Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S9 Ep12: Bookshelfie: Donna Ashworth

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

The UK’s bestselling poet, Donna Ashworth, joins Vick to discuss why ‘Instapoetry’ should not be dismissed, finding herself in the words of Sylvia Plath and the power of a midlife muse. Donna started her social media accounts in 2018 in a bid to create a 'safe' space for women to come together and connect, but her love of all things wordy quickly became the focus, and a past love for poetry was reignited. Over 10 books and nearly 2 million followers later, Donna has made it her daily mission to shower the world with words and bring poetry back into focus. Her bestselling books include To the Women, Wild Hope, Words to Live By: A Journal, Growing Brave, I Wish I Knew, Love, Loss, Life and an illustrated book of children's poetry, Words Can Fly.Donna’s book choices are** The Bell Jar by Sylvia Path** In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women by Alice Walker** Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding** Menopausing: The Positive Roadmap to Your Second Spring by Davina McCall and Dr Naomi Potter** Enough by Dawn FrenchYou 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 everyone, this is Vic. Just to let you know that there is a mention of suicide in this episode. Coming up on bootshelfy. I don't think thinking about death is morbid. I don't think there's anything more life affirming than remembering that you're going to die. Because the minute you have that thought or you think about someone who isn't here anymore, you're back in the moment of living. You're grateful for the moment of living.

I allowed myself to be imperfect. I allowed myself to make mistakes and correct them openly. And that took a lot of guts at the time. But I'm so glad I did that because I don't think I would have been able to continue on and on and on if I was judging my work or comparing it. I spent so much of the first half of my life worrying about things and caring too much of what other people thought of me.

But I'm determined that this part of my life will be golden. When you were 20 or 30, you thought you knew all? When you're 50, you think, ah, I know nothing whatsoever. And isn't that a wonderful thing because you show up every day ready to learn? 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, Bayleys. Today, I'm joined by Donna Ashworth.

Donna is a number one Sunday Times bestselling author and the UK's number one bestselling poet. She started her social media accounts in 2018 in a bid to create a safe space for women to come together and connect. But her love of all things wordy quickly became the focus and a past love for poetry was reignited. Over 10 books and nearly 2 million followers later, Donna's made it her daily mission to shower the world with words and bring poetry back into focus. Donna's best-selling books include To the Women, Wild Hope, Words to Live By, A Journal, Growing Brave, I Wish I knew, Love, Lost, Life, and an illustrated book of children's poetry called Words Can Fly. Donna, welcome. It's so lovely to see you. It's such a joy to be here. Well, at the time of recording, last night was the British Book Awards where I did see you.

And you wrote a really beautiful post actually today about not winning. Yeah. Tell us why that is such a great thing. I think this whole journey of mine, because I'm an overthinker, I knew that if I didn't sort of make some changes in my thought process from the beginning, that I might ruin it for myself, not enjoying the moment, taking the opportunities and spending too much time thinking about what's next or what could go wrong. So I had decided before I even got to the awards last night that I was delighted. delighted not to win

to be shortlisted to be invited to be in that room to be amongst it all because it really signifies how far I've come as a person now that I'm in my 50s if you'd have asked me 10 years ago

about doing any of this I would not have been able to even imagine it I was so shut down you know lacking confidence and so on so the joy for me was my humanity haven't evolved to the point where I could be a part of it at all

and I think because it's mental health, it's not winning, as well as winning. Well, you've won in so many other ways. Do you know what I mean? You're rich in so many ways. When you look at how you rose to prominence with your poetry, which was really during the COVID lockdown and amassing all of these followers and fans, how did it feel to experience this sort of surprise, wide, spread attention? It still blows my mind on a daily basis because to me it has been quite gradual

when you're in it. You know, you don't see the sort of the big change. But if I do stop to look back over it or if somebody asks me about it, I am really blown away by how this whole thing unfolded because it did unfold. And I just remember at every step allowing myself, again, not to overthink, which is so difficult for me, not to project into the future, but to just be in the moment that I'm in and enjoy every aspect of it and allow myself to be imperfect and not edit myself or change myself, because that was the whole point of this journey, was to write these mental health messages, I call them, to encourage women, you know, all women, but women my age as well, to just be really real with one another. Yeah, I think that the community,

that you've built online is so special and I love poetry online. There is a sort of a critique that sometimes comes called Insta poetry. But I don't see that as negative in the slightest.

I don't either. Because what a beautiful thing, what a brilliant thing to be able to open your Instagram, your social media and get little drops of goodness of seeing the world in this sparkling light

and being able to interrogate or articulate emotions that we might be having in the most succinct, gorgeous ways. What do you think are the positives of us having this new way of consuming poetry? I mean, exactly what you just said. So beautifully, by the way, a poetry was lost for a while.

Yeah. You know, the medium and the way that we read and went about our lives, it just didn't stop for poetry. So it was only for a fair few or people who actively sought it out. But social media brought it back. to us all and because our brains have evolved because we're now on social media so much that

they say that your attention span now has decreased so much that we need to be hooked within the first two or three seconds. Poetry has had to evolve to be a part of it and so it has to be really accessible really quickly to hook people in but it doesn't matter how people are hooked in. Once they're into a poem they're not in their thinking anymore, they're in their feeling that's what happens, you switch from a different part of your brain, you know that you're looking at a poem because of the way it appears on the page or on social media. So your brain instantly recognises that you're about to go through about 12 layers of social niceties and shallow, small talk, and you're going deep. And so you prepare for that without even realizing you've done it.

