Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S3 Ep15: Bookshelfie: Katherine Ryan (Live at Latitude)

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

Recorded in front of a live audience at Latitude festival, comedian and writer Katherine Ryan tells Yomi why no-one should be scared to be disliked.    Katherine is a stalwart of all the big TV comedy panel shows, she’s presented numerous other programmes, and last year she wrote, starred in and executive produced her own sitcom, The Duchess, about a single mum living in London, which leapt to the top of the Netflix charts.  She’s also toured sold out venues across the world with her stand-up shows, she hosts the chart-topping candid conversation podcast, Telling Everybody Everything AND she’s also found time to write her first book - The Audacity - a hilarious autobiography where she details her journey from a naïve ex-Hooters waitress fresh off the boat from Canada to comedy megastar. It’s out on September 30th and you can pre-order it here: https://bit.ly/KRAudacity.   Katherine’s book choices are:  ** How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran ** Bossypants by Tina Fey ** Yes Please by Amy Poehler  ** Everybody Died So I Got a Dog by Emily Dean  ** Jessica Simpson‘s autobiography Open Book Every week, join journalist and author Yomi Agedoke, and inspirational guests, including Elizabeth Day, Sara Pascoe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as they celebrate the best books written by women. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and has been running for over 25 years, and this series will offer unique access to the shortlisted authors and the 2021 Prize winner.  This podcast is produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I was waving to my friend at the front and completely forgot everyone else to see. So I was like, why is everyone cheering? But hi everyone! With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Yomiyadhya Degger-Kay, your host for Season 3 of the Women's Prize podcast. Each bookshelfy episode we ask an inspiring woman

to share the story of her life through five different books by women. Hi everybody and welcome to a very special edition of the women's Prize for Fiction Podcasts recorded in front of a live audience. Woo! At Latitude Festival in Suffolk. I really want to preemptively apologise to regular listeners. I might sound slightly less.

Peppy than I normally do because it's been a rough night. What did you do? What happened? How rough was it? Rough. We'll talk about it when there's not like a couple hundred people. Well, they've come to know why you are less, Peppy.

Oh my God. Okay, there's peer pressure. Then there's this kind of beer pressure. It was that last night, the peer pressure. Give me any answer and we'll take it. What did you do last night? I had a lot of fun. Okay, thank you. Lots and lots of fun. Right, that's a very different intro for the women's

Fiction Podcast. But my name's Yomedega Kaye. I'm a journalist and author and my brilliant guest this week is the award-winning comedian, presenter, writer, actress, and soon to be published author, Catherine Ryan. So, Catherine is a stalwart of all the big TV comedy panels. She's presented numerous other programs, and last year she wrote and starred in, and executive produced, her own sitcom, The Duchess. I watched that about a single mum living in London, which leapt to the top of the Netflix charts. She also toured and sold out venues across the world with her stand-up shows, two of which have been made into Netflix stand-up specials, and she hosts the chart-topping Candid Conversation Podcast, telling everybody everything, and she's found the time to write

her first book, The Audacity, a hilarious autobiography in which she details her journey from naive ex-Hooters waitress, fresh off the boat from Canada to comedy megastart, which is out in September. How are you, Catherine? Very well. I don't think I've won any awards. It always has award-winning. I don't think that's true. I've won like BS awards. Can you swear on this podcast? I've won some like bullshit awards. Yeah, no good one. though. So let's start with your book, Catherine. What was the process of writing the audacity? Oh, yeah. I wrote a book. It's called The Audacity, which is like confidence that people find rude, a level of confidence that people are taken aback by, which I don't understand. I think being confident

is not rude, but I think women especially are taught that you have to be quiet and small and simple. And so that's why it's called the audacity. And it's just about my life and my process was great, because everyone left me alone and I just got to write it in a closet all by myself and send emails to my publisher, Beth, with all the different chapters. And I kind of imagine that I was just telling stories to a friend, not that headlines would be picked from the book

and put in the Daily Mail, like fat whore, Catherine Ryan said. So I think that's the best way to write a book for me because it means it's full of secrets and full of truth, and that's the kind of stuff that I like to read, like juicy, tea-spilling real-life books. Yes, that's the kind of stuff we love to read too. Catherine, have you always been a big reader? No. Well, yes and then no.

