"I never would have posted it under normal circumstances." The first TikTok that Ruby ever uploaded went unexpectedly viral. Swifties were enraged and intrigued by her theory that Taylor Swift's latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, wasn't about any of the pop star's ex-boyfriends - it was actually about the Modernist poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.

But something else was happening in Ruby's life at the time. Her doctors had told her there was nothing else they could do for her, and that she was going to die at 29 years old. Ruby (who survived 2024 and is still here, doing great!) and I talk about the Modernists' sidelining of women, Taylor Swift's literary references, and turning to art when you're going through the very worst times.

You can find Ruby on TikTok as Literary.Luddite (tiktok.com/literary.luddite). And here's the TikTok that started it all: "The Tortured Poets Department is about Ted Hughes". tiktok.com/@literary.luddite/video/7360564340019268882?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7424335431385613830

Ruby's Linktree: linktr.ee/literaryluddite

Heroines by Kate Zambreno (2012). penguin.com.au/books/heroines-new-edition-9781635902082

To support this podcast and access bonus content (including bonus chat with Ruby), you can join my Patreon! Patreon.com/BlytheByName. Just A Spoonful merch on Redbubble! Search "BlytheByName". You can also hear me occasionally on the 3CR Community Radio show 'Breadline' talking about welfare issues: 3cr.org.au/Breadline

This episode was published on 13 August 2025.

Podcast artwork by Erin Michelle.

Just A Spoonful's theme music is 'Sleepless' by Anna O.

This podcast is created on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri People and I extend my respect to elders past and present.

How do you name a chronic illness podcast? Is improv a cult? Remember when Twitter was good? We explore all this and more important topics on this episode of Just A Spoonful. Kaitlyn's guests this episode are chronically ill cinephiles Izzie Austin and Silvi Vann-Wall, cohosts of the Pill Pop podcast (presented by the Wheeler Centre).

Izzie is a PhD candidate in Cinema Studies, and Silvi is the Film Content Lead at Screenhub Australia, and we talk about what we want out of a film-going experience, why you should always watch the Fast franchise in a car, and the very surprising way that one of my guests went viral. Silvi is also an improviser at Melbourne's Improv Conspiracy, and talks about their experience of improv as a neurodivergent and chronically ill performer.

Find Izzie and Silvi's chronic illness podcast Pill Pop by searching "Pill Pop Wheeler Centre" on Spotify, or go to this link: https://open.spotify.com/show/0w2Fe7etUlzTDwP7VXjbSf?si=xZWpXh9wRhGSuJfUztx0UQ

Here's their profile in the Australian Audio Guide: https://australianaudioguide.com/working-with-sound-silvi-vann-wall-and-izzie-austin-pill-pop/

For more Silvi Vann-Wall you can go to their website silvireports.com, and you can check out

ScreenHub.com.au (for film and TV news and reviews).

For more Izzie Austin you can go to their linktree https://linktr.ee/IzzieJellyfish

To support this podcast and access bonus content (including bonus movie chat with Izzie and Silvi), you can join Kaitlyn's Patreon! Patreon.com/BlytheByName

Just A Spoonful merch on Redbubble! Search "BlytheByName".

This episode was published on 16 June 2025.

Podcast artwork by Erin Michelle.

Just A Spoonful's theme music is 'Sleepless' by Anna O.

This podcast is created on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri People and I extend my respect to elders past and present.

JASP is back! For ME/CFS Awareness Day, Kaitlyn sits down for Just A Spoonful with disability advocate Kolt to chat about life with ME/CFS, the pressures on people with ME/CFS to seek 'cures', and the benefits and pitfalls of online chronic illness 'influencer' culture.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complex, disabling disease that affects multiple systems in the body, and is classified by the World Health Organisation as a neurological disorder. There are estimated to be up to 250,000 Australians with ME/CFS, and around 25% of people with the condition have Severe ME, leaving them bedbound or housebound. Emerge Australia has more information and resources.

Kolt is a neurodivergent and chronically ill disability advocate whose advocacy is most focused on Energy Limiting Conditions like ME/CFS (which we both have); they seek to continually push the boundaries of non-disabled and privileged folks' understanding of disability and oppression. Kolt is queer, trans, and a white third-culture immigrant living on the stolen lands of the Yorta Yorta Nation.

We have a great, wide-ranging discussion about finding each other online, trying to do ME/CFS advocacy when it's hard to talk about your illness, and the explosion of chronic illness 'influencers' in the COVID era. We also get into the lure of magical thinking when you're desperate, 'cures', navigating egotistical doctors, and how fascism and ableism are 'hand-in-hand emoji'.