And the impact, therefore, is great. So I just think there's no downside to me in support is a wonderful thing because it's all good work. We need it. We need to help one another through. And these little messages do just that. They do. We get to our deep players so quickly. It's all quite straight through the small talk.

You know, it's it. And you can only do that with a couple of things. Music and poetry are two of the biggest. It cuts through. I'm so grateful to have it. Do you get a chance to read? Because we were talking just before we started recording about, you know, bringing all these books today.

But when do you get to read? if you're writing so much. I don't get to read, so I have to do it with intention. And I have made it my thing this year that I'm going to read more. And I've loved it. But I've made it part of my sort of to-do list. I think sometimes you've got to put the things that you enjoy on your to-do list. Yeah.

Or you can forget, you know, that it's important. Sometimes I have to put shower on there to do a dishwasher, like otherwise. Oh, yeah. So I've been doing it with intention and I'm very lucky. I get sent a lot of proofs. And there's something so delightful about getting an early copy of somebody's book that you love. And because as you're reading it, you feel like kind of one of the chosen few as well. And there's a real joy, secretive joy to that because nobody else has read it or few people.

So this year I've read lots and lots. And the past week, I think, I've read three or four books, which I'm so pleased about. Your to-do list is getting done. Well, I haven't done any of my other to-do list. That's the problem. That's okay. It can wait. Well, on the subject of the books that you love, let's delve in to your bookshelfy picks, the first of which is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiographical novel, The Beljar, follows the life of Esther Greenwood,

a talented young woman who spirals into mental illness amidst the pressures of societal expectations and personal ambitions. Set in the 1950s, Esther's summer internship at a new year. New York City magazine, offers glimpses into the glamorous yet suffocating world of high society. As she grapples with the disintegration of her identity in the face of alienation and self-doubt, Esther's descent into depression becomes palpable. In beautiful and haunting prose, Plath delves into the complex experience of early adulthood and the pressures placed on intelligent young women in the mid-20th century America. Part literary novel, part social critique, and, part mental health narrative.

This coming of age story is considered a cornerstone of feminist literature. When did you first read this and why have you chosen it today? So, first of all, it was a very difficult choice to choose these books. It's the hardest question. It really put me... I'm so sorry. It really got me thinking. But we studied this in English.

And I think I owe a huge amount to my English teacher, Mrs Dunlop, because she opened her eyes to so many things that we might not have had growing up in a very normal school in a very small town in the middle of Scotland in the countryside. You know, it was a real sort of bubble of an upbringing. I remember when I first met Sylvia Plath, it was the first time I recognised somebody else's mental health journey that made me think about. my own and I recognised so much in how she felt and thought that I had not been able to put into words until that point and I didn't really know anybody else who might have felt that way or spoken about it. So there was a real sort of when you feel seen in something or you feel

recognition and it wasn't a good recognition. You know it was a chill down my spine recognition because I thought this is problematic to have this tricky mental health, to have this mindset that takes quite a lot of work. But nonetheless, you have to know that to be aware of what you're dealing with. So I think this is one of the first times that I became aware that I might be on quite a rocky road.

But that you're not alone on it. Not alone. Because someone else has experienced it and there it is on the page. Power of books. And before the internet, you know, back when I was a kid with the internet, if you'd have told us about the internet, we would have thought it was, you know, hocus pocus pie in the sky magic.

Books were everything, you know. And you didn't know about authors or writers until somebody put it in front of you. So I'm very grateful to my English teacher. And of course Sylvia Plas poetry was, you know, another big sort of gong of recognition for me because I loved the way you could play around with words in poetic fashion all the way through my childhood. But I did feel that hers were often left me feeling quite bereft

and cold, maybe uncared for. So my mission when I started to do it was to make sure that we can go there into the dark, but we must come out by the end of the poem. Or we must leave a trail of breadcrumbs of hope to the light. so none of my poems will ever finish without that sort of, you know, the hand down to pull you out. Because I think that as humans that's what we do with our friends, we do it with our family when they need our help. We go and we sit with them. And what we're really doing is trying to pull them out of wherever they are.

So, yeah, I think this is where it probably all began for me. So you realise that that was your intention when you write? I realise that now, looking back, I had a problem with it. Sylvia Plas poetry for a long time because I found it quite dark and there was I was angered about that for some reason because you know I want you to give me the the survival steps here out I don't just want you to say to me isn't this an awful place that we're in but perhaps she didn't have the survival steps exactly it's not her fault and but it's it's interesting to look back on that now and I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't have asked me about books that changed me so I've found

this whole process really fascinating. It's funny, people do come on the podcast and they look at the list, the compile the list, and they look back on it and they go, oh, this has a lot about me that I hadn't even realized. So interesting. Yeah.

Well, looking at some of the societal pressures that women faced at the time that Plath puts on the page in the bell jar and the voice that she sort of gives to feelings that, perhaps women was opposed to suppress around that time or expected to. Do you sort of feel that connection between your work and plus exploration of the emotional undertow and the expectations around femininity, success, freedom?

