Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep9: Bookshelfie: Edwina Dunn OBE

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Entrepreneur and pioneering businesswoman Edwina Dunn OBE discusses the need for role models, the perils of seeking perfection and the importance of female spending. Edwina leads The Female Lead, which is an active community of 8 million women, underpinned by an educational foundation, and focused on celebrating the achievements and diversity of women who shape our world. Using data to understand the challenges women face, Edwina works with businesses and the government to create new, mutually beneficial models and policies for the workplace. She has most recently presented  her manifesto in When She’s In the Room: How Empowering Women Empowers the World, a data-based guide that presents a road map for us all to the world we want to see and one that will make the world work better for women and men. Edwina’s book choices are: ** The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton ** The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo ** Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout ** The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell ** Burntcoat by Sarah Hall 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.

I want to create female empowerment by helping businesses understand that they shouldn't embrace women, both in leadership and as customers, because it's the nice thing to do. I want them to do it because they realize that women control over 70% of all spend, all GDP, in the world. So women make the pound go round. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I am your 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 entrepreneur and businesswoman Edwina Dun OBE. Edwina is a pioneering leader in the data industry known for delivering transformative business change. She co-founded Dunhambi, which revolutionized the relationship between retailers and customers through the creation of the Tesco Club Cards and other global loyalty programs. Edwina has served on a number of government boards, including HMRC, the Geospatial Commission and the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. Her pioneering work has earned her numerous accolades, including an OBE for her services to data and business in 2019.

Today, Edwina leads the female lead, which is an active community of 8 million women underpinned by an educational foundation and focused on celebrating the achievements and diversity of women who shape our world. world. Using data to understand the challenges women face, Edwina works with businesses and the government to create new mutually beneficial models and policies for the workplace. She's most recently presented her manifesto in when she's in the room, how empowering women empowers the world, a database guide that presents a roadmap for us all to the world we want to see and one that will make the world better for women and men. Welcome, Edwina. Well, thank you for that fabulous introduction. We were just saying before we started recording that often when you present a woman, especially with her accolades and achievements, we can sort of diminish a little bit

and go inside ourselves and actually we need to puff our chests out and say yes, I did that. Well, I have been around in this world doing things for a long time. So yeah, I wear them a little more comfortably these days. Do you remember at a point at which you got more comfortable with wearing that pride. I think there was a moment in time when Dunhambi was thriving and I found that I'd got my pace and I knew what I was doing and I knew we were being appreciated because we were growing. But we weren't in sort of that crazy early growth and that's when I suddenly felt, okay, I'm doing what I love and I'm doing it pretty well. And that was exciting. Your biography is so impressive. And yet, you were just telling me that you find the time to read one book every week to two weeks,

which I'll be honest, I was quite surprised because we are all so time poor. Yeah. But you know, my children have grown up now. And I don't work at the same pace and speed that I used to. I mean, I still work pretty well full time, although I give myself a pretty generous holidays. So I stack up on holidays. But I read every night. I mean, it's the way I unwind, the way I empty my mind and the way I escape. So I absolutely love it, that feeling where you cannot wait to get home, to get back into the book that you are loving at the moment. Oh, I sometimes I'm impatient for that moment. And I'm busy during the day and I'm thinking, I want to escape back to that exciting environment. It's just magical. Can you have a couple of books on the

go at the same time or do you find those worlds a little conflicting, a little tricky to differentiate between you? I read a lot more nonfiction now. So I can have a nonfiction with fiction. But I must admit, I have to sort of try and sit upright and read my nonfiction in a slightly more serious way. Because with fiction, I do sometimes have to go back and read it again because I've fallen asleep while I'm holding it. I like that.

