Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep22: Bookshelfie: Cecelia Ahern

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Irish novelist Cecelia Ahern joins Vick to chat about how books making us less lonely, what inspires her work and the art of being an introverted extrovert.    Cecelia's debut novel PS I Love You was published in 2004 and went on to become an international bestseller and was adapted into a film starring Hilary Swank. Her second novel, Where Rainbows End, was adapted into the film Love, Rosie starring Lily Collins. Her books have been published in over thirty-seven languages, and have sold over twenty-five million copies. In addition to her novels, she is also the author of a highly acclaimed collection of stories, Roar, which is now a series starring Nicole Kidman on Apple TV+. Her new novel Into the Storm follows the journey of GP Enya and her search for freedom after her life splinters in two. Cecelia’s book choices are: ** Under the Hawthorn Tree by Marita Conlon McKenna  ** The Hen who Dreamed She Could Fly by Hwang Seon-Mi ** The Color Master by Aimee Bender ** Quiet by Susan Cain ** Hey Zoey by Sarah Crossan 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! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media. Serious Readers are offering Bookshelfie listeners £100 off any HD light and free UK delivery. To take advantage of our Serious Readers discount code, please visit seriousreaders.com/bookshelfie and use the code SHELFIE.  There’s a 30 day risk-free trial to return the lamp for free if you’re unhappy with it for whatever reason. 

We can all feel something, but not necessarily tell somebody else. But when you come across a line in a book and you read your feelings, and it's just, it can make you feel less lonely. And I think for that, you know, a book can become so special because it makes us feel less alone. I have that with other authors so that when I meet them, I feel, you know, I get that same feeling that people get with me, so I totally appreciate it. 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 Cecilia, her. Now, Cecilia is an Irish novelist whose debut novel, P.S. I Love You, was published in 2004. It went on to become an international bestseller, and it was adapted into a film starring Hilary Swank.

Her second novel, where Rainbow's End, was adapted into the film Love Rosie, starring Lily Collins. Her books have been published in over 37 languages and have sold over 25 million copies. And in addition to her novels, she's also the author of a highly acclaimed collection of stories, Raw, which is now a series starring Nicole Kidman on Apple TV. Her new novel, Into the Storm, follows the journey of GP Enya and her search for freedom after her life splinters into. Cecilia, welcome. Thank you.

It's such a pleasure to have you here today. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. We're discussing books. I know. Before we start recording, we were talking about all the podcasts that we love. It's a great football one. This is the overlap of books, you were saying.

Yeah, we're going to make books even cooler. How do you feel talking about... It's funny, we should bring editors on and talk about the things they could have done. The things they could... The things they changed. Like they're the referees. I like that bit. Exactly.

You're coming off the back of two quite intense days you were saying, promoting your new book. And you were telling me that talking about it isn't quite the same as the writing, which, you know, obviously you find more natural. Absolutely. I think my first language is writing. And ever since... I was young, that's the way that I figured things out.

Like, it's how, and I don't even know sometimes how I feel about things until it's on the page. And it's this, and I still write longhand. So it's this kind of therapeutic, physical thing that I'm doing to work things out in the world. And then when the book is done, then you have to go and talk about it. And it's like, I don't even speak English sometimes. It's like, I wrote it in a way that makes sense to me. And now I have to explain it. But look, you have to give a book a voice because it can't speak for itself.

and I'm happy, happy to do it. And the thing is, your books have gone on to be adapted. They have entered the lives of so many people and every time someone reads a book or watches the adaptation of it, it becomes something new for them. You know, those themes will mean something different for them, depending on their experience, depending on their lives, their feelings, their thoughts.

How do you feel knowing that those things that were so special and so important to you that you wanted to get onto the page have now become something so much more to so many other people. It's really, that's the thing that I have learned since, I mean, I wrote PSA Love You at 21, as you said, in a kitchen at my time, on my own, in my pajamas. And I wrote about something that was moving me. And then all of a sudden it was around, it was international.

And when I do tours, I think, you know, I was in Dubai this year and South Africa and people from different places, different cultures. at we're all connecting about the same thing. We're all made of the same stuff. You know, we've got the same hopes and fears and dreams. And I'm so, I'm so grateful for that. And I think because I write about very emotional things and the books have kind of come into people's lives

at important times, people really open up to me and tell me really personal, really personal, intimate things. Sometimes we might have a cry. And sometimes they just entertain people. They don't all, you know, they don't have that big impact. But I just feel really honored.

