The Sunday Salon with Alice-Azania Jarvis

Was 2020 the least sexy year ever? Quite possibly - thanks to casual sex bans and social distancing. But was it on track to be that way anyway? These are questions examined in Mia Levitin’s The Future of Seduction, which looks at the multifaceted ways in which phones and tech have changed romance, the effect of MeToo on flirting and courtship, and what the future holds for intimacy. I loved talking to Mia about this, as well as her path to publication, why she drew on her own experience of dating after divorce in the book, and much more. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

By the book here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-future-of-seduction/mia-levitin/9781800180222

Twitter: @mialevitin / @aliceazania

Instagram: @mialevitin / @aliceazania

Edited by Chelsey Moore

I first interviewed Kelleigh back in February 2020 - and then the pandemic hit in earnest. We weren’t sure what to do: whether to ignore the fact that half of her answers now felt out of date, or to do it all again. I’m so glad we went for the latter, I wanted to hear how the pandemic experience had affected her life and her writing style. As a US national, she has spent the year miles away from her family. Of course, that’s not all we talk about - she also tells me about the incredibly level of research that went into Swan Song, which imagines the fall-out among Truman Capote’s group of female friends when his ‘expose’ of their private lives is published in Esquire, the differences between writing for page and for screen, and how she tackled the writers block that almost scuppered the book. I loved revisiting our conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

By the book here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/swan-song/kelleigh-greenberg-jephcott/9781786090188

Twitter: @kgjephcott / @aliceazania

Instagram: @ kgjephcott / @aliceazania

Edited by Chelsey Moore

When Sarah Perry would tell people she was an Essex Girl, her remarks would be met with a knowing smirk. Why? That question is at the heart of this book, which pinpoints what it is that makes an Essex girl (not white high-heels - but a chutzpah and convention-defying radicalism). Perry - the author of three wildly successful novels, After Me Comes the Flood, The Essex Serpent, and Melmoth - then delves into the lives of famous Essex Girls, from TOWIE star Gemma Collins to the abolitionist Anne Knight. I loved talking to her about this, as well as about her ‘late’ start in writing, managing her work with chronic pain, her phenomenal successful novels and her strict Baptist upbringing.

By the book here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/essex-girls/sarah-perry/9781788167451

Twitter: / @aliceazania

Instagram: @sarah_grace_perry / @aliceazania

Edited by Chelsey Moore

Otegha Uwagba is an inspiration. Aged 25, fed up with her job in advertising, she quit and decided to establish herself as a freelance writer, setting up the networking platform Women Who, and self-publishing Little Black Book: A Toolkit For Working Women. After a sell-out print run, it was snapped up by a publisher and became a Sunday Times best-seller - and Otegha is now working on another book, We Need to Talk About Money, due out next year. But the aftermath of George Floyd’s death - and the global outpouring of anguish that ensued - prompted her to set aside the latter and write Whites: On Race and Other Falsehoods, an absolutely brilliant analytical essay which dissects uncomfortable truths about racism and white complicity, and points out some of the problems with the reaction to the black lives matter movement from otherwise well-meaning white people. I found both the book - and our conversation - absolutely riveting and I hope you do too.

By the book here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/whites/otegha-uwagba/9780008440428

Twitter: @OteghaUwagba / @aliceazania

Instagram: @oteghauwagba / @aliceazania

Edited by Chelsey Moore

On a chilly autumn afternoon, I picked up Kenya Hunt’s Girl: Essays on Black Womanhood - and didn’t put it down until it was way past my bedtime. It’s a totally compelling and gripping read, combining social observation, cultural criticism, history and rich personal anecdotes to examine different elements of black womanhood and the black experience. Kenya writes with such a lightness of touch, it’s a joy to read - as well as being thoroughly thought-provoking and insightful. That she published this while also raising two children and holding down a high flying job as Grazia UK’s Fashion Director is hugely impressive - but that doesn’t surprise me, since I’ve known Kenya for a few years now, ever since I covered her maternity leave while she was deputy editor of Elle, and she is the very embodiment of impressive. I loved talking to her about the book, as well as hearing about her childhood growing up in Virginia, breaking into the fashion industry in New York, then moving to the UK, why her habit of journaling fuelled the essays in Girl, and so much more.