Some ME/CFS resources:

- www.Emerge.org.au

- www.MEAction.net

- www.ME-pedia.org

- ME Advocacy Network Australia (MEANA), www.MEANA.me

- A short audio doco I made about ME/CFS in 2016, 'May the 12th Be With You', in the Just A Spoonful podcast feed

Just A Spoonful merch from RedBubble! Search 'BlytheByName'

To support this podcast and access bonus content (including a bonus chat with Kolt), you can join Kaitlyn's Patreon! Patreon.com/BlytheByName

This episode was published on 12 May 2025.

Podcast artwork by Erin Michelle

Just A Spoonful's theme music is 'Sleepless' by Anna O

This podcast is created on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri People and I extend my respect to elders past and present.

My guest for this episode is playwright, screenwriter, director and doctor Sharmini Kumar, and we talk a little about being settlers in Australia, and her fraught relationship with the Western literary canon. Sharmini is the founder of AustenCon, an annual one-day convention for lovers of Jane Austen, which is actually happening tomorrow if you're listening to this as it comes out! This year's AustenCon is happening on the 6 November 2021, in person at the Abbotsford Convent here in Melbourne as well as online. Link in the show notes. And I will be appearing on the 3.30pm panel 'Non-canonical pairings' where we basically get to ship Jane Austen characters with anyone we want. The panel will be streamed online and available for 48 hours after streaming!

Sharmini Kumar is a friend of mine and we bonded over a mutual love of nerdy things. We nerd out a lot, especially over literature, and talk about what sparked her interest in Jane Austen and her passion for helping people of colour see themselves represented in the Western canon. Sharmini's day job is working as a GP, and I find it particularly interesting to hear from a doctor who lives with chronic health conditions.

AustenCon 2021 information, tickets and schedule: https://www.24carrotproductions.com/austen-con

You can find Sharmini here:

https://twitter.com/sharminime

Just A Spoonful Live is coming! 3rd December 2021. More info here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/just-a-spoonful-podcast-live-tickets-194918365077?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

Thank you to my Patreon supporters who make my work and rent payments possible! You can subscribe to find bonus content and special offers here https://www.patreon.com/BlytheByName

Podcast artwork by Melbourne-based artist Erin Michelle

Just A Spoonful's theme music is 'Sleepless' by Anna O

This podcast is created on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri People and I extend my respect to elders past and present.

Just A Spoonful's 2021 season continues with best-selling author, Aurealis Award winner, journalist, screenwriter and assistant film curator at the ACMI museum of screen culture: Maria Lewis!

Maria is a stroke survivor (this year is actually her 10 year 'stroke-iversary') who thought they only happened to older people until she found herself in Emergency in her early 20s. We talk about the lifelong after-effects of stroke and how it changed the way her brain works, something she still navigates in her career. We also talk about Mariah Carey fandom and how it feels for Maria (no H) to see her own fans tattoo her own creations onto their bodies.

Maria Lewis's seventh novel in the Supernatural Sisters series - The Rose Daughter - came out five months after we recorded this conversation so we talk about her writing that, her previous novels, and why she feels fortunate to be able to wrap up the series on her own terms. Also how good is THERAPY.

SBS The Feed's short documentary on young stroke survivors: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/young-stroke-survivors-in-australia-the-face-you-wouldn-t-expect

Find Maria Lewis here:

http://marialewis.com.au

https://twitter.com/moviemazz

https://instagram.com/maria___lewis

Thank you to my Patreon supporters who make my work and rent payments possible! You can subscribe to find bonus content here https://www.patreon.com/BlytheByName

Podcast artwork by Melbourne-based artist Erin Michelle

Just A Spoonful's theme music is 'Sleepless' by Anna O

This podcast is created on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri People and I extend my respect to elders past and present.

Just A Spoonful is kicking off a new 2021 season with Brisbane-based musician and broadcaster Scott Mercer, a JASP fan turned JASP guest. Scott was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in his late twenties, and obviously his very first thought was 'Sweet, now I'm eligible to be on Kaitlyn's podcast' (citation needed). The frontman of Slumlawwd talks about how playing music played a part in his diagnosis, and how he's trying to fit as many gigs in as he can before it gets too hard to hold a guitar. We also talk about our experiences presenting at Brisbane's anarchic community radio station 4ZZZ, Scott's goal to interview Corinne Grant, and why Melbourne is like Valhalla (it's not a compliment). We sat down to record this chat in June 2018, making this possibly the longest I've ever taken to upload an interview to this podcast. Look, it's been a weird few years.

This is actually a crossover episode with Scott's podcast Gimme Empathy (http://gimmeempathy.libsyn.com/). While Scott was touring in Melbourne in 2018 we sat down and recorded two conversations back-to-back interviewing each other. You can hear me on episode 39 of Gimme Empathy, 'An Element Of Unknowableness', which Scott uploaded two months after we recorded making me look terrible that I'm uploading this three years later. I've been on Gimme Empathy once before, too – episode 13, 'The Void Screams Back'. If you can't get enough of us going on tangents.

