Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S6 Ep4: Bookshelfie: Emma Gannon

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Author, podcaster and multi-hyphenate Emma Gannon shares her wisdom, her books and explains why we need to reframe our definition of success. Emma Gannon is a Times bestselling author, broadcaster, speaker, novelist and host of the recently retired Ctrl Alt Delete podcast. She has been a columnist for The Times, Telegraph and Courier magazine and can now be found over on her Substack page The Hyphen. In 2018, she was selected in the Forbes 30 under 30 list in media and is an ambassador for The Princes Trust and World Literacy Foundation. Emma has published five bestselling books to date, including The Multi-Hyphen Method; Sabotage and Disconnected, and her newest book The Success Myth, which unpicks society’s often problematic definitions of success, is out next month. Emma’s book choices are:  ** The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson  ** Floor Sample by Julia Cameron ** The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan  ** Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby  ** The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck  Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six 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 Six? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

At Pluralsight, we don't just teach skills. We are building the tech workforce. Who deliver results fast, accelerated by top tier content. Lead with confidence, lead with expertise. Visit us at plural site.com to tap in and learn more. I was in a family holiday last year or the year before, and I really need a lone time. That's why I'm a really big bookworm.

I'm an introvert. I want to be by myself. But I remember just going off to read this book that I felt I needed to read. And I had this moment of like, go and spend time with your family. You don't need to read this book right now. Like it can be a bit of an obsession. You don't need to read this book right now, which is sort of the anti-mantra of this podcast.

You really need to read these books right now. But you can read these books and my book if you want to. 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'm your host for season six of Bookshelfy, the podcast that

asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2023 reading list. Hello, welcome back to the podcast. This year's Women's Prize for Fiction Long List is out now and not to be missed. To discover the For 16 brilliant authors and their books, head over to our website www. Wemnspricefor Fiction.co.com. Today's guest is Emma Gannon, the multi-hyphenate Sunday Times best-selling author, broadcaster, speaker, novelist and host of the recently retired Control Alt Delete podcast.

She's been a columnist for The Times, Telegraph and Career Magazine, and can now be found over on her substack page, The Hyphen. In 2018, she was selected in the Forbes 13. under 30 list in media and is an ambassador for the Prince's Trust and world literacy foundation. Emma has published five bestselling books to date, including the multi-hyphen method, sabotage and disconnected, and her newest book, The Success Myth, which unpicked society's often problematic definitions of success is out next month. Welcome to the podcast, Emma. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. And you're sitting in front of me with your

books on your lap. With my books. This was really hard. I'm sure people say, that yeah yeah got a lot of books so what sort of approach did you take when deciding which books had shaped you the most because sometimes it's about the books you've loved sometimes it's about the books that helped you sometimes it's about the books that came to you at the right time and sometimes it's about like just picking a spread for this yeah it was definitely picking a spread I could have picked a lot of other things but I felt like I've got a memoir in there I've got a self-help book in there I've got a children's book and I think I've got a novel so yeah I don't know I wanted to bring variety.

What kind of a reader are you? What do you gravitate towards? Definitely depending on my mood, I would say, you know, if I'm feeling like I need some advice, I love a memoir because I feel like I'm stepping in someone else's life. And normally it's like a hard one journey that can inspire me. I think when I'm feeling really overwhelmed with work, because I have to read a lot for work, when I had the podcast especially, it was like I was reading like a book a night. It was absolutely ridiculous.

And so then I would get in the bath and just read a new. novel and escape. So for me, I found it really hard actually over the years. Like obviously it's the most amazing job in the world, but when your job becomes your passion, you do have to have boundaries and I want to enjoy books for the fun of it as well. You've reached into the choir here. I understand and I feel like my relationship with books over the years has been quite dictated by how much they had to do with my work or my studying. Have you ever fallen out of love with reading? During the pandemic actually, there was there was times where I just couldn't really focus and I talk a lot about this in my new book but basically I had to learn how

to rest again like properly rest and when reading became hard I just felt like actually I can have a break even from reading like it's okay to take a break from pretty much everything in life if you need to I'm going to just mold that over for a second pretty much it's true because we place so much importance on certain things being for rest but too much of that can become overwhelming too I get. You've written books for you was writing a I guess a natural next step from having written columns and you know it's a very different type of voice but how did you find that transition? Well I've been blogging for like 15 years at this point which is a bit wild and I think being a millennial and growing up in like the early stages with

the internet, I feel like writing online became so natural to me, but there's always something special about something that's physical. The idea that someone can find your book decades later, I just don't think that really happens online. So I think I was always really proud to be someone whose work was read on the internet and shared around on the internet, but I always wanted to write a physical book. Really? Yeah. When do you think you first realized that that was what you wanted to do? Was it a childhood dream or did it sort of develop? Yeah, I don't really know when it happened. I think because I'm such a reader, I think if you're a writer, you're normally pretty hardcore reader. So I think sometimes you read a book and you, for me anyway, I get this feeling of just, I think I could do this.

