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TRIGGER ALERT: Please note that towards the end of the episode, Diane mentions the attempted rape of a friend of hers, as well as an assault that she suffered herself. If these are triggers for you, please turn off at 52”00. 

In this week's episode, I’m talking to writer, Diane Connell. 

Diane was born and educated in New Zealand and has lived and worked in Japan, France and the UK. She began her writing career in a newspaper office in Tokyo before becoming an advertising copywriter and writing for the international non-profit sector. For many years she lived in Paris, where she began writing as a novelist. She later moved to London, where her first two books, Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar and Sherry Cracker Gets Normal, were published under the name of D.J. Connell. Her latest novel, The Improbably Life of Ricky Bird, was published in 2022. Diane is single, childfree, and lives in Sydney.

Topics that Diane & I cover are:

• when one becomes a ‘woman of a certain age’; 
• how while Diane loves being a part of a ‘tribe’, she also loves leaving it and tends to be quite solitary;
• how Diane loves her solitude, but she has also been through long periods of loneliness;
• why it’s important to go through loneliness;
• how some people value freedom, and cope with it better, than others;
• the expectations and judgements around being single and childless;
• the counter argument to childfree people being ‘selfish’, i.e. overpopulation;
• the jealousy that can come from married women with kids towards single, childfree women;
• witches, and how they were often bright, powerful, single women;
• how single, childless women threaten the status quo because they don’t actually need men;
• why, in many ways, being a spinster forces you to develop a wider perspective on life;
• Diane’s three novels, including the most recent, The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird;
• how we should all be making our singleness our power.

Check out Diane’s website:
https://www.djconnell.com/

Buy Diane’s latest book, The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird:
https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Improbable-Life-of-Ricky-Bird/Diane-Connell/9781761101373 

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And thank you so much for listening!