Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep16: Bookshelfie: Deborah Joseph

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Glamour UK’s Editor-in-Chief Deborah Joseph joins Vick to discuss feminism through the lens of magazines, the importance of representation and the need for perfectly imperfect women.  Deborah is an award-winning editor and journalist. Over the past seven years, she has directed Glamour’s transition from a print to a digital-first, beauty-first brand. Prior to that, she spent six years working for fashion and celebrity tech start-ups, was a social media consultant for Jenny Packham, and edited the Daily Mail’s life and style section. She was on the launch team of Glamour over 20 years ago and has also edited two other Condé Nast titles, Easy Living and Brides.  Deborah speaks regularly on the topic of women’s empowerment and the challenges facing working mothers, and after experiencing burnout now chooses to live what she describes as her ‘best 70% life’.  Deborah’s book choices are: ** Sweet Valley High by Francine Pascal ** Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë ** Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding ** This is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan ** Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven 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 seven? Listen and subscribe now!

I used to wear longer trousers over the hot pants than in the car in front of my mum used to take them off and she'd drop us off in her hot pants. A classic. Yeah, classic. It's like arriving at school and giving the skirt a couple of roles. Totally, totally. With thanks to Bayleys, 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 host for Season 7, 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 2024 reading list. Today I am joined by European editorial director and editor-in-chief of Glamour UK Deborah Joseph. Deborah is an award-winning editor and journalist.

Over the past seven years, she's directed glamour's transition from a print to a digital first beauty first brand. Prior to that, she spent six years working for fashion and celebrity tech startups, was a social media consultant for Jenny Packham and edited the Daily Mail's Life and Style section. She was on the launch team for glamour over 20 years ago and has also edited two other Condéinac titles, Easy Living and Brides. Deborah speaks regularly on the topic of women's empowerment and the challenges facing working mothers. And after experiencing Burnout now chooses to live what she describes as her best 70% life. Welcome, Deborah. Thanks so much, Vic. It's great to see you again. Debra, I've got to ask, what is your best 70%

life? Oh gosh. Okay. So my best 70% life came about around six years ago when I'd been at Glamour for six months to a year and I had three children aged two, four and six at the time and a really big, stressful job to contend with. And I was really not coping. I felt I was failing as a mother, as a friend, as a wife, as a sister, as, you know, at work. And I was very, very anxious. I wasn't sleeping. Sometimes I was waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning and going to work, having not been back to bed again.

You know, I still had a 2-year-old. It was keeping me up at night. And I just thought, what is this? You know, I went to a very feminist all-girl school who told me I could be anything I want to be. I can do whatever I want to do. and here I was in my dream job and how did I manage the three kids. Nobody had ever told me. No one had even discussed kids in this conversation.

And I was in such a bad way and the mental load was boiling over. And my husband said to me, something's got to give here, Deborah. And obviously I didn't want to give up my job. I'd just taken it was my dream job. And obviously I wasn't going to give up the kids. So I just thought I can't do it all. And this is, you know, I've been sold this dream that isn't true. It's not possible to do it all.

at least not all at the same time. And so I don't know where I got this from. I just thought, I'm just going to drop 30%, and I'm going to only do the 70%. And I'm going to consciously drop the 30%. I'm not going to apologize when I can't do something. I'm just going to say, I'm sorry, I'm not doing that. I'm not going to say, I'm not doing that.

No is a complete sentence. Yes, exactly. I'm not doing it. And at work, I had to do the website, the social media, redesign everything, do a new video strategy. And my boss said, so, how's the video strategy going? And I said, well, you know what, I don't really have the budget at the moment. I don't have the team in place and I don't have the strategy sorted.

So I'm going to leave that till next year and I'm going to focus on the rest. And he went, okay. Yeah. And I was like, I'm going to do that with everything. And it's really worked for me. And I don't say sorry so much anymore. And I really give my 100% to the 70% and the 30%. Goodbye for now.

For now, yeah. Yeah. I'd love to know where reading fits into that 70%. Is it an escape? from the 70% or is it actually firmly part of it and nurturing yourself? It's 100% part of my 70% we're doing a lot of math. Yeah, 100% and I'm really bad at math. So that's, I think for me reading, and I've only thought about this in more recent times, so I've just gotten one of those brains, like a lot of us, that just never stops. You know, it was all night long. It was all day long.

I've got a million thoughts going round and round and round. And reading for me has always been an escape from that. So if I'm not reading, it's because I know I'm too stressed, because I can't read when I'm stressed. So when I go on holiday, I take five books with me and I read five books in a week and I can feel that mental load just being reduced. So I manage my anxiety through I manage my mental load by reading and it's time away from the laptop. I only read in actual book form. I don't read on a Kindle. It's time away from all technology. And yes, I, I, I, I think my life's much better when I've got a good book. It's funny, isn't it, how we sometimes feel like we don't have the capacity to read,

but ironically, if we did the reading, it would give us the capacity because we'd feel that anxiety, like you just said, we'd feel it drop. We'd give ourselves more space. Totally, totally. And, you know, if I wasn't reading, I'd probably be on social media. So I know that I'd rather be in a good book than, you know, on Instagram. And also I've now, with my kids, I've got three young kids. They're not that young now.