Yeah. I think she was able to put so much into words that just hadn't really been put into words yet. And I think so much of it, you know, I would have been in a position in my life before I went out. into the big bad world. So a lot of that was preemptive or, you know, exploratory for me. But I remember looking back onto it when it did become my life, my daily life, when I did leave home and go into the city and become part of society and find myself up against all of these things. I had some sort of ammunition. So prepared you. Yeah, there was, there was a, which, you know, I would have had to sort of,

I don't even know how you would do that. You would just do it through. the people that you meet and you would find your way we always do but yeah she was able to put quite a lot of that into motion for me before I even needed it which was great well this is 1950s America and yet you felt like it resonated that you felt prepared for the society you were about to enter do you think that women today are still wrestling with many of the same pressures albeit in different forms or maybe in the same forms actually I think they've moved on the pressures have evolved. They look slightly different. And there's so much that we have now that we didn't have been there then. But the enormity of the weight of it, you know, the load that is on women,

the pressure load is still the same. Our shoulders are still, you know, really weighed down with these expectations that society puts us on us to be the perfect everything, the perfect mother, friend, wife, sister, you know, colleague and to do it all with a plumb and grace and don't get too emotional and, you know, we just want you to look like the swan. We don't want to see the feet paddling. And so it doesn't do us any harm to be reminded how far we've come about how much there still is that we can change, women can change. We don't need anybody to give it to us now. We kind of need to give it to one another and say you don't have to take all that on. You don't have to have all that weight on your shoulders. You can say no, you can put it down.

So, yeah, still an interesting topic. Well, on the many facets of womanhood that you've just described there, let's move on to your second bookshelfy book, which is In Love and Trouble Stories of Black Women by Alice Walker. From the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple, these stories first published in 1984, show the immense range of Alice Walker's talent from humor, to stories of love, race and politics, reaffirming her position as one of the most important writers of the past 50 years, certainly one of my favourites.

Alice Walker writes, with such compassion about women carrying pain and love and about their survival and their resilience, what drew you to this collection? Again, I have to owe this one to my English teacher, same English teacher, Mrs Dunlop, because... Once more, this harks back to me growing up in a very small town, in a very normal school,

and not having access to culture or, you know, we didn't travel much. We were lucky enough to travel our family, but we went to Spain and we went to France. And, you know, so I didn't know much about the world and other cultures. We just didn't have access to it where we grew up. And this book shocked me, opened my. eyes and took me down a pathway of, you know, looking into other ways, other people's lives and other, you know, things that were going on around the world other than my own little life and my friends and what we were struggling with. So that was my first gateway into, wow.

It really, so it affected me, again, not in a hugely positive way at the time. I found it quite hard work. I found it quite upsetting. I found it quite depressing to know that that kind of inequality and pain existed and that people were treated like that and, you know, hurt my heart. But when you get past that point, you're then, your eyes are wide open. You're far more empathetic, you know, you're able to go out into the world and be of better service because of what somebody else has been clever enough to put down in a book that you can then absorb all of that. completely. But I thought it's a book of short stories and I actually only remember, really remember two or three of them, but I haven't forgot them ever and they often pop into my mind. They had such a huge impact on me. So yeah, just a wonderful writer and a fascinating

book. Alice Walker is like the master of showing you what it feels like to be in someone else's shoes and the empathy that that cultivates. Many of the stories explore intergenerational pain and trauma, particularly for black women and mothers. Do you feel that becoming a mother and a grandmother has shaped the way you now look at the world and probably the way that you write as well? Oh, 100%. You are never the same after you have a child.

In fact, it was so shocking for me to come home with that baby. in my arms and every single thing in the world looked different. It was all very dangerous. Everything had the ability to harm my baby. And I suddenly became hyper aware, hyper paranoid. You know, again, not in a good way at first. I found it quite overwhelming. But these are the basic hormonal survival, you know, instincts that women are given when they give birth

so that they too keep that baby alive. And I think once you stop to think about that and think, okay this is normal I'm meant to feel like this this is how the human race has survived maybe I can tone it down a touch because I did become unable to watch the news I found everything so scary and upsetting

and I did you know there was a point at which my husband said to me you have to do something about this now because I didn't want to see headlines on a newspaper if children were involved so it changes absolutely everything and of course you're then into new book territory when you're reading to your kids. When they get to that age, you know, where they're able to be a part of your reading to them,

it's such a wonderful thing. My sister and I were just talking about all the amazing books that we loved as kids. And it's a joy. It really is. And oh my God, our antinatal class, they had us crawling around so that we'd be on the level that the babies would be on to see what's a hazard. It turns out our entire house. Everything is a hazard.

Yeah. And suddenly you think, oh, this world is far too dangerous for my child. What are any other than I'm going to do? It's so true about the words that you consume, the images that you see. And one of my very good friends says that she now struggles with any novel about horrible things happening to children. And I said to her, oh, what did you think of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kinsopper, which of course is won Women's Prize, which we love so much in which I very luckily read before having a child. She was like, I couldn't. And I know it's amazing, but I just, I couldn't.

