The Sunday Salon with Alice-Azania Jarvis

I confess, I’m slightly obsessed with this week’s guest - not least because she is probably the first person I’ve interviewed who can claim to have written 20 bestsellers in 20 years. Yes, it is Adele Parks, author of, among others, Lies Lies Lies, Playing Away - and now Just My Luck, a gripping and hugely compelling look at the tensions that follow one couple’s lottery win. As you can imagine, you don’t have a career as successful as Adele’s by coincidence - she is a ferociously hard worker and extremely strategic in her approach. I loved hearing about this, and found her honesty and frankness about the industry and its marketing practices really insightful. She was also so open about how growing up without a financial safety net meant that she couldn’t afford to indulge in creative failures. And she had some great stuff to say about the often quite superficial but hugely influential role of genre in fiction. Of course, thanks to the coronavirus, the release of Just My Luck has been unlike any of her previous releases - so it was fascinating to hear her thoughts on how this could change the industry forever. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @adeleparks

Instagram: @aliceazania / @adele_parks

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B081D4N6T3/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0

Edited by Chelsey Moore

Dr Alyson J McGregor is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the Co-Founder and Director of the university’s Division of Sex and Gender in Emergency Medicine (SGEM). She is also the author of Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women’s Health - and What We Can Do About It, a fascinating examination of how women have long been (and still are) shortchanged in healthcare. Taking in everything from the way in which scientific studies have neglected the differences in how the sexes respond to medication to the fact that traditional diagnostic symptoms - for instance for heart attack and stroke - don’t include how these diseases can manifest in women and much, much more, it is an absolutely riveting and essential read. As you can imagine, she was totally fascinating to speak to. We discussed all of this as well as how Covid 19 had impacted her work in the emergency department, the struggles with PPE, and why the coronavirus has only underscored the urgency of recognising the role of sex in medicine.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @mcgregormd

Further information: alysonmcgregormd.com

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Matters-male-centric-medicine-endangers/dp/1529405890

Edited by Chelsey Moore

My guest this week is the brilliant Marisa Meltzer. A columnist for the New York Times' Style section, she has just released This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World - and Me. Part biography of Jean Nidetch, the housewife from Queens who set up the world’s most famous diet company, part memoir documenting Marisa’s attitude towards her own weight, it’s a riveting read which really puts our complicated and often messy relationship with food, weight and beauty standards under a microscope while offering a hugely entertaining social history too. I loved talking to Marisa about this, as well as life in quarantine in New York, and how lockdown has induced strange and complicated eating and exercise habits in many of us.

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Big-Founder-Watchers-Changed/dp/031641400X

Twitter: @aliceazania / @MarisaMeltzer

Instagram: @aliceazania / @MarisaMeltzer

Edited by Chelsey Moore

My guest this week is the phenomenal Gavanndra Hodge, whose memoir The Consequences of Love is undoubtedly one of this year’s most hotly-anticipated books. Growing up, Gavanndra had the most extraordinary home life - her father was a drug dealer and hairdresser to the fast-living Chelsea set and, when she was 14, her sister Candy died in front of her while the family were on holiday. It was only many years later, once she had two small daughters and had worked her way up the journalism ladder to become deputy editor of Tatler, that Gavanndra began to confront her past. I loved talking to her about all of this, as well as about writing and life in lockdown - and in particular how she's coping with her tendency to catastrophise and the latent anxiety the pandemic could have brought to the fore. She was so generous and open and I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @gavanndra

Instagram: @aliceazania / @gavanndra

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Consequences-Love-Gavanndra-Hodge/dp/024141332X

Edited by Chelsey Moore

My guest this week is the phenomenal Stacey Halls whose sweeping historical novel The Familiars was the bestselling debut of 2019. She has followed it up with The Foundling, set in 18th Century London and telling the story of a young mother named Bess who attempts to reclaim her daughter from London’s Foundling Hospital only to find that someone pretending to be her has already done so.

I loved talking to Stacey - despite being a bookworm as a child, she says she never imagined she could have made a career as a writer and so after school became a legal secretary. She was so refreshing and honest about the overwhelming nature of publishing - when her manuscript prompted a bidding war, she knew she should be happy but instead was consumed with anxiety. I also loved hearing about her approach of “tricking” herself into finishing her first drafts by writing 2000 words a day and, of course, finding out what she has been up to in lockdown.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @stacey_halls

Instagram: @aliceazania / @staceyhallsauthor

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Foundling-Stacey-Halls/dp/1838770062

Edited by Chelsey Moore

My guest for this week's Sunday Salon isolationcast is a really special one. I'm thrilled to have spoken to Naoise Dolan, author of the newly-released bestseller Exciting Times. One of the year's most hotly-tipped debuts, it tells the story of Ava, a young Irish woman teaching English in Hong Kong, and her romantic relationships with Julian, a rich banker, and Edith, a Hong Kong local who went to an English boarding school. Deadpan and sharp, it examines themes of class, sexuality and power. 

