really cool. Okay. So you must have done all right.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it was fine. But I think she kind of said before we'd gone on stage like, yeah, I was explained that we were going through this investment process and she was like, yeah, I'm going to invest. And I was like, what? This has to go really well. Oh my God. I'm shook. And then and then she did. She followed through. Oh my God. Does she follow through like immediately in? Yeah, within the time frame that we were doing it. Yeah.

Which was like just, wow. So I remember like I cried so much like after that talk. I just remember being like, oh my God, because it was like the end of the year as well. And so much good stuff was happening or just change was happening with the business, with life, whatever. And I remember I was getting on a plane like literally the next morning and just like sobbing on the on the plane. And yeah, Roxanne Gay, you know. Roxanne Gay. Wow.

Yeah. She's listening. Thank you. I love you. Yeah. I mean, it's true. I mean, it's true. But what about, you know, how preparing for like these big talks like this?

Because you found it, Galdem. I guess when you found it Gowdum, you probably thought, never thought you'd be, where was it in the South Bank Centre, right? No, no, no. Interviewing Roxanne gave in front of like a thousand people. How do you prepare for stuff like that? I feel like the first few times it's really scary and nerve-wracking. I did one.

talk in front of like 10,000 children. They were like, I can't remember how old they were, maybe like seven to 14 or something. That had me shook to my core and that was only five minutes. But I think the more you do those things which are absolutely terrifying, the more comfortable you get. But it's also about preparation. If you're not prepared, then of course you're going to be scared. And I've obviously done, I've had experiences where I've not been as prepared as I

would have liked. But there are certain situations where you just, you don't play games. And when it is someone whose work you really admire, you really want to show you. show them that you respect their craft and that you've and you've taken time. So I've interviewed Candice a couple of times about Queenie as well. We did one at, was it south? National Theatre. And, you know, I love her work. I love her as a person. And it's important that she sees and fills that in the questions that I'm asking her. What about you? So how did you get into writing? How did I get into writing? I made a magazine and I hadn't really written

before. I had written in a sense of kind of English and I'd always loved English and the creative of writing elements. And essays in general, I've always done really well at English. And then I think my style of writing in academia was always quite chatty. So I started starting to think, I don't know if academia is like going to be the best thing for me.

Oh, wow. So were you like, I'm going to be professor? I was going to go and do law after I got offered like a scholarship to go to SOAS and then didn't take it to work in media. But yeah, I think that was around the time when I was like, oh this this is really important and it's so important obviously that you have academics of you know from all different backgrounds but i just thought this is not necessarily me or what i want to do um and maybe i'll go back and study um always always a law conversion course exactly my dad would be

happy he was confused you're starting a magazine called yaldem what my jamaican dad but um but yeah i think that was the time when i started to realize that i had an ability to communicate sometimes complex issues in a kind of chatty way and I really like that and then like I started to write articles and I actually I love interviewing people I love interviewing people like interviewing um I got to interview like Dean Asher Smith Candice Jordan Woods all so fun and all so different and I and I love profiling people um but I also love fiction so the kind of next thing for me that I'm trying to do in my spare time but kind of failing is a bit more of the fiction right now yeah I've written one short story that's been published but what's it what was it called um the was it called the sisters

yeah it's called like the sisters and it was for audible they did this collection called hag and it was um a series of folk tales from across the country that were reimagined by i think it was like six different writers and i got london and i had this story about these brothers who had a jewel in tavistock square over this woman but i kind of turned it into this like lesbian like drama but so much better than a duel yeah yeah yeah You can listen to it, I think. But it was really fun and it was really interesting. And I think you have to think about description in a completely different way to the description that you think about when you're writing a kind of article or a profile.

So, yeah, it's challenging, but it's fun as well. But, yeah, I need to sit down to write more. It's just finding the headspace. Yeah, I think it must be so hard to actually switch your mind off from, you know, the journalist profiler mind into the, I can just make things up now and it's fine. Exactly. Exactly. It is hard. It is really, really hard.