So it was too painful. I completely understand that. And you do have to have a clean diet because you do have to be careful because when I look back now, I think that I had postnatal depression with my second child. But I didn't know at the time, you know, the power of hindsight. And when that happens, you do have to be careful. You do have to clean up your diet of what you absorb and consume until you're back in your bones again. And you know, you know who you are and you're not in that.

vulnerable place that, again, hormones put us in for a reason. It is part of the whole evolutionary cycle, but it can be hard. So I did have to go through a couple of years. I just saying, no, I can't do this. It has to be all sweetness and light for a while. And then it was fine again, and now I can do it. Well, that's because we can do many things, just not necessarily all at the same time. That's okay. And Alice Walker's characters, they really navigate both their strength, and their vulnerability. At the same time, sometimes, why do you think that society still struggles

to allow women to fully embody both of these things? It's an absolutely brilliant question because it does seem still to be seen as such a threat. Women can't be powerful and strong and emotional at the same time. We can't be open and respected. You know, we can't be vulnerable and respected. and yet I think there's nothing more powerful. There's nothing stronger than being able to show yourself in your vulnerability

or to be able to tell the truth and be open. So I'm in huge admiration for women who can do it, who can share the ugly as well as the gorgeous and the joyful about their stories, about their lives. Because it's in the ugly where the love lives. That's where other people find their little treasure map out of whatever they're in. at the moment that's how we share. That's how we help one another, you know, to find their own way. But I don't know why it's still so frowned upon. I think it's changing. Do you think it's

changing? I think so. And I think, you know, your, you know, testament to that fact, it's the openness and it's the vulnerability of your work which has brought together and fostered such a sense of community. And I do want to know what you make of having this real sense of community surrounding your work online. Does it validate or does it add a sort of extra layer of pressure now that there are so many people invested in it? It's, there's no pressure. And the reason there's no pressure is is twofold, I think. And it's because in the beginning, I decided that I wouldn't put pressure on myself. Otherwise, I would ruin it for myself. It's like the awards. It's like everything. You know, if you overthink it, if you're trying to be perfect, it's already ruined. So, you know, I decided that I would

write these mental health messages, these poems, however they came out, I wouldn't edit them. I wouldn't think about what kind of a poem it was or, you know, judge it or critique it. I wouldn't compare it. It would go out and I literally would press send on social media immediately so that I couldn't mess with it, so that I couldn't change my mind. And so that that poem became its own little entity and had its own journey separate from me. And that poem went out into the world and found its tribe. And, you know, that took the pressure off me immediately. I allowed myself to be imperfect. I allowed myself to make mistakes and correct them openly. And that took a lot of guts at the time. But I'm so glad I did that because I don't think I would have been able to continue

on and on and on if I was judging my work or comparing it. It's like putting your foot on a hosepipe of creativity. The minute you start to say, is this good, you're done. You're out of your creative heart and you're into your thinking brain and the two don't often, you know, work well together when it comes to art and things like that. So I did that from the start, which is the reason. And because I did that, my community were the same. They all were delighted to being perfect and show up flaws and all and share the ugly and share. And we found. such liberation in it that we then bolster one another. So it perpetuates on and on and on. So it's one of the best things I ever did was to decide that the work I did would be openly

imperfect. Because then when criticism does come, you're not as affected by it as you would have been if you'd have been striving to be perceived as perfect. It's amazing to think it's the imperfection that fosters that sense of connection and community. Completely. And what I didn't know at the time is that AI was about to explode. And I can spot an AI caption a mile away. I don't know if you can. I can now. Yes. At first. At first, but no, they're very obvious to me now. So your imperfection, your uniqueness becomes a precious commodity now because AI can't do imperfection. It can't. It's not in it. It just, it just can't do it. So I often throw a little mistake in here, they're in everywhere just to remind everybody that you're human.

Absolutely. And that it does, mistakes are wonderful. They're all part of the tapestry and they add something in. Well, on the subject of imperfections and mistakes being wonderful, let's talk about Bridget Jones Diary. Your third book, Shelby book is Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding. Her first novel sparked a phenomenon when it was published in 1996 that led to four books, newspaper columns and the smash hit film series. As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her 30s and tries to weigh up the eternal question Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy, she turns for support to four indispensable friends, Shazza, Jude, Tom and a bottle of Chardonnay. This culturally iconic book documented 90s womanhood at a specific cultural moment and helped redefine

commercial women's fiction for a new generation of readers. It's quite a contrast this choice to your first two, which are quite literary picks. Tell me why it's been important in your life and why you wanted to include Bridget Jones in your list today. It's so funny because after, you know, in my late teens, I became quite mentally unwell. And I crashed and burned and, you know, I was suffering with anorexia. And so it was a whole, it was my first experience of, you know, you know, touching rock bottom and coming back out of it.

And so I came back out of it very intentionally using affirmations, reading self-help books and looking for the light. So you can literally see me looking for the light with the Bridget Jones pick. Because that summed up that chapter of my life. I was, you know, I moved into the city of Manchester. I lived there with my best friend. We were, you know, we were working.

We were part of society. We were having a great time. But Bridget Jones just reminded us all, again, imperfection is a wonderful thing. You know, it celebrated the ridiculousness of humanity as well and, you know, the diary with the weighing yourself and how many cigarettes you've smoked and so on and so forth. And all the silly thoughts that we have, even though we're also having deep thoughts, we're also having, you know, issues, but how they coexist with that little train of thought. So I was directly Helen's audience, you know, when she wrote Bridget Jones, and it became a community.

We were suddenly in a community. Single women who were just trying to carve it alive suddenly had a community. And we were Bridget's gang. And it made us feel joyful about things that might have been a little bit shameful before. And it was just a wonderful way of seeking the light and staying in the light and reminding ourselves. we're here to have a laugh. Friends will pull you through and nothing is ever that bad

that singing to Shaka Khan and Celine Dion won't fix. We look back, I mean, I say look back, it was only what last year there was a new film and it feels still very much part of the fabric of our everyday Bridget Jones is an icon.

