Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S5 Ep3: Bookshelfie: Scarlett Curtis

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Activist and author Scarlett Curtis celebrates Virginia Woolf and her brave and trailblazing attitude to mental health. Former Women’s Prize for Fiction judge, Scarlett, is co-founder of The Pink Protest which has helped change two laws: a bill to help end period poverty and another to include FGM in the Children’s Act. She’s curated two books, Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (and Other Lies) and It’s Not Okay to Feel Blue (and Other Lies); the former is a National Book Award winner. Her podcast, Feminists Don’t Wear Pink, amassed over 1 million listens in only 25 episodes. Scarlett’s book choices are:  ** Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson ** I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith ** Dawn by Octavia Butler ** Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf ** The Accidental by Ali Smith Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season five of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women.   Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Five? Listen and subscribe now!   This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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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 Vic Hope and I am your brand new host for season five of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. We have a phenomenal lineup of guests for 2022. I guarantee you'll be taking away plenty of reading recommendations. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Bookshelfy.

I'm Vic Hope and I am absolutely thrilled to be joining you as your new host for Series 5. Let me start by reminding you that this year's long list is out now and the 16th, brilliant authors and their books can all be found on our website, www.womensprivedfiction.co.com. Author and activist Scarlett Curtis joins me today in talking about the five books by women that have shaped her life. Scarlett is co-founder of a feminist activist collective committed to helping young people take action. She successfully helped change two laws.

One bill aims to help end period poverty and the other made FGM a part of the Children's Act. She's curated the award-winning anthology, Feminists Don't Wear Pink and Other Lies, where 52 women contributed essays about what feminism means to then. The following year, she published It's Not Okay to Be Blue and Other Lies. Her podcast, based on her first book,

has also been widely successful. She's been a women's rights for fiction judge, and now she is my guest. I cannot wait to get started. Welcome, Scarlett. Hi, thank you so much for having me. No, thank you. I mean, you've been a judge.

You know how it is. It's a lot of reading. How did you find it? So I'm a huge reader anyway and always have been, but this felt a bit like the like Olympics of reading. Like it definitely did push me to my reading limits. I'm generally quite an uncritical reader. Like I'm very easily pleased and like a lot of stuff that I read.

So it was definitely a really interesting test to like be reading these books and loving so many of them. then having to think about, you know, which ones were long list, which ones were shortlist. It was really amazing. And also just realising people's different taste in books. Like, it's really fascinating once you start going into it. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had. I completely agree with you.

I felt really bereft after we chose the winner. I was like, what am I supposed to do for my time now? It was so stimulating to escape to so many different worlds. that you wouldn't usually take yourself to, but you're right about reading critically, but I feel like I read differently now, having been a judge on the Women's Prize for Fiction, did you feel like your mind was opened,

your eyes were open to any genres that you were just like, that was not for me before? Totally. I'm definitely, I have, in general, veered away from, like, historical fiction of any kind. I don't know why. I like books that are written, set in the time they were written. So, like, I'll read a Jane Austen.

but I don't like reading something written now set in the 1800s. But obviously there was a lot of historical fiction in, you know, our list. And actually, I ended up loving so much of it. And it really made me think like, God, I don't know why I just randomly writ out this whole genre of books. What about you? So thrillers. I always just thought that they weren't for me. And it turned out after having read a bunch, I was like, actually, it's nice to have something moreish.

It's nice to be so utterly transported by story and plots and character, where I've always felt the need to philosophize a little bit. No, I'm the opposite. I love thrillers. Every other book, I'm like, I'll read a thriller because I feel like I've read a clever one. But then, sorry, this is what really annoys me. I think a lot of thrillers can be, like, the most excellent writing out there.

We just kind of, it's the same as Chiquet, right? We denigrate these genres. But actually, like, yeah, I'm a huge thriller fan. I am a different kind of reading out, and I'm really, really happy about that. You actually, I guess, connect to this. You're the coeress of Excess of Everything, which is about excessive of media and reality TV. Talk to me a little bit about that,

and how that sits alongside you as a reader. I think I came into reading, well, that's like a weird phrase to say, but I came into reading probably when I was like five. But when I sort of fell in love with books, I think I was like around 15 and I was out of school. I missed a lot of school because I was unwell. So I was out of school from like age 14 to 18. And I remember there was this day when, because I was unwell, I was just watching a lot of TV. and I'm obsessed with TV. I have literally seen all TV.