I've got a really good literature agent, but it is, it is really, really hard. Yeah, I haven't done like a big writing project yet. I'm just like hiding from them a little bit. Do you have an idea for a book? I don't know if I want to do, like, because the thing is, ideally, at some point I would love to write a novel, but that's not something that happens overnight. So the other thing I've been exploring is short stories. And I've played around with lots of different storylines and plots and I just I change my mind all the time, which is really annoying.

So we'll see what happens. Because Galdem's published books before. We published our first book last year, a few months ago. And that is a collection of essays from authors on kind of growing up. So we were directly responding to our old diary entries. Mine is like old Facebook chat messages with the first girl that I've like. fell in love with and was obsessed with. It was not cute. I was like doing the most. Yeah, no.

I'm like, oh my God, if she ever like reads this or finds out. But yeah, tragic, funny, sad, all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. What kind of messages were you sending to the girl? Okay. The other thing that's really sad is that like Charlie, obviously, Charlie's really organized. So she has her diary entry is like really clearly documented. Charlie's the editor of the galdom. She does all, she heads up all the editorial stuff. So she's really organized. Yeah, this, this was really her idea. I on the other hand only had Facebook messages and like this girl had gone back

through the Facebook chats and deleted all her messages. So it's literally just my, it's a stream of my messages. So that's what's in the book. And so it makes me look quite lame, but there were messages there at one point. But things just got really messy, like as they do in your 16 and you're figuring stuff out and everyone's weird and like doesn't understand queerness and like sexuality. And also you first fall for someone and you think that that's going to be the only person that you can can ever love and it's just oh god i'm so like horrifically um just over the top it sounds like the archetype or first relationship yeah yeah would you ever write about yourself again oh um i haven't really written about myself isn't i talk about myself sometimes but but but

writing about myself i don't know maybe like when i've lived some more yeah yeah because going to segue very nicely into hunger which is Roxanne Gaye's memoir I haven't read this could you describe it I cried a lot my girlfriend read it and she cried a lot she was processing a lot with

with kind of herself and her body and she speaks about sexual trauma she speaks about things that happened to her when she was younger she speaks about like the industry as well and diet culture and these institutions and things that have been created and she speaks she just she speaks it's about it's about her body you know and it's just it's very honest it's like painfully honest yeah yeah i've heard people say that it's probably one of the field memoirs they've read where

someone really just lays himself out completely completely completely completely completely or yeah, from start to finish, honestly. It's just, it's very intense. Did you talk about that when you met her as well? We spoke about, we did speak about it a little bit and actually something that was quite interesting, which I think I've sometimes written things that I haven't necessarily spoken to like my family about

and then this piece has come out and you're kind of like stuck in these awkward conversations with family about things that you wrote that you didn't really want them to. necessarily find out about and I think she's had there's some interesting conversations with her her mom and her dad and her family around pieces of work that she's published and traumatic events that she's not necessarily spoken to about and how do you alert them to the fact that these things are coming out that I found that really interesting as well I mean how do you how do you even do that

just say don't I think she said with something she's like don't read it but then with other things they they do read it yeah what's your philosophy on it Um, I wrote this thing about my vulva, which was like really, like, for Scarlett Curtis's book, which was really like, I thought it was like a very, part of the reason I was, I was a bit hesitant because I thought it's quite like a white feminist thing to do to write about the vulva. And I was like, ah, do you know what, actually, like, this is something that was really traumatic for me. I'm just, I'm going to, I'm going to write about it. And then it got published by the Guardian. So then like, oh, my uncle and like, everyone saw her. My uncle was like to my mom, why did she write about it? But I think the person I was most shook to read it was public. probably my mom. And she was just like, I didn't know that you were going through this like crippling kind of anxiety. But I never felt like I could talk to anyone about it, even her who's so open. But she was like, you know, good, write these things, break down these barriers. And I was like, okay, it's fine then. Thanks, mum. Literally, like, I don't know what I thought would happen that she'd be like, how day, like, yeah, I don't know. But that's such a perfect, your mind goes to

weird places. That's such a perfect response for your mom, though. Yeah. Because I feel like in an idea world, you wouldn't need to ask for permission. No, no, no. No, but yeah, yeah. My uncle's probably horrified that like, yeah, but it doesn't matter. I mean, the important thing is that your mum sounds amazing. Yeah, exactly. There we go. This podcast is made in partnership with Bailey's Irish cream. Bayleys is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adultery, whether in coffee, over ice cream or paired with your favourite book. So you picked another book called Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis Ben.