that people trust me to share that stuff with me or that my books have come into their lives at a special moment. It's really, really special and I just feel connected to people. And I think that a lot when I'm in the office on my own and it might be a bad writing day. And I just close my eyes and I think of the people I met or the audiences and it really keeps me going

because we can all feel something but not necessarily tell somebody else. But when you come across a line in a book and you read how, you know, your feelings and it's just, it can make you feel less lonely. And I think for that, you know, book can become so special because it makes it feel less alone. I have that with other authors so that when I meet them, I feel, you know, I get that same feeling that people get with me, so I totally appreciate it. Well, in turn, the books that you are drawn towards, the books that

you read, how do they impact your writing or is it the other way around? Does your writing impact your reading? Oh, that's a good question. I read very broadly and I think it's really important. important to read as many different things as I can. And I think I was a writer before I really read. I mean, I've been writing since a young age and I think I would regardless of what I read. But of course, when I read a book that I absolutely love, it makes me excited about writing and about being a writer. But I think that I'm a writer regardless of reading.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about the books that have made you feel less alone or made you feel inspired or have touched you. in some way. Your first book, Shelfy Book, is Under the Hawthorne Tree by Marita Conlon McKenna. Island in the 1840s is devastated by famine. When tragedy strikes the family, Ely, Michael and Peggy are left to fend for themselves. Starving and in danger of the dreaded workhouse, they escape. Their one hope is to find the great ants that they've heard about in their mother's stories with tremendous courage they set out on a journey that will test every reserve of strength, love and loyalty they possess. You know, you've mentioned that this book is part of the school curriculum in Ireland. Tell us a little bit about it. Why did you choose it?

It's funny, even when you're reading out that, it's like, I can see the things you're saying because I read it and it's like I lived it. It's like it's my memories. It was such a powerful book to me. I must have read it about 10 years of age and I have to say, I think it wasn't on the curriculum then. I think it is now. Or if it's not on the curriculum, it's definitely the schools push kids to read it if it's not officially, I'm not sure. And I think there's a copy in most Irish homes now.

Anyone my age is going to probably tell you that that's a really impactful book. And I think I was reading things like Sweet Valley Twins and the Babysitters Club at that age and I loved reading and I always had a book in my hand and the famous five. And then I read this book

which was about, not that the others aren't about real life things, they are. But this was about something from our history that I've just found three kids some of my age going through something that actually happened and I learned so much from it

I remember how she described how starved people were I can see them I don't think I'd ever is my I suppose my first introduction to a story like that about something about something real

and dark and sad for kids and it was written so cleverly but also so educational and taught us in a way that the school curriculum wasn't, you know, teaching us about the famine and made it human. So, and that's, I just, it's a beautiful book. And recently I read her, she did an adult book called The Hungry Road, which is adults

during the famine. And again, she just has this ability to bring that horrific time alive and show that it's not just statistics and numbers, which is what we're always reading about, but what people lived through, how the country was just devastated and the people were devastated so unnecessarily and that's so it was it's a powerful book it sounds like it as a piece of fiction was this really integral formative way of educating children of telling them what happened what's in their history but through a story that they could connect with relate to yeah is it a story that you've then passed on to your children absolutely yeah I read it with my daughter and and I will do it with

with my next two. I know that you can't recreate the feelings that you had with your kids. Sometimes you try to, but they're not interested. But I think it's one of those books that's just, if they're going to learn about this, this is the best way to learn about it. It's really beautifully written.

And so, seems so simple and seems so easy, but to put such massive subjects about death, you know, at the very beginning, they lose their little sister and she's buried under the Hawthor Entry. and, you know, to put that in a kid's book and then people starving and people leaving the country

and these kids have no parents and they're trying to work their way through the countryside, foraging and getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong, eating the wrong thing, having fevers, trying to avoid the workhouse, you know, it's pretty big stuff for a child to read, but it's done so well in a gentle way.

Do your kids like reading? Are they big readers? Ooh! I want to say, yeah. Yes. It's the battle, isn't it? To try to get them to love it. What my kids have always loved, we've always done a book at night. You know, it's always been reading time. And we've got shelves that are, you know, about to collapse under the weighted books. So it's an important thing in the house. But getting them to read themselves is the challenge. But what they've always wanted me to do is tell them stories at night. So I think it's still good that they're still interested in storytelling. So I have to make, at the end of the day, after writing a novel, I have to then make up more stuff. which is not what a tired mommy brain wants to do. Now I've read that you currently live in the same seaside village where you grew up in Ireland. How important is Ireland as a setting in your own work and to represent it as well on an international scale to you?

Yeah, it's funny. At the beginning of my career, I think, you know, when you're younger, I mean, I've always been very patriotic yet, but I didn't know. I think at the beginning for PSA, Louis people were saying, where's the contemporary Ireland? where's the social commenting on this, that and the other. And I didn't. It felt universal. I felt it could be set anywhere. But then when I went to other countries, they would say, oh, we love how Irish it is.

We love the humour. We love the, and I don't think I noticed those things because it's just who I am. I would say that in more recent books, it has become more of a character in the books, particularly into the storm, which is, you know, I don't know how much we want to go into my book. but it's kind of inspired by like pre-Christian, pagan Celtic times, which I'm fascinated by. And I think that's, I find that the heart of Irish people are in that. You know, the worship being of nature, looking to the light. And our whole year being working around feast and festivals and the harvest and the light.