They're now 9, 11 and 13. And I do competitions on holiday with them and say, whoever reads the most books get surprised. So sometimes there's, you know, there's a four of us, and then my husband all sitting there reading books. And that's really just my way of getting my own way, which is to read. As it should be, Deborah.

I think from having looked through your picks, and we'll get to them in just a moment, it's quite clear that you gravitate towards fiction. And that's that escape that you talk of. Is that a conscious effort to stay away from nonfiction? Is there a reason for that? Yes, I want for escapism for my books. I think that being a journalist, you know,

we have a daily meeting every morning at Glamour, and it's looking at the news and looking all the terrible things happening in the world. And I don't necessarily want a book that also reminds me of that. I want a book that takes me away from my everyday life and from the horrible news and maybe puts me in the shoes of characters that I might not meet in my everyday life.

and I want to feel a million miles away from the washing up and the daily dredgering. You've sent me a list of books that really takes us through your life. We always say we tell the story of my guest's lives through the books that have shaped them. But I love that this is a chronological we're going from start to present day. So let's get stuck in with your first book, Shelby Book, which is Sweet Valley High. Sweet Valley High is a series of young adult novels by American author Francine Pascal. The book follows identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in the fictional Sweet Valley, California, a suburb near Los Angeles,

and they attend Sweet Valley High with their friends. The series was published over a period of 20 years from 1983 to 2003, totaling 181 books, which is mad to think about. It quickly gained popularity, resulting in several spin-off series, including Sweet Valley Senior Year and Sweet Valley University, as well as a television adaptation, which I remember. I remember watching that. So tell me about when you read this book.

So I remember reading these books in Los Angeles because I went there for six weeks one summer. My sister had just been born. She's 11 years younger than me. And I've got a middle brother as well. And I think my parents just wanted to get rid of me for the summer and said to me, do you want to go and live in L.A. for six weeks with your family there? because my mum's Iranian and I'd say 90% of her family moved there after the revolution in

1979 and they all live in LA. So I was like, yeah, I was a really adventurous kid. And in those days, you were allowed on the plane on your own. You didn't have to be chaperoned. So off I went, age 11, on my own to L.A. And I had an older cousin who was called Bobby and my daughter's now called Bobby. So she was called Bobby. She is called Bobby. And her bookshelf had, I think it must have been a, I don't know, 15 or 20 Sweet Valley Highs on it. And I sat there and read every single one of them. I don't think I spoke to anybody for six weeks. I just love it.

I read them all. And for me, they captured my imagination. These two girls, they were blonde, beautiful, honey-colored skin. One was wild, a little bit mean, but very cool. And the other sister was more thoughtful. She wanted to be a journalist. and this Jessica, who was the mean girl, was always trying to take her sister's boyfriend off her. And I don't know, I just wanted to be these girls and the life that they lived in and the handsome boys and hanging out on the beach.

And I loved it. But I think since then I've realized that it really set a beauty standard for me, these blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful girls. And obviously, I'm from Iranian heritage and I had very curly brown hair. And light brown skin definitely didn't look anything like that. But for me, that's what beauty meant, being blonde and blue-eyed. And it took me a long time to remove that vision of beauty from my mind and realise that actually being brown, being dark-haired, having curly hair, not being tall and thin, is equally as beautiful.

But for me, that was my Barbie doll moment. A lot of other girls talk about the blonde Barbie doll. And for me, that was Jessica and Elizabeth. So do you see reading them as a damaging thing? or was it an introduction that you sort of needed to navigate yourself? Well, my mum wouldn't let me have Barbie dolls. And I think in those days, beauty was blonde. It just was, you know, all the dolls were blonde when I was little

and the beautiful characters were blonde. So I think I would have come across it in some form or another. But that was it for me. It took me a long time to undo those beauty standards. And funny enough, when I started at Glamour seven years ago, I thought I really want to create images and covers that look like me and darker-skinned women so that we don't just see pictures and characters and books that reflect a different type of woman that I'm never going to be and they're never going to be.

And so that was really at the heart of what we've done at Glamour for the last seven years. Just wanted to make it super inclusive. And I really look back at my childhood and the Sweet Valley High Books was absolutely the moment that conversation started in my head about what is beauty. And what is a woman? Because you describe two types of femininity there, of females of women. And as we get older, I mean, I personally have realized it's not that we have to be put in these boxes. I'm her or I'm her.

I can be everything. It can be a mix. Did you feel like you related more to one character than the other or Jessica or Elizabeth? Or did you find a little bit of yourself in both? Definitely a bit of both. And I probably, you know, mingo was exciting. She was naughty, she's excited, she was wild and I've definitely got that side to me. But also I love reading.

