Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S8 Ep5: Bookshelfie: Emer Kenny

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Actor and screenwriter Emer Kenny tells us why all pain is useful - whether it be heartbreak or rejection -  and why being a mentor to other creatives is so important. Emer Kenny is an actor and writer who made her acting debut in the BAFTA-nominated single drama Coming Down The Mountain in 2008. She began to write for the screen soon after, honing her skills on BBC’s Eastenders and Holby City, which she followed up with episodes of Hulu’s Harlots and Sky’s Save Me Too. Alongside this, she played Joan Morecambe in Victoria Wood’s BAFTA-winning Morecambe and Wise biopic, Eric and Ernie. Most recently, she has written, executive produced and acted in BAFTA-winning ITV crime drama Karen Pirie, which is returning for a second series this year. Emer’s book choices are: ** Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ** Sex and Rage: Advice to Young Girls Eager to Have a Good Time by Eve Babitz ** An American Marriage by Tayari Jones ** Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott ** I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season eight 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 continues to champion the very best books written by women. You can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org - every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops.  Don’t want to miss the rest of season eight? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

It's a patriarchy and obviously people are always going to be viewing you and like of the man that you're standing next to it, which is quite annoying. Oh, I know. I know. Yeah, I know. This is the Women's Prize for Fiction bookshelfy podcast supported by Bayleys. Join us in celebrating women's writing from around the world in the 30th anniversary year of the Women's Prize for Fiction,

sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives. I'm Vic Hope and I am your host for Season 8. of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks inspiring and brilliant women to share the five books by women that have shaped them and their lives. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you should be adding to your reading list. Today I'm joined by Emma Kenny. Ema is an actor and writer who made her acting debut in the BAFTA-nominated single drama coming down the mountain in 2008. She began to write for the screen soon after honing her skills on BBC's Eastenders and Holby City, which she followed up with episodes of Hulu's

Harlots and Skies Save Me Too. Alongside this, she played Joan Morkham in Victoria Woods, BAFTA-winning, Mawcum and Wise biopic, Eric and Ernie. More recently, though, she's written, executive-produced and acted in BAFTA-winning ITV crime drama, Karen Piri, which is returning for a second series this year. Emma, welcome. It's so lovely to see you. Hello.

Thank you for having me. We are going to chat. Well, we just said before, it can be about books, it can be about life, it can be about both. It's sort of a springboard. Yeah, I've been listening to a few and I just you get the most amazing guests and it's just like a really amazing kind of way into people talking about themselves, isn't it? Books that they love. Yeah. I've just loved it. Do you do you gravitate towards books when you're writing? Do you find that they can help you with the writing process? Do you find them more of a of a solace to get you away from the writing process? I think a little bit of both.

I kind of do a bit of a sort of research and development phase on things and I kind of dive into stuff. I watch a lot of stuff. And then when I'm actually writing, I'll want something that is a total escape and completely different. So I don't start sort of veering towards someone else's style or whatever. So it totally depends. But I also, when I'm writing, I kind of have to block out everything. I can't watch any TV or films because I start thinking about work too much. So I'm very into like documentaries or nonfiction as well.

to kind of, you know, cut through that. You've described in the past writing as quite a lonely process. And follow you on Instagram. And the other day you posted something that was like, I hate this. Why do I do it? That's mainly what I've missed in Instagram. It's, I find it, it's the hardest thing in my life. I kind of, it's so painful.

It's a bit like, I suppose, I think about it as exercise or going to the gym in that I hate every second of it. but when it's done, it's amazing. Yeah. And it's such an incredible feeling to have something that you've created, you know, in your hand and a script that you can kind of, is very solid. And there, even though it took years and years, I kind of live for that feeling.

It's the only thing that gets me through. The actual writing is the worst part of any day that I do it. But, you know. But you're good at it. Frustratingly good of it. And I've done it for a while now. So it's like, I've put all this time and I can't just, you know, change tack and become a shopkeeper or something.

I don't know, who knows? Did you always want to write? Or did it come from a passion, from acting, or even a frustration from acting? It 100% came from a frustration. I started acting as a teenager and I had a couple of really big failures. I didn't get into university.

I didn't get into drama school. I had a massive breakup. Massive. I say massive. I was 19. It can't be that massive. No, when you're 19, they are. They're pretty big.

It felt like... Pretty earth. It shattered. It shattered the earth for me. And now I look back and think, you only went out for a year. But at that point, it was like, my world was ending. And I couldn't sleep at all.

And I remember just lying awake at night thinking, I have so many hours that I'm just not doing anything. And it was in the middle of the night that I started writing scripts because it just sort of took my mind off how much of a failure I was. And also him, like my ex who I missed. And it's really annoying to give him. any credit, but he did kind of catalyze that, I suppose. In a way.