You have different stances for the different types of books that you're reading. And when it comes to that nonfiction, and using books as a source of information, now that we have so much data, I mean, you work in data, we have everything we could ask for at the clicker button. How sacred is a book to you? Well, I think what a book does so well

is tell a story, that wonderful narrative. I often talk to teams that I work with about you have to have a narrative, You have to know where you're going. So I've always loved the idea of data with its all, it's sort of rather scientific and sometimes off-putting connotations with the idea of this very beautiful, incredibly old-fashioned idea that, you know, we've told stories since time began. And I think storytellers are probably the most magical people on the place. Well, on the subject of stories, let's tell yours, and let's go right back to what I assume is the beginning with your first bookshelfy book, which is The Magic Far Away Tree by Enid Blyton. When Joe, Beth and Franny moved to the countryside, they discover that their new house lies next to the enchanted wood.

And in that wood stands the magic faraway tree. This is no ordinary tree. It's home to more magical lands full of elves, pictures. sexy, talking creatures and wonderful adventures than the children ever imagined possible. Now, I know this was one of the first books you read, so what is your memory of it? I loved it so much because I suddenly realized that books could take you to another world and you could be lost in this truly fantastical fantasy. You know, those are the words that leap to mind. And it was pure imagination.

And I think once I realized that you can let go and have that wonderful adventure lying in your bed at night, there's no holding you back off to that. And I think, you know, I grew up at a time where there were no mobiles. So you were never online. And you had immense periods of complete boredom. And so you either entertained yourself and sort of rushed out into the countryside. We used to go outside all day and not come home until we were starving hungry or forced to go back because it was time for bed. So we used to build camps and hunt for tidalers fish in the streams and find crabs. It was a time actually where they had those tiny little hovers lobes

and we used to have picnics in strange places by cutting these tiny little hovers lobes. You know, we were kind of make-believe home. It was wonderful. And you were a big reader as a child. I was and I think that form of dreaming that you could be someone else was really important to me You know, I grew up without really role models at all.

And so one of the themes we talk about, the female lead, is you can't be what you can't see. And so you need to see it in your imagination if you can't see it in reality. So take me back to young Edwina, who or what was she imagining that has led to all of this success and everything that you've created. I don't think I was very open about what I imagined. I mean, strangely enough, one of the first things they wanted to be was a long-distance lorry driver. Excellent. Because I thought it was exciting. You know, I thought the idea of the lights and the open highway, it would be really romantic. I mean, clearly, I hadn't really done my homework.

I also ridiculously wanted to be Jane Bond because I couldn't be James Bond, but I could be Jane Bond. So I had these little flights of fantasy, but the reality of my life was that, I mean, I suppose I learned to run a business quite young. I always had a Saturday job. I started a babysitting ring, I think we called it, for some reason, with my sister. And we were never without work and without people saying, can you babysit it? And we had such dull ordinary lives, no boyfriends, nothing, that we just did endless babysitting. And even to the point where my poor brother got dragged in if both of us were busy and we didn't want to let the client down. So we made him do it.

And he was our older, very cool brother. And still, we made him do it. So that was probably the beginning. And then that led to being invited to run a date. DJ booth on St. George's Hill in Waybridge, which was like really posh. And I got to run these parties and they would take the booth there for me and I would put on these records and just have a great, great time playing exactly what I wanted. And you were getting paid for this. I got paid £10, which let me tell you back then was mega, mega. So I was like, I love this business thing.

It's so fun. So that entrepreneurial spirit was ignited. I love that your business was thriving to the point where you need extra help. Come on, brother. In you come. But you can see how this was the beginning, in spite of not having perhaps a role model to look to. So why is it so important now that you can provide those role models for any little girl who is just like little Edwina looking up at what they could be and at this point can see? Well, I think two reasons.

One is, I think, whilst social media has become an incredible form of entertainment, whilst it can become a great source of research and finding out what you're interested and what you do, the reality is, is that a lot of social media is about comparison. And I think girls are very, very vulnerable, particularly when they reach puberty to that very huge and full avalanche of comparison that they see on social media. So I think it's really important that mixed up with lots of airbrushed and very famous people who probably don't live the life that is shown on screen. Even they. Oh, it's a filtered. Yeah. Highlights real. Even, you know, they will have rubbish times down, times all of that.