I wanted to be a journalist, all of those things. So I think I was a mixture of both. But again, I think the representation of women as saint or sinner, we see it all the time. And as I've got older, I'm probably a bit of saint and a bit of sinner. And there was no nuance in those days. And I think women's fiction, the girls I see represented in my daughter's books today, I think I'm much more nuanced. I think writers today are much more aware. of how girls are represented and that, you know, that's a great thing.

Having said that, I loved every word of those. Yeah, of course. I loved every word of them. I was so exciting. The world that they lived in. And you know, I went back to L.A. when I was in my early 20s as a journalist. And I went to Malibu Beach. I asked my cousin to take me there and I just was so disappointed.

It was nothing how I'd imagined. Fairy tale. Yeah, that fairy tale was broken. But I was looking around thinking where are all these people I was expecting and they weren't there. You've painted quite a picture of what you were like as a child. I mean, for a start, fiercely independent at 11 to be getting on the plane on your own and going away from your family for six weeks. You talked about being aware of the fact you had the darker skin,

the dark curly hair, Iranian heritage. And, you know, saying, oh, my mum had come over from after the revolution, this awareness of your cultural heritage, knowing that you were getting into books and this was something that excited you. Tell me about it. what you were like as a child. Where did you fit into the world? You said you went to a very feminist or girls' school as well.

Well, certainly the Iranian thing, I don't think, everyone around me was English. So I don't think I was aware of certainly looking any different until I think probably around the age of eight or nine. I remember this moment where we were playing in the street with some of the girls on my road and we were like, you know, Boni M was big and they were like, let's do brown girl in the ring.

Deborah, you go in the ring because you're the brown girl. So that was the first moment I thought, oh, am I the brown girl? I've never thought of myself as a brown girl because, you know, my dad is also half Iranian but he's also half German and very, very pale-skinned. And it was just never an issue in my house. No one cared. We didn't discuss it. It wasn't an issue.

So that was that moment. When I went to, when I got to 11, I went to this all-girls school, Emmeline Pankhurst's, I think, daughter or granddaughter went there. So it really had amazing feminist credentials. And I brought into it. I brought into it from a very, very young age that I'm a girl and I can do what the hell I want. And I've got every single opportunity open to me. And it shaped my thinking for the rest of my life, really.

Well, on to a book that I know you read at school and was part of shaping you wanting a career in words, a life in words. Your second book, Shelfy book, is Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. published in 1847, Jane Eyne Air is a classic novel that follows the life of Jane, from her orphaned childhood to her struggles as a governess and ultimately her quest for independence, love and self-respect. Set in Victorian England, a society marked by strict social hierarchies and even strict gender roles, Jane is characterised by her resilience and moral integrity and has become, for readers around the world, a symbol of female empowerment. The novel is renowned for its exploration of themes including social class and the search for identity and has been adapted into film, television and stage reductions dozens of times attesting to its timeless popularity and continued relevance. Who were you when you read this book? Well, I was 15. I read it as part of my GCSE English literature.

I never concentrated at school. and my English teacher really believed in me and I remember being good at this. I remember reading Janeair and it made sense to me and I lapped up every single word of analysis when it came to this book. I don't know what it was about it. Jane Eyre, the mad woman in the attic,

that concept of mental health, a woman being hidden away. When I think about it now, there's a loss of family. Aries of my grandma, who was a Holocaust survivor on my diet, side. My mum tells me sometimes that they didn't know what to do with her when she moved to England and she spent a lot of her time in an upstairs room kind of there was shame around mental

health and they didn't know how to manage it and she was pretty much kind of hidden away, not locked away but kept away because you couldn't let a woman with mental health issues out in society in that way in those days and this was probably in the 1960s and I also found out more recently that her family were actually kept in an attic in Germany. And I only discovered this 10 years ago. So I've thought about this book a lot since those days. I was just thinking about a character who's come from the West Indies into Victorian Britain and obviously had different cultural norms and how difficult that would be for somebody like that coming into a very restricted society and how that was perceived as mad in some way. And she was locked away for

being different and being othered. That's just something I've really thought about over the last few years. I've read the book again more recently. It's really stayed with you over your lifetime. And, you know, I was living in Manchester. I'm from Manchester. I was living there at a time when Manchester was a very cool music scene. We had the Stone Roses.

We had the Happy Mondays. We had the Hacienda, which was pretty much the callers club in the world at the time. You know, I think it was the first place Madonna ever sang in the UK. And I was very lucky. my first cousin was the manager there, so he used to sneak me in. Oh my God. I know. It was amazing.