Like I think, you know, just this, a book that maybe sounds similar in your voice or it seems like it's a format that you think you could do. I think I just get inspired by writers and I actually when I'm stuck, when I have writers block, I'll just go and read a page of a book that I love. like one of these books and I'm away again. Sometimes when you read something, you think that has taken me to this place that I needed to go. I feel so much. You want to be able to do the same. It really does uplift you, galvanize, you inspire you,

to be able to put pen to paper and hopefully invoke that feeling in someone else. Definitely, yeah. What sort of genres do you find that you gravitate towards when you're in need of a bit of inspiration? I think I am more of a non-fiction reader. Like I love a memoir, like I say, which really is the most intimate form of writing, I think, sometimes. Of course, in novels, you're kind of hiding lots of truth within those characters.

But a memoir is really stripped bare. And I've interviewed a lot of memoirists. And I found that they can sometimes find reading the audiobook really hard. And they can also find talking about the book really hard. Because what's in the actual pages, like there's something between. been the act of writing where it's like you're letting all your secrets out or you're you're having a one-on-one conversation with the reader and then when suddenly you're having to like promote your book I mean that's the whole different thing so I think memoirs are very generous in that they let you in

and I just I love a self-help book yeah I love them it's interesting isn't it because I guess it's cathartic to write down your feelings like we journal we journal for our mental health we get those feelings out of our mind where they might be scrambled we put them on the page where hopefully they become a little less overwhelming and if the act of writing has been that to then talk about it but we wouldn't do that with your with your mental health journal exactly exactly and I do think you know a lot of memoirs do touch on mental health yeah and I think they're quite sacred in book form I think they should be read in book form sometimes I think why do we have to kind of then take pieces and explain them yeah it's the very essence of self-help well let's take pieces

of literature now and go through them the books that have meant the most to you that have shaped you that you have shaped you that you have on your lap in front of me and your first book, Shelby book, is The Illustrated Mum

by Jacqueline Wilson a powerfully portrayed story of family and mental health from the best-selling children's author this book is about sisters dolphin and star and their vibrant mother, Mary Gold,

covered in colourful tattoos and brightly coloured hair but with her fiery moods and irresponsible behaviour is she the right person to be looking after the sisters? We just talked a little bit about mental health. Tell us about this book. When did you read it?

So I think I read this when it first came out. I think it was 1999 this came out. So I would have been 10, 11. And yeah, it's an amazing book. And I've actually got pretty much all of her books. I went on a bit of a weird binge where I bought all of the secondhand covers that I would remember from being a kid from a secondhand book website. and I just wanted them all.

I think I was going back to my childhood self and remembering why I love to write, why I love to read. I think that's really important if you have a career in writing to always remember why you even care, quite frankly. You do have to keep reminding yourself. You can get quite lost in it.

Yeah, I mean, I think the industry could strip you bare, to be honest. I don't really write because I want to impress the industry. Like, I write because I love to write. And I always have. And I love how, you know, even with platforms at the moment like at my substack, I can write and earn money and reach my readers just directly. Like we're in a really exciting time.

And so that spark and that flame, I need to keep that alive. Otherwise, what's the point, quite frankly? So yeah, I love this book. This is like even looking at the cover just brings me so much joy. It also covers really exciting and really powerful and really dark themes. The mother, the illustrated mum, Marigold, she has bipolar disorder. I don't think I really understood that as a 10-year-old. And there's a really powerful scene where she basically,

just before she gets taken to hospital, she paints herself with this sort of toxic white paint, I think it is, and she's really, really unwell. And she's having a mental breakdown in front of her two children. I was just thinking about that the other day of, you know, there I was 10 years old reading it and taking that all in. But now I'm thinking we're so lucky we have Jacqueline Wilson to kind of talk about that. And I interviewed her recently for my podcast and she had read my novel.

And it was just this like full circle moment of, you can't really explain those moments. It's just the 10 year old you is just like, ah, it's happening. She was so important to us at school. And it's so true what you say about those covers. Like looking at that cover on your lap right now, it's bringing back so much nostalgia, so many memories. and she was dealing with these really quite heavy themes a lot of the time.

And we needed those books, but we didn't know that. We didn't know what we were taking in, but it's so important that we did take it in. Yeah, and, you know, she never wrote about a perfect family with the two children and the perfect house and the mum and the dad. I actually did have a really safe, sort of quote-unquote normal set up. And I think it's really, really important as a child to realize that not everyone has that. And I just think it can make you more empathetic.