Scott's band Slumlawwd (http://slumlawwd.bandcamp.com/) recently released a single 'Withdrawn Failure' off their upcoming album Fuckburg, which comes out in October 2021. Slumlawwd is signed with music label Off The List Records, a new Australian label created with the aim to make the music industry more accessible to disabled acts and disabled audiences. Had to mention Off The List because that's a pretty rad (and much needed) aim. You can also hear Scott presenting 4ZZZ show Live Delay (http://livedelay.com/), broadcasting live gigs (something we vaguely recall down here in locked down Melbourne).

I'll be appearing at the National Young Writers' Festival next week. This year the whole festival in digital so you can access it online from anywhere, and as always the festival is free. On the first night of the festival, Thursday night 30th Sept, I get to be an Agony Aunt, and on Saturday night 2nd Oct I'll be doing a reading of fan fiction. There are heaps of other great young writers involved, so I recommend checking it out. http://youngwritersfestival.org/artists/kaitlyn-blythe/

If you'd like to support me to keep creating this podcast and doing other things like paying rent and buying food, consider supporting my Patreon! http://patreon.com/BlytheByName

Podcast artwork by Melbourne-based artist Erin Michelle

Just A Spoonful's theme music is 'Sleepless' by Anna O

This podcast is created on the stolen lands of the Wurundjeri People and I extend my respect to elders past and present.

Robyn Lambird doesn't need your prayers, thanks! At the time of this interview, already an accomplished wheelchair athlete, public figure and the first visibly disabled adult to appear in a nationwide ad campaign in Australia, the 19-year-old is doing just fine. We chat about the amusing (and annoying) reactions people have to you when you're visibly disabled, going to stadium concerts in a wheelchair, and how things seem to be improving for people with disabilities in our lifetimes. Robyn was born with cerebral palsy and explains where the nickname "T-Rex" comes from.

This is the first episode of the new season, after JASP's hiatus. This interview is one from the vault, from before I became too overwhelmed to keep doing this podcast, and I'm so glad I get to share it with you. Our chat was recorded in mid-2016, if you can even recall such a time.

You can find Robyn on Instagram (@robynlambird) and YouTube (www.youtube.com/user/ATREXLIFE). Read more of Robyn's story in this NDIS feature: https://www.ndis.gov.au/robynstory

Robyn mentions Starting With Julius, a Perth-based not-for-profit organisation that works to improve media representation for people with disability. Find out more about them here: http://www.startingwithjulius.org.au/

Get Krack!n airs Wednesdays at 9pm on ABC (Australia) and episodes are available on iview.

My Patreon members are the wind beneath my wings. If you would like to join my Patreon and access special exclusive content, you can do so for as little as USD$1/month.

I'd like to say a massive thanks to Rudi Bremer for donating her time and skills to help me with editing this episode.

This podcast was produced on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, to whom I pay my respects as the traditional owners of this land.

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Released 12 February 2019

If you would like to support this podcast, check out patreon.com/blythebyname

The binary of healthy/sick is "lazy thinking", says tech innovation writer and researcher Bhavani Esapathi. The RSA Fellow and HuffPo blogger is passionate about shifting the narrative around chronic illness from "despite" to "because of". Without her severe Crohns and arthritis/spondylitis conditions, she would not be doing the exciting work she does today. Perhaps she wouldn't have travelled to Japan to accept an innovation award. Bhavani focuses on what she can do because of her chronic lifestyle.

We talk about her storytelling platform 'Chronically Driven', an arm of the Invisible Labs network that she founded. For the project, Bhavani seeks out stories from people with 'invisible' illnesses, and asks them to take an unusual view of their conditions. She explains to me why being from India actually set back her diagnosis of Crohn's when she was seeing doctors in London (her current home). It is a fascinating chat and I came away uplifted, yet with many of my assumptions about chronic illness challenged.

Bhavani's HuffPo blog post on 'Going Beyond The Extraordinary': http://huff.to/2o03mYe

The Invisible Labs: http://theinvisiblelabs.com

Bhavani on Twitter: @bhaesa

The music you hear in this episode:

'Sleepless' by Anna O

'London Is Calling' by penston

'Silver Magic Ships' by Marksman Lloyd

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Note from September 2018: I have had to re-upload this episode, which was originally released on 27 March 2017.

If you would like to support this podcast, check out patreon.com/blythebyname

“You're not like, you know, a REGULAR disability.”