What we all wouldn't have given. And me and my friends used to go and, you know, it was, it was, all the music was all garage and it was a real time of freedom and coming of age, really, for me. And that was the background to my schooling. And English just really settled me down, reading, I was settled, I enjoyed it, I was good at it and it made me feel good. And I think that went on, you know, I went on to do an English degree as a result of that. I mean, teachers who inspire you, wow, the impact. They change everything. They change everything. They change everything. The fact that they believed in me and said,

you are good at English and you have a good grasp of it was, it was, it was game changing for me, really. This image of you go into the Hacienda. Were your parents okay with it? Yes. Well, my mom was very cool. So, you know, she grew up in Iran, which was a much more repressive society. And she always encouraged me to have a good time. Always encouraged me to have a good time. And, you know, Iranians love to have a good time. They are party people. And she would make us tequila shots, me and my friends and then drive us to the hacienda. And meanwhile, my dad used to go absolutely mad because I'd be wearing hot pants and he didn't want me going out like that. So I used to wear longer trousers over the hot pants than in

the car in front of my mum used to take them off and she'd drop us off in a hot pants. A classic. Yeah, classic. It's like arriving at school and giving the skirt a couple of rolls. Totally. That image is so excellent against you realizing the power, the beauty of Charlotte Bronte of Jane Eyre. And what did that make you feel at that time? What did it instill in you? Well, a strong female character, she was very moral. She wouldn't marry Rochester because he was married. And that's something that I definitely, you know, it's a moral code that I think a lot of women live by. and it was good to see that reflected in society. I think as teenagers, you're also learning that moral code, the girls' code,

that you just don't do that to other women. So, yeah, I liked her. I think as time's gone on, I've had more empathy with Bertha than I have with Jane, actually, because I felt sorry for Jane at the time not being able to marry the man that she loved, whereas now I probably feel much more sorry for Bertha. That moral code that you're navigating at the age of 15, for so many of us, it was set by the magazines we were reading.

I was reading, we've talked about this, sugar, Ms, shout, more, J17. Tell me about writing for more. It was the first magazine that I subscribed to. I remember arriving weekly. And it just, again, it blew my mind. It blew everybody's mind, right? At the time, it was the beginning of Ladet culture. And I then ended up working for it, which,

was a dream come true that I could never have imagined, especially coming from Manchester, then moving to London and getting a job, working for more magazine. I think it changed a lot of our mindsets and a lot of our lives, that magazine. And it was very sad. It closed down about 12 years ago. And maybe, you know, maybe we're just generally more open on those topics now, thankfully. Well, you were part of the team that launched glamour in the UK 22 years ago.

You rebranded glamour as a publication for women reshaping the worlds. how does it compare now to when you launched it 22 years ago? Why are women's stories, these women reshaping the world? I love that phrase. Why is it so important to tell those stories? So I was the entertainment editor on the launch of glamour. I wasn't the editor. I was on the launch team, which was an incredible experience.

It was already a really successful magazine in America. I think it launched in 1939 in America. And it was the first magazine for women who work. So it's always had female empowerment at its heart. And when it launched here 22 years ago, it absolutely had female empowerment, but it was in a different time, a different place, and just different contexts.

So when I came on board seven years ago, we went digital, so we were not print-focused anymore. And I think the world was really changing. You know, social media had launched and had opened up conversations, for example, around sex and body image, and, you know, body positivity, all of those things that were more taboo.

They were just more taboo. And social media had opened them up. So we launched it from a more digital perspective. And number one, on digital, you can tell a lot more stories. You know, in a magazine, you've got a set number of features and that's it. We write 24 stories a day on glamour. So we want to fill those slots, if you want to call it, that with incredible empowering stories. Because as we said about Sweet Valley High, you're only what you're.

you see or you think you should be what you see. And we very much, me and the team wanted glamour to be a place where any woman, it doesn't matter who you are, what background, what you look like, you know, what your beliefs are, you come and you feel seen and you feel heard and you feel welcome. And for me, that's the power of the brand. It's the power of telling those stories and for other women to read it and think, that's like me. I didn't know anybody else was like that or had those problems or thought like me.

Or maybe it's just an education. on a topic that they didn't know before. Bayleys is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. 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. You mentioned, you touched on body, image, body positivity there, which I think is a good place to move on to your third book, which is Bridget Jones' diary by Helen Fielding, because this is a conversation that has, it's developed over time and whether we're going in the right direction, whether we sometimes go back on ourselves remains to be seen. Bridget Jones Diary is a multi-million copy number one bestseller.

As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her 30s and tries to weigh up the eternal question, Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy. She turns for support to four indispensable friends, Shazza, Jude, Tom and a bottle of Chardonnay. Helen Fielding's first Bridget Jones novel, published in 1996, sparked a phenomenon that has seen four books, newspaper columns and a smash hit film series. Tell us why you chose this book. Well, firstly, I couldn't actually be that nobody else has come on this podcast and talked about this book before. How is that possible when it's a seminal? It's a seminal.

It is. It's a seminal book. I mean, so I did English at university. I went to Notting University and I really fell out of love with reading as a result of my degree. I felt it was like a forced reading on books that I didn't want to read. And so when I moved to London and I got into magazines, I was obsessed with magazines. I just read magazines. I gave up the books. And coming from Manchester, I had to get the tube every day and I really hated it because I'm claustrophobic.

and I was always looking for things to distract me. And so my flatmate at the time, we lived in Kilburn, three girls. She was also a big reader and she read it and she said, you've got to read this book. And it got me back into reading again. It was so relatable. It was so funny. It was so cheeky.

