The Sunday Salon with Alice-Azania Jarvis

My guest this week is the phenomenal Farrah Storr, author of The Discomfort Zone, one of the most thought-provoking and useful books I read last year. Farrah manages to squeeze in a few other things too. As Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan, she took a struggling magazine brand and turned it around, increasing its circulation 59% to become the highest-selling British glossy. Before that, she was the launch Editor of Women’s Health, the most successful magazine launch of the decade. She’s also a TED speaker, and a social mobility commissioner.

We talk about her childhood in Salford, being rejected from Cosmo as a young journalist, and why it’s a better time for magazines than it was a few years ago. She also reveals what it’s like going up against Piers Morgan on TV and how she wrote most of her book at 5am on Saturdays and Sundays. And she tells me why she believes “having it all-ish” is a better ambition than having it all, how you can be “successful but a bit of a f**k up as well”, and why she wants to expand access to the creative industries. Finally, she reveals the single most important advice she would give to any aspiring writers.

Twitter: @aliceazania @Farrah_Storr

Instagram: @aliceazania @farrahstorr

The Discomfort Zone: https://tinyurl.com/ybzlykga

Edited by Chelsey Moore

Her best-selling book How Do You Like Me Now? was both wildly funny and brilliantly perceptive – and I can confirm that Holly Bourne is both of these things, not to mention clever, kind and wise. We talk about everything from the surreal pressure society puts on 30-something women, to conquering stage fright (Holly used to get so nervous before public speaking that she would be sick) and why she started rationing her news intake in 2016. She also reveals how she comes up with her ideas – a process she calls “literary cystitis” – and why she was tempted to have “THIS IS NOT A MEMOIR” tattooed on to her head after the release of How Do You Like Me Now. And we talk about why she feels a responsibility to tackle subjects such as mental health, emotional abuse and feminism in her work. Finally Holly, who is also the author of nine young adult novels, as well as an official champion for SANE mental health charity, reveals the single most important piece of advice she would give any aspiring writer. Welcome to the first ever episode of The Sunday Salon with Alice-Azania Jarvis.

Edited by Chelsey Moore

The Sunday Salon is a podcast celebrating brilliant books and the women who write them, hosted by journalist Alice-Azania Jarvis. Each week she chats to an inspiring female author about her work, her career, how she writes, what she reads and everything in between. This is not some academic textual analysis – it’s about finding the stories behind the stories, and celebrating the joy that books bring, no matter what genre, or style. Tune in each Sunday to hear from guests including How Do You Like Me Now author Holly Bourne, Ordinary People’s Diana Evans, The Reading Cure’s Laura Freeman, and Nell Stevens, author of Mrs Gaskell and Me.

Edited by Chelsey Moore