In a way. But it was all me. It was you. You said that your reading is an escape. So which books give you that escape? What genres? What do you love? Ooh, I don't know.

That's a hard one to answer. I think I don't like anything too bleak or crimey, because I write a lot of that for TV. So there's a couple of books. they've picked that have like kind of elements of glamour to them where you're kind of sent to a different kind of world and there's just kind of parties and ballgowns and you know a little bit of sparkle and I really like that when you're sort of in the trenches of writing a script or you know living your life or parenting or whatever yeah you've got a couple of Hollywood golden era

settings where LA is a character absolutely I love that it takes me straight there and um you can forget about sort of winter London. No, that allure, it's so delicious. Yeah. On the subject, though, of crime, you know, as I said in your introduction, the second series of Karen Piri is returning this year. Are you excited for the release? I am.

I feel second series is difficult because I was really proud of the first series and it took me years and I gave it everything. And the second series I sort of wrote alongside, I started writing it when my baby was 12 weeks old. And so the past sort of year has been this mad blur of making this show and trying to raise a kid. And so the fact that it's coming out, I'm probably more nervous because I kind of can't really remember anything. And it's their pressure as well because the first series was such a success. Yeah. People really liked it and I just really hope that they kind of return to this one and enjoy it as much. But it's also a completely different story. So the first one was a tragic

murder of a young girl and this one is a high profile kidnapping so it does have a totally different energy it's the story at its center is a little bit like the j-ball getty um kidnapped from the 80s or the 70s 70s um and so it doesn't have that uh that kind of i was always wrestling with these uh ideas about sort of the murdered girl at the center of these shows and um how to how to tell that story with a lot of empathy for the victim and give the detective a lot of empathy for the victim and to kind of that was something that was quite big and heavy and this one is a little bit more epic a little bit bigger and it's like I think it has darkness but in a different way to the first series so I hope that it kind of brings something new to the show as well well on the subject

of darkness empathy teenage girls I think that brings us really nicely onto your first bookshelfy book which is Frankenstein Yes. By Mary Shelley. Obsessed by creating life itself. Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship,

sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Now, you read this book as a teenage. Why do you think it had such a big impact on you? I think I read it at school, actually. It was on the curriculum. and it's funny because so many books you read at school just completely leave your head. Yeah, and you kind of resent them because it feels like a chore.

Yeah, you're like, why did we have to do this one? And a couple of them might grip you. And I think the origin story of this book, which was that Mary Shelley was, I think she was 19. She was with her husband, maybe her boyfriend. I don't know if she was married. And Lord Byron, and they were in Switzerland and the weather was really bad

and they were inside a cabin and to pass the time they had a horror story competition. I think that's just a really like evocative thing for a teenage girl to be like, ooh. And she won, Mary Shelley won, the young woman in that group won. And I just loved that. And what she came up with is so strange and dark and epic and kind of so iconic now. You kind of go, it's just so impressive that a teenage girl, did that and was published by the age of 20.

And I think the other thing that made me kind of really get behind her as an author was that there was this sort of theory that actually Percy Shelley wrote it. And I was like, hang on. Come on now. Come on now. Because it was so good, how could have a young woman have written it? And so I was really rooting for Mary Shelley. And I think what she wrote is also, I think, I mean, it's just created, it's so

iconic, you know, like the spin-offs and the cultural impact that it has is just beyond anything I imagine that she thought she was coming up with in a cabin in Switzerland. I mean, it makes total sense that it was written by an 18-year-old woman. Yeah. Because it's a coming-of-age novel in so many ways. The theme of this sense of belonging is something that you understand so profoundly when you're 1819 and particularly as a woman. Yeah, yeah.

And what I love about it is partway through the novel, you go into the monsters, the creatures, POV and you see it from his point of view. And he is an innocent who is coming to this world knowing nothing about humanity. And he learns how to, he learns language and how to behave. And you really root for him. And it's just a really sophisticated and kind of insightful look at the relationship. between creator and creature. And I think, I was thinking about this the other day,

I was thinking, I think part of why I liked it was because it kind of reminds me of making art in that you, or even making babies, I mean, basically making anything as a creator, once you've got it in your hands and it's in front of you, it kind of takes on a life of its own. And that's kind of terrifying. And you don't have control anymore.

And we have this, to push forward and make things. And in the book, he's a scientist. He has, you know, science must progress. But there's a sort of danger to it that I think Mary Shelley is exploring because she's sort of saying once it's out there, once you've crossed the line of making something, it's not necessarily yours anymore.