So when I was young, I was very academic. I wanted to be a doctor, believe it or not, I was really clever. I read loads of books. But get this, English was banned at my school. So I wasn't allowed to read any books in English. My parents were not French. My parents were Canadian, but they thought it would be good for me to conduct my affairs in a foreign language. So when I was three years old, they sent me to a French school, and I didn't understand a word of French.

And I remember being dropped off at preschool and being like, what? I didn't understand anything. But then that's how you learn French. And the school banned English. So I read loads of books, but they were all in French. And then when I got older, I started to value, you know, less academic things. I started to read less, watch more reality TV. This is where I'm at now.

We're going to go on to your first bookshelfy, which is Katlyn Moran's How to Be a Woman. When did you read this book? And what impact did Katlyn's feminist manifesto have on you personally? I was really lucky because I got to meet Katlyn and work with Katlin in the same time. the book came out and she just exploded like as a personality and as an author and as this

writer of this feminist manifesto. She was given an opportunity to do a pilot for Channel 4 and I was a young well young I was 25 that's young if you're a man I got to

write on the show and I loved her right away I was like this woman is everything. She was so smart and brave and bald and funny. And then she, when she wrote the book, it had so much accessible feminism in it that I really understood. And I felt like she was telling me empowering statements in the book and telling stories about her life, but also it was just really modern and really funny. And that's the way to get to someone like me, I think. It was the right way to inject big, smart ideas

through like humor so I loved it. Were you one of those kids that kind of had feminist leanings early on or were you someone that I suppose came to it slightly later? Well it was both really because I loved my mom and my grandma still do they were glam women and they were really strong women too

and I was raised in a matriarchy because the boys were out like golfing or drinking or fighting and then I think their roles weren't very feminist. From the outside, if you looked at my mother and my grandmother, they tolerated a lot of mistreatment, and they didn't chase their dreams, and they really always felt like they should be due to full housewives and not deviate from the normal shape of a family. But at the same time, like, I thought they were funny and cool, and they never made me feel like my life would be harder because I was a woman. They always just created an atmosphere where I was the best and the

brightest and the smartest and I could do anything. And that was cool, you know, but I knew about injustice. My mom was definitely, if anyone thinks I'm spicy about men, talk to my mom. My mom every day is so like, well, they're all killers and vallanderers and she, she like smokes. I said in my last special, um, men are nature's gun. You're statistically most likely to be killed by the one in your house. Well, thank you for nodding. It's a dark joke. but it is true and that's something my mom told me growing up. I love your mom. Were you always a performer?

Yes, I was always a performer, Yomi. I was just weird. I could always tell from a young age that I rubbed people the wrong way. I would say the wrong thing or I would just be a little bit. I wasn't disruptive. I followed directions and I was really smart and I was good, but I had ideas and I would see things from a different angle and I would say things out loud that I knew people in my town were like,

what is that child talking about? And then I just thought, well, I'm different. My town is really athletic and really, like, simple and really small. And I was like a musical theater kid. I had a really flamboyant upbringing because of my mom. And then I just thought, well, that's okay. I had the frame of mind that I was like, if I don't fit in here, that's temporary.