Yeah. Tell us about this book. Oh, do you know what is so special about this book is that I don't think I've ever read a book by a queer black, a black lesbian Jamaican woman. Like, right? Like, that's my background. That's like I'm half Jamaican. And so that was incredible to me. I didn't know too much about her backstory, to be honest, before I picked up the book. I can't even remember how the book found me, but it found me.

We get sent a lot of books in the office. I remember me and Charlie kind of read it around the same time. But the book kind of, it takes you through the journeys of three generations of Jamaican women, a younger one, the mom and then the kind of like bigger sister. it explores like things like colorism and skin lightning which are conversations that I've had with like family members in Jamaica and is obviously a huge thing it also guides you through kind of sexuality and adolescence and also queer queer love like in a Jamaican setting which to me as someone who doesn't necessarily feel like these are kind of topics that I can talk about when I'm in that space because of I don't know.

know, legislation and history and, you know, the reasons why these things have happened and colonialism, whatever. But, yeah, to have all of those varying kind of themes articulated in a book and in a way that was so engaging. I think I even read it when I was on holiday visiting my dad in Jamaica. It was just, like, very mad to me, very mad and very, very special. And I just think, I think she's a phenomenal author.

She's got another book out now called Patsy as well. which tells similarly kind of explores themes of queer love and relationships and someone who is from Jamaica and and you kind of like you know and kind of it's not until she comes to the States that she kind of ends up in this in this relationship with another woman but she's just a phenomenal author and and how brilliant and so descriptive as well which I love so yeah it's rare to such a big fan it's rare to find a book as well where you know it's entertainingly written, but also covers really important social issues, but it doesn't feel like it's a chore to read it.

Yeah, no, it's preaching. Nothing preachy at all about it. Just, just brilliant writing. Brilliant writing. I really would love to meet her one day. Yeah. Am I right in thinking that it's still illegal, like homosexuality is still illegal in Jamaica? Yeah.

Is this because of like... Well, it's not, I mean, you know, when it comes to legislation, obviously, against, like, lesbians and women, that stuff is enshrined. And then therefore, arguably, not taken as seriously. I know that my dad has, my dad has kind of said, you know, like, I would love my kids, whatever, and like, it's, and it's fine. But I don't know if it would be it's fine if I was a guy. And he's still very awkward about it anyway, to be honest.

Right. I don't know. They've not met or anything like that. But him and your girlfriend. Him and my girlfriend. But when he comes to London, like, we'll see what happens with that. But even to be honest, like with my family there, I won't talk about it. Or if I'm talking about a partner, I'll try and suggest that I'm talking about, like, in non-gender terms.

Could be anyone. And then they obviously assume that it's a guy. I think it's a hangover from colonial times, isn't it? Of course it is. Of course it is. Because I feel like, so I grew up in Singapore as well. And I think the same law was imported to Singapore from Britain when Singapore was still a British colony. So it's like a penal code against like sodomy.

Yeah. Yeah. And in the same way, it's like, you know, if you're a queer woman, it's kind of more low key than being a gay man. So they might not, it's not, it's not that it's not a big deal. It is still a big deal. But it's not even, it's not like considered under the law to be that way. She's got, she's, we were about to publish an interview actually that I was literally reading it today,

which is timely that Charlie, um, did with her and I think she says that there are places in Jamaica, she now lives in the States, but there are places in Jamaica where she can go and it's kind of like fine, but it still pierces her heart when, you know, you want to hold your partner's hand or whatever and like comments are made. It's a difficult pill to swallow in a country that you obviously love. Like she has such a strong affinity to Jamaica, which is why it kind of centres in her in her first two novels. So yeah, it's a difficult, difficult thing to kind of to tussle with.