And despite all the modern things that we're going through and we are a modern country, I still think there's a little bit of that in us. Or maybe as I'm getting older, actually. I'm just turning to that a bit more, I don't know. I feel like the whole world at the moment is being encouraged to reassess its past, things that perhaps weren't talked about, that we've glossed over, or history as, you know, very conscientiously missed out. Does it ever frustrate you that the tragedy of the Irish famine, as it is,

set out in this book? It's not really understood or talked about outside of Ireland as much as it should. Does this book maybe help readers gain a little bit more insight? Absolutely, yeah. I mean, when I was younger, I used to think, why did they only grow potatoes? Like, why couldn't they just eat something else? You know, like in the, oh, well, they did grow more things,

but it was being taken out of the country and feeding others, you know, and that's important, everything that was going on. Yeah, I do think it's a gentle but firm way to introduce what happened to people. Yeah. Let's talk now about your second book, Shelfy Boots. Cecilia, which is the hen who dreamed she could fly by Huang Sionmi. Now this is the story of a hen named Sprout, no longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off to the market. She glimpses her future every morning through the barn doors, where the other animals roam free and comes up with a plan to escape into the wild and to hatch an egg of her own.

An international bestseller, Huang's uplifting Korean fable is a tale of freedom and motherhood. please tell me about this book. How did you come to read it? I just love it. I can see from your face. You're like whimsical with it. Yes, it's just one of my favorites. There's so many things.

It's the perfect way to tell a story. It feels like one of those kids books that we would have read, you know, I don't know, Penguin Books or, you know, the old, like the enormous turnip and, you know, these kind of childhood things for, well, it is for kids as well. But as an adult, I adored it. It's a perfect storytelling to me. That's it. Perfect storytelling.

But then the story of it is so beautiful. And yes, it's about a hen, but it's about a mother who wants to be a mother. Instead of having to give all her eggs away, she wants to hatch her own egg. And she wants the freedom to escape being told what to do, being told what to do by all the other animals. Like it means there's so much more to it.

It's heartbreaking, but it's uplifting. It's for anyone who has a dream and wants to follow it. and what she faces and the characters that come and help her, the characters that are dangerous, you know. It's really about its life. And I think of, I suppose there's the inner child in me that reads that and if you ever have something that you want to do, for me as a younger child, I was always hoping and dreaming

about things that I wanted to achieve and what's my future going to be like? What's my life going to be like? I was Sprout, you know? There were so many things I wanted to do. And this book is just so beautiful. And I did cry reading about a little hen. You know what? As soon as I saw the notes on this book,

because as a henkeeper myself, I've got chickens. Yeah, and one of our chickens, she just really wants to be a mum. And several times now, she's disappeared for three weeks and comes back with babies. She knows that if she's going to have those babies, she needs to do it on her own. She needs to get away from everyone else. And she takes herself to the forest and then does it all. Hatchez them, brings them back, introduces them to the flock. And it is an amazing thing.

and it really struck a chord just seeing that. I'm thinking, you know what? That makes perfect sense. It's her, it's natural. It's natural. It's natural. You've drawn a comparison between Korean fiction in your notes and old Irish legends and storytelling,

that simplicity that you find effective and empowering, like you just said. Were Irish legends and oral storytelling? Were they a big part of your upbringing? They were, yeah. And again, as I'm older, I'm only realized it when not everyone knows them. Exactly, of course they don't

Why would they? But then I realised Oh, that was so much a part of our life I fell in love with storytelling Being taught these myths at home and these legends And I think I I love how the story was told I'm really drawn to Korean fiction

Because I feel like they're quite similar In how we tell a story And I think I've kind of just worked that Into my own novels That's how I want to tell a story too Tiern and Oak Sorry, Tieran and Oaks is my favourite one So basically if you go to this land

This country, Tirinog is the country of youth, the land of youth. And if you go there, you can live forever, but you can never return, and time is different there. So there's these two characters that go to the land of Tirinog. But he wants to come back and see his family. And he's on a horseback, and he's told to never let his feet touch the ground. But he sees an old man struggling with this rock, and he tries to help him, but he falls off his horse. and then becomes an old man instantly and that's actually not very nice, happy ending story

but it was about the land of Ternanoke about how you could go and be youthful and live forever but he needed to come back and see. They're like, I say it took me a while to remember it, but they are ingrained in my head. All these legends, I absolutely love them. And something that really fizzes off what you just described as the humanity.

Yeah. You said when you were describing the hen who dreams she could fly, you said, I am sprout. I realized that I was Sprout. You mentioned the themes of freedom of motherhood through the perspective of a hen and you obviously really resonated with that.

In what sort of ways do you think? Well, I think that's the way that my mind, in the same that we began, the way I understand the world, I do it in stories. So I love when a character's a hen and not a person for me. I seem to get the message in morals

and as different characters. And I think just having that, what we want is to have freedom and have a voice and that's what the plucky spirited sprout is teaching us. You have to call your chicken sprout by the way. I mean, that's... Well, you know, if she doesn't have a name already. She does it annoyingly, but maybe,

but now that there's 40 new babies, there's at least one sprout in there. They're generally all named after soul singers. Oh, brilliant. So we've got Aretha and Diana and Dusty. Oh, that's much better. The couple is smoky. No, but we've got 40 new ones.