I loved chatting to Naoise - as an autistic person, she was fascinating on her experience of lockdown, and how in some ways releasing a book under these circumstances has been a relief. We also discussed writing about queerness, giving up apologising and how it feels to be compared to Sally Rooney (the two are friends and Rooney published a preview of Exciting Times in the literary magazine The Stinging Fly). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Buy the book here: https://www.bookdepository.com/Exciting-Times-Naoise-Dolan/9781474613446

Twitter: @aliceazania / @NaoiseDolan

Instagram: @aliceazania / @naoisedolan

Edited by Chelsey Moore

The not-so-good news is that we're still in lockdown - but the good news is that we're still doing our isolationcasts. Today's guest is Gemma Milne, a science and technology writer, Expert Advisor to the European Commission and Innovate UK, and the author of Smoke & Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It.

I found chatting to Gemma right now particularly fascinating - I loved hearing her view of how the coronavirus crisis has been communicated and whether her grounding in science had affected her reaction to the climate of fear and anxiety (answer: not always). And we talked about loads else besides - from the benefits of a meandering career path to public speaking and sexism in the sciences.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @gemmamilne

Instagram: @aliceazania / @gemmamilnewriter

Buy the book here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/smoke-and-mirrors/gemma-milne/9781472143662

Edited by Chelsey Moore

So how's WFH going for you? As lockdown continues, it's easy to feel that everyone is being hyper-productive - doing their job while knocking out a loaf of sourdough and clocking up a five mile run each day. In this episode, I discuss the weird pressure to keep on 'doing' with Lauren Bravo (author of What Would the Spice Girls Do?, and How to Break Up with Fast Fashion). We also discuss how her routine as a freelance writer and charity shop volunteer has been disrupted, and how she is coping (lots of scheduling, some staring at the wall), as well as her WFH rules, and how she wrote a book in just two months.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @laurenbravo

Instagram: @aliceazania / @laurenbravo

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Break-Fast-Fashion-guilt-free/dp/1472267745/ref=sr_1_1

Edited by Chelsey Moore

It's the second Sunday Salon isolation special. This week, as we all adjust to life under lockdown, I’m talking to Gina Martin, author of Be The Change: A Toolkit for the Activist in You.

You probably know Gina because of her amazing campaign against upskirting. In June 2017, a man took a photo up her skirt at a music festival. The police told her that this was not a sexual offence; the man would not be charged. Instead of accepting this, however, Gina launched a campaign to make upskirting a crime. Eighteen months later, she had succeeded. In her book, she recounts how she found the courage (and stamina) to do this - and offers readers a guide to campaigning in their own societies. I thought she’d be a great person to speak to now about how we can make positive changes even in these difficult circumstances, and how we can get involved in fundraising and local initiatives. But we also discussed why it’s totally understandable and normal to sometimes be unproductive, to feel helpless or down - as well as how she has been handling the upheaval, health concerns and loss of work caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Her advice was really solid and reassuring. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Twitter: @aliceazania / @ginamartinuk

Instagram: @aliceazania / @ginamartin

Buy the book here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/be-the-change/gina-martin/9780751577884

Edited by Chelsey Moore

What a strange and unsettling time we find ourselves in. So strange that I didn't think I could post a regular episode - so instead, here is the first Sunday Salon isolation special, one of several dedicated #togetherapart episodes I will be bringing you to - I hope - offer a balm for the soul over the coming weeks. I'm so grateful to the authors Holly Bourne and Laura Freeman for coming on the podcast (remotely) at short notice to offer their advice on coping with anxiety and our new way of living. Both have written extensively about mental health before - and their contributions were super-helpful, taking in everything from the power of having a "worry window" (a sanctioned time to worry about everything you're anxious about), to why now is probably NOT the moment to embark upon a massive, ambitious work or self improvement project (whatever Instagram is leading you to believe) and how it is totally ok to feel down and to allow yourself to wallow at times. They also have some fabulous, uplifting reading recommendations.

Holly is the author of the best-selling How Do You Like Me Now, as well as the brilliant new novel Pretending which has been described by none other than Marian Keyes as "magnificent". She started her writing career as a news journalist, where she was nominated for Best Print Journalist of the Year. She then spent six years working as an editor, a relationship advisor, and general 'agony aunt' for a youth charity - helping young people with their relationships and mental health. Inspired by what she saw, she started writing teen fiction, including the best-selling, award-winning 'Spinster Club' series which helps educate teenagers about feminism. When she turned thirty, Holly wrote her first adult novel, How Do You Like Me Now, examining the intensified pressures on women once they hit that landmark. Alongside her writing, Holly has a keen interest in women's rights and is an advocate for reducing the stigma of mental health problems. She's helped create online apps that teach young people about sexual consent and is an ambassador for Women's Aid. You can buy her new book, Pretending, here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-What-You-Want/dp/1473668131/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1585388974&sr=1-1

Laura is an author, freelance writer and art critic. Her first book The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite, detailed how books helped her in her recovery from anorexia. Published in 2018, it was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and for First Book and Food Book at the Guild of Food Writers Awards. The Reading Cure was a Times, Daily Telegraph and Spectator Book of the Year 2018. She is currently writing a biography Ways of Life: Jim Ede and the Kettle’s Yard Artists to be published by Jonathan Cape. You can buy the Reading Cure here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reading-Cure-Books-Restored-Appetite/dp/1474604641

Twitter: @aliceazania / @holly_bourneYA

Instagram: @aliceazania/ @ hollybourneya / @laurasophiafreeman

Edited by Chelsey Moore