And I remember sitting on the tube one day and seeing two other women opposite me also reading at the same time as me. I mean, it's an interesting, again, reflecting on that book, the fact that she was constantly talking about her weight. I'm not sure that that book would be written today. But at the time, women's bodies were open to scrutiny in the press. If you were famous or, you know, even if you weren't famous, just amongst your friends, it was perfectly acceptable to comment on your weight and call you fat.

And so, you know, the book's a reflection of the time and the context. And I think it's important for us to look at it through those lenses as well sometimes. But first and foremost for me, it was really funny. And just seeing a character that was so. imperfect and so happy to say that she wasn't perfect, you know, going back to my 70% life, I think we still need that now. We need these perfectly imperfect women in our books and in our magazines and everywhere. Some critics, you know, they do say like you've just said, that this story hasn't aged well, but it did accurately capture that point in history. Have you

reread it in recent years? Do you feel that way about some of the themes in the book? Or is it something that even for you and your reading of it remains in the best? I haven't read it recently, but I always look at these things. I recently went through a load of old films with my kids. I wanted them to watch all the films that I grew up with, like Greece and Splash. And it's just incredible when you look at those films and you read the books also from those times, just how out of touch or inappropriate some of them feel. It doesn't mean you shouldn't watch them and shouldn't read them.

I just think it's good to have a bit of context. to, you know, this is a reflection of the time and the conversation and this is how women were treated and how women viewed themselves. And I think that it's important for us to carry and reading those books, but just with a wider view to what was going on at the time. You've talked about feminism, the word feminism being a dirty word sometimes in the way that it's used. How in your career and the way that you've seen that word sort of change or be weaponised, how has feminism, and women's rights and approaches to women changed over your life? Well, as I said, I went to a very feminist school. So for me, it was never a dirty word.

I don't even know when I was younger if I'd have said, I'm a feminist. I just said, I believed that women were equal, full stop. Did that mean that I ever questioned if I was being paid equally? I don't think it did. But it certainly made me feel that I had a voice at the table. So if I was sat with men, I would feel comfortable that I had something worth saying. I never felt intimidated. There's lots that's changed.

You know, my team at Glamour are generally Gen Z and I'm a Gen X. And it's so interesting seeing how they live their life compared to how I live mine. So makeup, for example, I don't wear a loss of makeup or I do wear makeup and I try to make it look as natural as possible. Because I was brought up to think that if you wore too much makeup, you're a bimbo and you wouldn't be taken seriously. Whereas when I speak to my team about it, they're like, what on earthy, what's your lips you've got to do with your brain? But, you know, that was a real issue for us. And it gets so ingrained, doesn't it? Completely crazy.

So for me, the word feminism has never been a dirty word. And I have absolutely bringing my son up now to say that he's a feminist. But yeah, it's been weaponised, hasn't it? And fundamentally, women's rights can never be taken for granted. You know, there's still so many conversations, places, countries where we're not equal. And I think we have to just still keep fighting for them. You've talked in the past about inverted commas, new words like gaslighting or slut shaming being really useful actually for explaining situations

that have always existed, they've always happened, but without the words or the language to describe them. Is language and having the right words to articulate fundamental to overcoming misogyny? Totally. 100%. I mean, the word gaslighting and slut shaming really explained so many experiences I've had in my life that I couldn't put into words. And again, we discussed that in the team at Glamour. It's like I say to me, you are so lucky that you can just turn around to someone and say stop gas lighting me. Because people would say things to me when I was, you know, a younger woman in my 20s or 30s.

And I'd just be like, I know what you're saying is inappropriate and I know that you're shutting me down and shutting my views down. I know what you're doing is wrong, but I just didn't have a retort. Whereas now it's a ready-made retort and thank God for that because we need those quick-fire, quick-fire responses when someone behaves inappropriately. Thank God for ready-made retort. Yes, yes, yeah. And just the words, words are tools. Language is so important, so useful to us.

Your fourth book, Shelfy book, is This is Not a Pity Memoir by Abby Morgan. Poignant and heartbreaking, but resolutely unwilling to rely on sentimental platitudes. Morgan's memoir about a tragic change in her family circumstances is a profoundly powerful and perceptive read on love, grief and the eternal promise of hope. One morning in June, Abby had her to-do list, drop the kids to school, get a coffee, go to work. Jacob had a bad headache, so she added, pick up steroids. She returned home and found the man she loved and fought and laughed with for 20 years lying on the bathroom floor. And nothing would be the same again. But this is not a pity memoir.

It's about meeting your person. It's about the things you wished you'd said to that person and that matters. Then wildly oversharing with the barista who doesn't know you at all. It's the difference between surviving and living. It's a reminder that even in the worst times, there is light ahead. It's a love story. Tell us why this book means so much to you. So as I said earlier, I don't read much self-help.