We can get a Sprite. in there. The word freedom has come through a couple of times since we started talking. Freedom, I know, is a focal theme in your new book, Into the Storm. What drew you to this and why? Tell us a little bit about the book.

Okay, so it's about a character named Dr. Enya Pickering, who's a GP, and she's travelling through the Dublin Mountains on one really stormy night. It's winter solstice, so it's the longest and darkest night of the year. And she's waved down by a taxi driver who's come across a teenage boy on the road.

and she gets out of the car and she performs life-saving CPR and saves his life but her life kind of splinters she's already unraveling because she's reaching the age that her mother was when she passed away which I learned is a can be a very complex thing for people for their psyche it can do an awful lot she cannot see herself living she cannot see herself outliving her mother's age I suppose how she's felt is that she's been following her her mother's been in front leading her all the way even though she died when she was younger. And reaching this age, she just feels like the ground is going to crumble beneath her. So she's already unraveling when she comes across this scene.

And she's drawn into a hit and run investigation. She's having a very unhappy marriage. She really wants to take herself away from everything. Lick her wounds, try to figure herself out. She becomes a rural GP where life is very different. But as we all know, you can't run away from your problems because there you are all the time. and she's forced to deal with it and get herself out of the storm.

Into the storm also speaks of the transformative power of nature. Yes. How would you describe your own relationship with the natural world? It's deep. I actually have to explain how it was inspired because it was inspired by what we call

a rag tree in Ireland. So I was going for a walk in the botanic gardens and do them which I used to do for my head and came across this tree in the Wild Ireland section and it had ribbons and fabric tied around the limbs of the tree. And I just saw stories, you know. So what people used to do is that they would consider in pre-Christian, pagan times, if this tree, which was usually a hawthorn tree,

which ties into my first book, if it was near a holy site, a holy well or an abbey or something like that, that it was considered to have cleansing and healing powers. So if you tied the fabric of someone that you love who's sick, around the limb of the tree and as that rots away it was believed that it would heal the person that you love so people would bring trinkets or tie fabric around the tree and it was also for forgiveness as well if you wanted to be forgiven for something so if you see one of these trees and it's like they're not the prettiest you know there's it's way down by by people's emotions i just saw stories you know it was really moving and then reading as well that it was pre-christian times i just felt that moody pagany vibe

and I just felt a story coming on and I tried to figure out how, who would find themselves in the position where a rag tree was affecting their life and that's where Enya came from. But that's not what you asked me. You asked me about how it affects my life. No, but that is how it affects my life.

And there's something about what you've just described, which is the gnarliness of a tree that is like you say weighed down, but it's also affirming. Yeah. And it's life-giving. Exactly. And that's nature.

Yeah. And I think in this description, because it was in, it's kind of like Hugh Gardens and the Botanic Gardens, there was a description of what the rag tree meant. And through all cultures, you know, trees have seen to be connected to the underworld. It's like, you know, trees have meant a lot in all different kinds of cultures. Sometimes it's called the fairy tree.

So it's, it had a presence, you know. There was something very healing and calming about it. And that inspired so much, you know. And the book is told in the pagan calendar in the year of the, well, everyone's normal calendar. but it's built in, came from pagan times. And as I said, opens on the winter solstice, the longest, darkest, worst night of the year. And we take the character through the whole entire year, moving through these seasons,

which kind of represents where she's going in her life. And I won't talk about the end. No spoilers, yeah. Well, you incorporate elements of mystery, which is why it's very important. We give away no spoilers. And we've seen this with some of your other works as well, a place called here, for example. How do you strike that balance between the darker undertones of these stories? And then like in nature, like in the street, the more life-affirming, the uplifting messages that they also offer.

That's what I want. That's what I want. You know, I want to come up with a character who's complicated and going through challenging times. Someone who's, you know, you want a bit of grit, a bit of meaty, juicy thing for them to have. And I usually kind of try to catch them then. They're at their worst when we meet them. at their lowest when we meet them. And it's about me trying to help figure out that problem and bring them to a place of hope and the place of light.

And it's just about finding the balance. You know, I wanted to be dark, but I want also to inject it with some humor. And I wanted to have light. So, and each book has had a different vibe to it. This one probably has got more of a thriller feel. It's not a thriller, but it has more of a thrillery pace. But it's always important for me to get to an uplifting place.

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Now, I'm feeling very autumnal at the moment. I'm all wrapped up in a jumper, and as the nights draw in here in London, I'm really loving just spending my evenings curled up on my sofa with a good book. Of course I am. However, I have noticed it's getting darker earlier and the lights are on as well as the heating. This is where my new lamp comes in.