I know that everyone complains that there's, like, too much TV now, but I think personally there's not enough. But I remember there was this day when I was like 15, and things weren't looking that good, and it wasn't necessarily looking like I was going to go back to school anytime soon, and I realized that no one was ever going to make me read a book again. And it was this very odd feeling and really, freak me out at that age because I was like, oh my God, what if I, because, you know, up until

that age, every book you read in your teens is because your schools told you to read it for GCSEs or whatever. And so I started reading very obsessively, but at the same time, I am the biggest pop culture nut of all time and, you know, was consuming all reality TV and all like any American procedural medical or law drama that I could get my hands on. And they both, you know, they both, felt as entertaining to me as each other. Like, you know, any, any, I was reading all these, I was getting very, like, full of myself in my reading, and I was reading all this, like, Philip Roth and John Updike

and all these kind of very serious American literary authors. But that felt as interesting to me as keeping up with the Kardashians and Great's Anatomy. And I think we have these weird lines in our society between what culture is deemed, like, intelligent and prestigious. and, you know, worthy of talking about at a dinner party and then what culture is deemed, like, shameful and something you watch when you're sick

or, like, that you watch, you know, but you don't tell anyone that you secretly watch Real Housewives or Love Island. Everything, every bit of culture is made to entertain you and make you think in some way. And I think, you know, an incredible novel that's just won the Booker Prize can do that in just the same way that Love Island can do that.

Like these things aren't that different. And I actually think sometimes when we draw these lines, it makes a lot of people think, like, I'm not clever enough to read this book or I'm not well read enough to like, you know, read this kind of book. And actually, that's such a disservice to the authors that are writing these books. Because when you write a book, you want it to be enjoyed by everyone

and you want it to be, you know, you shouldn't have to like take a university course to understand a book. like these books are there for your pleasure and so I'm really yeah in my own life and then kind of in the way that I talk about things I really try and blur those lines a bit between what we think of as prestigious culture and what we think of as trashy just before we get into your first bookshelfy book can I just ask who your little dog is because I can hear a I can hear a collar and I feel like if they bark I don't want it to come out of nowhere I know I'm sorry for the audience no no no no

My dog Betty, she is my soulmate and life partner. She's a toy poodle and she's, I guess, having quite an active day today. But I sometimes think she's like the best red dog in the world because I listen to a lot of audiobooks. And I listen to them like out loud on my phone and she's normally in the room. So I have this secret hope that she's like consuming all these audiobooks that I'm listening to and she's got her own opinion. about Ali Smith and Anne Tyler. I love that. Betty is taking it all in. Betty is the best red dog out there.

Well, you mentioned just before the books that introduced you to reading and your childhood. So let's talk about your first bookshelfy book, which is Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson. A little plot summary, both of Ellie's best friends, Nadine and Magda, come back to school after the summer holidays with boyfriends. Well, Ellie has rejected the affections of nerdy Dan, who should she met on holiday in Wales. Feeling left out, she invents her own handsome beau, also named Dan, and supposedly sees him every day before school. But when the girls sneak out to a nightclub called Seven Heaven,

the truth about Nadine's boyfriend comes to light, and the real Dan shows up. When did you read this, Scarlett? God, it's really funny listening to that, because I think I had forgotten most of the plot, except I do remember Seventh Heaven, the club. I think I read this when I was like, like nine, which have you read this book?

Yeah, I remember. You read this series of books. All of the Jacqueline Wilson books, we were just obsessed with them. They taught us about things that we were going to learn about in the years to come, but a little bit earlier than they were actually a part of our lives. I mean, I think she's one of the biggest geniuses of like our lifetime. Like, I am so obsessed with her and have been so obsessed with her. And when I was very young, I was a very, like, prolific reader and was very obsessed with books

someone was one of those girls at school that just like we had a little school library which I was thinking about and you know I would like go in there and I think I'd worked my way through all the Jacqueline Wilson books that were like appropriate for my age and something I love about Jacqueline Wilson is her books deal with very serious issues like you said but in a very kind of comforting cozy way that's appropriate for young people but I'd read all the appropriate young ones and then someone was I guess in the library was like oh this this girls read everything, give her this one. And it was girls in love.