And yeah, I felt like really connected to these characters, actually. And I think when you're growing up, you know, I had some friends, but like I would say the characters become your friends a little bit, which is really nice. Oh, she has this unique ability to create these characters that you feel like you know so, so well. And that you feel like everyone at school knows because everyone was reading the book. So they felt like another member of the class. And everyone had these same books with these same pictures on the front. It's so etched in my memory. Like it brings it all back.

And I agree with you. I would say that reading teachers as empathy, it teaches us kindness. We walk a day in the shoes of others. And it's why it's so important as a child to know that everyone is different and we should respect that. Totally. Be mindful and open to that. You just mentioned very quickly there, your childhood. to talk to me about growing up what kind of a student were you it sounds like you're a big reader yeah

i love to read and i guess my earliest memories were under the covers reading i just it's funny how those can be your memories because they're not really your real life they're the stories that you're escaping into um but i feel really lucky because and i don't say this in like a self-deprecating way but i'm only good at one thing really which is writing or at least storytelling like Those were the subjects at school that my teachers felt that I was good at and really everything else I failed at. You know, the sciences, maths, I just can wrap my head around any of that stuff. Were you proud to be good at writing? Yeah, I think so.

But something I've only just realized is that writing isn't really separate to life. I think if you're someone who is really highly sensitive, lots of writers are very sensitive. which is why it's funny that you become a writer and then you get you know one star Amazon reviews of your work it's hard to bet it's not a great mixture but I think you know if you take in the world around you that's why people create art and as my favorite one of my favorite authors actually who I'm going to talk about Julia Cameron she believes that everyone is a writer to be honest even if you're writing in your journal or you you know you're writing like a really funny email to your friend

like we're all writers in some way and I yeah I feel very like that I've been able to make it my career. Yeah, and insofar as we all have a story to tell. Another reason it's important to get as many kids as possible reading because the more lives that they see represented on the page of the book, the more valid they feel that they have a story that is worth telling because they do, because every child is valid. And I feel like Jacqueline Wilson helped instill that in all of us who read her.

Did she inspire you to write to an extent? Yeah, oh my God, definitely, which is why when I met her, I couldn't really find the words. When someone has that much of an impact on you, it's, you can't really explain, like, how they could have shaped, like, many of your decisions when you were younger. I think she did. And I think that that feeling of, feeling inspired and feeling like you could do the same. Yeah, I mean, there's only one Jacqueline Wilson. She's written 100 books as well. So that was always really inspiring to me is she, someone.

who I believe, and I feel like she told me this, she writes for herself too. She loves going in and speaking to children in schools. She writes because she wants to meet these characters. It's very instinctive and a way of living for her. And I love that because I hope that I can maintain that sort of momentum and never run out of ideas and kind of do it for myself first, and then it ties in with sharing it with other people.

Do you ever feel like you are in danger of running out of ideas? Not really, because I think, if you're living your life you'll always come up with ideas and something else that Julia Cameron taught me was even the mundane bits of your life can be really interesting um like that was something that I wrote during the pandemic about my local park and it got shared quite a lot online and I thought I'm just writing about a park but the park meant a lot to me during the lockdown and I think we can write about pretty much anything um as long as sort of our heart is in it. If it's intertwined with our lives, our lives are full.

Just by the very nature of our being. I know. And even if we sat at home and did nothing, like things kind of crop up. You don't have to go looking for it. I always say this with the radio whenever anyone says, oh, what do you talk about? You have to go in every single day. I'm like, literally, if you're walking down the street and you see a nice crane, that's a link. There's a link in it. There's always a link in it.

Let's talk about your second book, Shelfy book now, which is floor sample by Julia Cameron, who you just mentioned as your favorite author there. Yeah, lovely link there. Yes, in this moving memory, the author of the international bestseller, The Artist's Way, tells the tale of her own life. From her early career writing for Rolling Stone magazine

and her marriage to Martin Scorsese to her tortured experiences with alcohol and Hollywood, Cameron reflects on the experiences in her life that have fueled her own art and inspired her to help others with their creative journeys. why is she your favorite author god that's such a good question i haven't actually thought about why exactly but i think it's just how she makes me feel she's a very wise incredibly i don't know she's she's an older writer now she i think she's in her 70s she's still writing she's still

doing workshops this is the story of her life but it's the way she lives quite simply now having dealt with alcohol addiction and all sorts of other challenges through her life, she's created this framework to live essentially. She's best known for the artist's way, which sold, I think, over five million copies and has inspired, I mean, everyone from, like, really famous musicians to poets to anyone. But she now believes in writing morning pages, which is like three longhand pages of writing every single morning before you have breakfast, before you do anything, to get, like, all the gunk out of your head. and she's famous for the artist's way