And I think adolescence especially could really use that message is that if you don't fit in right here right now, that's not the whole world. And you will find your tribe. If you just keep moving forward and find a bigger ocean, you know, to cast your net. And that eventually happened. I did more theater and I moved to a bigger city

and I found my tribe. And I wasn't so weird after all. But I was definitely always performative. Can you tell me a little bit about your second bookshelf for Tina Feyn. bossy pants. When did you first read it? And for those who haven't read it, what's it about? I'm so excited because the audacity, my book agent in America is the same as Tina Faye's. And he was like bossy pants. It was this huge success. And it was a book that resonated with me so much too because Tina Faye, of course, is a comedian and a writer and a director and she did Mean Girls. And I read it around the time Mean Girls came out. And that was a film that I thought was really funny and resonated with me.

And what I loved about it is that when I was younger, I imagined that successful people came out of nowhere. I just thought, oh, she's a famous, funny person. But she really talks a lot about her journey and being in groundlings and doing sketch comedy and being even body image. She wrote about body image in that book before we really spoke about it in like the zeitgeist. She was bigger and she was smaller and she had to navigate a real, macho environment and comedy and I loved all that part of the book. It was so beautifully written and so funny. And then I saw Tina Faye. I've met a lot of people. I didn't meet her because we're at a hotel in Los Angeles and her daughter was friends with my daughter in the swimming pool and they

were hanging out. I know. My daughter hung out with Mel Gibson's daughter one day too. That's another story. She was like, I have eight older brothers and my mummy is a Russian model. I was like, what? And then he came out the lift. I was like, ow. Which Hollywood leading man could that be? All of them. But Tina Faye's daughter was lovely and swimming with Violet. And then the mother walked over and spoke to her daughter about lunch and spoke to me, just said something like, oh, how old is she? And I was like, that's Tina Fogafay. But I didn't say anything because I do admire her like that much and I just sat there frozen she's so talented and bossy pants is a great book if you want to make tv or even if you just want to find out how this woman like navigated a tough world and

being different became successful so it feels like they're kind of parallels in terms of bossy pants and you also have approached in the audacity about being audacious how important would you say the quality of audaciousness is to success in comedy especially as a woman. Oh, wow. Women have to be audacious and you can take that definition, whatever you want. You have to be confident, you have to be resilient, number one, and really resourceful and kind of a psychopath. We're just like, you don't mind if people say no because people are going to say no all the time, especially if you're auditioning for things, which is why I don't audition for things. I think it's better to create your own vehicle,

and then you don't have to audition for it. Like I wrote The Duchess, so I didn't have to audition for it. Maybe I should have. We could have cast them a better. But I think you make your own luck, and sometimes things are difficult, and if you just hang in there long enough, it is a game of tenacity. And I think it's not that I think I'm the best and the brightest and the funniest and the prettiest. I just always knew that.

it didn't matter like no one else could do an impression of me and I never tried to do an impression of some well I did for a while try to do an impression of Sarah Silverman for like the first three years of my career but it's just like if you carry on speaking in your most authentic voice someone eventually will find it and just because you're not for one production company but it doesn't mean you won't be for the next thing and in this country even um I started out talking about the Kardashians. I wanted to do my first number show, Kardashians, the musical. And everyone,

my agent and my promoter, everyone was like, no one knows who those sisters are, Catherine. And I was like, you wait. And then I never changed my voice. I always talked about celebrity and I was always like this and really glamorous. Well, I'm not glamorous yet. Meet me in the comedy tent and the PM. I've brought you the

the real skin regime for the afternoon. But I just knew like this is who I am and I have to do it this way and if people find it they'll find it and if they don't they don't and lucky for me they did but I think it doesn't have to be entertainment anything you do in life that's how you have to do it and it doesn't hurt my feelings if people don't like me and it shouldn't hurt your feelings if people don't like you because I don't like bread. Is bread disgusting? No do you like bread? Probably. I don't like bread. Is bread offended? No because you're still buying bread. is just the greatest thing I've ever heard. Well, that's true. It's like, not everyone's going to like you. Do you with it. Very prescient.