And I was way too young to read this book because it's definitely one of her like teenage books. And I don't know much about it, but I remember there was like drugs and alcohol and I think maybe a bit of self-harm and just a very teenage inappropriate book. But I think I put this book on the list because it was the first time that I really realized

that books could be exciting. and almost like a little secret that you have between you and this thing that you're reading. Like, I was learning about these things that I knew I was too young to be learning about. And I knew that probably if my mom or my teacher read this book, they would take it away from me. Yeah. But it was the most fascinating book I'd ever read in my life. Like, it was so tantalizing and exciting. And there's that other book, The Judy Bloom Forever.

which I think is the same type of thing, which is a Judy Blume book that's about a girl having sex for the first time. And I think, again, I read that too young because I'd read all the kids, Judy Blume books, and then this was like, you know, a more grown-up one than no one really realized I shouldn't be reading. But I just think that moment when you realize that books can be a whole world, that they can teach you things,

that they can be tantalizing and exciting, is a really important moment for anyone. Yeah, I think that off the back of Tracy Beaker and maybe bad girls and the Bed and Breakfast Star, it was clear that Jacqueline Wilson was going to talk about stuff that we didn't talk about, but that we recognised. And yeah, girls in love did feel like the next step up because there was sex.

And sex was the one, wasn't it? That was the thing. Yeah. But it was so, it was so dandalizing. It was so exciting to get our hands on it and rumours rent around the school about it about getting to read it. A hundred percent and it was like passing it under the table.

Yeah. You know, I love that books can hold that, you know, can hold like these secrets that can be something exciting and sort of banned. You know, there's something really fun about that. Just to contextualise, to set you, young Scarlett, reading this book against the backdrop of your childhood, take me through what it was like growing up? I mean, I had a very, I had a very nice child. I was at an all-girls school, which I think made these books even more, like, exciting because, you know, we were all just desperate for any sight of a boy and being able to read about girls in nightclub.

hanging out with boys was extremely exciting. But I think it was very important for me because I grew up very privileged. I grew up in a very nice home and without much access to a lot of these issues that Jacqueline Wilson was writing about. And I think in that way it was so important to kind of educate me and give me this perspective

that I might not have necessarily really had growing up. And then, you know, as I was saying earlier, when I became a teenager, I got very sick and I was in a wheelchair for a few years and I was out of school. And suddenly, like, a lot of these issues that I'd learned in those kids' books when I was younger became relevant, you know. Like Jacklin Wilson writes about mental health in a really incredible way. She's got a lot of amazing books about kids whose parents are going through mental health struggles. And I think it just, it's that really early foundation of learning about these things that can actually really inform your life and make things seem a lot less scary when you're then going through them.

Yeah, you can find solace on the pages of a book where you feel seen or things that you're going through are reflected and you know that you're not alone. And you mentioned that, you know, you had struggles with your physical health as a teenager up into adulthood. And I've read you were often misdiagnosed or dismissed by doctors. How did that affect the the later half of your childhood. I mean, it affected everything. Like, it's, you know, it completely defined my life. And I'm really, I know a lot of people say this,

but I'm really not saying this as a hyperbole, but I think during that time, books truly saved my life. Like, I was incredibly isolated and alone. I'd left school, like, right at that age where it was very hard for my friends to understand what I was going through. so I lost a lot of my friends. I stopped speaking to a lot of my friends

and books truly became like the way I educated myself, the way I kept my brain like stimulated. I don't know what would have happened to my brain if I hadn't had books. And the way that I kept up, you know, it was almost like friends basically. You know, it felt like friends. And I also think, you know,

I've struggled a lot with my mental health throughout my life and up until this day. And books are always something that calms me down when I'm feeling bad, which I think a lot of people feel. But it's also always a really reliable conversation topic. Like sometimes when I get really low or really anxious, the thing I'll do is just tell one of my parents the plot of the book I just read,

which always calms me down. Like just being able to talk about books and sit with someone and talk about these things that you've read is, I think, just like one of the biggest gifts in the whole world. Well, talking of books being your education, your stimulation, your healing, your conversations, your companion, let's move on to your second bookshelfy book, which is, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. And I sigh there. It's just considered a classic in the British literary world, isn't it? The book was written during, World War II and adapted into a two-act play in 1954. It's since been adapted for the screen,