but I wanted to pick floor sample because this memoir I feel like didn't really reach as many people as I think it should have so I just like champion this book this is what we're here for for years of the podcast yeah like the artist's way is amazing

but floor sample to me I think is her best book I just love it it's very honest about her relationship with Martin Scorsese which she doesn't talk about very openly and it was a very painful relationship for her ended not on her terms and it's about grief and it's kind of about that unrequited love of

when someone breaks up with you and she writes a lot about how she used to drink quite a lot when she worked I think she worked at the Rolling Stone she worked in like that sort of 70s 80s very cool music scene as a journalist and she used to think that creativity and drugs and alcohol like went really well together and this is a story how she learns a that they don't mix very well. And she gets sober and she becomes even more creative. Have you done the artist's way? Have you taken any of these techniques?

Yes, I have. I've taken the artist's way. And there's also a really amazing one called the, I think it's called Right for Life, which is more recent. And she's so great. She's just such a guide. And the way that she kind of displays all of the sort of tips

in the book, it's very calming. Like, you know, some self-help books are like, do these steps and you can be the best. She's just like, we can go with the flow. We can do this in your own time. Yeah, there's a spirituality to it. And is that something that speaks to you, I'd say in your creativity,

but also in your life, in the way that you choose to navigate this, all of this. All of this. Yeah, definitely. She brings me right back to the basics. You know, go do the morning pages, go for a daily walk.

She's very into movement. As a writer, you sit on your chair, you sit at your desk a lot. You have to get out into the elements. And again, she just, her life is the work of art. So even like going to a cafe with her friend, she could write beautifully about that. In your new book, The Success Myth, you talk about being, and I quote, an ambition monster and the painful realization that your job will never really love you back. Can you talk a little bit about this, the changes that you've made in your

your life since that revelation. Yes. I mean, the whole book really, and Julia talks about this, I think we write from a wiser part of ourselves. Like sometimes I reread my books and they don't feel like I've written them. It's sort of coming from like a different part. And with the success myth, I wrote it. I then handed the book in and then I basically then had like a breakdown. I went through like the worst period of burnout ever. And I'm so proud of the book. It's my favorite book I've written, but it really did take everything from me. And I also wasn't looking after myself. And I was also saying yes to projects I didn't want to do. And it all accumulated. And during that time, I mean, Julia was there. She's always there. She's like,

do the morning pages, go for your daily walk. Stop saying yes to stuff you don't want to do. And it's just stripping your life back to bait the basics to get you back on track. And so I'm very, very fond of her. I've interviewed her three times for my podcast. I wrote the introduction for Flores because this came out in 2022, this version of the book that I wrote the intro for. But I read a very old copy in lockdown and was raving about it. And then her publisher said, we know you love floor sample. Will you write the intro for the new copy? And that was just a really full circle moment.

Who would have thought that I was reading an old battered copy from a secondhand bookshop and then it would be re-released? Like honestly, you sort of like hit a little bit of a nut because I completely feel what you're saying about not practicing what you preach always when you're writing or working, I bang on about looking after yourself, about being kind to yourself. I remember writing an article,

I think it was for Marie Claire, about having burned out and having found my piece again. And I remember writing it at like two in the morning. And the irony was not lost on me of hitting this deadline, writing this piece trying to help women feel better while I felt like shit. We do this to ourselves and we're all on this journey and we can learn those techniques and learn how to help ourselves.

It doesn't mean we're not going to slip back. So when you find yourself slipping because the journey is ongoing, it's never done, how do you pull yourself back? What do you tell yourself? Well, I think I've looked outwards for so long. to these kind of people like Julia to kind of be that inspiration and I've got lots of them in my life

like someone like Elizabeth Gilbert, Seth Godin as one I have these like group of writers who I just like the books are there on my bookshelf for those moments where I slip and they're always there on the shelf being like hey remember all these things we spoke about but I think the next phase of that is like internalising it a little bit more

and not needing to reach well you can reach for the book but like not to relearn it every time for it to kind of settle in into yourself. So even, you know, with Julia and floor sample, she messes up over and over again. She is so lost in this book.

She flies to New York, then to London, then back to New Mexico, then back to London, then back to... She is someone who is like, I don't know what I want, and I'm just so confused. And when she kind of reaches this point of realizing that she gets to take every day at a time, and she gets to choose every single day

to remain sober or whatever it is for you, that really was powerful, you know? Like we don't have to have a great big plan. We just have to take like each day. Yeah, one day at time. Just quickly actually on sobriety, wrote an article for The Guardian about giving up alcohol for three months and the sort of re-evaluation of your life that it inspired.