It's its own thing. And I think that idea is just, she just, it's just huge and she encapsulated it so well. Whenever you put anything out into the world, it takes on a life of its own. You hope it does because you want it to impact its audience. You want it to reach people. You've said in your notes that you love art by women that surprises people.

Is that something that you try to achieve in your own work? Yeah, I mean, the thing that I think the thing that is really interesting about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein is that I think that that genre, I mean, it's sort of the first work of sci-fi ever. And I think sci-fi has been quite traditionally mailed genre ever since. And I really love it when women make things that are in a kind of traditionally masculine area. I just love the lens that they put on things. And one of my favorite movies is Point Break, which is the kind of sports action movie. But it's directed by a woman. And I think it makes it all the more brilliant and unique.

And I think I'm always, with Karen Piri, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's, has women at its heart, but I think in the future, I'm always trying to look at what genre area is not necessarily the most expected for me to take on. I think that's kind of, that excites me as someone, you know, who wants to make things. I feel like there's so many parallels that you can draw. And once you start picking away at them, you're like, and there's that too, and that. You said before that dealing with rejection is one of the hardest things about working in the TV industry. And obviously the rejection that, Frank Frankenstein's monster faces is different from knocking, you know, a role or a job.

Yeah. But do you have any advice or anyone listening for not taking things like that too personally? Oh, wow. I mean, I'm still working on it. What do I think, what do I say to myself? I think I found out the other day about five years later, maybe 10 years later, there was a massive role in my early 20s that I got down to the last two. for and I chemistry read with the big star and I was like you know it was a life-changing role and I saw the producer the other day and they'd never told me why I didn't get it. I went to the other

actor and I'd never found out why I never got it and I I asked him and he said oh it was because you were too tall oh that's it and I remember the hours that I cried over that and I just thought wow that's like I couldn't do nothing about that I just can't do anything about that but it kind of made me it made me feel quite good in a way I thought I gave it my all they went for that reason and that's that's there's nothing can do about it um and also I've been on the other side of casting now because I was you know watching tapes for Karen Perry and there was so many incredible actors who did great things and I it made me really kind of have a lot of empathy for myself in a way that I thought I've probably been in this situation people have thought she's great it's just not right and i think it's given me a lot

more um understanding of the whole process that you know it's it is so destroying but um so much of it is luck and that's kind of hard and easier in a way and if you had known at the time the reason do you that would have changed anything i think i'd have been angrier i would have been less down on myself and angrier at them um but you know what I actually think if I'd got that role, I never would have written anything. Well, there's that. Because I, I mean, that might have been a good thing. I wouldn't have had all these painful hours.

I'd be like a massive Hollywood star and not writing anything. But, I mean, that doesn't sound that bad. But at the same time, you know, I think I am glad to have written. So life takes you in strange directions, doesn't it? And whichever direction it takes, there is joy and there is pain in the best things. Totally. I agree. Yeah, exactly.

It's time to talk about your second book, Shelfy book. which is sex and rage. Such a good name. Such a good name. We continue, Emma. We continue on this theme. Advice to young girls eager to have a good time

by Eve Babitz. It is the 1970s in L.A. and Jacarand 11, child of sun and surf, is swept into the dazzling cultural milieu of the beautiful people. Floating on a cloud of drink, drugs and men,

she finds herself adrift before her talent for writing and a determined literary agent set her on a course for New York and a new life. Now you read this in your early 20s and so the themes of it really hit home for you. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Well, I think there was that element of escapism. Like being at It Girl in 1970s, L.A., I mean, I'm happy to go on that journey with this book.

But she, as a central character, you know, she struggles. with friendships and with relationships and with drink and with writing. And I didn't have those exact struggles, but I definitely, it spoke to me. And Eve Babitz, I think she was very, very defined by the men who were around her. She had, like, relationships with really famous actors and musicians. I think one of the characters in it is supposed to be based on Harrison Ford. and I think, you know, a woman in, I particularly in my 20s, I went out with a man who's older than me and more successful than me.

And I think often kind of had to get my head round not being defined by him and putting a lot of energy into my own confidence and my own work. So I feel like now we're, you know, we're getting there, more of an equal putting as you age and you kind of been married for a long time. But it's definitely something that spoke to me about her work. How did you navigate that time? How did you find your own confidence and know the value of your own voice?

I think writing really helped. I think just kind of digging in with myself and knowing that I had something to say. I think pairing that with a job, acting which is can be quite surface is you know it's perilous um but um every time i had a script in my hand that i'd done myself and and it gives you that boost and also you know i don't want to give another man too much credit but he he my husband really believed in me as well and like supported me through all those things so it wasn't that i i resented him it was just a kind of growing

pains thing of like working out which i think most people have in their 20s anyway of like who am i and how am I going to get to be who I am. But it's a patriarchy, and obviously people are always going to be viewing you and light of the man that you're standing next to it, which is quite annoying. Oh, I know. I know.

