Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S9 Ep11: Bookshelfie x Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave makes a confession about her book “borrowing”, and explains why a 50 year old book about photography should be mandatory reading for young people before they join social media. Kiran’s first novel for adults, The Mercies, became an instant Sunday Times bestseller. It won a Betty Trask Award, was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize and was named among the New York Times 100 Most Notable Books of 2020. Her bestselling works for children include The Girl of Ink & Stars. Her new book, Almost Life, a queer love story that spans decades, is out now. Kiran’s book choices are** Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin** On Photography by Susan Sontag** The Wild Iris by Louise Glück** Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton** The Carrier Bag of Fiction by Ursula K. Le GuinYou 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. Every week on Bookshelfie, Vick Hope is joined by inspirational women to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, is run by the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity building a better future by championing women’s writing. Don’t want to miss the rest of season nine? Follow or subscribe now!This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Hi, it's Vic. Just to let you know that there is a mention of suicidal ideation in this episode. Coming up on bookshelfy. I read to live. Like, I really feel that, you know, if I stop reading, I will die. That is the time to want me. I like that. Let's be dramatic about the importance of it. It's really like, get that. Just disclaimer, I love Instagram and I have quite a healthy relationship with it, but it's because I have a deep mistrust of it. Okay. And, you know. Isn't it funny that a healthy relationship has to be built on a deep mistrust? Exactly.

The only way to do it. Where tech pros are involved, I absolutely stand by that statement. This is something I say constantly to children. If you're writing, you're a writer. Like that's the only qualification. There are plenty of adults who are published authors who aren't, I would consider writers because they're not, you know, they're not investing. They like the accoutrements of it.

But the real work, that's where it is. You know, there's stories that are waiting to be told. that I've thought about for, you know, eight, ten years. One story that I long to tell, that I'll probably be waiting another 40 years to tell, just because it's not the right time for me to write it. But I know that they'll still be there waiting for me, and that's what I love about writing as well as reading.

Hello, I'm Vic Hope, and this is Bookshelfy, the podcast from the Women's Prize that asks women, with lives as inspiring as any fiction, to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Now, before we begin, remember to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode with thanks to our sponsor, Bailey's. Today, I'm joined by Kieran Millwood Hargrave. Kieran is an award-winning poet, playwright and novelist. The Mercies was her first novel for adults and it became an instant Sunday Times bestseller.

It won a Betty Trask Award, was long-listed for the Jallack Prize and was named among the New York Times 100 most notable books of 2020. Her bestselling works for children include The Girl of Inters. Incan Stars and her new book, Almost Life, A Queer Love Story that spans decades, is out now. Welcome. You know what, it turns out that we were at uni at the same time together. I know, and we've never met. But here we are. Well, it's lovely to have you in the studio.

Thank you. I would love to know where your reading takes you. Because as someone who writes for both children and adults, do you feel like your reading is shaped by your writing, like who you're writing for and when you're writing? That's such an interesting question. And so I read to live. Like I really feel that, you know, if I stop reading, I will die. That is the time to want me.

I like that. Let's be dramatic about the importance of it. I'm dramatic about it. It really like it's so central to my mental health, my identity, everything that I have always read incredibly widely. And I used to think that was a bit of a, not a downfall, but a bit of a weakness that I didn't have one thing that I really. really connected with and really cared about that I read so diversely. But now I think it's such a blessing because I think I wouldn't be writing in all these different genres if I hadn't always been reading very widely as well. All the worlds that you have been able to escape to,

to find yourself in. Oh, it's, of course it's a blessing. And do you read children's books as much as writing? I absolutely do. I've become one of those very evangelical children's authors. Don't get children's authors started on how everyone should be reading children's books. We're very committed to the idea and I think it should work a bit more like film ratings. You know how you is just suitable for everyone. Yeah. I think that's kind of how I approach children's books. If something's really good, it's just appropriate for everyone. There's just no lower limit and there's certainly no upper limit. And I think it's a real shame. I think we do miss a lot of the really bold storytelling that's happening by dismissing and diminishing children's books and certainly having a

a toddler now, appreciating the genius of picture books. If you can read a book 50 times, sometimes in one night and not want to throw it across the room, it's a great book. And that is certainly the case with some of her picture books. I feel you now. I do. Those owl babies, I don't know if you read owl babies. I love our babies.

We're on to the owl who's afraid of the dark now. We'll get there. You will. But currently we're reading owl babies for the thousandth time. But we still love it. Of course, of course. I love that idea of not just paying heed, which we do in films to the lower limit, but also the upper limit. And the fact that there probably shouldn't be either with so much of this important culture.