Can you just tell us a little bit about your experience? And your relationship with alcohol now? Yes. So I really wanted to write, in the lockdown especially, I felt that I slipped into a territory, I wasn't very comfortable with. I'm someone who loves like a margarita with my friends. Like I get a lot of joy out of that.

I think life is for tasting things and enjoying things and for pleasure. But in the lockdowns, I felt like there was this narrative around alcohol that didn't sit right with me where it was, you know, just do what you can to get through the day. Yes, of course, we all have to do that. But there's also looking after yourself. And I think sometimes we have to give ourselves tough love. Like love isn't always just going, yes, do that thing that's bad for you. you. Like my sister the other day came around and she was like, I love you

but you need to wash your hair. My hair was really greasy and she was like, you need to wash it. That's like someone who loves you saying you need to wash your hair. And I had to tell myself, I love you, stop drinking this much. It's not good for you. This is not the same as a marguerite as your friends.

This is like you're covering something up here. And maybe subconsciouslyle is inspired by Julia's book as well because we all know when it's slipping into a territory that isn't great. And there was also this narrative in the media that was like even Gwyneth Peltro was drinking every night. If the wellness founder of Goop can drink every night, we all can. But actually, we're not looking at the problem in the eye, which is when we're numbing

ourselves out to that extent. I just don't think we can live our, into like our full potential. Your third book is the opposite of loneliness by Marina Keegan, assemblage of the clear-eyed, sharp essays and stories of the 22-year-old Yale graduate who tragically died in a car crash just days after her graduation, leaving behind a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for at the New Yorker. Can you tell us about why this book inspired you?

This book, oh my God, like if I get through this and not burst into tears, I love her so much. Like she is literally one of my favorite writers. And we're the same age. Like she was born in 1989. And very, very tragically, this book is published post postdof, how do you say it? Posthumously. Posthumously.

That's how we say it. Yeah. And the intro was written by her professor at Yale, where she was studying. And she, it's hard to explain. like how tragic it is she had an internship lined up with the New Yorker and she's so wise like you read this book and it's really hard to believe she's 22 she's got the voice and the soul i think of someone way way beyond her years she's an incredible writer and i always come back to this book um i love i love that um in the intro her professor anne faddyman writes a lot about her

like about witnessing her at Yale, witnessing her writing, and how she was quite a contrarian. She was someone that was quite feisty, and I really like hearing about that part of her personality, where I guess there's like an activism to her writing. There's a way of looking at the world where she's just not happy with it and she wants to change things,

and it's like that youth that comes through. And also there's a bit I love in the intro where she's in a Yale lecture hall and some famous writer comes in and says basically hi guys don't bother becoming a writer it's impossible it's awful you know you'll be chewed up and spat out and she stands up and she's like why are you telling us that we're like we have hopes and dreams so she's she was just someone that didn't stand for people squashing your hopes and dreams and i love that you've shared a great deal and a lot of people have shared with you on control alt delete you interviewed over 400

wildly successful people from Esther Perel to Renéed O'Lodge to Greta Gourke, Glennon Dunham about how they climbed their own career ladder. Do you have any particular gems that you gleaned during these interviews? Well, I guess I'll kind of turn it on its head a little bit, which is in my new book about success, the success myth. It's about all of the things I learnt from all those interviews, essentially, which is that I've interviewed some of the most talented, incredible, successful people on the planet and yet something was always slightly missing.

These weren't people that had like made it and that were like happy every day of their lives. They were still struggling with something. And it's really why I wanted to write the book is I don't really want to glorify success anymore. And I kind of wanted to show that behind the mic were people who were sort of creating and writing as a way of living. of course and obviously their career and of course their lives were very comfortable and they'd made lots of money or had lots of success or whatever but it wasn't actually what we thought it was and they were always struggling with something or something wasn't quite right and I just found that really interesting and I thought maybe now we can talk about like this thing that we're striving

for what actually is that and for you what is that for me I think it's sort of living life on own terms again actually and just realizing you know like what we were saying with Jacqueline Wilson like why are we doing this because I think we can get really lost with the outward validation and the Instagram likes and the followers and the numbers but I just think fundamentally we're at a time the post-pandemic like the great resignation or whatever it was called I think we're all just wondering like what are we doing and where is our community and how can we be more compassionate to other people and how can we

we write things that can inspire younger people. And I don't know. I'm feeling optimistic at the moment, but I feel like a lot of people are stripping away all of that stuff and just like going back to basics again. 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. Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite. book. Check out baillies.com for our favourite Bailey's recipes. Let's talk about your fourth book now, which is wow, no thank you, by Samantha Irby. The unflinching, hilarious and relatable essays in this collection draw on Irby's life as a comedian, internet blogger and television writer as she takes stock of midlife and

the bourgeois dream. Why did you pick this book? Yes, so I love Samantha Irby. This actually was a lockdown read that I could get through because like I said I was struggling to read during that she is hilarious Sam Irby is I guess I would describe her as like the most internety person on the planet like I think I'm

quite internety she is like the person that's making the meme about the meme she is so inside that culture that it's incredible and she is hysterical she was a writer on the most recent sex and just like that. And just like that.