a BBC radio drama was produced and a musical as well debuted at the Watford Palace Theatre in 2017, narrated by daughter Cassandra. The tale follows the Mormon family who have fallen into poverty but thankfully still have their castle to reside in. Her father is a once successful author who suffers from severe writer's block and believes that living in the castle will inspire him once more, but their lives are upended when the cottons, a wealthy American family, become their neighbours. Tell us about this book. Why did this resonate with you, Scarlett? I think this book has like shaped my life almost more than anything else in the world. There's a certain type of book that creates such an aesthetic world and such a like beautiful landscape and like rich

characters and rich world that you truly feel like you're in that world when you're reading it. And I remember reading this when I was probably like 12 or 13 and just, it was like an obsession. Like, and it's never left me. Like the idea of that rundown castle, there are so many, I'll probably think about this book once a week because there's so many moments in it where I'll be doing something in my real life and I'll like imagine that I'm in I capture the castle you know they live in this castle that was once grand and beautiful but they don't have the money to do it up so it's really you know cold and they and they're sort of pretending that they still have this glamorous rich life whereas the dad hasn't published anything in years so they don't have any money you know the first line I think is one of the most famous first lines in like literary history which is I write this sitting in the kitchen thing. And just from that line, I was bewitched. Like, bewitched is the only word to describe it.

And yeah, I will think about it once a week. Because there's this one scene where she's having a bath and the boy that's in love with her, this sort of farmhand that's in love with her with Cassandra, fills up the bath with hot water because normally they have cold baths. And he, you know, boils the kettle like 20 times in a row so she can have a hot bath.

and every time I'm having a bath, I imagine that I'm in a bath that has been heated up by someone that is secretly in love with me, but too scared to tell me how he feels. And this book also kind of coined this term that I have, which is what I always want my like aesthetic style to be, which is dirty hem, which I don't think is in the book, but it's basically the idea of like when you're wearing a really long dress, but you're out in the countryside and it's really muddy. and the bottom of your dress gets covered in mud and I think that's like the most romantic image of just this clash of like nature and countryside with glamour and oh there's also that see when they when they go to the um they meet these rich men and they take the girls her and her sister rose

for the first time to a department store and there's bluebell perfume and they spray this bluebell perfume and it's the most delicious, incredible thing they've ever smelled. And I think I wore bluebell perfume for like 10 years just because of this book. So I was like bluebell perfume and fur coats. And it's just, it's so magical. I love that. You're so viscerally impacted by the descriptions in this book

that you just enveloped in the aesthetic of it so much so that you then start emanating it back out again. It's amazing that it can do that. How do writers do that? Because there are a few books like this where like it's just this world that's created that like you just want to live in, you know, that you just want to like, I think it's such a skill to be able to create landscape and to make landscape and architecture interesting, you know, like, yeah, it's so wonderful. Bailey's 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

looking for a treat to pair with your favourite book Bayleys is the perfect accompaniment to enjoy either over ice or over coffee there are no better friendships than those formed around brilliant books and since you're listening we're guessing you love books as much as we do The Women's Prize has created an exclusive community that gives you a bookish backstage pass

offering surprises and freebies plus unmissable reading recommendations and book chat from our friends, including me, Vic Hope. Search for Women's Prize friend to become a friend today. We cannot wait to meet you. Let's move on to your third book now, which is Dawn by Octavia Butler, the first of the Lilith's Brood trilogy. The story takes place in a near future post-apocalyptic world where Liliths, Iyapo is one of the few survivors of nuclear war. The alien Owen Carly have rescued slash

captured those who survived with the intention of returning them to Earth once the planet has been regenerated. But there is one catch they've saved humanity to fulfill their biological need to interbreed. The Owen Carly manipulate Lilith into training the first group of humans to recolonise Earth, but her loyalties are divided. She's both enemy and mentor to the humans and lover, captive and defiant apprentice to the Owen Carly. Tell us a little bit about this book. When did you first read it? Why is it on your list?

So I read this book at college, and I think that's particularly important because I would never have read this book if I hadn't been assigned to read it. Right. And we were talking earlier about genres you generally avoid, and sci-fi is completely that for me. Like, I have never been a sci-vo fan.

I've never read, like, comics, I've never read books. I watch a lot of, like, superhero films, but I've, I've just never been a sci-fi person. And I remember getting a sign this and being like, oh, my God, it's about aliens and spaceships. Like, this is going to be hell. I don't know if I'm even going to read it. Maybe I'll just, like, do the CliffsNotes version. And I read it in, like, two days and just got completely obsessed with it. And I've been talking about this book and this trilogy ever since.