But we look back at the 90s and that obsession with weight it was damaging. It's really bad. And we had a very warped perception of what we should look like, how we should be as women. She's constantly measuring herself against impossible standards. Do you think that women have become kinder to themselves since the book was published, or has social media intensified that pressure?

We would definitely become kinder. And I know it for a fact because I was so sensitive to it. it all at the time and I struggled so deeply with it all at the time so I've had the pleasure of seeing that begin to come around to the light women are kinder we were so competitive back then because we had to be because there was only ever one seat in any corporate table for one woman and it was like playing musical chairs you had to bump somebody else out with an elbow to sit in it and now we know that if there are not enough seats we can bring seats we can make seats you know we can buy the table. We can build the table from

IKEA. We can do flat pack. You know, we've opened that up so much. And we also know now that we don't have to compete. We can help one another. There's room for everyone. So we now pull each other. I see it all the time and I'm delighted

every time that I see it. And when I hear the younger generation being kind to each other and saying nice things and even more importantly, being kind to themselves, I was at a birthday party for or a 12 year old. And these two girls were taking a selfie

and they looked at it and one of them said, you look great in this photo. And the other girl said, oh yeah, I'm really photogenic. I would never have spoken to myself like that. And I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. And the other girl went, yeah, you are.

And that was it. That interaction was so small. And yet to me it was, you know, it was everything. that's how far we've come and there's a long way to go social media has ramped up the visibility of it all

but the baseline is kind I think I've always said you know talk to yourself the way you would talk to your friend I think Bridget Jones diary perfectly exemplifies that because her friends will always bigger up raise her up even when she

talked badly to herself and I always say if my friend says something about themselves like I'm not looking great to say I say don't talk to my friend like that Yeah, you would not have it. You just wouldn't tolerate it. But the way we speak to ourselves is always the worst. Yeah.

But again, that's changing as well. Well, if you could sit down with your younger self at the point of reading Bridget Jones' diary, at the point of looking for the light in your self-help books when you needed that before the poetry, what advice do you think she needed to hear then? I think two words, lighten up. you know I've always taken everything so seriously and I've felt everything so deeply far too deeply

and I've overthought in such dramatic ways you know my whole life that the two words lighten up it doesn't mean pull your socks up and get on with it because I hate those kind of you know sometimes you need to get on with it but I also don't like it when people dismiss feelings and say just stiff upper lip keep you you know that's not great but lighting up reminds me that life is Yes, it's really hard, but laughter is available whenever you need it and it really does help. We humans are ridiculous and really we're not here to suffer. We're here to find as much beauty and joy, even amidst deep pain as we possibly can. We're here to help one. We're here to constantly reach out to one another. Nobody's ever separate. No matter how lonely you feel,

you're never alone. We're literally connected to everything that surrounds us. And those two words lighten up, remind me not to just, you know, dismiss myself, but to turn everything around and seek the light, let it in. And it can be as simple as watching a funny video on Instagram. That's how quickly, intentionally seeking the light can get you out of any kind of thought loop or toxic, you know, pattern that you might be invested in in that moment and get you back out into a place of, come on, let's look for the joy here. Let's, we'll get through this. It's not going to last forever. So, yeah, lighting up.

I feel like poetry is the perfect place to seek the light. Yes, it is. And you've got to go into the dark. You know, that's the whole point of it. If we were skirting around it, it wouldn't be any good to anyone. We have to acknowledge that people are going through terrible things. Life is painful. It's really difficult.

Even when it's good, it's complicated and difficult. And acknowledging that and seeing one another amidst it all is the quickest way to get out of it and back into the light. The more you avoid it, the bigger the circle gets, I think, and you're just going to fall into it, you know, much more deeply. This episode of Bookshelfy is sponsored by Bayleys. Bayleys is proudly supporting the 26 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. Baileys is the perfect adult treats, whether shaking in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book.

Check out baileys.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. Donna, let's talk about your fourth book, shelfy book now, which is menopauseing, the positive roadmap to your second spring by Davina McCall and Dr. Naomi Potter. For too long, women have had to keep quiet about the menopause. its onset, its symptoms, its treatments, and what it means for us, menopauseing breaks this silence once and for all. By exploring and explaining the science, debunking, damaging myths, and smashing the taboos around the perimenopause and menopause,

this book aims to equip women to make the most informed decisions about their health and their lives. Winner of Book of the Year at the 2023 British Book Awards, this game-changing title helped shift how menopause is taught to. about in the UK. I mean, women go through such enormous physical and emotional transitions, whether it's motherhood, whether it's menopause, that society just often underestimates or doesn't talk about, is there a particular transitional stage that you felt affected you the most strongly? I think all of them, because I am the type of person that, you know, hits every branch on the tree quite a... It's a really beautiful way of putting it.

it though. If there is a wall to crash against, I'm going to crash against it hard. Because I feel everything so deeply, and I know I'm not alone, there are many people like me. I'm neurodiverse, so that, you know, I have sensory overwhelm and I have really, I'm able to really focus in on frequencies and things like that that can be a lot if you're unaware and you don't know how to handle it. So I've had to learn my whole life to better manage the way that my mind is, the way my brain is wired. And you can see that this is another community. So Bridget was a community for me and my friends at the time.

We found a place. We found a reason. We found a, oh, this is us, you know, this is a thing. And menopause is exactly the same. What divina and Dr. Naomi have done for women of a certain age. And actually, we don't use that phrase anymore. Sarah Cox decided we don't use that phrase anymore. We just say women.