Now your new book, Almost Life, it's a queer romance. It begins as a summer love in the late 1970s in Paris. What drew you to this story? Why did you need to write it? So I was writing something totally different this time two years ago. In fact, I think it was the 8th of May that I started writing Almost Life. And I was writing a horror story set in the dying days of the British Raj. Because I have mixed heritage, Indian and British,

and I wanted to kind of explore that pull, push and pull, identity. But then three things happened. I listened endlessly to Good Luck Babe by Chapel Rhone. I watched past lives, the Celine song for film. And I watched the one day TV adaptation. And suddenly I didn't want to rewriting a horror novel anymore. I wanted to write a love story. And I literally, you've already noticed I'm dramatic.

I cast aside my work in progress. Physically throw it out of the window. I cannot do this anymore. Like 50,000 words just was like, this is not what my soul needs right now. And I started writing almost life. And all my books begin with an image. and the image in this book was a girl walking towards another girl on the steps of the Sacri Corps in Paris. And yeah, it's always an image and a question.

And I just wanted to know who they were and what they were going to come to mean to each other. That's beautiful. And this idea that you follow your soul with your writing, do you do the same with your reading? Would you cast a book aside if you're reading it and thinking this is not what my soul needs right now? So I was raised to be diligent, you know, give the book the respect, finish it, and now I'm like completely disrespectful. I'm incredibly monogamous apart from when it comes to reading. I will just cast one aside. I will read two at the same time.

Sometimes in one night I'm like, okay, I've had enough that one now, put it down. I'm really, it's what my brain needs now. And I don't know whether that says something about attention span. But I think it's more just life is so short. And if I'm not feeling something, I'll never blame the book. I will never blame the book. I think it's all about mood and sort of just where you are in that moment. But yeah, I absolutely will just give myself permission to follow what I want and need in that moment.

You can come back to it another time when it's right. And I don't think it's disrespectful. I think it's respectful to yourself and your needs. And to the writer. They don't want you to be hate reading their book. You resenting it. Leave it. It's not their fault.

Well, let's follow your soul right now and the books that you have loved that you have needed at times in your life. And the first is Jimmila Gavin's Coram Boy. Coram Boy is a haunting and captivating work of historical fiction for children. The Coram Man takes babies and money from desperate mothers, promising to deliver them safely to a foundling hospital in London. Instead, he murders them and buries them by the roadside to the helpless horror of his mentally ill son. Mish. Mish saves one, Aaron, who grows up happily unaware of his history, proving himself a promising musician. As Aaron's new life takes him closer to his real family, the watchful Mish makes a terrible mistake, delivering Aaron and his best friend Toby back into the hands

of the Coram Man. I got such a pang of nostalgia seeing this on your notes. I'd forgotten about reading it and being immersed in it. What do you remember about reading this for the first time? Horror, terror, but also a genuine physical, like I was being pushed down in my seat and being made to pay attention to something that I never knew existed. And I think, I think children love to be afraid. Like I love, I still quite like horror films and things, but I used to love anything that made my heart beat fast, my palm sweat. And this book, it is horrifying that you can hear in the concept. It's horrifying, but it's also incredibly humane.

It's incredibly vividly and beautifully written. And Jamila Gavin, in all her stories, has such a skill for telling you straight, but always being aware that you might be encountering something for the first time. So she holds your hand. and I think you feel safe with her. She's not going to pull the rug out. So I remember, yeah, feeling like I was being held down in my chair and being not forced, but being made to hear something I needed to hear.

And I did, you know, as viscerally as with Nauts and Crosses, I felt changed after reading it. Yeah, you mentioned Nauts and Crosses, Mallory Blackman. I think that would probably be on my list as a formative book or a book that made me see the world in a way that has, shape my entire moral compass. Why do you mention them in the same breath? I think there are moments in both the books.