I've been trying out the new serious reader's high-definition light. Now, what makes this lamp stand out, you may ask? Well, this lamp has a special built-in feature called daylight wavelength technology that essentially replicates normal daylight indoors. This means that the words appear more clearly on the page in front of me. There's more contrast on the page from the HD light, so my eyes are less tired and I can read for longer.

And the great news is that Serious readers are offering bookshelfy listeners £100 off any HD light and free UK delivery, so you can too. All you've got to do is visit seriousreaders.com forward slash bookshelfy and use the code Shelfy. that's S-H-E-L-F-I-E to secure yours today. There's a 30-day risk-free trial to return the lamp for free if you're unhappy with it for whatever reason, and I'll be very surprised if you are. You can return it without any hassle.

You'll find the details of the offer in the episode notes in case you missed them. So come on, protect those eyes and join me in some serious, cozy reading this autumn. Well, talking of that journey from darkness to light, the balance, let's move on to your third book today, which is the colour master. by Amy Bender. In this short story collection, Bender's unique talents sparkle brilliantly in stories about people searching for connection through love, sex and family, while navigating the often painful realities of their lives. In each of the Colormaster's 15 remarkable stories, in turn evocative, funny, beautiful and sad, Bender holds a funhouse

mirror up to reality, proving herself to be one of the most intelligent and imaginative writers of our time. When and where did you read this book? Where did you choose it? Fun House Mirror is such a good description for this. I love all her books. I was like, which one of hers do I choose to talk about? But I thought that the collection of short stories would be great

because it shows just the vast brilliance of her. You know, I read it about whenever it came out. Whenever it was published, I read it. I also love the particular sadness of lemon cake, which is her novel. She also has the, the butterfly lampshade, which I love. I love her because she writes surreal stories,

things that are absurd, which make total sense to me. I can't explain. Some people just think it's nuts, you know, but for me, I read it and I go, it's not nonsense. It's amazing. I think she's so smart and so clever. And when you asked me earlier,

is there anything that I read, I read her work and I feel inspired because I think it's so unique. It's so quirky. I love how she sees the world. Like there's one story, it called America and it's about a young girl I think the narrator is 10 years old and one day just extra things start arriving in the house like items like a pack of soup a tin of soup that they

wouldn't ordinarily buy or a double of the cap that she wears but this is an extra thing and they don't know how it's arriving and it's just it's really fun so you're reading at first going this is really different I love someone to tell a story that's unique that I've never read before and that really excites my brain and then of course there's all these questions about you know what's it like to be given to have more than you want to be given things that you don't need there's so many other things that she she questions and that the whole family feel very claustrophobic thinking well the young child is like what if an extra pillow arrives and it's on my face and I can't breathe and you know it just introduces so many amazing thoughts that

make sense to me. And it's a joy and it inspires me and I just wish there were more because I love reading this kind of work and they're rarely by women. I find rarely by women. So as soon as I'm just like, yeah, I champion it. It's so exciting.

This blend of the surreal like you mentioned, the magical realism with the quite literary, highly raw writing and this left of centre take on life as well, sideways ways of looking at the everyday things around us. which you said you find inspiring. Do you hope to incorporate more magical, fantastical elements into your own work? Can you see yourself writing? I don't know. Fantasy, maybe.

I think I've had it running through all of them, particularly, not PS-I-Luvio, not Love Rosie. But then for a while, they were very much people recalling my books, magic realism. And so even though it's not into the storm, but the whole, I suppose, the tree, you know, the tree having healing powers, it's always like a little bit. There's an intersection. Yes, yeah. And then Roar, the anthology, Roar was definitely surreal collection of stories. And, I mean, that was such a joy to see them come to life on screen because they were so bizarre in my head.

And then someone actually had to build a set and make it look as equally as bizarre as I saw. I saw castings with ducks. And they were. Sorry, how do you cast a duck? It's so funny. It was just. Do they self-tape? Yeah.

There was a duck trainer involved And there was a mark And there was like an X on the floor And there was this duck trainer And she went, And then the duck waddled along to the mark And then she'd do it again And it was just the most incredible thing

I've seen some things For me, that came from my bizarre little mind Wrote the story And then, you know, it came alive And then the same with the woman Who was kept on the shelf Which is about a woman Who's put on the shelf by her husband

With all his trophies and his sporting trophies and the big fish that he caught that was framed. And she's sitting on the shelf kind of as a trophy wife but collecting dust. And then I watched them build this wall with this enormous shelf that Betty Gilpin was going to sit on. And I thought that's amazing. So for me, these stories are exciting. They make me feel like they give me adrenaline. I'm excited when I come up with them.

I'm excited when people connect with them and then seeing them come to life. even more bizarre. Well, your collection, raw, it's 30 stories of 30 different women, gravitating towards that sort of short story format and, you know, that having that format of storytelling that is obviously so appealing. What is it about magical realism that specifically appeals to you when writing about your experience of being a woman? Why does it, why does it work so well like that? Or transferring what's on your mind to the page? Yeah. I feel there's like it's an indirect way of dealing directly with the issue. So when I was, I'd had my second baby and like I had to go back to work, which was just hard, you know.