We like to connect girls to real role models who are showing what it's like to do all sorts of different careers or paths in their life, what matters to them. And we've found, we've actually been able to prove with research that connecting girls, to these real role models in spheres that they're interested in, it improves their mental health. And it starts to reinforce their self-esteem, their self-confidence. And so I think raw models are incredibly important, and it sounds so simple. But until, I suppose I started it in 2015,

there really wasn't the visibility on amazing women. You know, we all know Branson and Dyson and Musk and Bezos. We know those. And boys are fantastic with Ronaldo or Beckham or, you know, fantastic tennis players or racing cards. Girls mention only their mothers, their aunts, their grandmothers. And so I wanted to show that women can have a fantastic life, feel totally fulfilled and be a great share. and be a great chef, be a great artist, be a great businesswoman, or a teacher or something, but huge diversity. It's so true. It's so funny, isn't it, how if you ask a little boy for a role model, someone they look up to, they so often say one of these public figures.

And if we, as girls are asked, who inspires us, we so often say our mum, and that's completely great because our moms are amazing. But why is it that that is so often the case as a matter of fact? Before we move on, I do actually just want to ask on the subject of the magic faraway tree. I understand that you now have managed to have your own magical garden with a perfect old oak tree in your home. It seems like this book has stayed with you for so many years. It is a wonderful thing. You know, I now have a beautiful garden in Gloucestershire. and it's a source of such enjoyment and such release from London and work.

And we've been there nearly 30 years now. And there is this gorgeous tree that for me is the magic faraway tree. And I call it my picnic tree when I'm with grown-up friends. But in my head, you know what I'm calling it. It's the magic faraway tree. Absolutely. And it's just, you know, where you can go. and sit on a summer's day and float away.

And it's just a beautiful setting. So, yeah, I feel very lucky to have that in reality. Gorgeous image. I hope to one day have a magic faraway tree too. Your second book, Shelby Book, Edwina, is the most fun we ever had by Claire Lombardo. Long listed for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction. At a family wedding, the four Sorensen sisters are a vision

with their varying shades of hair and varying degrees of unease. Sixteen years later, the messy lives of the sisters are thrown into turmoil by the unexpected reappearance of a teenage boy given up for adoption years earlier. And the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensen's past is revealed. Weaving between past and present, the most fun we ever had portrays the delight

and difficulties of family life and the endlessly complex mixture of affection and abhorrence we feel for those closest to us. Now, in essence, this book is a love story about a couple amidst that family background. Why did it resonate with you so much? What I loved about it, in so many books, there's sort of a beginning, a middle and an end. And with this book, you feel it's a continuous flow of the good things that happen and then the feelings of disquiet, the kind of envy and then the joy and then the love.

and then the hurt. I really loved the way that happened across each of them in different ways. And you kind of related to each of their stories. You know, the couple that hinge at all, the parents, they have this tremendous relationship, this wonderful, long, happy love affair. It's not perfect, but they love each other and they've loved each other. and they've loved each other for, you know, all the way through their marriage for, you know, I suppose 40 plus years. And so what I'd never thought about ever was the fact that that has an effect on those children

and their search for a partner that means as much to them that has that longevity, that creates that level of intimacy and passion. I'd never thought about that before and I thought it was so clever because sometimes we can look at what we consider to be the perfect loving couple but we never think of the ramifications of the bar that that sets

for the children growing up around them. It's funny, isn't it? When I think about starting a family, I sort of oscillate quite wildly between this idea that, well, it's just love. It's just love. If you just give them love, then that's the perfect life and they'll be fine. And then, oh my God, it's the scariest thing in the world

because what could you do? You can't impact another human being enough to, you know, settle the course of their life. They'll do what they do. Yes. And it's the hardest thing you deal with as a parent, as a mother, that sense that you can give them all of that, love, but things can still go wrong. And what you don't realize is that what you say in those moments can be huge. And I suppose really ultimately you learn that you will say the wrong thing

at times. And one of the things that amuses me now, I mean, my children are grown up now. And, you know, we often laugh because you have to. Because you have to. they laugh at some of the things you've said along the way that perhaps didn't land quite as well as you thought they might. And they are there holding up that mirror. And I'm obsessed about the idea of what we see when we look in the mirror, not for vanity, but for psychology. But when they hold that up, you realize that what you meant isn't always what they see or here. And that's huge.