And I think the moment for me with Norts and crosses is the moment where they get a skin coloured plaster and it doesn't match Malcolm's skin and he sort of, it's too dark on his skin and then I realise, yeah, obviously flesh coloured is white. And it just had never been so clear to me and then in Coram Boy it's when Aaron sings and it's sort of in the juxtaposition of there's a really it's a really bracing and I apologize to listeners because it is it's really upsetting where the

children are being buried the babies are being buried and the filling of the mouth and then what his beautiful voice could do and the fact that all those voices were taken and I was like oh God it really is just birth an accident of birth you know fate is is so fickle and decide so much and I think yeah I felt like I'd grown up a bit through reading it did you feel at all triggered or something had been sparked or awakened in you how was it formative yeah I think triggered in the sense of the word as I would have understood it then as in activated I think I mean now I find it triggering in different ways but but definitely it activated a sense of injustice it made me understand that

whoever has control of the narrative has the power and it's important that good people control the narrative because you know who gets to tell what story can completely form who gets our empathy what we what we value in people or if we even value people so I think it really found it very confronting in just that there was the world was so full of a cruelty that I had never had to think about. And obviously this is something that happened in Victorian Britain, but I think it just made me aware that the world was so much more full of darkness, but that there was always light as well.

So I think it also just sparked a love of darkness in books, I think, for me. I've always enjoyed going there, but there always has to be leavened a bit with hope for me. There's something about that darkness being expressed and in your hand being held through it, like you said, for children when your moral gumpers is so clear. And I remember reading Norton Crosses, also to Kill a Mockingbird. And nothing had been compromised yet for me. I hadn't had to compromise what I thought was right and just, just to get by. And so it was so clear that it was unjust. and then we live our lives and we sort of just do what we have to do a little bit more.

But can you remember young Kieran reading this book so sure of what is right and wrong? What were you like? Were you a little activist in a way after reading this? I wouldn't go that far because I was still ultimately a bookish child and would prefer to sort of have my confrontations in my head. But I certainly started to see things in different shades, lot more and you know there's there's always a moment where you realize the world is so much bigger than you ever imagined and could hold so much more possibility and I think I think it emboldened me to sort of speak up a bit more and and if I saw you know for instance bullying or something I felt

like I could confront that situation because I saw what an escalation could be so I didn't I wouldn't say it was like my damascene moment, but it was a slow awakening for me and I have become more and more radical as I've aged and also become a lot less entrenched. I think that was

another thing is like you said, you're very sure of what's right and wrong and I think it's really important to have those shades of grey and start to make everything more complex because that's the world we live in. And so whilst I have become more certain of what's right and wrong I'm also a lot more aware of the complexity.

And you said about the importance of reading children's literature, how much has this book particularly influenced your writing? I mean, looking for unseen history is like my bread and butter. That's what I love to read. It's what I love to write. And I love taking that to the extreme as well, where reading books about imagined alternate realities like in Nauts and Crosses, but every story has already been told and it's already happened.

And I find that incredibly encouraging and moving. I think the fact that human imagination can still bring stories afresh when they've already happened and existed, I find that really beautiful about people that we have this skill. And it certainly teaches me to go back into sort of go about. into the past and that's where so much of the richness of our present and our future lies and you can learn so much from those stories. And so many new perspectives, there are always new perspectives to uncover even if we feel we've heard the story told a thousand times. Think about the people whose voices perhaps weren't heard. And on the subject of new perspectives,

let's talk about your second book, Shelfy book, which is on photography by Susan Sontag, a seminal and groundbreaking work first published in 1977. Susan Sondon. Sontag's critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form and feels more pertinent today than ever. Photographs are everywhere and the insatiability of the photographing eye has profoundly altered our relationship with the world. In these six incisive essays, Sontag examines the ways in which we use these omnipresent images to manufacture a sense of reality and authority in our lives. how did you come across this book? I've got a note here that you found it on your lover's bedside table. Time more.

That's very romantic. Yeah, so I fell in love very inconveniently in my first year at university, having really looked forward to sewing some wild oats and was like, damn it. And it ended up being the man I married as well, which is very inconvenient. But he was a painter, an artist, and he read a lot of art theory. and I have to say I was like, yorn. And then I just like the cover.

And I've always been a bit, I'm going to call it a magpie, but actually I'm just a thief. I steal books from people I know. Oh, you're one of those. I'm one of those. Yeah. I forgive you because, you know, we're all about sharing here. Yeah, sure, sure. No, one of my best friends won't lend me a book because she knows this about me.

But he had on photography, you know, dogged. And I was like, well, he was running away from me at this point. as well. So I was like, let's read this and impress him with my skills. You know, I was, I was 18, forgive me. But I read it and I just felt my brain explode. Like I'd never read an art theory book before. And I imagine that they were dry. And when you read Susan Sontag, there is a confrontation in the way that she writes that is it it's um yeah it's critical it's like you are implicit in this and this is a book that's all about as you said how photography changes are our relationship with reality and how especially she talks very interestingly about for

example war photographers and how they become complicit in the crimes that they sort of um are photographing and yet the camera allows them to dodge that complicity and so that's extra harmful and it just it was just at the stage of you know Facebook was really taking off we'd left my space behind when it was all you know take them up from up here but photography was becoming a really integral part of how we connected with people and it was starting to get easy to share images you weren't having to pay you know 20p every time you sent a photograph anymore and It just made me think, you know, about authenticity, about how people curate reality. And again, I think it links to the Coromboi in how we shape a narrative is really important.