Your third book, Shelfy book, is Amy Polar's Yes, Yes, Please. Can you please tell the audience a bit about this book and what it means to you also? So I love Amy Polar. I think she's hilarious. She and I have the same agent. He's called Dave. And Amy, when you ask her to go to dinner, or you're like, Amy, shall we go down and have another drink around the corner at this bar?

she says yes please she's so sweet and she always goes yes please yes please that's just how she talks and that's why her book is called yes please she's a really positive yes type of person I think it's so nice that was a little thing

that someone told me about Amy Polar a long time ago the yes please anecdote and I thought oh that's so nice of her just to say yes please and that's how she approaches life and I think we've seen her in so many wonderful comedies I think she's so talented and she multitask her career obviously with being a mom. And she talks about her relationship in that book a little bit and just about everything, just being small. I think if

you're small and that bothers you, you need to read Amy Pollars. Yes, please. She talks a lot about being like five foot one. I was like, okay, but that's a thing for people. So it was just another funny book and really beautifully written. I love the books where I feel like a woman usually. is talking to me like I'm her best friend. And that's how I felt with Amy Polar, yes, please. And I just want to hear what funny women have to say. So that was another reason I love this book. Thank you so much, Catherine.

I really am interested in the point that you made about creating that space for yourself rather than auditioning for things, because that really is, to me, just the pinnacle of audacity in the best possible way. And so many funny women do do do that, and do write their own shows and do create their own things and produce their own things. and starring their own things. How difficult a process is that,

technically, in terms of spinning all those plates? Because I can imagine how stressful it could be. It's fine. I mean, I'm not stressed. I like writing comedy. I like telling stories. I like hearing other people's stories. And so, for me, the Duchess, as an example,

is a little bit conceived from Glitter Room, my last Netflix special, my last tour, about being independent and being a woman who reaches 35, and all of a sudden, every person and every doctor is like, your fertility is falling off a cliff, which is such a violent metaphor. How come my fertility can't just, like, fall asleep in a lawn chair?

It's like, your fertility is pummeling down, like a coyote with dynamite in its teeth. And I just felt like that story needed to be told. And when I reached 35, I was thinking, like, well, should I have more kids? Shall I not? And then the Duchess just came from that. So any idea that you have in your life, you can become a creator. And whether that's a business or a comedy idea or a book or something serious. If it's serious, I will never read it. But just like a little seed from your own life. If you are a self-starter, you just need to grow it

because you can't wait for someone else to come and ask you, like, hi, what ideas did you have today, especially now, especially in the current climate. It's like, you have to go and get it. Like, as an example, my daughter, who's here, and I don't mean to offend her. There was cat vomit in her room. I hope you're listening by that. And I gave her, I say, there are a lot of monologues in my house, but there was cat vomit in her room.

And I said, oh, there's cat vomit in your room. And she said, oh. And then I went about my day with my. newborn and then a few hours later I said that cat vomit's still in your room and she said oh and then by evening I said why didn't you clean the cat vomit from your room and she said no one asked me to and I was like all right someone's not always going to ask you to clean the cat vomit you should have to see vomit and clean it is that's my message for your life and your business ventures so you moved to the UK 2008 how

was that for you? Can you tell me a little bit about that journey? And what brought you here? Moving to the UK was hell. I came here because I was with a boyfriend that I didn't want to break up with, but I didn't want to stay with them, but I didn't want to break up with them. And then I just thought, he wanted us to move to the UK and I thought, well, I'll try it. When you're young, I think you have this real ignorant, effervescence where you're like, I'll try that. I'll try that. So I thought, I'll try. I'm moving to the UK for a few months. And then I came here and he wasn't the right person for me.