Yeah, I know it. On the writing, on that script that you have in your hand, that gives you that strength, that power, you mentioned in your notes that in this book, Eve Babbitts is cobbling together stories as she goes. Does that resonate with your own journey as a screenwriter? Do you always have ideas sort of floating around that we're ready to go on the page and just sort of waiting when's the time how is it going

to get there i think so i think there's that nora effron quote which is uh you know it's all copy like i think any i think it's really helpful um to think any pain that i have is useful you know from that very first heartbreak that made me right you know to the rejections and all sorts of things i think um i think when you feel like grief or pain or or any of that kind of thing to feel like alone is really healing. And I think that writing things down is a sort of attempt to connect with other people about that kind of stuff. So I've always tried to turn anything difficult into something, even if it's just a line

or, you know, a scene idea or whatever. I think it just feels like it's not pointless. It's a really great coping mechanism. Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. It's the same, you know, being on the radio each day. Like if a terrible thing happens, I remember.

I remember back when I had a breakup and came on the radio and we made such funny jokes about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you feel better and you don't. And also your listeners who are going through the same thing are probably like just, you know, stopping their car and being like, ah, I'm going through it. I love it. And everyone feels less alone. Exactly. And that's what we're all trying to do is just desperately connect.

On her late success, Eve has said in the past it used to be only men who like me. Now it's only girls. Why do you think that the story of Jacaranda appeals to many young women? Why do we root for her? I think the thing for me, actually, the turning point in the book where I really got on board with her was she meets a character called Max, who's this kind of glamorous, bon vivant, sexually fluid man who's surrounded by beautiful women. And at first, he's kind of an amazing friend to Jacaranda. And then at a certain point in the book, he turns on her for various reasons and sort of emotionally abused her and gaslights her. And I think it was the first time that I felt like, oh my God, I know this friendship.

I know this relationship. And I know this, the bite in this person. And I had a lot of like, in my 20s, I had a couple of sort of friendships that ended or turned sour. And I found them as painful as any romantic relationship ending. And I think a lot of people go through that in their early life. life and you you just root for her to get through it because you know it's not her fault it's about him and you just kind of want her to get on the right track so I suppose that's for me why I really related to her and also I suppose Eve babets was writing from life so so much of her own life is going in there

and you can feel the authenticity in what she's putting down and I think you know again it's just wanting to connect and understand how it why why we are the way we are and where we feel It's an amazing thing, isn't it, when you recognise something in a book and it makes you kind of, it illuminates what might have happened to you. Yeah. And you kind of look at it differently. Yeah. And it helps you. Yeah.

It helps you process it. Yeah. Totally. It seems like you've been very inspired by both women working in the media and media also that is about women. For a long time you've said in the past before that Emma Thompson, Sharon Hogan, Issa Ray, Greta Gerwig. These are all brilliant women who've inspired you. What is it about them that makes them role models? Wow. Well, all those specific women are performers and writers or directors. And I think all of them have reckoned with the trouble with being a performer, which is that lack of control and lack of voice. And then they've done something about it. And they've really dug in and created quite incredible work. And so I think, you know, Emma Thompson,

is just kind of an icon in ways but the way she talks about everything about aging about her body about relationships it's just she she always seems to be like on track like onto a good thing she kind of seems so

wise and kind of how do I put it just right she's correct she's correct this is a great reference book if I need to go back and learn something oh yeah Emma she said That she's right. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you, Emma Thompson.

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 favorite book. Check out baileys.com for our favorite bailey's recipes. Your third book, Shelby book today is an American marriage by Tiari Jones. Newly weds, Celestial and Roy, an African-American couple, are the embodiment of the American dream. Until one day they are ripped apart by circumstances, neither of them could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime that Celestial knows he didn't commit.

When Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, he returns home, ready to resume their life together. but in his absence, Celestial has found herself struggling to hold onto the love that had been her centre, finding comfort in a close friend. I love this book. It won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2019. How did you come across? So when did you read it? I read it pretty soon after it came out.

I think Oprah had it. Yeah, she put it on her, you know, book list. And there's a couple of people in my life who I just know if they're reading something that's going to be good. and there's an actress called Anna Schaffer and she, you should have her on this actually she's such a great reader and she's got epic taste noted. Yeah, and she I think she posted about it and I

just bought it straight away and read it in about three days and it just blew me away. Like it's just an incredible ride. It has serious themes but ultimately it just really takes you in with the characters. I was actually reading an article or

an interview with the author of the day and she said she sat out to write a book about wrongful incarceration and found it really difficult because it's such a heavy theme. And then she had heard a conversation in the mall between a man and a woman. So he had been in prison clearly. And he said, if this happened the other way around, you wouldn't have waited for me. And she said, this would never have happened to me. And she took that and just kind of put it with all of her research about mass incarceration.

and blended these two themes. And what I think has come from it is something that is incredibly readable and essentially about a love triangle, which is, you know, I think it was just an amazing way to look at those kind of ideas. Yeah, it's incredibly complex themes, the American judicial system, which we know to be hugely flawed, particularly when you look at it through the prism of race. Yeah.