It is so brilliant. And I think the main thing it made me realize was like a lot of my aversion to sci-fi was because of the kind of male gaze that I think is very ingrained in the sci-fi genre. Like it's a genre that has typically been dominated by men, still is dominated by men, and especially white men. And Octavia Butler was the most incredible person. You know, she grew up in California in the 60s. She was like a part of the black power movement when she was at college. She was an incredible activist in herself. And then she wrote these incredible sci-fi books.

But at the core of them is this feminist story about, you know, what it's basically what it would mean for a black woman to be the last remaining women alive. And if the world, if the human race had to be rebuilt by her and there's this alien race that are trying to find out about the human race. race from the experiences of Lilith, this one woman. And you know, there's alien sex and there's spaceships and there's drama and there's, you know, an evil race of aliens and a good race of aliens. Like, it's got all of that, but like threaded through it is just this train of all these themes that I love and that I was interested in and that I felt applied to me or that, you know, applied to people I knew and I suddenly realized that like what the reason I've been put off

science fiction was this male gaze and was because I'd never read anything like this. I'd never read science fiction built by a woman for women. And it's just, again, it's a little bit like what we were saying about Jacqueline Wilson. Like, you know, Octavia Butler wrote some amazing nonfiction about the civil rights movement, about the feminist movement and about her identity as a black American woman. But somehow when you're able to put those themes into fiction and especially into science fiction, I think they can hit more powerfully in some ways than they ever could in nonfiction. I mean, I've written feminist nonfiction. Like, I'm a big fan of that. But when you are able to incorporate those

themes into a story as exciting as this one, it's just a miracle. When did you feel that your understanding of feminism sort of consolidated itself? When did you start navigating that? When was your activism activated? I think, interesting. it was all around this time. I ended up going to college in New York, in America. And actually, I ended up having to go to college in America because I didn't, I had two GCSEs and no A-levels because I'd been out of school for so long,

which would have meant I'd never have gotten into a UK university, but American universities are much more based on, like, your essays and what you've read. And then, you know, I ended up taking my SATs from a rehab center and then, you know, getting into an American university. And I moved to New York. I was still, I'd just been through a lot of medical trauma. I was still incredibly, like, mentally unwell.

And I found it very hard to find my feet. And then I sort of discovered this feminist movement that was happening in New York at the time. I started joining all these incredible, like, grassroots activist groups, like, whether it was, I joined a Black Lives'N. Matter chapter in New York, I joined some incredible feminist actress groups that were fighting for things around abortion access. And it felt like I'd found my home. Like, I can't, it's hard to explain. I always say, like, feminism was my self-help. But I think a lot of what happened to me

during my teenage years happened because of my age and my gender and, you know, because of some of these ingrained systematic misogynistic practices, like, especially within the medical field. And I ended up going through some abuse situations. And I'd never really been able to put words to my experiences. And suddenly I was in this world and reading all these books and studying all this, you know, literature that put words to my experiences and made me realize I wasn't alone. And so it really was all around that time that I kind of, you know, that I kind of kind of found this movement and it saved my life. You know, books saved my life, feminism saved my life.

Your fourth bookshelfy book now is Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf set over the span of one day in the life of Clarissa. The novel actually has no real plot. Most of the action takes place in each character's consciousness. Clarissa is an upper-class Londoner. She's married to a member of Parliament who seems to know very little about his wife. the novel centres around interwoven lives, particularly that of mentally ill war veteran septimus Warren Smith

and Clarissa herself as she spends the day preparing to host a party. How come you chose this book? So the way that I think a lot of like young girls feel about Harry Styles is the way I feel about Virginia. Right. Like earlier when we were talking about, you know, being obsessed with pop culture and being obsessed with. with books. I am just a Virginia Wool super fan. Like, I have posters of her up in my room. I have

crostitched her face. I have a candle with her on. Like, I have read, I think most of what she's written. There are these huge, I've read Mrs. Dalloway, I think truly upwards of 50 times. It's a very short book, but I read it constantly. And I think, yeah, she's got these, there are these thick volumes of her letters that I've been collecting over the years, and I've read most of those now. So I really am, like, obsessed with her in kind of an unhealthy way. But I think I read this book when I was, you know, right in the depths of, like, the worst that my mental health has been.