Like there's some funny bits and just like that. I was like, I know that she wrote those lines. And yeah, there's sort of chapters in here called, there's one called Girls Gone Mild. And it's like a breakdown of her day of like the most mundane parts of her day, which are just absolutely hysterical. There's also this chapter that is eight different pages

of starting with, sure, sex is fun, but dot, dot, dot. And like, it goes on and on and on and on. And that's all it is. It's just amazing. She's got an incredible blog that I've been following for years. She's got a substack. And that inspired me to get into substack.

And these books are quite, I think quite pioneering in like, you've got the animal on the front and you've got the, like, lowercase text on there. And she's got a series of these now. What have you personally learned from over 15 years of, making a living writing online of that online space. I think that it's ephemeral in that you just put something up and it doesn't have to be good. I think we live in a time where a lot of people, I understand perfectionism or procrastination.

And I wrote a book called Sabotage all about why we are the way we are and how, you know, you can have a novel sitting in a drawer for like 10 years because there's just this fear of something really deep rooted that you're very, very scared of someone to read it. I get it. But I think there's something about internet culture which is it's really here today, gone tomorrow and if it makes someone laugh, that's all good.

I think Nora Ephron actually said once about blogging that it is different to a magazine article or a book in that it can be imperfect, it can have spelling errors, it can be all in lowercase, like Sam Irby writes on hers, her punctuations all over the place as well. But it's just an expression

And I think when we get very snobby about literature or very ingrained in the way things should be in a book, that sort of turns me off. I like it when it's just all a bit all over the place sometimes. So as your relationship do you feel with the online world, has it changed over the years of you being a part of it? Yeah, I would say I'm now proud of it. I think back in the day, if someone was like, oh, you have a blog, there was like a weird tone to that. Like it wasn't good enough or at least it wasn't something that was respected. And now I'm really proud I was part of the blogging boom. Like I was there.

I saw it. I was in and around people who were blogging for the first time. That's really cool now, I think. And when you have so much going on online, when you're blogging, when you essentially grow up on the internet, how did you and how do you stay grounded when, I'm not going to say, living a life online because you're not. This is your work.

But it also is your life. Yes, yeah. Well, I feel quite lucky in that my first book was very personal. And I was 26 when I wrote that book. And it's like, I will never reread that book. And I'm just like, begged my parents never to read that book. But there was a sort of bullsiness to like being in your 20s where you're just, you don't really care. And so I'm quite proud of that book and the fact that I put it all out there for everyone to read.

but now I've got older I'm just so much more boundaries everything is so precisely calculated on what I'm sharing and what I'm not sharing because it's a craft you know like in the success myth

it's part memoir there's like lots of honesty in there and vulnerability but I've really carefully chosen why I wanted to share and there are some parts of my life I'll never write about and I think that's what can make you feel very empowered as a writer

is like it's your choice that's so true people will think that they know everything because it is a memoir, because you share online. They think that you probably give more than anyone else, but the truth is you don't have to and you don't. You are, as you say, boundaries. I've never actually used it like that. I'm going to start because this is the thing I tell everyone. It's my boundaries, guys, but I'm boundried.

When you are working between multiple projects, whether it is a book alongside your work online, alongside working for magazines, newspapers and them podcasting as well, do you know when to start a new project? Is it constant plate spinning or is it quite calculated, quite planned out? It kind of changes and I think something that I'm becoming way more aware of is that, well, for me anyway,

I'm very changeable and like my moods, not my moods, but just like what I want to do changes. Like I'm lucky I work for myself. I can make my own schedule. So planning out my time quite rigidly, like, never works for me because I can go with the wind a little bit with what I want to work on. And really, you know, when people are like, oh, my God, you know, what's your productivity tips or stuff like that? It's, I'm almost embarrassed to admit it sometimes because the productivity thing for me is I really go with what I feel I need to do that day. And I know that is a really amazingly privileged position to be in when you run your own calendar.