But it's also this beautiful love story. Yeah, Lesfield and Roy, they write letters to each. other while Roy's in jail, which are included in the book. And you really understand the characters, but you also will them to understand each other. Yes, exactly. It's quite frustrating, actually. Exactly, exactly. I think she sort of confronts the idea that Celestial should stand by her man. She refuses to let her female character do the thing that in some ways you're willing her to do because she wants her to have her own life, her own kind of identity and make her own decisions. And I It's just such an interesting choice from a storyteller's perspective

because the romantic version is they get, you know, Celeste goes back to him and it's all fine. But actually what she's chosen as a writer is something that is so complicated and so human and you still understand everybody why they did what they did. It's just such an amazing achievement and you totally go on that journey with them. That letter format and that dialogue, does that appeal to you as a screenwriter, to your screenwriter sensibility? Yeah, I mean, I'd never thought about that.

I suppose you wouldn't necessarily be able to do that on screen. So it's actually, well, maybe it is similar. It's sort of a first person way of writing. The thing that's amazing about novels, which you can't get on screen is, and a challenge of adapting, is that you can't get inside the character's head in the way you can in a novel.

And I think that's what makes me love reading is because you can really understand exactly why these characters are doing this. And that's really important to this book, because you're kind of, you know, examining choices and why people make them. So, yeah, I suppose actually the letter format is something you kind of wouldn't be able to do in a script. And if you were to adapt that book, it would be quite different because you just wouldn't have seen to people writing letters all the time. Although I think they are doing an adaptation.

Oh, are they? I think maybe, yeah. Oh, watch this space. We'll see how they do it. I mean, trying to think, when they did the colour, Purple. When Oprah adapted to that, the film, I was like, what's the, how's the letters? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess it can be done. Yeah, yeah. It can be done. And as I just said, I mean, we've got these big themes around race, around the American judicial system,

but then alongside this is a very simple story of three people who love each other. Yes. Do you feel compelled to draw on a wider political context when you're writing? Do you think it's important to? I think it always. makes the work deeper and I think I'm just thinking about Karen Perry now because the most recent thing I've written I always try and because they're an adaptation of Val McDermid books I think I always try and look at what what Val's trying to say in the new one there's a lot about the coal mining strikes and I really looked into the political background of that I think ultimately it's great to do the research and work out what the themes are and what you're trying to

to say and then put it away and just sit with the characters because I think most people really just want to be with them, you know, and I feel the same as a reader. So I think it is important to work out why you're making the work and work out what the argument would be. But ultimately, we're not journalists. We're writing people. So kind of make sure you're rooted in something and then put it away and just go with the emotion. in an American marriage Celestials art reflects her life experiences how much of your own life bleeds into your work

or are you more likely to draw inspiration from elsewhere you know it's always something I've struggled with because writing and acting in my 20s a lot of the other writer-performers you know who I idolised and loved like Phoebe Walleridge, Michaela Cole Lena Dunham Sharon Hogan

they're all drawing very much from their lives and I have just found my life to be so boring that I'm like I really maybe I should have made a few mistakes in my 20s and like just for the story but I think I think I'm getting there like I think I haven't done it yet

I think definitely elements of how I feel and things I've seen or experience come into what I do. But I haven't directly taken something and dramatized it yet. I'm still on that road, I think. I think ultimately I would love to. It just needs to be the right thing at the right moment. But you're right about those feelings because that breakup that you said before

you had when you were 19 will have felt like the biggest thing in the world. And those feelings were real. They were valid. They were deep and profound. And so they can be applied to. a much more dramatic situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And like with Karen Piri,

she is a sort of young female detective in quite a man's male police department. And she struggles with that. And I think that felt very real to me in terms of being in writers' rooms, in certain situations that I've been in, where it's felt very male-dominated and how you feel.

And so I think parts of how I feel definitely do come in, even if I'm not thinking about it, it just will. It would be the thing that I find the most interesting. Yeah, but it's not been quite so autobiographical yet. But who knows, there's still time. There's loads of time. That's the thing, Emma.