And weighted in ways that I think a lot of people don't always realize. And I think we're now far enough into the Instagram phase that a lot of us are aware of the curated nature of image and how that can harm. but there's still just this instant access we feel we have to the truth, you know, minute by minute, when actually you're always just looking at a snapshot, a moment that can never tell a whole truth. And I think that it really relates to how we consume news nowadays. And, you know, I have turned absolutely to, since Twitter died, I've turned absolutely to Instagram for my news. but it's still only part of the story and it can also

the access to certain images can sometimes really paralyze you know you can't, you don't know you're not designed to be able to consume this level of trauma and it can really almost become unhelpful.

That doesn't mean I think we should look away but also I think sometimes people think it's enough to just see it and that's not action that's just consumption. The way we engage has completely changed and it's not even necessarily real. That's the other thing.

I heard, and I don't know if this is true or if this was a few years ago, but it was something like in the last year, there have been more selfies taken than there are all photographs put together in the rest of history. That makes me feel depressed and I don't know what. I think it's, I think where my brain goes when I hear that is not necessarily that we're becoming so obsessed with our own image. It's more like the data that that's eating.

and the environmental impact of storing all those selfies that makes me sad. But flipping the camera around as well, that's a very interesting phenomenon in itself. I heard Rosalia, who I'm obsessed with, say that her take on life is that there are no perfect mirrors in nature. We are not supposed to look at ourselves more than we look at others. And yet here we are. And so when you talk about are we really getting the truth in a snapshot, Imagine when we flip that on ourselves and we're still not quite getting the truth

about the person that we actually are. I mean, we're all being given dysmorphia by our cameras. Because they're not even cameras. They're computers that interpret an image. You know, a phone camera is not, it's a computer, it's not a camera. It doesn't even fully reflect what the truth is.

No, it's flipped. It's weird. It's weird. With all this in mind, do Susan Sontag's observations still feel as relevant as ever? They feel more relevant. They feel almost essential reading And I think along with the society of the spectacle

You know, she really gets the nub of something Where in a world where we are told that we are more connected than ever We are It's so easy to feel alone and disconnected And actually a lot of the tools we were given Being told this is how you build a community I think with Twitter we saw the warning shots We were like, this can be taken away from you

I had real friends on Twitter I felt But as soon as Twitter went, it was gone, that community had gone. And, you know, social media, I think we're all sort of wising up to the fact that I love, just disclaimer, I love Instagram. I love, and I have quite a healthy relationship with it. But it's because I have a deep mistrust of it. Okay. And, you know. Isn't it funny that a healthy relationship has to be built on a deep mistrust? Exactly.

It's the only way to do it. Where tech pros are involved, I absolutely stand by that statement. And, yeah, I think that I reread it. in sort of preparing for this. And I was just sort of jaw on the floor, like reading bits out to my partner, like husband. I was just like, this is, this should be required reading before, you know,

we let a teenager sign up to an account. It's like my mum let me know about subliminal messaging and advertising before she started letting me watch TV unsupervised. It's like, you know, you don't want to sound like a nut, but like there is a lot of manipulation happening. and it's all driven towards consumption and making money for a select view. And you are the product with Instagram. When you said that this book gave you a little explosion in your brain,

that intellectual stimulation, did it prompt you to read more art theory? What part does art play in your creative life? It's now so uncheek to admit that a man has, you know, given you such an essential part. He just left it lying around. You found it. But he really helped me slow down and learn to look.

I think that the greatest gift he will always have given me is that is learning to give something my full attention. The first time I spent time in front of a painting for more than sort of long enough to sort of, okay, what's going on? Okay, move on. I cried.