And so I waved goodbye to one toddler who was crying or the baby that was crying and brought my daughter to Montessori who was also crying. And then I got into the car and I cried. And nobody was feeling good about this. and I went to my office and wrote my novel. At the end of the day, I wrote a story, and I called it guilt at the time, but about a woman who was receiving, she was also on maternity, just back from maternity leave,

and found bite marks on her skin. They just kept appearing. She didn't know what it was until it was very serious and she was hospitalized. And the guilt was quite literally eating her alive. That was the idea. And that came from a personal experience. I couldn't say, you know,

I'm feeling really guilty going back to work, but for me it came out through a story like that. and that's how I understand myself by writing these kinds of stories the woman who disappeared is about a woman who was going through menopause she just feel like society didn't see her and she was fading away

I find it easier to communicate a message writing it like that making it visual so that people can see it rather than having to understand it and I don't know that's the only way I can describe it Your voice has been so unique throughout your career.

It's a polite way of saying it. It's an amazing, amazing thing. You know, chameleonic when it comes to integrating different genres, different formats like we just said. I read somewhere that you actually started writing your first novel, right? Back at the beginning, beans on toast and a bottle of beer when you were 14. And then, of course, you're only 21 when you wrote PS I Love You. How has your writing process changed since when you first started? it hasn't changed a lot it's it's um i because i'm quite stubborn in that when i have explained to you

you know i was in my pajamas sitting at the kitchen table at night writing just for myself and then this phenomenal thing happened that that is i'm quite stubborn about that needing to be what happens each time like that i write a story for myself that it means something to me um and that hopefully can reach others in the same way so um i have a desk I got a bit fancier with that but I like to create a mood where it's not work it is clearly my work and it's my job

but that in the moment it feels like something else and for the moment I light a candle and it's a Joan Malone candle and it's a lime basil and mandarin candle and I've done it I didn't do it from the beginning because I didn't have the money to buy a gem I was going to say

well it's apparently on the size they're pricey candles they're pricey candles but it was given to me as a gift from the publisher and now and now people know I know I like it and I get gifts so it's great for my family members. And I met Joe Malone and that's the reason I brought it up is because I fangirled her and said I always light your candles when I'm writing and she started explaining about the importance of scent, you know, how scent is like a trigger. We all know if we smell something it can bring us back to our childhood. But when I do that in my

office and I light that candle and I get the smell, it's triggering my mind to go into that creative space. So ever since she told me that I'm continuing to light that candle. So, How has anything changed? I'm still writing longhand. You know, still, it's just normal pen on paper and wanting to please my, move myself and please myself. Long made that candle burn. Thank you. Cecilia, your fourth book, Shelby Book, is Quiet by Susan Kane. Deeply researched and thoroughly eye-opening.

Kane's bestselling work on the power of introverts, explores the challenges they face in the extrovertist world and celebrates countless examples of famous creativity. that has flourished in solitude. In quiet, Susan Kane shows how society misunderstands and often undervalues introverts while giving them the tools to better understand themselves and take full advantage of their strengths. Now, why did this resonate with you? Why did you choose this for your list?

So I don't usually read non-fiction. I'm a fiction girl. And this book is important to me because I am an introvert. and I suppose I felt like Susan Kane has kind of started this quiet revolution and I think it's really important she's talking about how the world is celebrating extroverts

which it is and how schools celebrate extroverts and how office environments are set up you know are set up to celebrate the extrovert how team leaders are the extrovert how the people we elect are the extroverts and they're and nothing against extroverts but they're not always the best people for the the job and I think just because somebody is louder, or speaks as they think, and the introvert has

to go off and take more time to themselves, might be better, not in an open plan office, might be better in a room on their own. Like there's, everyone has their value and sometimes the introvert can get lost, which is me in a room. So I think it's just being, again, selfishly for me, it's amazing to read and think this is so wise what she's saying, you know, where we're, we're, we're, Historically, people, if they're discovering anything or coming up with anything new and wonderful, they've gone off in solitude or off to the wilderness like Moses or Jesus, you know, disappeared for whatever I'm out, 40 days and great things can happen. And I think that's really important to bring back to society to have a mix of people, you know, not just introverts as leaders and not just

extroverses leaders, but different ways that people work. And it's not the loudest voice that should be in charge all the time. There are people that are deep thinkers and more thoughtful. and go about things in a very different way and have fantastic ideas that are... Yeah, so I think it's just such a smart, lovely thing, clever thing and to have strong but quiet voices, you know? I feel like there's been more awareness gradually

of the power held in introversion, but, you know, historically, like you said, introverts have been overlooked in the workplace and as a self-professed introvert yourself, what sort of challenges have you faced in your career? Well, I just learned that, like I said earlier, talking about the writing process, that's how I need to go away myself,