You said in your notes that you wanted to choose American wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. You were sort of toying between the two, but thought that the books were too similar in their themes. What is it about these kind of novels exploring the joys and also the challenges of marriage? that draws you in? I think I love when someone can write a character that doesn't necessarily make decisions you agree with or have a position you agree with, but that you understand them. I think actually a lot of screenwriting is about that as well because you, I think, to write the best scripts, you have to come at it from every single character's perspective. And a lot of the time those characters are doing things that you don't, you would never do. And, you know, American wife is about,

well, loosely based on Barbara Bush and George Bush's relationship. And I was amazed by how much I empathised for his character and for their relationship, given what I knew about George Bush. But I think the writer is incredible at doing that. And I think also, you know, every single person on this planet is trying to do the best they can no matter what they are doing. And I think trying to understand that is key to writing good fiction. And I think the readers really enjoy that as well.

it's just more appealing. You can't just write good people. It's boring. It would be really boring. It would be really boring. Well, on that, let's talk about your fourth book today, which is Swan Song by Kelly Greenberg, Jeff Cart. In the autumn of 1975, after two decades of intimate friendships, Truman Capote detonated a literary grenade, forever rupturing the elite circle he'd worked so hard to infiltrate.

Why did he do it? Knowing what he stood to lose? Whatever the motive, one thing remains indisputable. Nine years after achieving wild success within cold blood, Capote committed an act of professional and social suicide with his most lethal of weapons words. Now, Swan Song is a fictionalised account of true events about a man appropriating women's stories without their consent. With the current discourse surrounding women's agency or lack there are,

Is this book more relevant than ever? Yeah, I haven't thought about it like that, but I think so. I just love this book. It takes you on, again, it has an escapism element to it because all the swans, these sort of 1960s society women, they're always on private jets and beaches and yachts and cavorting with extremely rich famous men. That's kind of the whole plot.

there's this element that you think that is kind of taking you there and is really escapist but there's a really dark story at the centre which is Truman is on this downward spiral drinking, taking drugs and desperately trying to write which I relate to not the drink and the drugs but the writing. I haven't tried the Kvoti method yet and he a bit like we were just talking about like taking from life he's like scrabbling around trying to write something good and he ends up plundering the secrets of his best friends to make some art and the great tragedy of it is

not even good art. I mean, I'm not judging it. I think that the general consensus was that it wasn't worth it for him. He ruined a lot of his, you know, the great loves of his life with these women and he severed ties with them because he wanted

so much for his own success. And it's just a yeah, it's a really brilliant story. can it be seen as a warning kind of on the flip side to what we just said before to writers about the dangers of letting almost too much reality into your art yeah I worry about this a lot actually and I think it's something that what you know when we were talking about writing from life I think I haven't done it yet but I also

think I'm a little bit afraid of it because you know I think I think there was an article of Phoebe Wallerbridge she was an interview with her and she said that her mom said to her that if I had known how much she were going to take from our family life I never would have let you do it. And I think obviously they're all fine with it now. You know, it was a massive success. But there is an issue of consent there, isn't there,

about how someone is interpreting you and what you've done and what you've said if they are an artist. And I don't know where I stand on that. I don't know. I mean, freedom of speech, everyone has a right to sort of tell their own story and obviously people are coming into that but I know that my my for example I've tried to write a lot about my siblings I'm one of four I've tried to write a lot about them in the past and they're all like I will kill you I will actually kill you so it's been vetoed they

can't feature and they genuinely scared me off the setting is once again a bit of a character here yeah that glamour gives it the escape yeah we keep yearning for Kelly Greenberg Jeff Scott was long listed for the women's prize fiction in 2019 with this book. Do you think the escapism makes it so compelling? Is it something that we just need a bit of? I think so. I mean, I love it. I love watching it on screen.

I love reading it in books. I think I just want to be at parties. And if I can't be at parties, then I want to read about parties. But it also makes, I think it's got that kind of succession, white lotus appeal in that it's not just, oh, God, how great is it to be really rich and famous it's oh god there's a really dark seam running through this and that's kind of delicious that contrast i think so it's escapism but with real drama cutting in it's not just um you know it's not all wonderful and this world this industry at the heart of it is is women and how

they're treated yes um we know from real life from experience that the media is a very challenging industry for women. What can we do? What can we be doing now? We've been doing things for a long time, but what more can we do? Wow. I don't know. I think I just always come back to telling our own stories, I think, as much as we can. That's the only place I find power is in creating. And I think that I have felt particularly in the past few years when I've had, had maybe greater positions of power in making TV, that being particularly a young woman, I think, you have to fight quite hard to be heard, especially in rooms full of older men. I have had some amazing champions behind me. It's just been quite annoying to have to call on them

when you're kind of saying, you know, this is how I want to make this or this is how this should be. And you know you're right and you know that you have worked hard enough to be taken seriously but to have to sort of call someone and say can you tell them I'm right is which I've had to happen is kind of frustrating I don't know the way around that I I other than actually you know what I think it's as you rise that you empower other women and you empower people you can empower as they come up and I have always tried to now I'm you know execting and lead writing to look at how I people like me would come into the industry and you know if people want to write and ask me for advice or if I can help them I try to and try to act like the person I wish I had you know when