I don't know why. of the non-real story. And someone recommended this book to me. I can't even remember who it was. But I read it and then instantly bought it for about six friends, who I felt needed a bit of reassurance in their life at that time. I could cry even talking about this book. I've nearly been married 20 years.

And it made me think, you know, you're just going along with your everyday life. You've got your family. You've got your job. And then suddenly something out the blue comes and ruins. everything overnight. And how would I cope with that? And it started to make me look at some of my friends who'd had difficult times and how are they coping with it? I'm not seeing the daily life. You don't see what goes on behind closed doors. And for me, this was a real window into a closed door of a family life with young children, with a loving relationship that just through no

fault of anybody, it went horribly wrong overnight. And it really moved me. because she really is remarkable. She's an incredibly talented scriptwriter herself. She wrote The Split. And I think she's got a new show on Netflix at the moment, actually. Yeah, she wrote The Split, The Iron Lady. On Netflix, Eric starring that it comes of a church. I became a little bit obsessed with her afterwards.

I followed her on Instagram. See if she's okay. Yes, to see if she's okay. I googled about how her partner is now. I really wanted to know that they were okay. I felt really personally invested in it. and you know that's life isn't it I very much live by the moment you have to enjoy yourself in the moment

because none of us know what's up ahead and that's what that book made me feel like enjoy your life here and now when it's good because who knows what's to come you said and you know it's the only other non-fiction book that you had read was eat pray love which came at a very important time for you a difficult time for you yeah I don't think I do I don't even know if I'd have enjoyed it any other time in my life because it's not particularly

my kind of book. But I read it as I was going through IVF in my early 30s. And I think it's in the opening chapter, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author, she's, I think her marriage is coming to an end. And she is in such a bad way mentally. She ends up on the toilet floor praying to God or somebody asking for help. And that's the situation I was in. I, you know, I was, I think I was five rounds of IVF down. I never thought I was going to have this family I desperately wanted. It was having a terrible impact on my marriage and my self-esteem. And I was lost and broken and helpless. And then I read this book and it was this woman who was also lost, broken, helpless for different reasons.

And it was like a punch in the guts. I remember that feeling of, oh my God, I am not alone. And then she turned this around and she went travelling around the world for a year. she went to Italy. She ate her way around Italy and basically shagged her way around Bali. And I loved it. I really, it made me really happy and it touched me deeply. And sometimes a book comes into your life that isn't necessarily something that's your kind of book,

but it lands in your lap at the moment that you needed it. And for me, it was that at that time. I feel like a lot of women found that book at a time that they needed it. And they felt less alone. Yes. Yes. I felt less alone by it. I did. And it's funny because when I read this is not a pity memoir, I wasn't in a, my life was in a good place. And I didn't relate to it on that level. But I think it made me more empathetic. And you took joy from it. Yeah, I took joy from that. Yeah. We were talking about how important words are and sometimes finding the right word for a feeling. There's something called the dictionary of obscure sorrows that I found on the internet I'm obsessed with. And there's a word in there sonder, which is the definition is,

the realization that every passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own. And I really love it. It's my favorite word because when I'm watching, say, a train go by. And there's hundreds of people on there. Every single one of them is going through something through pain or suffering, but also immense joy and love. They have hopes and fears and dreams. And sometimes these books come along like you just said,

like this is not a pity memoir, that remind you of the complexities of human existence but also the joys. And you said that it made you take stock of your life. It did. It made you remember the joy. Where do you find that joy in your 70%? Oh, where do I find joy in life? In lots of places, obviously my kids bring me the most joy ever.

I've got a fantastic husband who's gorgeous. And after I was struggling, six, seven years ago, he went into the school WhatsApp groups. He started taking the kids to school in the morning. He really, you know, he does 50% of the childcare in my life. And that gives me a lot of joy because it gives me the freedom to, you know, to do yoga, to read books, to just started running. I've started doing a couch to 5K. It's bringing me much joy because I couldn't even run for 60 seconds in January. And now I can run for 25 minutes.

So that makes me really happy. I love my work. I work with mainly women, which I thoroughly enjoy. We laugh a lot. And my friendships. You know, I just think the older you get, you know, I'm going to be 50 in July. Yeah. Really?

I'm going to be 50. That was genuine shock, by the way. I think that the older you get and the more you see people like Abby Morgan in your life who have difficult times, the more you just start to appreciate everything, just the basics. You know, I've just become much more grateful as I've got older. And it's that saying you have two lives. The second one starts when you realize you only have one. And I've now realized that.