Because they are a different person to you. And there must come a moment where that is quite a hard pill to swallow because, you carried them, you created them. And vice versa, there's a moment for every child where you realize your parents aren't perfect. They're not superheroes. They don't have all the answers. It's so disappointing, isn't it? This perfect creature.

Yeah, it's a really hard moment that. And yet it's quite liberating when you realize they're not perfect. You can also forgive yourself for all the mistakes that you make and all the things you say that go through your head. I'm always sort of thinking about this idea that you can hold on to these sense of always said the wrong thing for too long. You know, I'm a great believer and you let it go. If your intention was good, but it landed wrong, you have to let it go. you said in your notes, and we've just been discussing about this realization that there is no such thing as a perfect life. And yet here we are so often pursuing perfection.

Is that something that you have found in your life, especially as a woman who, you know, you have to hold yourself to a high standard if you're going to be successful? Yeah. But that dream of having it all, it's surely impossible. Oh, I think it's totally impossible. I think sometimes we are trapped as women to seek perfection, but it is such a fake and dangerous objective. I think, you know, happiness is also transitory. You know, I talk a lot about seeking fulfillment, because I think fulfillment has a slower burn. You can have ups and downs, but fulfillment is having.

Have I done enough good things in my life to be proud of? And it, you know, it takes time and that course of action. So for sure there is no such thing as the perfect life. There's no such thing as the perfect work-life balance. It's all a bit messy. How do you manage the messy bits, the not-so-good bits, the mistakes, the failures, the rejections? Oh, I have been rejected so many times. I mean, I didn't do particularly well at school.

For some reason, I just never really focused when I went to a really good school. I mean, I love the school now looking back on it and think, oh, why did I miss about so much? But I just did. And so I just woke up one day and thought, oh, I didn't get into the university. I wanted to get into. That's bad. And I was really quite annoyed with myself. but it was almost like I was sleepwalk.

Maybe I was dreaming, but I was kind of sleepwalking into this. And I suppose what I like about my story is that I like to communicate that it's never too late. You know, I wasn't particularly academic, but I found myself a great first job. And I just landed really, really well amongst these, you know, really innovative, bright, fun people. on we had a blast. And I realized quite early on that work for me was much more fun than school. And all the lights went on. I mean, I talk about this sometimes.

All the lights went on. I suddenly went, wow, this is so exciting. I love work. And I've never really lost that. Well, you knew when you were up on that hill DJing. This is great. That was cushy. It's true, though.

All of these rejections or failures, quote-unquote, they help us reflect and learn. And those parameters keep shifting as to what will be fulfillment for us. Definitely. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out baillies.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. The third book that you've brought to us today, Edwina, is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

Olive Kitturage, indomitable, compassionate and often unpredictable, a retired school teacher in a small coastal town in Maine. As she grows older, she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life. She is a woman who sees into the hearts of those around her, their triumphs and tragedies, a penetrating, vibrant exploration of the human soul. The story of Oliver Kitteridge will make you laugh, nod in recognition, wince in pain and shed a tear or two. Now, this book celebrates our uniqueness to live life on your own terms, which is something we have been discussing since the beginning of this podcast. Is this something that you feel you've always done naturally?

Or is it something that you've had to learn and put into practice? I think I had to learn it. you know what I love about this whole olive persona is that she's older, you know, she's, much older than most of the characters you read about in books, but she's still strongly her. And, you know, she's not particularly nice at times, you know, she annoys people and she says things sometimes that aren't great. But as you say, there's a real thread of compassion in there, ultimately, that you read about and find really engaging and heartwarming. But I love her because she's totally utterly flawed. And yet she's not consumed with angst or self-doubt. And I love that.

in a world where there is so much fear of being seen as unlovable, unkind, unworthy. I love that she is unashamedly, Olive. And for me, that is a true role model, which is she's not pretty, she's not clever. She's just her. And I completely love that. much of your work and strategy in your book when she's in the room and also at the female lead sent us on providing like we said before role models for girls to provide inspiration, encourage, confidence and Christian, it's that word empowerment that you just said there in relation to Olive.