By the book here: https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/books/girl-essays-on-black-womanhood/

Twitter: @KenyaNHunt / @aliceazania

Instagram: @kenyahunt / @aliceazania

Edited by Chelsey Moore

We are back! Welcome to series three of the Sunday Salon - and I’m kicking the new season off with a really special guest: the one and only Grace Dent, restaurant critic, columnist, novelist, TV personality and now, memoirist. Her new book Hungry: A memoir of wanting more is undoubtedly one of my reads of the year. Taking in Grace’s childhood in Carlisle, where she dreamed of glamour and the bright lights of London, then her break into the media industry, and her raucous climb up the career ladder, it is a total riot to read - and also deeply, deeply moving, as she chronicles her father’s journey into dementia and her struggle to hold the family together without herself falling apart. It’s evocative, and clever, and made me laugh and cry several times over.

I really loved speaking to Grace about all of this - as well as the peculiarities of class in Britain, writing at 5am and why she wishes she’d spent less time worrying about men. It was a very, very special conversation. So thank you Grace - and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.

By the book here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/hungry/grace-dent/9780008333171

Twitter: @gracedent / @aliceazania

Instagram: @gracedent / @aliceazania

Edited by Chelsey Moore

So - it's the final episode of season two, my 76th episode - and my 24th lockdown isolationcast! Thank you so much for bearing with me as I've done the podcast remotely in this way. My guest today is Rebcca Ley, whose debut novel For When I'm Gone is a hugely moving and yet also uplifting look at family, motherhood, grief and love. Rebecca was such a fascinating guest - as well as being a novelist, she is a journalist for the likes of The Times and the Guardian, for whom she wrote a popular column, Doing it for Dad, about her father's dementia. We discussed all of this, as well as her childhood growing up in Cornwall (as well as her time being homeschooled while her parents travelled in India), her teenage struggle with anorexia, her abandoned first novel, her writing process and so much more. I loved it - and I hope you do too

Twitter: @aliceazania / @rebeccahelenley

Instagram: @aliceazania / @rebeccaley

Buy the book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/for-when-im-gone/rebecca-ley/9781409195375

Edited by Chelsey Moore

As some of you know, I was meant to be getting married next weekend. I'm not anymore - we've postponed - but as it happens this episode has a bit of wedding theme, since Luminary Bakery are making my cake! More importantly, they have also just published a brilliant new cookbook, Rising Hope: Recipes and Stories from Luminary Bakery. If you aren't familiar with them, they are a bakery and cafe with branches in Stoke Newington and Camden - and are an incredible force for good, training women who've experienced severe disadvantage, from homelessness to domestic violence, in baking and patisserie - and thereby offering them a future route to employment. You might remember them from the visit they received from the Duchess of Sussex (she also featured them in her guest-edited edition of Vogue). I loved chatting to Rachel Stonehouse and Kaila Johnson from their team about all of this - as well as the challenges presented by the lockdown, both in terms of finances and maintaining contact with the vulnerable women they work with. Thank you Rachel and Kaila for opening up. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @LuminaryBakery

Instagram: @aliceazania / @luminarybakery

Buy the book: https://luminarybakery.com/pages/luminary-cookbook

Edited by Chelsey Moore

My guest today has had the most phenomenal life. Xiaolu Guo was born in a fishing village in the south of China. She grew up with her grandparents, until she was seven when she went to live with her parents in a communist-era compound. She studied film in Beijing, then moved London in 2002. Five years later her first English Language novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. We talked about all of this - what it was like to grow up in such a unique political climate, finding creativity amidst the uniformity of the communist regime, the process involved in writing in a second language, her success as a film maker - and more. And she explained why she chose to examine a post-Brexit world in her new novel, A Lover's Discourse. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Twitter: @aliceazania

Instagram: @aliceazania

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YYXB238/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Edited by Chelsey Moore

My guest this week is someone I have wanted to interview for absolutely ages. Ever since her debut novel My Name is Leon was published in 2016, Kit de Waal has been one of the most thoughtful and interesting voices in the industry. Having crowdfunded and edited an anthology of working class memoir, Common People, she has spoken frequently of the need for the publishing world to become more diverse. In response to the pandemic, she co-founded The Big Book Weekend, a virtual festival in May.

Now she has published a collection of short stories, Supporting Cast, which revisits some of the characters from her previous works. We spoke about all of this and more - including how she became an author in her 50s, why coming to publishing late made her a better writer, and why we should all be less snobby about audiobooks. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @KitdeWaal

Instagram: @aliceazania /

@kitdewaal

Buy the book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/supporting-cast/kit-de-waal/9780241973424

Edited by Chelsey Moore