And I appreciate everything. Small and big. Well, in a piece that you wrote for Glamour actually about this change in your approach to life, you wrote that no one on their deathbed has ever said, I wish I'd tweeted and Facebooked more. What's your relationship with social media like now? Because I know that's so much of your job,

it involves you being online. And it does sometimes feel like it takes over our lives. But like you said, I want a hard copy book that I can get lost in. I don't want to look at a screen. I've got a really difficult relationship with social. media because on the one hand I love it. I love the fact that it's open so many conversations that I think would have been more taboo in the past. But also, you know, I've got a teenager and a tween at the moment and my tween has just got a phone a month ago. She's 11 and I held off as long as I possibly

could and it just got to the point she hated me so much. Apparently I was the meanest mum in school because she was the only one who didn't have a phone. And she's not allowed on social media, but they do use WhatsApp and she wants Snap because. that's how young kids communicate. And I just think it's terrible for all our mental health. Absolutely terrible. And my whole thing is how do I get my kids off screen? How do I get myself off screens?

One is reading. I ban phones in the house on a Saturday. They're not allowed to look at their screens until 3 o'clock every day, including television. So they do art and I do art with them. We do paint by numbers. We go to the park. We've got two dogs. but I do think that at some point

we're going to look back and be like this was a terrible experiment allowing, you know, young kids to have screens and a phone and social media. So I hope that we manage to raise the age. That's what I hope. And I think that people have to realize that, you know, life on Instagram is not real life. Like sometimes I have a really bad day

and I'll post a picture of myself looking great at an event and I think, but this isn't real. I hope people know this isn't real because actually when I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was pick up my dog poo. So, you know, but I still think that it makes people feel very bad about themselves. And I think that's why reading is so important

to stay off social media as much as possible. Though we all use it for work and that's great. Well, getting engulfed in those screens is actually quite a theme in your fifth and final bookshelphi book, which is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle. 7. This is the story of Sam and Sadie. It's not a romance, but it is about love. When Sam catches sight of Sadie at a crowded train station one winter morning, he is catapulted back to the brief time they spent playing video games together as children. Their unique spark is instantly

reignited. What comes next is a story of friendship and rivalry, fame and creativity, betrayal and tragedy, perfect worlds and imperfect ones. And ultimately, our need to connect, to be loved and to love. Now, this is quite a new book. This was published in 2022. It was one of the biggest books of the year. Why have you picked it? How did it come onto your radar?

So it was actually recommended to me by the bibliophiles, who are Glamas book reviewers. And every night and again, when I'm looking for a good book, I'll message them and go, what would you recommend? And they were like, you have to read this book. And funnily enough, and L.A. just keeps coming up in this conversation. I was in L.A. And I found it in a small bookshop. It was a hardback copy. I can't explain it. Just the cover made my heartbeat faster. You know, that feeling when you find a gem. Yes, I need this right now. And I just couldn't put it down. I didn't speak to anybody for two days. It's about gaming. I am not a gamer. I hate the fact that my son is a gamer. And it's just so brilliantly written. And this relationship between these two people. It's a 30 year friendship between a man and a woman. It's not a sexual relationship though you're kind of half wonder is it going to be. And more than anything,

it made me fall in love with gaming. They create games in the book and it's so vivid. You feel like you are immersed in that game and you want to be playing the game. I still think about the game. And I came out of it thinking, wow, had I read a book like this when I was younger, maybe I didn't wanted to become a coder. And I want my daughter to read it because you don't hear about as many female coders and gamers as you do men, even though 50% of gamers are women, by the way. You just don't think of it in that way. And she brought to life a topic that I have zero interest in and I became 100% engrossed in. And I think that's the power of great writing to be able to do that. It's crazy that you're like telling your friends. I'm pressing this book into their hand. It's

about gaming. Totally. I don't tell anyone. When they say what's it about, I go, It doesn't matter. Just read it because if I say gaming, they won't read it. If you'd have known it was about gaming, would you have read it? No. No, I wouldn't. I just have said it's not for me. But it's one of the only books I then gave to my husband and he loved it as well. And my brother and he loved it as well. So read it, if you haven't. I've not given it to anyone yet who hasn't said, wow, this is special book. The story is it's about love and friendship. It's also about gaming. Set in the 90s though. So at a time when tech companies, they were different. Creators weren't worried about AI, for example. You have already helped navigate the change from a print magazine to a digital first with Gamma. Are you concerned? It comes up a lot at the moment about journalism, about storytelling and the role of magazines, and your role within them actually and how that might change in the near future?

Oh, gosh, 100%. I think about it all the time. You know, what will journalism look like when my kids are my age or even in their 20s, in 10 years? I think that AI is a really exciting thing. but what worries me is if that we end up just reading AI journalism and not real journalism, what does that mean for truth? Because if you're just scraping the internet for old information and creating new articles based on old facts and old features, you're never progressing forward, you're never creating

nuance, you're not necessarily factually correct because who are they scraping the information from. It's a really worrying time. And truth in journalism for me now is it's key. it. We need to be really questioning when we read something on the internet, who's written it, what research have they done, what's their political bias, who are they being paid by, is the image that you're seeing actually real, you know, what's the source of the information? These are questions now that you have to ask yourself every time you see anything on social media

because there's no guarantee it's not propaganda, there's no guarantee it's not written by a proper investigative journalist, you just have to really think really hard and really deeply about where you're getting your information from. And I think working for a media, traditional media company, we are bound by so many rules and regulations that we are not allowed to write things without having them legally checked that I think we're losing. We're losing in this world of AI.