And it sounds like this book strongly aligns with the empowerment at the core of the female lead. So can you tell us a little bit more about your campaigning work? What sparked that? I love the way you've drawn that thread through and I don't think I'd even really connected that in my head but you're right that sense of empowerment knowing who you are knowing your qualities and your strengths

I think is what I encourage girls to do because everybody has them I think we all worry that someone's quality and strength is somehow better than ours. But we all have our own version of them. And the more we understand that, the more I think we can grow our self-confidence and our self-belief. So at the female lead, what we try and encourage is this three-step process, which is

number one, have a look round at all the role models. It can be your mother or grandmother or all these. or all these other women, have a look round and decide what are the qualities that you respond to and love and would want to emulate. So that's step one. Step two is know who you are. Which is the easier set than done. Oh, it's so difficult.

And I think probably the most intimate and loving question anyone can ever ask you is who are you? is who are you and what do you stand for? I mean, can take a lifetime to answer that. But what we've tried to do is create a survey, actually, as part of the female lead, which allows people to look at their emotional drivers. So you can actually go on to the website and you can look at under research,

you can look at fulfillment finder, which is this survey. It takes about seven minutes. And what comes out of it is it tells you what your two powerful emotional drivers are. Mine, because I can see you looking at me. I am absolutely fascinating. This is the best seven minutes that you could possibly spend. Do it, everyone. So mine and I smile because they're so honestly me.

Number one is power. So power is my digital. desire to make impact, to make change, to be seen, to be heard. It's not a nasty word. It's not a dirty word. It's like, it's like I like to change things and have that real sense of achievement. And then the second one, which is absolutely crucial to me is enjoyment. So there's no point in power if you're not enjoying yourself. It's no point in anything if you're not enjoying yourself. Exactly. But it's amazing. It isn't everybody's driver. Interesting. So for some it's about safety or control. And for others, I mean, it can be so many different dimensions. It's really hard to remember them when they're not yours because you think, well, isn't everybody like me?

Yeah, like me just saying that the point of anything is enjoyment. No, it's not. That's me making an assumption that other people feel the way I do. And I shouldn't. I shouldn't do that. Exactly. Because that, I suspect, means that one of yours is enjoyment. Certainly.

But for some, it isn't. There are 12 combinations of these two key drivers, and you fit into a persona. So I'm what's called a reformer, which is not surprising given I do the female lead. I don't know if I've always been a reformer because it wasn't invented when I started. So it's really, really fun to do, and that's the second phase. And then the third phase is to discover the people around you and to be comfortable that they are different and that their emotional drivers are not yours. And then you can begin to discover that you respond to different language, different moments in life, different encouragements. And that's pulling you away from comparison, but helping you understand your place in the world.

I'm going straight on that. As soon as we are done here. But it is the key to thriving, isn't it? It's being comfortable in your own skin, something that it just keeps coming up. As women we do struggle with, we're conditioned to. Society wants us to feel smaller. Yes. The world of data, of technology, of entrepreneurship, they're still incredibly male-dominated, like we said.

How did you navigate that world to make sure that your voice was heard and any advice, you'd give to women of any age who want to start their own business. Well, timing is one of the most important things in success. I was lucky in that I started this business at a moment when technology was taking off. So a few things happened. I joined a technology company. I was surrounded by really bright, amazingly entrepreneurial people. And I just soaked it up like a sponge.

So I became like the people around me. And picking your company who you're with really important. So I learned a lot there. And it also taught me to be impatient for what I then felt was where the direction we wanted to go. Because I also in that company met my future husband, who happened to be the polar opposite of everything I was. And so I'd found my kind of perfect partner, not just in life, but actually unusually in work as well. So we became these fab duo business people who covered everything from the sort of mathematics and science and computing. That was my husband.