And again, like I've been saying, I think with all of these books, I've read a lot about mental health. I've read a lot of self-help books. I read a lot of like doctors essays. I've read a lot of essays. But something about this novel about, you know, a war veteran and an upper class older lady it just seemed to hit me

and resonate with what I was going through as a very depressed and mentally unwell, 17-year-old, more than anything I'd ever read. Like, she just, manages to express human life and human emotion and the like beauty and pain of being alive in a way that I think truly no one else really does or has since I just I love her so much. Well of course you've spoken about mental health. I've written about mental health as well as your anthology about feminism it's okay not to feel blue in other lies was published by penguin in

2019, which is an anthology of essays by 74 people about what mental health means to them. What does it mean to you? God, that's a really good question. And it's been, it feels like it's been so long since that book because of, you know, everything that's happened in the last few years. But mental health, my mental health is just a part of my life. And to be honest, my mental illness is just a part of my life. Like, I think often, we use this phrase, mental health, because I think mental health isn't, isn't just throughout the dark times, it's about kind of looking at our brains and our mental well-being in the same way that we'd look at our physical well-being, you know, it's a part of us. But I live with so much shame around my

mental illness for so long. Like, it was this thing that I was so ashamed of. I was so scared of I thought the people in my life was so scared of it. Like it was just, you know, it was, it was my huge dark secret and it was only, I remember realizing that the only way I was going to start to fight that shame was to start talking about it. And I had a blog at the time, I was like 18 and I just started to write about what I was going through. And, you know, I was having major depressive episodes, major panic attacks at the time. And as soon as I started writing about it, the amount of people that reached out that were like,

I go through this too or thank you so much. Thank you so much for putting this into words or whatever it was. Not only just online, but also in my life. Like, I remember at 18 thinking I was the only person in the world who'd ever had depression because I'd never heard anyone talk about it. You know, I'd never heard anyone like say it or come out and like be open about it. It was all, if it was ever talked about, it was all kind of shaded and, and I'm glossed over in a way. And suddenly all these people in my life after, you know, I came out as mentally ill were coming up to me and saying,

oh, I'm on antidepressants or I've had anxiety my whole life or whatever it was. And when I think about that, you know, as like a privileged person living in the 2010s with all the access, like in a liberal society, with all the. access in the world to medical care, to think about someone like Virginia Woolf who was writing about this in a time where like not only was mental health not talked about, like women were barely talked about, you know, women were not supposed to write and be successful and have opinions and be complicated and be messy and have, you know, their own inner lives. And I just, I cannot imagine the strength that it took and what that would have felt.

felt like to be talking about these very, very complex things at that time. It's something that I think resonates for so many of us. Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith and Virginia Woolf herself, you know, struggle with mental health at a time when there was very little understanding of their illnesses. And as you said, we've come a long way, but how far do we still have to go with the mental health conversation? I think we've got a little bit.

long way to go and I think you know one of the things there's a lot I think something that really frustrates me I created my book it's not okay for blue in partnership with Shout which is an incredible text line

that I work on and anyone can work on it's a 24-7 crisis text line they are doing incredible work and truly saving lives every day but the truth is that isn't enough help out there. Like the only thing I can do as a civilian, you know, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a

psychologist, I'm not a person in government. The only thing I can do is tell people to be open about it and not to have shame about it. But the amount of messages that I get saying, okay, so I've told people about my mental illness, but there's no help. The NHS waiting list is 10 years long. You know, it's a true stat, on average, it takes a young person 10 years to get adequate mental health treatment in the UK. And that's not okay. Like 10 years is a very long time. Something very bad could happen in that time. I think it's our, you know, the highest mortality rate in the UK, especially around young, with young, I think with young men, it's the most common cause of death. It's something we should be taking seriously. And it's this thing where stigma and

politics and money all are pulled into one, right? Like, because we have the stigma around it, because we have this shame around it, we don't fund it well enough. We don't have access to mental healthcare. We don't have the resources that we need in place for people to get help. And I think it's absolutely wonderful talking about it more. I would never say that that was a bad thing. But if we're going to, if we're on the ground going to be talking about it more, the people in power need to be giving us more resources to get help. Well, we'll move on now on a hopeful note to your fifth and final book this week, which is by, I would say, a legend.