Yeah. We just say women. But, you know, I'm in midlife now and I'm in menopause. So for me, that was just another community. And again, it's about sharing the roadmap through. And that didn't happen before. So women struggled really unnecessarily when they could have just had some information shared from the generations above that would have hugely helped. But they didn't know because it wasn't discussed.

And, you know, it was hush-hush. Don't talk about this. Just come out on the other side. when you're ready to come back into society. And we do that for so many things. We do it for grieving. We do it for menopause. I'm delighted to say that's all changed.

Now we can do openly out loud and help one another through it and celebrate it at the same time. And that's what that book did for all of us. So many women. Well, I remember in 2023 when it won and it was such a big moment. I was there.

Davina was backstage doing what Davina does, which is to hold your arm and make you feel like the only person in the world, looking you straight in the eyes. She's amazing. Queen Divina. And you've met her. Yes. I'm lucky enough to have met her several times now on this journey.

She's supported me like, you know, family. I can't even begin to tell you for no reason other than she is just Queen Davina of women who does that for so many women. How she has the time and energy to help so many of us. I'll never know, but she does. She's diligent about it, intentional about it and casts a hugely wide net. And I'm lucky enough to have had her light shine my way. She's incredible.

And what she has done for our community at this time in life is mind-blowing because I can't even begin to imagine how we were coping before. Before, when we didn't really have the information and moreover, we weren't prepared to have the conversations. Permission. permission to be menopausal and loud about it and open about it and not be judged or judge one another is that's a massive change it's a massive shift what does a book like menopauseing do for that sense of isolation when you don't have that information or anyone to talk to about it it's gone

something that could have been could have been another depression for me had I not had the information or knew what to expect or could see amazing women around me in the way that could have been another bump in my rocky path but it wasn't and I totally believe that's because of the conversations opened by Davina and other women who are doing it as well

I think I got to avoid that branch on the tree because I've kind of sailed through it not sailed through it in a way that I haven't had the symptoms or the downsides but when you have the information when you have awareness and more importantly permission to not

be ashamed of it that changes the way you experience anything. So I've experienced it with a real dollop of joy. Yeah. That's a, I mean, what a mindset to have, what an approach to have and what a place to be in. When women's health issues have historically been neglected, not only by the medical establishment, and we know this for sure, but also by wider society. You then have individuals who are sort of taking it upon themselves. Devin has spoken so openly about wanting women to feel informed

rather than ashamed about having these conversations. Do you feel a sense of gratitude to these women who've done that? Hugely, and I don't stop saying it. And I'm really sort of vocal about it because it's so important and I'm really grateful. And so many of us are grateful. And I hope that it's inspired a million women to go on and do something similar, share something

and find something that they can help other women with. and I really think it sparked, you know, a further revolution amongst women to remind us that we have needed to gather since the very dawn of time. Women have to gather. Because it's when we gather, I mean, you put women in a room, four or five women, and you leave them an hour. They're coming out. They've got, they've bought something that somebody in that room said, you have to get this, put it in your Amazon basket, here we go. They've handed something to somebody that, don't worry, I've got one at home. you have this that's going to help.

They've shared a recipe or a, you know, a therapy or a way of healing. They have passed on so many things in that hour. You don't come away from a lunch with women or friends where you haven't been inspired to read something or do something or take a class. It's just what we do. And I think culturally we might have lost that for a while. We still used to do it, you know, maybe 100 years ago with Women's Institute

and things like that. But we weren't doing enough of it when I was younger or when I was in my 20s and 30s, I see it coming back around now with yoga and, you know, healing groups and book clubs and oh, so many ways that women are gathering just to what they're really doing is saying when we get together and sit in a circle in a room. Our power is reignited and we can't even really prove why that happens, but we know that it happens. I always say this is my favourite thing to do these episodes of this podcast and it's because I always come away from it having gained something whether it's a book recommendation or a piece of wisdom and you've just hit the nail on the head it's because I'm sitting with a woman and we chat for an hour

and we exchange, we share and for that I'm eternally grateful and sharing and community is such a strong theme across your poetry as is embracing every stage of life. It's in your poetry and it's in your choices that you've brought today. Has getting older change your relationship with yourself creatively, therefore you're writing and also emotionally? Absolutely. I mean, I think getting older, despite the difficulties of it as well,

is such a gift and it does sound cliche, but it really is such a huge gift because you do wake up and you kind of go, oh, I'm in the next half, now if I'm lucky and actually statistically every single day becomes more precious the older you get because you know people who are not here and I know so many people who are not you know at level 51 as I call it who would love to have been at level 51 so you do you feel the gratitude now of just the simple fact that you are still here still trying still making mistakes, still showing up imperfectly, still feeling like a 12-year-old wrapped inside

a wrinklier, you know, body, but with this new wisdom that sometimes you think, oh, wow, you know, I'm fully functioning wise, crone, when did that happen? But still mixed with the, you know, the young version of you. So it's a really eye-opening, enlightening time getting older and it really does change how you write because you're seeing the world from a different place. You know, you're at a different place in your orbit, the view is different. And you've got a much bigger level of hindsight and you've got so many life lessons learned. And you've got the wisdom to understand that you don't really know anything.