But that is the reason I came here. It's not aspirational. I came for a relationship. And then I didn't like him anymore and I wanted to come home, but I was pregnant. So then I was like, oh, how ethical is it for me to leave? And then I had to stay here. I had my lovely daughter, who I think, by the way, I think that souls decide when they want to come to the world. And I think if her soul needed me to suffer for a while and be

with the wrong person and move to England, then that's cool. I forgive her soul because like she needed to be born. So that's fine. And like we made, we made out okay. We have a swimming pool. So it's fine. But it was really hard. When I came here, everything looked so old. Because if something's old in Canada, we'd just knock it down. We don't say like, that's listed. It's so special. You can't have Sky. And then it was tough for a few years, really tough. I worked in an office, and

daycare costs more than what I was earning in the office. So I was like, how am I going to make a life with this baby? Especially how am I going to get out of this relationship and still be able to pay my rent? Like, I didn't know how I was going to do anything. And then I figured it out. And now I'm talking to you. And now you're Catherine Martin.

Yeah. Thank you, Catherine. And who. Yeah, that deserves a round of a point. Dot, dot, dot, then I was famous. Your fourth bookshelfy book is, Everybody Died, so I got a dog by Emily Dean. Can you tell us about this book when you read it and what it means to you?

Emily Dean is my very best friend. And she is this just super intelligent, really funny, really kind, really fluent. woman, and I say fluent. She can go in and out of any friendship group and everybody loves her. As an example, I love Emily Dean. Jacob Reese Mogg loves Emily Dean. I know. I know. How did she charm him? She's just so charming and tolerant, obviously. And she's so cool. And sadly, her sister died of cancer really, really quickly after diagnosis with two small kids. And her sister was her only witness to her very bohemian, very unique childhood.

And then after her sister died, her parents sat at the bedside and said, oh, we lost the best one. And then her parents died, like weeks later, I know. So all in the space of a short time, Emily lost her entire family was the last one standing. And it sounds like a really, really sad book. But she manages to tell that story and talk about her childhood in such a funny way because that's who Emily is. And it's funny, funny, funny, and it's so authentic because no one else had a childhood like that. Like she goes to a friend's house and she talks about the normal families. Like her family are writers and bohemian, like bon vivants and celebrities.

and stuff. But some of the friends had nice families and dogs and like volvos in the driveway. And she'd go to a friend's house and they'd serve fish and chips for dinner. And she'd be like, what is this? When are the canopes arriving? Because when she was a little girl, she would only just eat like canopes left over from the dinner party that her parents had had the night before. It was just this really unique childhood. I loved reading about it. It's such a beautiful story if you want to read it. And also a real blueprint on how to overcome grief. It's like, it's a book about grief that's so, so funny, and I think that's rare. And Emily got a dog, by the way.

That's why it's called Everybody Died, so I got a dog. If you hadn't guessed. And he's the best dog. Your book also references some significant and traumatic events in your teenage years, including the death of a friend. How difficult was it to write about those things? And was it in any way cathartic at all? Yeah, she didn't die. She didn't, like, fall down the stairs and dead herself.

She was murdered. You know, of course, we say, like, the death. But, like, I think it's important to go in her. She was murdered. And I think it informs a lot of my hyper independence and some of the views I've had about men and relationships. I've been quite scared of men for a long time. Not anymore.

If you've seen my husband, Bobby Kay, he's backstage. He is lovely and kind and sweet and generous. and he got 20,000 Instagram followers just for appearing, mowing the lawn in the background of one of my Instagrams. Huge gay following. But I think sometimes when I'm on stage and I'm really balzy and I'm really caustic

and I seem really mean. A lot of people think I'm really mean, and that's fine. But they'll be like, she's so spiky and we need you, Catherine, to be softer. Like sometimes TV people will say like you have to be softer But I think a lot of us when we come across as being really tough It's because something happened that made us feel like we had to put an armor up And whenever I talk about men being dangerous

I thought it was time to explain like why I grew up feeling that way And I didn't you know I don't make those jokes to be nasty I make those jokes to say in a funny way like hey I'm afraid So that's not, you know, something that makes people laugh when you explain it. So that's why I thought it belonged in the book. And I think, you know, people can relate to that too. And I've learned how to overcome stuff like that to be like, okay, well, when you act, when you're afraid, it's maybe robbing you of nice things in your life and you need to put that in its right place and move forward.