Like we can call her a legend, I think. I mean, we've just talked about Virginia Woolf, but it's 2022 now, and I think we can call Ali Smith a legend at this point. And it's The Accidental. So a little bit about it while on holiday in Norfolk. The Smart Family is visited by an uninvited guest, called Amber, who has a profound effect on every member of the family, even after she's kicked out. Each of the three sections of the book is split into four separate narrations of each member

of the family, which detail the role that Amber plays in their own life. So we learn that daughter Astrid is obsessed with filming her life as proof that she exists. Son Magnus was involved in a school prank, which led to a classmate taking their own life. University lecturer Michael has affairs with his students and his wife Eve has writers block but what happens when the family returns home to an empty house now this book is all about how one person has just upended the lives of a whole family dare I ask why you chose this is there anyone or anything that's completely changed your life in some way

I think I'm probably that person in my family Right. You know, I grew up, you know, in a very nice, very happy family. You know, until I got sick, it always felt to me like nothing had gone wrong in our family, even though obviously that's not true. But, you know, when you're 14, that's definitely the way you feel. And I think when I got sick and then very mentally sick, It really sort of threw this spanner in the works and upended my family in a way that I think no one was expecting.

And I do think has been for the better. We're much more open now. We're much more empathetic. Like we've all learned a lot of lessons, even though one of my brothers always says that he didn't realize I was sick, he just thought I was grumpy. But this book is perfect following from the Virginia Woolf

because I do think Ali Smith is, the greatest living writer of our times. I think she is incredible. Again, like I was saying about Virginia Woolf being my Harry Styles, Ali Smith is my Taylor Swift. I love her so much. And this book is just so wonderful. I met Ali Smith once at Cheltenham Book Festival. We were both doing events there. And it was when I was doing press for Feminist in My Pink and I had my hair dyed pink, which it also is now, but I was wearing a completely pink pantsuit and I was like 21, I think.

And I saw Ali Smith and burst in tears and ran up to her and was like, I am your biggest fan, I love you so much. I think she was like, who the fuck is this insane 21-year-old pink thing that is sobbing and has just come up to me? Because I think probably most of Ali Smith's fans are not that.

And I ran up to her and I was like, I think you are the only person since Virginia Woolf, who has even come close to being, to doing what she did, you know, and using the modernist form in the way that she did. And it was the coolest thing she looks at me and she goes, why? And it was just the best moment

because it was like, to be compared to Virginia Woolf is a pretty big thing. but she wanted to know why I felt that. And I said, well, I think it's because you use the modernist form to express character, not just to kind of show off. And, you know, there's this, it's all All Allie Smith's books are very kind of stream of consciousness. And she dips in and out, especially in the accidental, she dips in and out of all these characters' consciousness.

And we're really in their mind. And I said, you use that stream of consciousness, modernist style to express character. and you know you blend the form with the function. And she was like, yeah, you're right. That is what I do. Yes, Sally. She knew. And I was like, you are the coolest person I've ever met in my life.

It was amazing. But this book is a really great entry to Alex Smith because I think a lot of people might be kind of intimidated by her style. It's, you know, this whole modern, postmodern thing. and it is a bit deconstructed. But The Accidental is also just like a wonderful book. It's set in summer. Me and my best friend Eve will like only read books set during summer when it's summer

because books set during summer are the best books ever. And it's set during summer. It's a really great family story. It's really interesting on mental health and, you know, aging and being young and what all that means. It was just like a really page January read. It is, it's so brilliant. It was really funny. I was reading this on holiday, actually, with my parents.

And I was like, reading it. I was like, guys, you have no idea how incredible this book is. Like, it's the best book I've ever read. And I was saying to my dad, like, the second I'm done with this, you have to read it. I'm going to give you my copy, you have to read it. And then I get to this chapter, which is a stream of consciousness. a whole chapter which is stream of consciousness, the younger son in the family watching Love Actually,

which is a film that my dad wrote and hating it. No, and you were a lobster in it as well. I was a lobster in it, exactly. That didn't get mentioned, but he was hating it. And I was suddenly like, yeah, dad, maybe don't read it. Like, it's kind of gone off. I don't know. I don't think you'll like it.

But he did eventually read it and he did love it. They take it all right. Yeah, you took it great. And also it's just, you know, love actually represents something in the book that the boy isn't really feeling at that time, which I think is very true. And, you know, that's a very happy movie. And if you're feeling sad, it's maybe not the best movie to watch.