But today I really fancy going home and working on my new novel because I walk through London today and I've got a scene that's set sort of around this area. There's like one coffee shop that two characters sat in. So I can't wait to race home and do that. But then there'll be some days where I just need to get all my admin done. There are just days for certain things. And if you can do that depending on where you're at and what you feel like doing, then it's pretty. pretty amazing. You mentioned a little earlier that as a creative person you can be highly sensitive to those one-star reviews or to criticism and we live in a world where everyone wants

to give their criticism. How do you cope with this sort of feedback, the negativity that can abound online because you are working online? Yeah, yeah. Well, I've really made peace with it and I've had to really over however many years I've been doing this. I'm still highly sensitive but I've been able to like kind of logically sort of intellectually make peace with the fact that not everyone's going to like your work like that would be kind of wild to expect everyone to like your work

that's crazy. And something I remember doing a while ago that someone else recommended me do was I went on some of my favourite books like these books and went on their Amazon reviews and they have one star reviews too. Oh wonderful. This is a technique. This is good. It's so good because these books changed my life.

They're amazing. And to someone else, they are the worst things I've ever read. And that happens with my books. And that's absolutely fine. And there's a really funny one Amazon review actually on like Jane Austen's Emma, which is like a classic. And someone just wrote, this is pants. Great.

And I was like, well, this is it then. Someone thinks Jane Austen is pants. Like I can live with someone not liking me. I would never have thought of that. Go and look at those authors, those, even just the people that you respect so much that you think are so amazing and see that not everyone like them. A friend once said to me,

you can't be everyone's cup of tea, otherwise you'd be a mug. Oh my God, I love that. What is the point? If everyone liked you, it's probably because there's not a lot to think about. Yeah, and I really believe that. And I'm not a journalist anymore,

but when I did work in magazines, I remember my boss saying to me, sorry, that if someone is commenting that they don't like it and then someone else is commenting that they love it, like you've done your job. Yeah. Like we're meant to start conversations. I think as writers.

Better than no one saying anything at all. It's time, Emma, to talk about your fifth and final book-shelphie book today, which you can work out, which it is from your pile on your lap, which is The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck. In this New York Times bestseller, the life coach and sociologist, explains why integrity, i.e. being in harmony with ourselves, is the real key to a meaningful life, one that will bring you to a true place of happiness. I feel like we've touched on this, actually, in every book that we've discussed.

It keeps coming back to this. It always comes back to this. Why did this book mean so much to you? So I'm a massive, massive fan of Martha Beck. She has got three different degrees from Harvard. She's a sociologist. She's an extremely smart woman and really, really inspiring. She's also famously Oprah Winfrey's life coach,

which is sort of what she's known for. Even though I'm sure she's like, that's not my only title, but, you know, keep spreading that. one around. But yeah, she's written this self-help book that is very different in that she's writing about how to get back to your true self and be in integrity in your life, like always feel like you're in your whole and sort of undivided in the way you live. But she uses Dante's The Divine Comedy as like a structure. So there's like the ring of fire and then there's Mount Delectable, which is, you know, the sort of this mountain that's full of all of the sort of

temptations of life. And I'm completely butchering the story of the inferno, which you can sort of Google if you want to. But essentially, everyone has their own hero's journey. And this is obviously one of the classics where you have to go through the worst possible hell in order to kind of reach enlightenment, I guess, is the story. And so, yeah, it's a full stage process. Anyone can, she believes, find emotional healing through this book. But what? What I'm more interested in, I suppose, with Martha Beck, is her own personal life and what makes her the best person to write this book. She grew up in a Mormon community. She suffered sexual abuse within her family.

She fled where she lived and where she was born. And she came out as a lesbian in her 30s. Like she's had this life of being told you're one thing and in your bones knowing you're not that thing. She's incredibly inspiring. She's had a really, really hard life. for her to write this book helping millions of people with their lives. I mean, just love her. You open your new book, The Success Myth, with a quote from Martha Beck.

I'll read it. Oh, we got it's one of my favourite quotes, so please do. Even if you achieve things that seem outwardly fabulous, an unheeled emotional injury will make you experience them as empty and unappealing. By contrast, recovering your emotional health will suffuse even small successes with joy long before you achieve anything obviously spectacular. can you tell us a bit about this quote why did it inspire you i love that quote it really sums up i guess what i'm trying to get at with the new book is it really doesn't matter what you have actually achieved

if you can put all these shiny things in your bio it doesn't matter if you've done a ted talk to like a million people and everyone loves you if you feel rubbish about yourself if you haven't emotionally healed from your own personal traumas of life and and then yeah it's what she said when you emotionally heal, you can walk down the street and see a daffodil and it's like the best day ever. And so it makes you cry. It's so wonderful. And it's just so beautiful. And so I think in the modern world we're in, we're very much taught the opposite, aren't we? We're taught, you know, I saw on Instagram the other day a little five-year-old wearing a like mortarboard hat at like a graduation. Like they do graduation ceremonies for kids. Why are they graduating it? Fine.