Even though you feel like you know a lot, when you were 20 or 30 you thought you knew all. When you're 50 you think, ah, I know nothing whatsoever. And isn't that a wonderful thing because you show up every day ready to learn? And I'm more willing to learn or be corrected now than I ever was and that's a wonderful feeling. Every day is a school day. I love this idea that the older we get,

the more precious every day becomes. And that is the perfect place to talk about your fifth and final book, which is Enough by Dawn French. This is the fifth and a brand new novel from comedian Dawn French, centered on seemingly healthy 68-year-old Etta who gathers her family together to explain it will be the last day of her life. The book unfolds over the following 24 hours

as her family tries to understand her decision, confront long-buried emotions and reckon with questions about ageing, autonomy, love and letting go. So this is Dawn French's brand new novel. What was it about it that made you include it in your list? Oh, this is a brave gift of a book that Dawn has given us. I adore Dawn.

I adore her writing. such a wonderful way of painting the messiness of humanity in the most delicious way. She does. So, you know, the messier we are, the more flawed and failing that we are, somehow she makes that more attractive than had it been the opposite. And so I adore her writing for that reason. But this particular book is a sucker punch of a roller coaster ride. and I have always been not fixated but determined to raise the topic of suicide when I can.

And I know that sounds like a really strange thing to say, but once again it all comes back to we need to talk more about things that are hard. Because the more we talk about it, the lighter they become, the more awareness there is, the less shame there is, the less darkness. It's not as dangerous a place if everybody has some sort of, level of conversation about it and awareness. And I try and do that with my poetry and I try and do that, you know, with my events and so on. So when a writer does it so beautifully and so boldly, I'm all in. And I was lucky enough to get an early copy of the book and I devoured it in two days

straight. It is a journey. It is a journey. It brings up so many thoughts, so many questions, so many, you know, points of view from the children, the grandchildren, you know, friends and so on. And it really keeps you thinking and guessing the whole way through it because you don't know what to think. You don't know what's going to happen until the very, very end. And then it just, you know, it leaves you with that. I don't think thinking about death is morbid. I don't think there's anything more life affirming than remembering that you're going to die. Because the minute you have that thought, or you think about someone who isn't here anymore,

you're back in the moment of living. You're grateful for the moment of living. Your eyes are open. You're looking around and you're seeing this life as a gift that it is. And you're seeing it in vibrant 3D shapes and colours. So when I shut the cover of that book, I did that thing where I had to go, oh, breathe. I didn't think I breath for the last two hours because, you know, I was so invested. And all I could think about when I shut the book was life is just wonderful.

You know, and even having gone through that journey that the book is, that's what I was left with. Joy and love and light and determination to go on more brightly. Each time you talk about one of your picks, one of your bookshelfy picks, we keep coming back to being present. Yes. And in doing so, I keep coming back to being present right now here in this room. We forget. Yeah, you've got to remember. We have to remind us.

Yeah, every single day we forget. It's the easiest thing in the world to be sitting, thinking about what happened an hour ago, or what's going to happen in two hours' time, or what might happen next week. Because we want to be prepared, you know, we want to be organised. But actually, being in the moment, once you get the hang of it, the knack of it, it's such a wonderful thing. And it really changes absolutely everything. and it takes a huge amount of stress away.

And if you are an overthinker or if you're an anxious person, being in the moment is the most wonderful way. Mindfulness. Well, alongside that mindfulness and being present, enough reflects a growing conversation around self-acceptance, which I do think are inexorably intertwined, but it's self-exceptance later in life in this book.

Do you feel like women become freer as they age or do you feel like there's more expectation upon them? I've become freer. But then I'm a big believer in finding yourself a midlife muse. Find these women and follow what they're doing. So I follow Divina. You know, I follow at dawn. I follow amazing women who are aging in a way that I think that looks great.

I don't want to work harder. I don't want to feel worse about myself. I want to live more, work less, enjoy work more. And I want to feel better about myself. and I want to feel more available for, you know, the true things in life. I spent so much of the first half of my life worrying about things and caring too much of what other people thought of me, that I'm determined that this part of my life will be golden,

you know, that I will ditch all of those things piece by piece because it is a shedding of many layers of skin. And if you don't know how to do it, find somebody who's doing it and watch what they do and follow them and do it intentionally. So I just think getting older is wonderful. I'm more free now than I've ever been. Yeah, that shedding. And those women that you mentioned DeVina and of course Dawn French,

they talk and write so candidly about body image, about self-worth, about ageing. Yeah. Was there something in enough in this book that particularly resonated with your own experience as a woman? I mean, yes. you know, the main character of Etta was a complicated character and so it took a while for the reader to get into who she actually was

and that was very deliberately and you're beautifully done by Dawn. So you're trying to work out why she's in this place, why she's decided it's her last day and you don't actually find that out until way into the book. But as with most women, you know, she was thinking about other people first and she was trying to find a way to make everything easier for everybody else and wasn't putting herself in any position of importance, which is, you know, hugely relatable for all women, I think.

We all do that. And we all need that reminder that this is about you too. This is your party. You're also invited. You don't have to just make it wonderful for everyone else. Both you and Dawn, you mix humour with vulnerability, which you've expressed is really important. It's a great way to deal even with the hardest things.