Yeah. I think that kind of sense of tussling between you love the place you're from and the hometown and also you're finding it difficult to like be in a relationship with someone from that hometown. I think that's also expressed in another book you chose, which is an American marriage. This also won,

this book. This also won the Women's Prize in 2019. So yeah, and it is a phenomenal. It is a bang, bang book. Oh my God. it's so good, it's so energetic, so much happens, so much happens within this one book. I loved it. I think I sat down with it and I don't read books particularly quickly.

I'm someone who has a lot of books that are open and I start and I stop and I start and I stop. But this within two days, I think I was done. I think it's fantastic. I think it's fantastic. I'm trying to think of a concise way we can summarize. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay. Yeah, concise. there's a lot of plot in this book there is a lot of plot in this book it's it's about a relationship fundamentally that goes through like a marriage that goes through various kind of points tragedy strikes the husband is kind of unlawfully convicted um and goes away for some time she kind of starts up a relationship with someone who's been a best friend for a long time the husband comes out

it's like oh what do i do i'm torn between these two relationships eventually i don't know we won't do spoilers maybe yeah maybe let's not spoil the book but um but it's difficult they go through a period of of aging of transforming of changing because they're kind of in different environments and it's about how they then engage with each other and the book kind of follows the relationship through a series of letters and and because of the letters I think what's so great is it flips through two different perspectives yeah in a way that doesn't feel like forced or jarring at all it just worked really well what was your kind of lasting memory of the book why do you think you related to you it related to it so much.

Maybe just as I was like, relationships are complicated. No. Yeah, it just felt, it felt very honest. It felt very honest and yeah, I don't know. I could, not that I could relate to their specific circumstance, but I thought that so much happened, I guess, and it really like kept me wanting to turn the page and keep reading. Yeah.

It was very, it was action-filled but a lot happened within it yeah it wasn't kind of long drawn-out descriptive kind of thing it was it was very to the point and also the changing nature of the letters between them I thought was really interesting to the point when they were getting really short and blunt yeah I just think it's a great book bloody good book and I followed her and DMed her like you're amazing this is amazing

did reply oh that's so nice it's really nice yeah God yeah I mean we had her on a Women's Prize podcast and she is absolutely great. So really, really fun. And also just obviously so passionate about the issues the book talks about like incarceration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marriage, relationships. I actually think it's one of the books I've read where I'm like, yeah, this is what it's like to be in a complicated relationship.

Yeah, and like the fact that, you know, people, like nothing stays the same. Like everything is consistently changing. And within a relationship, you change as individuals and sometimes those things align and sometimes they don't. Obviously in this context they had more obstacles than your average couple probably does. But I think, yeah, it was great. It was great. Do you read books to escape from real life? I think so. Maybe that's why I read fiction more than nonfiction. Because there are a lot of like kind of collections of essays and that kind of thing that exist.

But I'm drawn to things which are different to that. Like Bernardina Riso's goal and woman other is another kind of great example of a book that is able to tell stories from the perspectives of many kind of different characters. She's just amazing in general. I've been listening to Mr. Loveram, which is narrated by the like loveliest Caribbean voice. Mr. Loverman? Yeah,

I think it was her first novel. I just, I literally just started listening to it at night. My girlfriend read it and was like obsessed with it and said that the voice was so comforting. But I'm going off topic. Not these weren't books that were on the list. No, I mean, this conversation could go wherever

wherever it wants to go. audiobooks are interesting though because I have to confess I don't listen to audio books. I find it, I don't know, I find it really jarring because I have a voice in my head and the voice reads the book and the voice it has. I think there are certain books that you can and certain books that you can't. And like my girlfriend is, that's the reason why I've kind of slightly gotten into the audiobook thing because she got a bit obsessed with it. But she said that there are some books that she's read and then also listened to but sounded better or were better to read. And I think it's also down to the narrator that you get. So with an American marriage, it worked really well.