To me, which was the deal making, the business shaping, the team building and the sales. you know, the really hard edges. So that was important, that timing. And then the passion to build what we believed in, which the company we were with, for lots of complicated reasons, didn't allow us to do. And so we left and set up on our own. And it was really, really hard. I mean, we were broke.

We were pursued for a while. We had a really, really uncomfortable, awful time. And you have to learn resilience. I mean, we didn't pay ourselves anything for nearly two years. We eroded all of the savings and created tremendous vulnerability in our life, in our belief that we would build something. And then on top of that, we had children. So that was really good timing. And it was kind of that's when the whole biology thing kicks in as well.

So lots of things that you can't really plan, but the belief in what we were building was what was exciting. And I suppose that's why if you are wanting to create a career in this tough field of entrepreneurship, you have to be pretty robust because the number of times you fail is incredible. You know, it's almost like you fail far more times than you succeed and you just have to keep doing it, getting back up, working harder than you ever imagined. You want to. I mean, remember back to my school days, I was a lazy individual. And then suddenly here I was working harder than I ever imagined I wanted to.

But you believed in it. I believed in it. And I remember my sister said something really moving to me, which was, I don't resent the success you've had because you worked harder than I would ever have been prepared to do. I thought that was a really lovely thing to say because it is a cost to work that hard. Your fourth book, Shelfy Book, is The Marriage Portrait by Maggi O'Farrell, shortlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction. Winter, 1561, Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner, it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here.

He intends to kill her. Lucrezia is 16 years old and has led a sheltered life locked away inside Florence's Grandes Palazzo. Here in this remote villa, she is entirely at the mercy of her. increasingly erratic husband. The marriage portrait is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger. This is such a brilliant book. It was so popular with readers when it came out.

Tell us why it spoke to you in particular. I mean, clearly, it's a brilliantly told story. She's a very accomplished author. I think what it reminded me of was the lack of power women had in those early centuries, how they were sent off to be married where it was a good connection for the family or it cemented the lands that, you know, one royal wanted to keep control of. And so this was a good balance. So it was nothing to do with falling in love or believing in the man or, you know,

you were an asset, a product that was sent off to do a job. job. And then to find out that potentially you might be at risk of losing your life because there were devious plans of foot, it must have been terrifying. I mean, you know, at the young age of 16 and the thought that, you know, your job was to have an heir to the throne. And at the same time, thinking at any moment, you were going to get killed. So I loved it because it reminded me of just how recently history changed. I also read Philippa Gregory's brilliant book, which is called Normal Women, 900 years of history.

You know, I said to her, you know, I'm almost shocked how recently we as women had authority and power, still not completely equal. Well, our authority, our autonomy over our body. bodies. And if you look around the world in some places, not only are we not there, but in some places we were there and then we're going backwards again. I know. I mean, that is probably the most deeply shocking of all the movements I've seen in my lifetime to not own the decisions of your own body. You know, in this book, it's all about the time of witch trials and the fact that

women who helped other women during childbirth were simply witches. You know, they couldn't possibly have skills and be medically able. This was not their role. And so, you know, this was set in the time of the witch trials. So you get this fantastic glimpse into the fact that women were failing even where they had skills, even where they pulled together. They couldn't win. If they helped each other, they were simply put on trial as witches.

It's absolutely petrifying that lack of power and control. And Maggi O'Farrell is the queen of telling these untold stories of women who existed. She won the Women's Prize for Fiction with Hamnet in 2020. I'm not sure if you've read, Hamnets. Do you know, I haven't. And it's on my bookshelf because I realized I went to the second book and not that. And I can't believe it. I feel inadequate.

Oh, no, no, no, no. It's something for you to look forward to. I'm actually jealous of you because you've got that ahead of you. It's absolutely sublime. And she does, in telling these stories, she highlights how far we have come in terms of women's rights but how far there is still to go.

Is that something that you feel, I mean, in your works surely quite constantly aware of? I'm absolutely horrified how the ruling of Roe v. Wade has created this division across all. of society in America and how, as you rightly say, we have been put back a hundred years, if not more. So, you know, how we come through that, what the implications, the ripples will be. It's hard to imagine. It's so scary. I don't even know what to do with that fear. Yeah. When you live and breathe female empowerment, every day in your work.