And this book does it, it deals with death, as does your collection loss, which offers readers words to weather the many waves of grief as a quote. Can you tell us a little bit more about this collection and the journey of grief that it charts? I think it goes back to the conversation that I have a lot, which is why do we not talk more about grief as a society and a community and a race? Because it's one thing that we're all going to experience, bar none. we will all grieve. And yet it's one of the things we talk about less. And if you are, if you are somebody who struggles with anticipated grief or again overthinking, worrying about the future, grief can be an issue before it even happens. You know, you can begin grieving things and worrying about things before even that chapter comes into play. And before you know it,

you're in a real pickle. It's not, you know, it's not an easy way to live your life. So I was always one of those people that worried about everything and felt everybody else's grief and worried about the world and even as a child went to bed thinking about children in plight that I didn't even know and would never meet and, you know, and I realised in my sort of teens, early 20s that I could not go through life this way because it was going to be impossible if I was going to grieve for everyone and not just, you know, grief that came into my life. Then it was going to be a struggle. And for me, that meant writing about it, talking about it, sharing, you know, finding ways I used to be a singer-songwriter in my early 20s. And I wrote poetry as a child and a teenager.

And so to be able to do that intentionally with purpose in my 40s out of nowhere was a gift from the heavens. I started to write grief poetry because I felt that we were using the same poems at funerals over and over from hundreds of years ago. and they're beautiful, but also life is moving on all the time and, you know, we are moving on and the way that we love is changing in the way that we live. And I wanted to sort of provide things for people to use in that moment. And I wanted to provide words because we're not taught how to grieve and we're not taught how to talk to people who are grieving. And we're not taught how to feel about people who are grieving, how to make it better or easier, or we're just not taught any of it. I thought, why don't I put some words down that I think are right and may be useful

to people in that situation and it snowballed and spiraled from there. And to write grief poetry and to have people use it in their worst moments is one of the biggest honours that I'll ever know in this life. It has been a joy in a roundabout bittersweet way as grief is. You know, it's the side of a coin love and grief. So it's just become something that I've really loved to do. Yeah. I always like to think of grief as that knot in your throat or those tears building in your eyes that is all that love that doesn't have that place to go anymore, but it's love. Exactly. And the minute you remind somebody who's grieving about the love, it does help. It does. Because the greater the love, the greater the grief, you know.

when somebody larger than life leaves, the grief that comes on the back of that is larger than life. It's overwhelming. And there is a kind of justice to that. Of course my life's forever changed. Of course the world looks different. This person is no longer here. But if I can pull the love back out whenever I can, if I can just feel the love some days instead of only the grief, then I'm winning at life, you know, I can remember them with joy and gladness. And then some days the grief is too much to bear and you have to just swim in the waves of it and the acceptance of that no shame no judgment no timeline no get on with it you don't get on with it you just learn to know that every single day is going to be different and you're ready for it and you've got your own back

and you'll pull the love out whenever you can and remember the person you know happily whenever you can I really love this reframing and so I'd love to know has the way that you write publicly changed the way that you talk to yourself privately or feel privately? Absolutely. It's such a good question. It's hugely changed it. I've worked a lot on my inner critic and my self-talk over the years. I've always used Louise Hay's affirmations and her meditations

to learn to love yourself, to learn to even just like yourself. Or some days just to accept yourself is enough, as long as you're not berating yourself, being hard on yourself, judging yourself, shaming yourself. Because it's so easy to fall into that trap of being the worst person in your own life. And I'm always saying you're only a kind person if you're kind to yourself too. If you're a kind of person, you wouldn't leave anyone out.

So if you're leaving yourself out, you're not a kind person. You're people pleasing. That's different. You must include yourself in that kindness. And because I'm writing about it all the time, I'm constantly refreshing my own self-talk. And seeing when it slips, recognising when it's going back down the other way

and pulling it back up and thinking, right, Donna, you need to work on that now. So perfect question. It really has helped. And it's a little reminder for anyone listening or watching now as well. we can always pull ourselves back out. We do. It's a daily adjustment. It's an exercise.

Absolutely. Just like you would adjust the way that you eat or drink or work out or whatever you do. You know, you make little tweaks and adjustments in some days you're owning it and some days you're not. And it's the same with you with all mental health sort of mindset issues and self-talk. It's a work every day. Well, Donna, we have gone on a journey through your five books. It's been a beautiful and enlightening one. And I've kept reminding myself to be present and pulled myself out when I need to because, yeah, you've taken us to those places. So just journeying back through them very quickly.

If you had to book one book as a favourite, which would it be in why? From my five. Yeah. I know it was hard enough that we asked you to pick five. It's really hard. And now I'm asking for one. And look, my mind's gone completely blank. I don't know if I can choose.

I don't know if I can choose. We've got enough by Dawn French. We've got menopause, we've got Bridget Jones' diary, we've got in love and trouble, and the Belcher. They're all pretty different. They are really different. So I think I would have to go with menopauseing. For the very simple reason, it's a reminder that I'm not alone. It's a reminder of the unseen community that I can feel, even if I can't see them.

I know that they exist. They're out there and there are millions of them. And it's a reminder that whatever you need help with, you can find it. It's a reminder that, you know, reaching out, being open, being honest, saying it out loud is always the way forward. And it's a reminder that people are good, people are kind, they want to share, they want to help each other. They found a way and they want to share that with you so that you can have a better experience. So I think that encompasses all that's good about life and all that would help to keep me on track. So yeah, I would have to go with menopause.

Well, that thread of community and sharing has run through all of your picks and everything we've chatted through today. So thank you for sharing with us. I've loved it. It's been such a pleasure. A joy. Thank you for making me think so deeply

about my best books. And right back at you. 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 liked 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.