So that's why I included that story. And plus, I think it's an important story to tell about. a young woman who's murdered for breaking up with someone. And it happens a lot, three times a week in the UK. I want to talk a bit about your daughter. Okay. You mentioned in lovely ways today, and you've described your relationship with her as sisterly. I'd love to unpack what you mean by that and how much of the mother and daughter relationship portrayed in the Duchess.

You must be asked this all the time, is based on your own experiences. Well, when a mother describes her relationship with her daughter as sisterly, it means she's a bad mom. I'm not supposed to have a sisterly relationship with that girl, but I do. And sometimes I feel like we'll see how that goes. Violet, though, currently is really mentally dexterous and great in conversation, and she's so fun to hang out with. And she's always been really empowered, like even as a baby when I potty trained her early or I taught her sign language. I did that because I didn't have any friends. And also, I felt like I wouldn't want someone changing my nappy.

So I just potty trained her. And I wouldn't want someone guessing what I had to say. So I gave her a voice by teaching her sign language. And she was receptive to that. I got a little boy backstage barfing. Like he might never learn it. But we'll see. Of course the universe gave me a straight white man, right?

But she is so amazing, and I think she was a witness to a lot of my journey to get to where we are today. And she's just been my best friend when I didn't really have anyone. I never begrudged being a mother. And I think I see a lot of that on TV. And I don't think any of us who are parents begrudged that. Like you like your kids. They're your best friends. Sometimes it's hard, but you love them.

And then I look at TV and all these moms. or drink you white wine and be like, I just hate my kids. I don't get that. So when I wrote The Duchess, I just wanted her to be best friends with her child. And Violet and I speak exactly the way, exactly the way that I would speak to you or that I would speak to you. She's just my friend. And I think she's learned to respect me and just not to be a dick is the rule in our house. I just don't be a dick.

And she never is. She never is. Doesn't clean cat puke up quickly, though. Your fifth and final, sadly final book, shelfy book is Jessica Simpson's autobiography Open Book. Yeah, yeah. Can you tell us a bit about this book? And also, why you love it? I've actually read this as well.

Have you? Did you like it? I loved it. What made you want to buy Jessica Simpson's autobiography Open Book? My sister had it. My sister loves, I mean, she's got Jody Marshes, all the good, like, tell-alls, and she was like, this is T. Is she my age?

I'm 30. She's 35. 36. Tomorrow. Oh, happy birthday, yeah. Not belated, opposite, belated. But yeah, so I really liked it. I'm partial to reality TV and also T, so that's my...

That's funny. So I think there's a generation of women, your sister's age, almost 36, and I just turned 38 last month. So I think feminism was weird for us when we were growing up. We had hair-colored skin and skin-colored hair, and we had these belts that didn't make sense, and we weren't allowed pockets, and we had pastel eye shadow and no eyebrows.

And Playboy, the business, was still really cool, and pop stars were amazing. Like Britney Spears was very famous, and her virginity was fetishized. And our place was changing, but it was still very retro, if you will. And we had problematic messaging, and we had problematic views.

And I think we fell in love with a lot of these pop stars. And then now they're telling their stories, and that's why we want to read them. We're like, what really was going on? What were you allowed to do? What, how was it being objectified like that as a sex object, but also kind of a child. It was so weird.

It was such a weird, specific time because I had it a lot easier than my mother, but I also had it a lot more, like, toxic than my daughter, hopefully will. So Jessica Simpson talks a lot about her time being a pop star, being under this management that run her life. But then she also talks about that precarious position of, like, fetishized adolescent sexuality, and I felt like a real connection with that. And then she also went through some tough stuff and alcoholism and then finally found a happy ending.

And I just love Jessica Simpson. And I met her once as well. Yes. She's so nice. Really beautiful. But when I met her, I just like seeing someone, you should always meet your heroes. They say don't meet your heroes.