How are they graduating from? I don't know. And like, it was really cute. And of course we should be clapping and celebrating like kids of what they've achieved. They're, you know, amazing. But I felt like, why are we celebrating achievement at five? You're more than your achievement. So you don't have to wear a mortarboard. You are just enough as you are. You can go and play outside and climb a tree. And I don't know, I had this feeling of like, oh my God, we're like brainwashed from a very early age to like succeed and make our parents proud. And actually what would make us feel more proud, I think, is probably achieving what we would like to achieve, which might not be really exciting. We don't interrogate what we want to achieve, though. The truth is, until recently, I didn't

even know what I wanted. I just thought it was success. I thought that being ambitious was the be all and end all. And actually the greater success is that healing. But you don't know that you need to heal because we're not encouraged to even navigate that fact. And you mentioned people pleasing there, which strikes a chord because it so often comes down to this. I hate the idea of ever disappointing anyone I feel like I need to be the best in order to please them. Does it please them? Does it matter? I don't know. Do you identify as a people pleaser? Do you have any tips for combating these tendencies? Tell me. Oh my God. Well actually this brings us back to the book because Martha Beck was a people pleaser and she talks about how she basically didn't tell a lie for a whole year as

just like an experiment and and it she really went in like someone would be like hey do you want to come around to our house for Christmas and she'd be like no like she really didn't tell any lies like not even a white lie and her whole life got really good like when you don't tell lies and you're just really honest and you can be nice you don't have to be like mean about it but when you're really honest like I don't feel good today or actually I need a nap or I'm really sorry that made me feel uncomfortable when you said that or I don't actually like my best friend anymore like they make you feel good because even though it's painful you're telling the truth so anyway that really inspired me to unpick my people pleasing habits which was exactly like what you just said saying yes to everything because

I thought that other people would like me more and that's been a hard thing to change because that's like my internal programming really ingrained yeah it's ingrained in so many people you you literally see it every day. But now I'm addicted to the other thing now, which is saying no, because it's like now I've got that bug. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Now I'm like, okay, I need to leave my house more.

Yeah. You talk about in your book having this jolt of realization during the pandemic and deciding to see a life coach. How did that help you? What was it like? Well, I'm a big fan of life coaching. I know that people get the ick when they hear the word, because there's a lot of really weird culty, scammy, pyramid schemy things.

I'm not saying that there's not. But if you get a good life coach, it kind of does what it says on the tin. Like, it really can help. I think therapy is different. If you need a therapist, that's different. That's like very much a trained psychologist who was going to go into your history and who is going to help you. A life coach is someone who essentially just gives you space to talk.

You figure it out yourself. They don't actually give you. you any advice. It's like, I'm going to ask you some questions and by the end of the session, you have figured out your own problems. And that's why I love life coaching because I believe everyone has the answers. I don't believe anyone needs to be told anything. I'm actually like so allergic to advice culture, like, you know, in magazines where it's like, what advice do you have? It's like, that's probably, that could be the worst advice. You don't know who you're talking to. So I think not giving advice is the future and just like giving people the space. I'm feeling really, um,

I don't know, inspired. Like there's a lot of things I feel like I need to do and I'm going to do now because you've not advised me, but you've helped me work it out for myself. Oh, I love that. Well, this is, yeah, I think I probably have picked books based on where I'm at the moment, which is I'm promoting my new book at the moment,

which I'm really excited about. And, yeah, I'm in that space myself at the moment, so. Well, it's great to see. Like, I feel like a really lovely light coming off you from everything that you've said. I have to ask you one final question, though, and that is to choose one book from your list as a favourite. Oh.

They all speak to you in different ways. They will do the things. They're all so different. But you know what? It's going to be Marina Keegan. Because I actually have three copies of this at home. I keep buying it for some reason. It's like I'm scared someone will take it and, you know, I just need it.

But I think I've been going through my own reminder at the moment of why I'm a writer. And there's a bit just at the beginning where she said, I've decided I'm going to be a writer. like a real one with my life. And I just like got goosebumps because she wrote that when she was 21. And you know what? She didn't get to be a writer with her life.

Like she died too young and I think I feel really emotional because it's just you know like we get to. We get to write. Thank you so much Emma for your time and truly your wisdom. I've really enjoyed this. And I'm going to be going home

and reading every single what I was seeing it. That was a pleasure to chat. Thank you so much. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.