We're losing in this world of blogging. And I don't know, something, I think something bad's going to happen before it gets good again. It is frightening and it is a minefield. It's a minefield. Sadie is a young woman in a predominantly male industry. Gaming. She experiences a lot of sexism.

She's frequently overlooked or undermined because of her gender despite arguably being a much better game designer than Sam. How did reading her experience make you feel? Because you told me about the word gaslighting being a very useful one once you had it in your toolkit. I mean, there's loads of situations in life when I thought. I've thought, would you have said that to me if I were a man? I've been in loads of situations in life, in careers.

Actually, probably as many social situations as professional ones, because I have mainly worked with women. And my best bosses have been women. I mean, my boss and I was Anna Winter. She is the most incredible female leader. I love her. I love working for her. You know, she's a mum, she's a grandmother.

She is super smart, super bright. And I've been very, very lucky with all, my female bosses actually, who've encouraged me, who've supported me, who've helped me grow, and male bosses as well. I've had some great male bosses, but every single one of us, I don't care what your industry is,

has come across a situation where you've been overlooked or gaslighted or slut shamed or something has happened that makes you think, oh, wow, I've been put back in my box as a woman. And we just have to fight it. I'm really gobby. If anyone says anything to me now, I just call it out straight away. I just don't hold back. But that's the confidence that's come with age.

And it's come with me not caring as much, what people think of me. Whereas when I was younger, I might keep quiet and go home and really stew over it for days and probably read a book to go over it. Well, if a man was to call something out that he felt was wrong, he wouldn't even be called goby. You wouldn't call himself goby. No, you're right. No, you're right. I'm assertive. Yeah.

I mean, I've always been told I'm feisty. That's a word that's been used a lot to describe. microaggressions. Yes, and I go, yes, I am. Yeah. I was recently called selfish by someone because I kept saying no about something. And I went, yep, I'm selfish. Yep.

That's my answer now to everything. I just refuse to, you know, to be quiet when I see something that isn't right. On the subject of those boxes that we can be put in, the story also features disability representation. Yeah. With Sam's character. And I actually read that one of your favorite glamour moments was putting Ellie Goldstein on the cover. I love Ellie. Yeah.

Again, as I said, when I started glamour, I really wanted my legacy as the editor there to be that all women were represented and all genders were represented. And Ellie has Down syndrome. She's a model. She's the most extraordinarily confident and joyous and happy person I've ever met. And she loves her job as a model. She loves dancing. And I just couldn't think of a more inspiring woman to put on my cover.

and when we did it, it was a few years ago now. I think we were the first person to ever give her a magazine cover. And I got an email that I printed out and it still makes me cry when I think about it. From a mother who'd just had a baby who had downs and said, I printed out your cover and I've framed it and put it on my daughter's wall because I want her to grow up knowing that she can be anything that she wants to be. And God, the power of that, it makes me feel really good. I would love to know what is the main thing that's currently in your 30%, as you said at the beginning.

Not just yet, for now we're putting that to one side, but you are looking forward to reclaiming when the time is right. I'd like to write a book. That's something that's, you know, it's constantly on my mind. I want to write a book. I haven't written it yet. So that's one of the things. Having a bit of time for myself would be lovely. I want to travel the world more one day.

I love travelling and spending more time with my kids. They're growing up very, very quickly. And, you know, my son's 13. I've only got five years of him left before he goes to university. So, but, you know, I'm a better mother for working. And that's what keeps me in it. I'm a much better worker. When you're happy, you're a better mom or a better parent.

And when you write a book, will it be fiction, nonfiction? Nonfiction. A memoir maybe? I'm thinking 70% life. One of the mums at my school gate came up to me recently and said, I've had your article in my bag for two years. I didn't know you'd written it. She said, I just came across it.

And every time I have a bad day, I forget it out and read it. And I was like, wow. Yeah. I need to write this book. It'll be a book that I'm sure we'll discuss on this podcast in the future. I hope so. Well, which brings me to my final question, which is if you had to choose one book from your list as a favorite, which one would it be and why? Oh, gosh, I can't answer this question.

I don't have a favorite book. I just don't have one. I've been made up from thousands of books and even this list of five, they're not just my favourite books. They're just books that reflect a time in my life that I wanted to talk about. How do you edit your life into five books? I don't know. And you said at the beginning, well, I said no is a complete sentence. So if you say to me, I'm not choosing one. I accept that. I'm not choosing one. I'm sorry, I accept it. Deborah, I have loved chatting to you. Wonderful. About books and life and taking me on.

this journey through your life right from the age of 11 going to LA on your own and reading Sweet Valley High all the way through to the most recent book, which was just a couple of years ago, what a life you've led and it continues and I look forward to your book. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's been so nice seeing you again and my favourite topic on earth. Talk about it for now. What a treat. 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.