I need to be by myself, to come up with ideas and to think about things. I can't do it at a table with 20 people. I'm not going to say I'm not a team player. I love a team, I need them, but I can't come up with it in that. moment and it's important for me to be able to move away and have time to myself and think about things so understanding how I work is important um you know some people are great at brainstorming

let's draw on a on a board yeah it's workshop that's workshop i can't do it but i'll go away and quietly come up with my own thing um and that doesn't mean that i'm not that i don't have a voice you know that needs to be that that shouldn't be heard it's just that it needs to be heard in a different way or at a different time. So I think there's that. There's also, as a writer, you're naturally someone who likes to be on their own. You know, some people say,

God, that must be so hard. I mean, I'm really happy. I recharge my batteries on my own. I don't need other people to get energy, you know, although I do like being with other people. And then the other part of it is that you have to go out and then promote. Yeah, this bit.

Well, this is lovely. This is lovely and gently. We're in a nice room with just four women. in. Yeah, this is a safe space. But you go from, you know, so much time on your own in a room to suddenly you're on stage in front of hundreds of people or you're live on TV and another part of yourself has to come out, particularly at the beginning when I was younger and then I felt myself doing lots of magazines and you suddenly just have to be not really what you are, you know? There's another part of you that has to come out and that's fine. Everyone has an element

of the job where there's something they're not totally comfortable with. But so I have found I've had to navigate being, I think I'm technically an extroverted introvert because I'm okay socially. But I'm not, it's not my favorite place to be. Oh my gosh, imagining at 21 all the attention around PSI Love You, do you think this book would have helped you had you read it then? Yeah, yeah, because it would have put, I didn't know what I was and no one was putting labels, you know, I just, oh, there's other people out there and we were valued and it's okay to

feel a bit shy in this situation or uncomfortable and it's okay to say I would rather work this way. You know, I think it will benefit you if I work the way that makes me feel comfortable and I think we should be able to say that in work environments. So, yeah. I mean, as women, we already face so many challenges in the workplace, a subject that comes up on this podcast time and again, Do you think that female introverts face unique barriers because of that compounded effect of gender discrimination in the workplace? Yeah, I find myself constantly talked over. I'm quietly spoken.

And I listen. I really like to listen to people because that's important. And I think that's, you know, and obviously some men will find themselves in that position as well. It's not a female male thing at all. But it's harder for some reason. I don't know. Were we rare to take everyone else into,

think about everyone else first before yourself, make everyone else feel comfortable, shape ourselves around other people. That's kind of what women do, you know, taking care of other people instead of going in and going, hey, it's me, and it's all about me. So I think that's part of how we're weird as well, rare it, weird.

Quiet is the only non-fiction book on your list. do you typically read more fiction than nonfiction? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, it was even, and it's, yeah, absolutely. I love fiction, but this nonfiction one, like, kind of spoke to my heart, obviously. Is a special one, yeah. Do you have any interest in writing nonfiction yourself? I don't because I studied journalism and media communications,

and I could not explain or describe this room to you in 500 words. It needs to be, I'd be like pretending. I'd have to start saying, what if this happened and what if that happened? The stories that fill the room. Yeah, I just cannot seem to write straight. My mind goes elsewhere all the time. Well, let our minds go to your fifth and final bookshelfy book now, which is Hey Zoe by the brilliant Sarah Crosse,

a provocative and compelling dive into alienation and the sinister possibilities of modern tech as a frustrated middle-class woman unexpectedly finds a connection with an animatronic sex doll. Hey Zoe is a propulsive story of love, family and trauma in a tech-buffered age of alienation, as strange as it is familiar. What is it about Hay Zoe that you loved so much? Sarah Crosson. She's good, didn't she?

Oh, my God. Everything she does is great. And I find myself reading her work with a lump in my throat. There's something about her words that, just speaks to my heart and I'm like, it's kind of like, she writes such brilliantly complex, sometimes strange people. I hate the word strange because everyone's, everyone's, we're all strange. We're all completely strange. We are strange. And it's fine and it's normal to be strange. Everyone's just going about doing their own strange things and then, you know, our belief systems are

us just trying to justify that. Exactly. And so I love that she does that. She doesn't try to make anyone kind of bait it's really so it's a really clever clever novel and and not so and not really about the sex doll you know that's just the thing that she

uncovers in her husband's garage and starts to think about what is it that I think it's it examines what do men want from women really and this character is like what do men want for me but as she she takes the sex

the husband leaves her house, they break up. He discovers he's not happy or reveals that he's not happy. And then she takes a sex doll into the home with her and kind of has a series of conversations with her which start to reveal other things about the character. I love it because I love Sarah's writing. As I've said, she usually writes in verse. She's the queen of the verse.