And it was a feeling. really I was like, God, you can really access this just by looking at something and actually really seeing something. And I think that is now something that I very much bring to my books and it, in a very explicit way, in almost like, you know, a character teaches another character to look at a painting. And it is, it feels like a superpower. It's like an instant cheat. It must be what it feels like to be able to meditate, which I can't do. But, you know, that's stillness and finding that that connection with something and giving it your full attention and that translates so intimately into love and I think that that that's why that book reading that book

not only exploded my brain but also made me fall completely and hopelessly in love with this person because they were just reading this stuff and their brain was full of it and I was greedy for it I wanted to learn more well a painting can be a meditation on any given subject, as can poetry, which brings us on to our third book, Shelfy book today, which is the Wild Iris by Louise Gluck. Published in 1992, this Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection is written in the language of flowers. It describes a year in and around a garden, written in three voices, the gardener, an omniscient godlike figure, and the plants themselves, covering the seasons, death, and the cycle of life. Now, this book was a source of solace, and a

nourishment for you at a time that was quite traumatic in your life. Can you talk about your relationship with this collection? Of course. So poetry has always been part of the fabric of my reading life because my father, first of all, wanted to be a poet, but he was the, you know, the son of a factory worker in Yorkshire and that just wasn't going to happen for his son. So, but he grew up, you know, reading us, Orden and Elliot, and I grew up understanding poetry that's something that came alive out loud. And so I read the Wild Iris when I was at university and I was very depressed. A traumatic incident had happened to me and I was stuck in the moment of trauma and my partner bought me a stack of poetry books because my brain couldn't settle. You know, I said earlier that

reading is life to me and, you know, when I stopped reading something bad's going on and I couldn't read and but poetry i could sit with a page and i could or i could sit with a moment and that's what poetry does is it is it takes you into a moment and there's the form of it that's short but there's such richness in in that and so i still felt like i was being fed like i was being nourished even when huge parts of my brain were numb and the wild iris speaks so beautifully about death at a time when i you know suicide ideation was part of my daily life and i you know suicide ideation was part of my daily life. And instead of feeling afraid of that, it almost became a comfort. It became like, you can do this because it's always there. Like death is a constant companion. And I don't know if

anyone's, if you've read, duck the death and the tulip. But it's a similar, similar, it's like that in a poetry collection in that it takes you by the hand and it walks with you through the dying of a garden, you know, through the beautiful blooming and then the quiet, illness and then the cycle starts again. And the title poem is really about that. It's about what comes after. And yes, there's a metaphysical, spiritual aspect to it, but there's also just a concrete biological aspect to it, is that we are all living things and we all earth and stars. And I just found the grounding of that incredibly comforting, even though I think I read them as quite bleak and again I reread the title poem in preparation for this and actually now it's all about life

to me it's all about you know it's all about the moments um that that that matter and so I love that about poetry as well they are so ambiguous and they can change depending on what you're bringing to them so much well charting that life cycle of that garden means that you are going to run through those seasons cyclically and whenever you come to it could be a different part but it will it will rise again exactly that titular poem is um it's about survival and healing and life force does it still resonate with you now but in different ways you return to the collection and i it makes me think of my daughter it makes me think of my daughter in our garden you know it makes me think of her smelling flowers and going you know she's just because we've taught her that's what you do that's what you do

That's what you do. My son's definitely going to say, oh, that's a beautiful flower every time just because that's what I do. Isn't it a beautiful flower? It's the things we pass on. You know, and I'm so excited that that will be, and I hope it doesn't mean to her what it meant to me. But I hope it means something to her. And I hope that, like my father passed poetry to me, I hope that that's something I can pass to her. Are there any poems that you particularly associate with your father?

I mean the four quartets. He recites those often, which I love. And also Bear Wolf, the Seamus Heaney translation. He read that aloud to me and my brother on holiday. We're a cool family. And me and my brother were crying like when Grendel's mother came out because it was so scary. I mean, we were like, I was 10. Okay.

So that was actually, no, but you were. You felt it. I felt it. It was like, it was really, he's very into like North Sargars and stuff. He's convinced he's a Viking even though he did his family tree. Yorkshire all the way back like so even though he wasn't able to fulfill his dreams of becoming a poet does he still get to be a poet well I think he's a poet I've read some of his his work and and I think he's a poet and I think what's so beautiful about my dad is he has always been so

pro me writing you know my mom had the whole sure you don't want to be a lawyer okay you know it was your dad who my dad was like you need to do this like and he said to me last night actually um he said, I'm so proud that we have a poet in the family. Oh, gosh. Had a moment. He's too sweet for this world, my dad. And you're right, just because he's not a published poet doesn't mean he's not a poet. He's a poet.

Well, this is something I say constantly to children. If you're writing, you're a writer. Like, that's the only qualification. There are plenty of adults who are published authors who aren't, I would consider writers because they're not, you know, they're not investing. They like the accoutrements of it. But the real work, that's where, that's where, that's where it is.