But I just think she's wonderful. She's so brilliant. She, of course, was on the long list for the Women's Pryves Fiction for Summer last year, which is also set in summer. a winner for you. And then one in 2015 with How to Be Both. I remember first reading that and just being like completely confused by how we were so seamlessly um navigating these streams of consciousness just like you described like we were we were traversing worlds and it was at once like discombobulating but also like just so evocative she has this brilliant brilliant talent for

for taking you wherever you need to go even if it's the most unrelatable character you you're inside like you're just inside you just get it it's it's complex but also you can be swept up on it quite easily totally and i think you know a lot of people try to use stream of consciousness but true like genius in using stream of consciousness it should feel easy to read yeah you know it should feel like you are in that person's brain and thinking their thoughts it shouldn't feel like a And I think none of her books feel like a slog. None of them feel hard to read. They're just, they make sense, you know, you're in these people's brains. And I think they're as much of a page turner as like a good thriller, you know, because because you want to know what happens to

this person that you're like inhabiting. Yeah. It's really decent plot like, to put it to put it simply. It is, whereas sometimes we can feel like those boots are supposed to be super, super cerebral. It's really, really great plot while also being just excellent writing. She's also so up to date on like culture. And in some ways pop culture, you know, she wrote these four books, summer, winter, spring, autumn, which she wrote like, I think in the space of two years. Yeah, because summer's in the pandemic. Yeah, they're all, they're all incredibly up to date and she weaves in these sort of pop culture and culture and political, modern political references in such an incredible way. Like she really understands how

how culture and politics impacts life, you know, and what that means. Oh, she's just, she's amazing. She really, really is. And I know you've mentioned, obviously, Virginia Woolf being on your bedroom wall essentially. Like you've got your candle, you've been fan-girling, and then Ali Smith and getting to meet her in person. I just want to know, are there any other role models that you've had growing up that you continue to have,

who continue to inspire and impact you? Well, I am actually a huge Taylor Swift fan. Okay. So Taylor Swift is definitely one of them. I think she's one of the great novelists of our time, I think her lyrics. Her lyrics should be nominated for the Booker Prize. Shonda Rhymes is one of my like all-time heroes.

Grey's Anatomy really like got me through the first year of being unwell and I saw her once in a restaurant as well and also she's the only other person that I burst in tears like the second I saw them. But yeah, I mean I do feel I'm like overly enthusiastic and you know every book that I read and love. I'm as you can probably tell by this. I get very obsessed with people and especially authors.

Well, they become a part of you. So I'm going to ask you one final question. It's a tricky one given how passionately you've spoken about all of these books. But if you did have to choose one from your list as a favourite, which would it be and why? God, that's so hard. But I think it probably would be Mrs. Dalloway just because I think that book, like, in the end, means more to me than anything else. and I really do think like it has like guided my mental health journey almost as much as therapy or no antidepressants or anything but but I love them all and also I will be honest I think

the original list I wrote was like 10 books sorry that you had to cut it down I know I'm now like kicking myself that I didn't include a thriller because I'm a huge thriller reader and also that I didn't get to include any. Jane Austen and Nancy Mitford were also close to being included on this list. Well, you've got to mention them. So you can have me back on. Honourable mentions. Yeah.

As a writer as well, you've curated anthologies about feminism, about mental health. Are there any other subjects that are close to your heart that you're passionate about that you would want to put work out about? I am trying to write something at the moment about my experience in the, in the medical world, I don't know, about my experience being physically ill. I think it's really interesting. I had this incredible professor at university who sort of guided me. He taught a course only about Virginia Woolf. And it was amazing. And he guided a lot of my like reading and thinking about books. And he was very unwell himself. And we had kind of talked about what it was like to be unwell and um he was just saying it's very hard to write about being physically sick like

it's it's odd but there aren't that many books about physical illness um and pain and so i'm trying to write something about that now but but who knows watch this space well scarlet kosis thank you so much you've been a fantastic guest on the women's prize fiction podcast it's been an absolute pleasure to talk books with you and you're so passionate like you can see how much these books have shaped you and it's just it's just lovely it's just lovely to hear thank you so much and thank you so much for having me i'm vic hope and you've been listening to the women's prize for fiction podcast 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 the women's prize for fiction podcast is brought to you by bailey's and produced

by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.