I was first starting out because I think that's the only thing you can do is kind of concentrate on what you can do in your own world I remember reading actually when you were pregnant you expressed your concern that it might impact your work yeah from the outside I mean it appears that it hasn't impact your career but I don't I don't know What do you say to that? I think it has. I think actually being pregnant didn't, which I was really lucky. I was filming a second series of a TV show.

So we got to write in my bump, which was so great. And I was filming until I was 36 weeks pregnant. And it was just like I loved it. And everyone around me was really supportive and really looked after me. It actually, that was the bit I was worried about. I was worried about the pregnancy. I was thinking as an actress, you know, what if I get a role where I shouldn't be pregnant? I mean, I'll lose the role.

And it's this massive fear. The I shouldn't worry about that. Right. The bit that I was actually worried about was the after, which was the massive split that happens in your brain. The things that was so important to me before are sort of pushed aside. Not necessarily willingly, but there's just this other thing that demands a lot of attention. and you know I think men have it too I think my husband definitely will feel that to some extent I just think it is greater for me I don't know whether that's biological or just you know

society and what they expect from mothers I think I'm really trying to hold on to who I was and my work because I think I need it as for my sense of individual but who I am as an individual I wish I could sit here and say that it didn't change anything but it did yeah and it's like Like you sort of come up against like a wall, like a rock hard wall. And you're like, oh, that's fact. I can't change that. I can't just say I'm going to be different. That's fact.

Everyone was right. Everyone who was wise was right. And yeah, you just join a new club where you're like, oh, God, yeah. No, I get it now. Okay. Yeah, got it. But you can't just take other people's word for it. No.

You have to experience that yourself. Of course. You know what I found those that I found an amazing. kind of sisterhood of other actors, writers, directors, female actors, writers, directors who are also trying to do the same thing and there's just a lot

of messages going back and forth like keep going, you're amazing to each other. Because kind of when you're in that boat, you're like, oh, you're in that boat and you're in that boat and you're in that boat. Great. And it's not like you know, that sounds like it's kind of, you know, a club. I've said

it's a club. It's not. It's just, you know, connecting on the difficulty, which I didn't realize before. It comes back to connection. It comes back to the fact that you're not alone. Keep going. You're amazing. It's time to talk about your fifth and final bookshadow book, which is I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara,

the masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer. The serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade. I'll Be Gone in the Dark offers a unique snapshot of, suburban West Coast America in the 1980s and a chilling account of the wreckage left behind by a criminal mastermind. It's also a portrait of one woman's obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth three decades later in spite of the personal cost. Now we actually don't get very much true crime recommended on bookshelf. I'm really happy that you recommend this book. It's new to me. It's an incredible piece of journalism. Tell us a bit more about it. There's kind of nothing

like it. It's so, I mean, it's such a feat, this book. I mean, I read it because I was writing something, a crime, a crime drama. And there are like very real elements about the, the way that she investigated, crime that impacted the way I was writing about it. But the big thing that I remember about reading about it is, is her. She, it's sort of a memoir. But the memoir is taken over by her husband and another journalist or investigator towards the end because she dies partway through writing it from

I think it's a prescription pill overdose accidental but she had been taking these pills I think in part to stay up and work and write and so this book is just chilling in many ways and emotional

and kind of incredible to experience not just in the in the way that true crime can be fascinating in that it's sort of looking at why people do things and there's that satisfaction of it being solved but ultimately it takes you on a journey

of a woman's kind of soul as she goes, she comes, becomes obsessed with working out who did these crimes. It's just really something. Well, you said that this has probably influenced your work most directly of any book. What is it about this that inspired you so much?

I think, I mean, Literally there are things in it that, so they actually found the Golden State Killer because of some DNA that they then put into a DNA database, which then found his cousin, I think. And then it was just like a very new way of solving crime. And that very much influenced the way, it's something I put into Karen Piri. And also her character, her kind of obsessive, committed way of looking at these crimes really influenced that. character as well so I think in a very tangible way it influenced me but also I think it's just the female lens over something that maybe we haven't seen it over before I think it goes back to that that thing I love about Frankenstein but she is a mother she's a wife she is a true crime

she's kind of an amateur true crime enthusiast she's a journalist but she does everything in her own home as she's investigating this she's not the sort of you know hard-boiled tough cop that you see in lots of these kind of shows. And I just find it very interesting to see that version of this. And I think that's why I drew me in so much. Karen Piri is based on one of Val McDermott's crime series. Yeah. Can you tell us a bit more about the adaptation process, how it works?