But when I saw her off stage, like in real life, I just thought, oh, you're like one of the girls who would go to my school. You just have like a way. wig on and all this makeup when you're on stage, but we're all the same. Like, if you think Ariana Grande, well, no, Ariana Grande probably is amazing in real life. But like, we're all just like a makeup artist away from that. And I'm happy I saw that. I was only 19 when I met her and it was a good lesson.

I'm really interested in the idea of personas and obviously having that comedic persona on stage and obviously being who you actually are, which can sometimes be very, very much similar but not necessarily the exact same thing. How much would you say your on stage persona reflects who you are behind the scenes? And how did you, I suppose, go about crafting that, even if it wasn't like a conscious thing? I think when you do stand up, you don't craft a persona. You don't decide who that persona is. It's just, it's bits of you amplified with punchlines. So I think if you take me backstage and then the things that I notice in the world, and the things that I think and the opinions that I have.

And if you amplify those and then put punchlines on them, that is my stand-up character. And then with the Duchess, she was a good mother but a bad person. And she was really problematic and really spiky and hyper-independent in a toxic way. But again, like those elements come from me, but they're just amplified. And also, I just thought it would be funny. to see a woman like totally acting like that, not feeling like she should, I didn't need to write a character

to make myself look like a nice person on TV. I didn't care about that. And that is really crucial, I think, to doing stand-up the way Joan Rivers did it and doing stand-up, maybe the way I do it, is that Joan Rivers didn't have to go on stage and be like, but I'm actually really nice and sorry and, like, apologize for herself.

But backstage, comedians talk about John Rivers and just always say how she was the next, nicest, most generous, charitable philanthropist, like so gentle and kind. And I think the comedians that you see on stage who say bad words or they act, you know, they act out, they're the nice ones. You have to worry about the ones who come out and they're like, I'm a family man. No. What's the one thing that you hope readers will take from the audacity?

I just need you to buy it. I mean, I don't feel like I'm responsible for how my work is interpreted. It's like you might buy it and really hate it and think I'm a worse person. Or you might have it and really feel like it's a blueprint for, here's what I hope from it, because I hope this for my sisters and my mom. And I know it's difficult to teach them my ways because I've tried. If someone doesn't like my sister, she feels really wounded and she wants them to understand. She'll get in these circular arguments with men or with whomever where she'll go,

I need you to understand why you, like, what you did was wrong and you hurt me and why this and why that. And I'm telling her, like, he doesn't need to understand, just move on. And then my mom sometimes someone will be unfair with my mom and her family and she'll feel sad. And she'll go, well, I hope that I can help him or I want to. want him to do the, I'm like, leave it. You can't help him. You can't. You just have to be peaceful and kind and calm in your own life and move forward without any of this anxiety. And I wish that I could liberate my mom and my sisters from like everything in their lives that makes them feel less or makes them feel anxious or makes them feel like they can't pursue the things that they really actually

want to because they're nice people. And everyone who buys my book is probably nice people, but you need to be a little bit more audacious so that you can be happier, more peaceful, nice people. Thank you so much, Catherine. Thank you, yummy. This has been incredible. Guys, we have reached the end of the podcast, sadly.

I'm actually really sad. Thank you for making that noise. I'm Yomedekeke, and you've been listening to the Women's Prize of Fiction podcast brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Can we please have another round of applause for the brilliant

Catherine Ryan and for yourselves. Thank you. I shouldn't clap with this. Let's make noise into the mic. But thank you for being an incredible audience guys. Please do subscribe, rate

and review this podcast. I'm taking a leaf out of your book. Re-listen to this. Rate it. Review it. It's the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. Thanks. much for listening, guys. It's been a blast. Thank you.

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This is what revolution looks like. Of rebellion. I'm tired of losing. Wouldn't you rather give it all up to something real? Star Wars Andor, original series streaming September 21st, exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required

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