Carly Findlay fields all kinds of ridiculous comments about her appearance and her disability, ranging from the insensitive to the abusive. Some of them have taken her all the way to the Human Rights Commission. “It was a bit weird to be the top news story for a couple of days … It wasn't a good experience.”

Carly lives with Ichthyosis – a rare, severe skin condition – and is an appearance activist. She is also a writer whose work has been published by the Guardian, Daily Life, ABC, Mamamia and Frankie magazine. On her award-winning blog Tune Into Radio Carly, she writes honestly about life with Ichthyosis, disability, and visible difference. Carly talks to me about her work, but also we giggle a lot about pop music from the late 90s.

If 2016 has gotten you down, Carly Findlay is a delightful guest to spend an hour in conversation with.

[Note from September 2018: I've had to re-upload this episode, and since its first release two years ago Carly has only gone on to do more and more amazing things. Check out her website http://carlyfindlay.com.au]

Links from this episode:

Carly's blog: http://carlyfindlay.blogspot.com.au [Now moved to http://carlyfindlay.com.au]

Carly's Facebook page: http://fb.com/Tune.Into.Radio.Carly/

Jill Starks' SMH profile on Carly Findlay and other Australian disability activists (and Carly's DRESS): http://www.smh.com.au/national/disability-advocates-demand-an-end-to-slacktivism-and-inspiration-porn-20160109-gm2dw9.html

'Living the unexpected. Marriage (and maybe babies)': http://carlyfindlay.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/living-unexpected-marriage-and-maybe.html

Carly's protest of Me Before You - 'Having a disability is not a tragedy' (SBS): http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/life/culture/article/2016/06/17/having-disability-not-tragedy

'Carly Findlay suffers skin condition, wins internet after copping abuse on internet site Reddit': http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/carly-findlay-suffers-skin-condition-wins-internet-after-copping-abuse-on-internet-site-reddit/story-fnjwnhzf-1226787312639

'Disability activist and blogger Carly Findlay combats pity, sensationalism with her own story': http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-03/disability-blogger-takes-control-of-her-story/5126834

Savage Garden bot: http://twitter.com/affirmation_sg

The music you heard in this episode:

'Sleepless' by Anna O

'Savage Garden – Break Me Shake Me (ChristmatiK Remix)' by ChrismatiK

'Silver Magic Ships' by Marksman Lloyd

Podcast artwork by Brisbane artist Erin Michelle

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Released 9 September 2018

If you would like to support this podcast, check out patreon.com/blythebyname

"My first response was really, 'This is some kind of psychotic break, I'm having a delusion right now that my dream publisher wants to offer me a book deal.' I felt like that for quite a few weeks, actually."

But it was not a delusion. Anna Spargo-Ryan's debut novel The Paper House was released today by Picador Australia, and it has already gone into reprint. Back in March this year, Anna sat down for a chat with me over Skype (as neither of us leaves the house much), and talked to me about chocolate, realising your goals, and living with "the most unpleasant cat I've probably ever had."

The Paper House is about a woman's relationship with her mother who has bipolar disorder, and its author has plenty of lived experience with mental illnesses. Anna lives with obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, depression, and elements of psychosis in the mix. She tells me how "oversharing" on the internet helps her process her experiences and identity issues. We also talk a LOT about chocolate.

Links to things we discussed in this episode:

http://ask.fm/

https://twitter.com/emergencynorman

http://blog.annaspargoryan.com/book-the-paper-house/

BuzzFeed article about Anna's selfies http://bzfd.it/1X9Ze3a

http://seizureonline.com/head-first/

Sidebar: Today is the final day of ME Awareness Month, so if you haven't already listened to the previous episode, a special short audio documentary on the state of myalgic encephalomyelitis in Australia, why not take 20 minutes out sometime today to catch up.

This podcast is made possible by the support of my wonderful Patreon patrons. I'd especially like to thank Chris Woods, Ell Ackerman, Katie Rowney, Tegan, kristen bushnell, Alan Vaarwerk, Laura Elvery, Sophie Benjamin, Lauren Piko, Jim Reynolds, Talia F E, David Ryding, Jessica Alice, Heidi, James Colley and Lefa Singleton Norton.

If you would like to become a patron of the podcast and sling me a couple bucks every month to keep this thang going, go to http://patreon.com/jaspodcast and find out what rewards you can get!

The songs you hear in this episode are (in order of appearance):

'Sleepless' by Anna O

'Part of That* World' sung by Jodi Benson on The Little Mermaid

'Silver Magic Ships' by Marksman Lloyd

If you're on iTunes, please subscribe to Just A Spoonful and rate! Review! Gimme dem stars!

*I know Disney named the song 'Part of Your World' but she says THAT, THAT WORLD. GODDAMMIT.

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Released 31 May 2016

If you would like to support this podcast, check out patreon.com/blythebyname