So do you and Val interact much? Yeah, yeah. Vars been amazing. I actually came to Val. She wrote a nonfiction book called Forensics, which is brilliant and I'd read that. I hadn't actually read her fiction. And I got sent Karen Perry the first book and read it

and just really loved the central character who I think she's 28 in the first book and I was 28 as I was reading it. And it's really interesting because the book is very long and she actually doesn't come in until, it's like 400 pages long and she doesn't come into like 300th page. But they presented it to me as like, this is the Karen Perry series. I was like, hangar, where is she? But what I kind of loved was because it was built into the prospect that I would have to kind of reshape it and remix it, I sort of saw an opportunity to do something with that character that wasn't in the book.

And I kind of liked that. As much as I loved the story and loved Biles writing, it was like, oh, I can take her and kind of build her out and put her in it. a little bit of myself in and you know the actress came along put a little bit of herself in and we kind of built something that I think is very much foul but there's a bit of me and then there's a bit of Lauren well a lot of Lauren in there as well. Working as an actor and a writer and an executive producer sometimes at the same time. Do you find yourself enjoying one of these roles more than the other? Do you enjoy the challenge of having so many different responsibilities? Does it help to have that balance?

I love the balance. I couldn't do it without the balance, like without all of the elements. As I, we talk about, like I find writing very lonely and painful. I love acting. I just find it the most fun and thing in the world. It's just the actual job part of it where the rejection, the insecurity, that kind of stuff is hard to deal with. So the kind of the two balancing each other for me is perfect.

I really like the executive producing element of it because I'm such a control freak I've realised. And for our listeners as well, because we always see that title at the end of the credits. What does it even mean? Well, I think sometimes it's there as a sort of, like, they do give it to certain people who aren't necessarily working that hard on it.

So it's hard to decipher. I'm working that hard on it. That's so drunk. Well, some people can give some money and be like, now I'm an executive producer. Or they've got all, like, they are at a certain point in their career, where if they're involved, they're getting that credit anyway, right?

And then there are people who are actively execting. So when you see it at the end of a TV show, it is really difficult to decipher what anyone has actually done on the TV show. On Karen Beery, I was on set every day. I was sitting next to the director, probably to an annoying level. I watch every single casting tape. I watch every cut. I'm like, I care about every single shot so much that my husband is like,

you're a nightmare to live with. Well, he gets up at 3.45 every day for the radio. So come on. There we go. Maybe you're just tired, Rick. But I think I've always been that obsessive. I think that's probably why I relate to I'll be gone on the dark as well. I think I have always been that obsessive,

but this has just given me, like, fuel for the fire and permission, I suppose. Yeah, and I don't think that's going to stop anytime soon. So I've just, I've learned to embrace that and kind of go. this is who I am, this is how I want to make things and that's hopefully a good thing. And it's paid off. I mean, Karen Perry is such a huge success. Six million viewers averaging across each episode.

That's a hit. That's a hit. So, I do want to ask you what next? I mean, would you write a novel? You know what I thought about this. I don't think I'm that good at writing. Like I know this sounds crazy because I'm a writer, but like I think what I'm good at is people and what they might say.

And so screenwriting is perfect because basically I'm just really quite good at dialogue. Whereas if I came to write prose, I just don't know if I, maybe this is just me doubting myself, but I just don't know if it's my medium. So who knows, but I don't, I think I'm kind of accidentally hit the thing that I weirdly can do well. so no but then I don't know I rule it out do you know what I mean who knows but what magic that is to accidentally hit the thing that you're really good at yeah yeah yeah I'm good at but hate yeah I'm gonna ask you one more thing that you might also hate I'd like you to choose one book from your list as a favorite and tell me why I think I'm gonna go for an American marriage because out of all of them it's the one I could read it over and over again it's just her writing, her characters. I love reading about love and it's a really complicated version of love.

It's a love triangle that you understand all three corners of. And if there was one book that I think everyone should read from this list, I would say it was that one. I think it's beautiful. I absolutely agree with you. I've really enjoyed this. I could talk to you all day, every day. Thank you so much for joining us on bookshelf.

Thank you. I could talk to you as well. Let's just do a six-hour podcast. Let's just continue. Keep rolling, guys. I'm Vic Hope, and you've been listening to the Women's Price for Fiction Bootschelphie podcast, brought to you by Bayleys

and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you for joining me for this episode. You'll find all the books discussed in our show notes. If you've enjoyed it, please leave us a rating or review to help other readers discover even more brilliant books by women. See you next time.