This episode of Bookshelfy is sponsored by Bayleys. Bayleys is proudly supporting the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction, helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treats, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favorite book.

Check out Baileys.com for our favorite Bailey's recipes. Karen, let's talk about your fourth bookshelfy pick, which is Burnham Wood by Eleanor Katton. This is a gripping psychological thriller from the Women's Prize long-listed author of the rehearsals and the luminaries, which gives an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival. Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group, Burnham Wood, planting crops wherever no one will notice on the sides of roads in forgotten parts.

and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even until a landslide offers the opportunity of a sizable farm. But Mira is not the only one interested. An American billionaire has snatched it up to build his end times bunker, testing the ideals and ideologies of all involved. Now, you've described this book as wry, funny, devastating.

What stood out to you the most about it? I think that humor that she has, the thing I love about Katten's work is she always swings and swings big. Like it's similar quality to Margaret Atwood in that she will always try something. And so far I don't think that Katten's actually failed, but like you just know you can follow her and she will always be pushing herself and you as the reader. And this made me laugh out loud from like the very first page. I read it on our baby moon.

and I was just the whole day just like cackling. And it's pretty dark at points as well. There's a lot of stickiness and a lot of uncomfortable reflections about millennial culture and take attitudes to life. But I think the humor is really what stays with me. And when you describe it, you're like, it's a humor about, you know, our different approaches to the end of the world, I suppose. And community and how some people go into isolationism when they're afraid and other people reach out for community. And I think that's another big thing I took for this book is that you have to make your own village. You are part of the village.

Like, you know, you have to be an active participant in community. And I think that's what this book also wrestles with about how in a time when we're all told to be individual. it's actually more important to be in community with each other. It really does grapple with multiple global social crises, ecological and identity crises as well. Are you drawn to fiction that quite boldly confronts the anxieties of our time? Absolutely, because I'm so anxious. I love reading what clever people have to say. And I love it particularly in fiction because, you know, they deliver their messages so entertainingly.

and I think that that's what she really succeeds in this book is, I don't think she's trying to bathe you over the head with a message, but you certainly come out with a point of view. And I really admire that. And it's something I really liked about Creation Lake as well by Rachel Kushner, is that it just had a, it wasn't necessarily a point of view I connected with, but I think it's so important for fiction to deliver, you know, different perspectives and makers confront our own, therefore.

And I really, that book has stayed with me so solidly. You know, I read so much. I read constantly. And whenever someone's like, I want to read a good book, I always recommend Burnham Wood. Because I think there's just something for everyone in it. There's also the theme of polyamory. And you have mentioned in your notes a particular passage. I shouldn't have done this.

I shouldn't have done this. A particular passage when you said there's something for everyone. There's a particular passage that struck a chord in there. I shouldn't have done this. So polyamory to me is just always sounded exhausting. And it was just really refreshing, having read lots of books that made me feel like I just wasn't getting something to read a book where it sort of describes a polyamorous relationship. And it does just sound exhausting. And like the logistics.

And there is still, you know, it's not this. I think utopia is always such an interesting theme in a book. And it sort of polyamory in theory feels like utopia where no one is property. everyone just gets to follow what makes them happy and everyone is fulfilled but of course that's not how people work you know of course there are still jealousies and power and balances

and it's only I think it's like a three page basically rant about polyamory but it's funny and it's and I connected with it very deeply so if anyone else is sort of looking at polyamory thinking what am I not getting it's okay you don't have to get it

read it's not for everyone it's not for everyone contrary to its name. Exactly. What lessons did you put, you say she's not trying to hit us over the head with any sort of moralising, but what lessons did you take from this book in terms of survival in precarious times? I mean, how do we make sure that the gorilla gardeners come out on top? Well, I think it's, first of all, accepting that not everyone thinks they should.