This is not. But it speaks to my soul in a really weird way. It's like, I get you, I understand. and beautifully written and raises loads of questions. It's like, is there something wrong with the sex style? Is there not? It makes you think about everything. It's a book that you'll read

that'll make you think and question yourself the whole way through. Well, this novel talks about how technology has transformed modern day relationships and connection, which we see in real time happening. Do you find that the way you explore relationships in your own novels has changed with time as we've seen the world change?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, if I was to go back in 20 years and read things that I've written, things would certainly change. Thankfully, we're evolving. But hopefully we're keeping the human, actual people, human connection. AI and all that stuff scares the life out of me. Don't want to go there. Don't want to talk about it. No, I don't mean that.

I mean, I don't even want to. I don't want it to be a part of our life. I know it can do good things and everything, but it scares me. More humans, please. Yes. And less machines. I read somewhere the other day that really the AI should do the washing so that we'd have more time for writing, rather than the AI doing the writing so that we have more time for doing the washing up.

It's a very confusing place that we're at at the moment. I know. It is. It's scary. I joke to my neighbours who have this like AI fridge that tells them when the food is missing, what they need to replace. And I said, one day I'm going to ring that doorbell and the fridge will answer. and you'll be tied up in the basement.

But then that's where my brain goes, see? Do you feel concerned about it when it comes to writing and to creativity? Because, you know, we've seen the arts threatened. Yeah, I am. I don't know enough about it, but I know enough to be scared that, you know, yeah, I've seen my daughter show me what AI can do or in music what AI can do, you know. I don't know if it's necessary.

I don't know what could it bring. things someone needs to tell me, but I would rather be the, I would rather people write, you know, people with emotions that live and feel. I think that just makes more sense all round. It, um, it sort of underestimates the fact that people enjoy the creative process. My husband's a musician, and he was saying, well, what's the point in the AI doing it? The good bit is the writing. I don't want help. I like doing that. That's exactly it. Remember pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. And how, and also how therapeutic it is. Like there's so many healing things that come from writing. But I'm afraid to say this because some machine's going to come get me now.

You mentioned how you enjoy the use of verse in some of Sarah Cresson's work. I love poetry. I love verse. It makes me read and think and feel differently just because of the lilt of it. What about this style of writing appeals to you? Yeah, there's a rhythm to it, isn't there? You can sing it. It's hypnotic.

And I think that's what it is. It makes me feel very calm when I'm really. reading it and I'm like lulled into this calming um that yeah it's like I don't want I don't want to stop I want to just it kind of beats and there's a rhythm and there's an emotion and it's just perfection you flow like water oh I like that have you ever written any poetry there is a little in my in my new my next book um yes and I yeah I said we'll see how that goes we'll see how that's received. Watch his face will all be flowing. But again, it just came to me. I was driving the car and this, this, it was the rhythm of it. It came into my mind and then it was like, I fell in over

it and I had to keep putting it throughout the book. It's, yeah, it's relaxing. I'm excited. No, it is. It's so relaxing. Something about undulating. It's just so special. You've got the best words. You, like, you should publish a book of words. I do like words. I do like words. My favorite things. Cecilia, Hazelie navigates deeper subjects, you know, like trauma. We see this as well in your newest book, Into the Storm. How do you go about exploring topics that are quite expansive so that they can still connect with the individual reader and maintain that level of sensitivity or gentleness?

Yeah, I think I have to research it a lot, obviously, and then it has to be, but also bear in mind that it's, it's my character that's experiencing it. And that this, and no one person out there's experience is the same. So I'm not trying to replicate anything. It's like this is her experience. So in this book in particular,

she just hasn't dealt with her grief. And she's an older woman now and it's like coming back in full force. So I suppose I've dealt with someone who's trying to run away from their emotions and their feelings. And she's completely overwhelmed by it. Oh, I think I know how that feels.

I haven't had to research much there but I think if I think too big then it's difficult to write I just have to think of my character and their journey and hope that I'm doing it in the most respectful way possible

for people out there who've experienced it that's all I can really do when it comes to grief it really does it comes in ways it really does angelate like we just said just finally I'd love to know what this project

that you've teased it Oh, the next one? Yeah. I'm only editing it at the moment, so it's still in really early stages. We have not even agreed a title. Okay. I mean, mine one is the best, clearly. But it's, again, moving, it's always for me going to be about someone in a challenging moment and trying to find that inner strength because I just love the human spirit.

I'm inspired by the human spirit. I just think that we, sometimes we think I can't face this, and we absolutely do. And we become the stronger, more amazing version of ourselves. ready for the next life challenge. And that's what I'm going to continue to write about. And we'll find out what the title is on the podcast with the editors that we spoke about. Exactly. The title Cecilia wanted.

Yeah, Cecilia, just finally, if you did have to choose one book from the five that you've brought today as a favorite, which would it be and why? Oh, oh, oh. Oh, this is so very hard. Yes, it is. I didn't know you'd do this to me. You make me feel quite bad about it, actually. Sarah, Sarah Crosson, I think I don't want her books ever to leave my life,

so I have to pick her. Well, luckily, they don't have to. And nor do yours. Thank you so much for bringing them into the world. And for joining us today. Thank you so much. Really enjoy it. Thank you.

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.