And I actually listened to Girl Woman Other and the narration on that was really good. So I think it completely depends. Like with ordinary people, I've been flicking between the two. And I think I prefer when I'm reading it. Oh, so you read a book simultaneously through listening to it and reading it sometimes. That sounds so complicated. If my other half has got like a book downloaded and I'm also, because I will be the one that buys more.

of the physical books, then I might, if I'm tired of an evening, like, flick between the listening or the reading version of it. But yeah. Another nice thing is being read to at night. That's, like, my new thing as well. It's quite nice. We've been doing that with How to Love the Jamaican. Wow, so she reads to you.

We read to each other sometimes. Oh, my God. This sounds so romantic. Wow. It's just quite a nice thing to do, like read a couple of chapters in a book before bed. I mean, now I'm going to go back to my... partner and be like you are you haven't read to me have you we don't know what's that about but it's cute when we did it is very cute so if you could you know choose only one of these books that

meant the most to you in your life which one do you think would rank up there oh my god that's really hard i think a book that maybe changed the way that i kind of engage with literature and like form and storytelling would be difficult women so i would say because of that That was the most transformative book for me. It follows a format in the sense that it's multiple stories, but I think the way and also the perspectives from which she tells the different stories were breaking all the rules and I loved it. Was that also what inspired you to kind of try short stories as well?

Definitely. It's a difficult format, to be honest, short stories, because where do you start? It is. No, literally, I'm still trying to figure all of that stuff out, but yeah, I think she did, she needs me to tell that she did a great job, but she did do a great job. And yeah, that's been massively kind of inspirational for me,

moving forward. That and that and go on another, which is not on the list, but so we went to go into it. What has reading kind of meant to you in your life? It's just an incredible source of different perspectives and stories and inspiration, and I think every book that I read, I take from it some sort of inspiration

or tips or ideas or thoughts of things that I want to carry through in my practice. And I think that's amazing. And also probably why I'm consistently changing what it is that I do want to write because I'm like, oh, that was really interesting. What about if I changed it like this or I tried this with the form instead of that? So I literally every time I read something, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm going to go back to the drawing board with whatever I'm working on. But yeah.

But I think that's good though. I think good writers steal a little bit of... other writers stuff all the time. Yeah. Inspiration, you know. Okay, well, thank you so much for chatting to us. Oh, thanks for having me. Finally, the women's prize for fiction is, you know,

the goal is to platform the voices of other women. Do you have a woman or role model who means something to you that you'd like to share with our listeners? Oh, I have so many. This is really, really difficult. I did know you're going to ask me this question. You can name a couple.

Okay, cool. I guess because I've been speaking about her and I think she's iconic and Queenie is iconic and she's just a wonderful human whole round. Candice. That was again was a book that I kind of, to be fair, and I said this to her. I think when I first started reading it, I didn't instantly get into it, but after the first like chapter or two, I was invested and I think I read it within a day or two. And there were so many themes and topics which felt particularly pertinent to my life and to the lives of my friends and very relatable and yeah, just. And also,

very complex in the kind of, you know, relationship between like black women and bodies and like the healthcare system and mental, there are so many topics and grief as well. And just, yeah, I thought, I thought it was beautiful. And aside from that, she's just a wonderful, supportive person that's been there and is very kind. I also often cite Michaela Cole as an inspiration as someone who literally wrote herself and her character into existence. And again, all of the same things apply. I got to interview her as well, which was an iconic moment for me when we did the Guardian takeover. And she was just interesting and funny and complex. And yeah, I think she's a phenomenal woman, phenomenal human. And so I'll leave it there, but I could go on for longer.

There are a lot of women. Well, thank you so much for coming on air with us. Thanks for having me. I've definitely put down several of the books you've recommended on my reading this, yeah. They're going on the Kind of. I'm Zing Singh and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, brought to you by Bailey's. You definitely want to click subscribe because in our next episode we'll be exploring three previous winners of the women's prize in a book club with three brilliant guests. Please rate and review this podcast. It's the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. Thanks very much for listening and see you next time.