And I think that that's very confronting. but for me it's doing everything I can to make sure they do. So it's participating. It's showing up even when you don't feel like it or you don't want to. It's getting involved in local as well as global movements. And the difference that you can make to your neighbour's life, that is as valid as the difference you can make by contributing to a charity campaign. You know, it's really seeing yourself as part of an ecosystem.

and I think that seeing ourselves as part of nature is half the battle. If we can return to feeling that we are in that habitat, that we are sharing habitat rather than conquering it or having to fight it, I think, and I'm not saying the gorilla gardeners, I'm fully on their side either, because this book goes some places and I'm like, I do not condone this. But it certainly is interesting to juxtapose those two extremes and realize that actually most people probably would want to live somewhere in the middle,

but fear keeps people apart. And actually, I think, when we become more afraid, that's what I do when I see something upsetting on Instagram or on the news or just outside. There are kites, red kites in our garden. They're killing all the fledglings at the moment. I'm like, it's just nature. But, you know, do something. You know, donate to somewhere or call something.

someone who you know is having a hard time and it just it just helps to reconnect and be like don't be afraid don't withdraw reach out like that's what I've been trying to do more I always feel more inclined to do what I can in my own community because I can see how it might tangibly help um this is aside from you know cynicism around the overheads with big you know global charity work or whatever but it gives a new meaning to to grassroots isn't it when we We think about it in terms of gardens. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, when it comes to the home and our communities

and what is directly around us, it feels very pertinent to talk about your fifth and final bookshelfy book, which is the carry a bag of fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin. In this influential essay, visionary science fiction author Le Guin retells the story of human origin by focusing on what heroic, quote-unquote, storytelling, leaves out. Prior to the preeminence of sticks, swords and killing tools, Le Guin argues that our ancestor's greatest invention was actually the container,

the basket of wild oats, the medicine bundle, the net made of your own hair, the home, the shrine, the place that contains whatever is sacred. This essay pushes back on well-known masculine hero narratives, focused on power and domination, and invites us instead to see the value of stories which reflect everyday life. arguing that stories can be containers of ordinary experiences like relationships, community, and daily tasks, which are just as worthy of fiction. This is an iconic piece by Ursula Kela Gwynne. Why have you chosen it? When did you come across it?

I only read it about four years ago. I think that's correct. And it really just affirmed the philosophy that I had already been prescribed. to probably since about 2016, let's say, you know, about how we have really been done dirty by the pervasive narratives, like all of us, like men and women and everyone else as well. Everyone is being harmed by the current system and obviously I have to believe in karma because it's all that keeps me saying. So I do believe that all will be harmed at some point. But I just loved how plainly and cleanly she sets out a case for care and a case for love. And as a children's author, you're kind of contractually obliged to believe in love as a very powerful, motivating force. But it really is, you know, more than fear and more than...

Ursula Le Guin uses an example in this essay of how they found a sort of an ancient skeleton where the shin bone had been broken and reset. And, you know, this kind of goes against this idea of these nomadic peoples who were just kind of, you know, survival was moving on. This was someone who survived long enough for their bone to heal. And they could not have done that on their own. They were looked after. They were splinted. they were carried maybe in order to survive. And, you know, in a sort of survival of the fittest mentality

where it's a race to who can have the most of everything, I think it just reminds us again of this idea of community and how resources shared mean everyone has enough. And I also, so that's one strand of it that I really connected with about, you know, we don't always have to prescribe to this idea of sort of the phallic sort of linear structure through a story. And actually we can sit in the domestic and that's no less powerful or important. And obviously that then brings in a very feminist or rather a woman-centric strand

where our stories are as important. And I think that links back to the untold histories. that we were talking about, where, you know, there's always counterbalance and there's always weight in other places and there's always that other perspective. And I love, I'm, people say that it's been overdone now, but I'm here for all the feminist retellings of every myth. We're getting them. We keep getting them and we keep loving them. We need them. They're important and let it continue. Exactly. And I think that a lot of those do sort of bring the carry a bag theory of fiction to the fore because they're not these they're not slotting women into

the heroic role they're recasting what heroism is and what it means and you know certainly becoming a mother myself i have a whole new like respect for for anyone who mothers in any way and and the strength and i think terms like strength in hero have been hijacked by the sort of traditionally what we would consider male sort of traits but they are soft. It goes back again to what I was saying about love like these soft things are strong and they are the building blocks of everything

and I think that this essay, the reason I chose this essay instead of like a whole book is that I hope people will just go and find it and just read it because you can just read it in 10 minutes and it just holds so much and it gives you hope, I think, because it's there in our DNA, caring and carrying, it's there. I felt this newfound respect, admiration,

or for all women, right back to the beginning of humankind. Yes. In no time frame, literally all of history ever, when I gave birth. But it wasn't just the giving of birth, It doesn't have to necessarily manifest in that respect.

It was just womanhood in general. It took on a new meaning to me. Absolutely. And looking at it that way, there is no limit to the stories that could be retold. Where do you go about finding the stories that you feel are hidden that you would like to bring to the light? I have to, I'm the least cynical person, which sounds like humble brag, but it's really not useful when your job is writing. Like, because sometimes it would be good to be able to do what worked before and just do that again. And because that's sometimes what readers want as well.