Tell us about the experience of writing. Tell us about your upcoming book when she's in the room. Was that an easy process? No, not at all. I mean, I think the more you learn about anything, the more you realize that honing the skill takes time and a lot of work. And, you know, whilst I enjoyed it,

I also feel the minute you've finished it, you want to rewrite it because you've thought of other things and you want to expand on it and your works moved on a little bit. And so I was horrified that having finished it and been quite proud that I'd finished it, that actually you think, oh, I could have put that in. I could have added that thought. And so you end up almost with a restlessness, despite having finished it. More material for the next one. Might give myself a year or two and wait to hear feedback. Well, speaking of the next one, we move on to your fifth and final book, Shelfy book,

which is Burnt Coat by Sarah Hall. In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burnt Coat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known. her life will draw to an end in the coming days. Downstairs the studio is a crucible, glowing with memories and desire. It was here when the first lockdown came that she brought Hallett, the lover she barely knew, a presence from another culture, a doorway into a new and feverish world.

Tell us why you picked this book. I found it haunting in many ways. I mean, it's a really passionate love story. I mean, it's racing, ladies, really racing. But I loved it. I thought it was so honest and beautiful. But it's set at a time which I think, you know, begins to fade from our memory, this whole period of the pandemic and COVID.

And I remember the fear I felt, which was, are we all going to die? And, you know, we've come through it. and forgotten it so swiftly. But at the time it began, it really felt as if we might not find the answer. And, you know, we all unashamedly hid and protected ourselves and wrapped our children around us or parents or whoever we cared about most. And literally quaked, I think. At the same time, I had one of the best summers.

I think I've ever had in my life, which was three months sheer sunshine, freedom. It was nice, I had there. It was good. Baking, playing games in the garden. I mean, I was lucky to have a garden. But, you know, I think what it spoke to, this book spoke to so well, was, you know, being thrown together, not quite being in a relationship, but then being very much in a relationship. it. And then the fear of the disease, is it a disease? I don't know. The infection, the pandemic. And the fear was of the unknown. Indeed. And I hope I'm not spoiling the book by saying that this pandemic hits them right in the heart of their great love affair. And the way it's spoken about,

the way it's written is just so moving. It's a real heartbreaker, but it's so beautifully written. So I feel it's captured a moment in time with all the pain, the happiness, the love and the agony. And I think it's a brilliant book. Why is it important to you that that time that we all experienced doesn't go forgotten. Because it took us back to our primeval feelings and motivations, I think. We forget them, hide them, camouflage them in real life. But when the chips are down, we know who we are. We know our fear, our bravery, our kindness, our compassion. I find it so interesting and so special that earlier in our chat you said the most important question you could ask someone is who are you?

And that just now you've said that was a time when we worked out who we were. Yes. And that that came when, like you said, the chips were down. Yes. And you keep talking about those knockdowns and it's the resilience I'm getting back up. Yes. Well, looking upwards, I'd love to know where you hope to see the female lead go in future. That's a lovely question.

I think for me, I want to create female empowerment by helping businesses understand. that they shouldn't embrace women, both in leadership and as customers, because it's the nice thing to do or the fair thing to do. I want them to do it because they realize that women are the decision makers for most of the spend in the world. So they decide what the home, what the household buys. They control over 70% of all. spend, all GDP in the world. So women make the pound go round. They are a phenomenal force and when businesses and leaders realize this,

I think we will have equality because women want to buy from women. And why do men think they can tell women what they want or who they are? Indeed. It's been, I have been taken on the journey that you promised me. This has been incredible. My final question to you, and I don't want this to end, so I'm like really drawing it out. My final question to you is if you have to pick one book from your five,

as a favourite, which would it be and why? I think I would hold on to lovely olive, because I'm getting older, and I think I love Olive being Olive. and it would remind me that you can be proud of who you are with all your flaws. I think that's the most beautiful note on which to end what has been such an insightful chat. Thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. It's been a joy. 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.