But I have to, it's such an instinctive, heartfelt process for me. I have to go with the image, which is very much the work of subconscious. Like every single book I've, has had an image. And so there's partly that. But then there's now because I write for publication, there's always a gap of at least apart from with almost life. at least sort of six months to a year before I can actually get to the idea. So it has to stick. Right. You let it marinate. Yeah, I let it marinate. So everything that that doesn't truly speak to my soul falls away in that time and it's a really useful process. And I think if I'm

still in love with it in six months a year, I know that I will love it forever. And, you know, there's stories that are waiting to be told that I've thought about for, you know, eight, ten years. one story that I long to tell that I'll probably be waiting another 40 years to tell just because it's not the right time for me to write it. But I know that they'll still be there waiting for me. And that's what I love about writing as well as reading. Yeah, that same thing that you were saying earlier, that sometimes it's not the right moment to read a certain thing.

Sometimes it's not the right moment to write a certain thing either, but it can stay with you. It still lives inside of you. This essay advances counterarguments to prevailing. ideas on human evolution, but it's also at the same time it's highly poetic. It's this beautiful meditation on existence. Are you drawn to the balance of those two elements, particularly when it comes to nonfiction? And then how does that influence, in turn, your storytelling? There always has to be that balance of poetry and pace for me. I think it's because I was raised on a diet of poetry

where every word is so exact. And I think that people do the term lyricism and poetry dirty. It doesn't mean like fluff, it means exactitude, it means it means care, it means like it hits you exactly where it needs to. And, you know, there are plenty of different ways, therefore, to be lyrical or poetic. But yeah, I really respond to Liguin's writing in the way that it balances making a really bold and strong argument with just you wanting to like wrap yourself up in her words. And that's something that I've always sort of, I grew, I particularly love magical realism. And, and, you know, people like Alende who just really managed to, it's like she writes thrillers. I get so excited to get into another agenda book.

I know. It's just, give me that magic, just bathe me in it. Exactly. It is. It's like, or Rose Tremaine, like, has that quality too. Where you just, yeah, it's luscious. And my publisher for adults, their slogan is we believe the way a story is told is just as important as the story itself. And that's totally it for me.

If there's not some spark or some richness, I definitely lean towards the baroque in my taste for wanting words that surprise and sort of delight me. And I think that's really reflected in your choices today because I don't think we've ever had on this podcast, someone who's chosen essays, poetry. for the majority of their of their books. How interested are you in just playing with different forms of writing beyond the novel? Yeah, it wasn't a deliberate thing. This is what best reflects my taste. And as a writer as well as a reader, so I began by writing poetry and published a couple of collections before I even thought of writing fiction.

And when I was writing my first book, which turned out to be a children's book, I didn't know that it was going to be a children's book. Okay. It was sort of, then it made sense that it was, and it became obvious that it was. But, you know, really it was just about reveling in the landscape that I was writing and discovering, it's about a mapmaker's daughter and it's about discovering that landscape along with my main character. And I really think that I've carried that delight through with me. And I especially love books, like a very close contender for this list was The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.

Because, again, she plays the intertextuality of that book. is so playful. I think it's so much fun to sort of, I love it when a book has lots of different forms. You know, I'm one of those people who won't ever skim when they've got a page of like texts between characters. I'm like, yeah, give me the texts. So yeah, I think you can do anything in fiction and sometimes in nonfiction too. And I think that that's just something, I love just the endless inventiveness of the human mind. Well, from all of that endless inventiveness and your eclectic selection that you've brought today, if you had to pick one favorite, Which would it be and why?

I think I would probably say the wild iris because I think poetry is like origami to me and I think I can endlessly unfold it and fold it into new forms and I would never get tired of reading those poems. What an erudite. Exquisite way of putting it. It's like origami.

That's beautiful, as has been chatting to you. Thank you so much, Kieran. I've absolutely loved it. Me too. Thank you so much. I'm Vic Hope and that was Bookshelfy from the Women's Prize, supported by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thanks for joining me for this episode. You'll find all the books that we discussed in our show notes.

There's also a link to our bookshop.org shelf where every purchase supports independent bookshops and the work of the Women's Prize Trust, a charity helping build a better future by championing women's writing. Now remember to hit the follow or subscribe. button so you never miss an episode and if you like this one then leave us a rating or review to help other readers discover even more brilliant books by women. I'll see you next time.