But the author Luke Kennard is no longer that. Suddenly shot to some level of notable ‘success’ in the eyes of the Booker judges, Luke agrees with readers that his new status is, indeed, a little “off brand”:

I like seeing the streets I grew up on in the background of Luke’s posts, and his very trademark Brummie humour about it all, but—as he credits as part of the reason for starting the series—being open as a writer about failure is rare, and refreshing. He also seems one of the only people to dish out truisms about the writing process I haven’t seen so well articulated anywhere. This recent example:

“The vast majority of us are never going to be able to do this full-time, not in a million years, so you need to go easy on yourself, and allocate a short, regular, manageable session. Write the kind of stuff that would delight you if you came across it in a bookshop; make it as idiosyncratic and singular to you as possible. That’s harder than it sounds, but it’s the only way to write something worthwhile. (It also means you don’t care so much when people don’t like it or get it, because you know you do, and therefore people like you will.”

I recently got feedback on my novel from my agent. And I’m at this amazing place I couldn’t imagine a year ago where I can see a date on the horizon where we might start submitting it to publishers. The temptation is to go full whack into writing mode, eschewing all else (seeing friends, eating well, exercising) in favour of time with the manuscript. It’s what you’ve been working hard at for years. But the advice from Luke above speaks to me, as I’m sure it does to many other busy, working people. Because you can’t just give up on the rest of life to pursue a creative pursuit. Nobody can. Not even a Booker-Prize shortlisted author.

And, as Luke says before the above quote extract, it doesn’t even make sense to, as a writer, because all the hubris and despair of a creative endeavour goes into the work itself. I certainly know this to be true, and I’m sure will always find a place for characters working hard at a passion project, drip-by-drip, in my novels too.

is someone who has been quietly working hard in the background of her life too, in short, manageable sessions. She is a musician and mother alongside full-time caring for her daughter, and moving countries, and seeking grants, and generally just living. We met during Catrin Kemp’s , a wonderful writing workshop for mothers, which I’ve written about here. We bonded over a love of poetry, language, and finding small crevices of time to tend to our creative practice, sharing encouragement on voicenotes and WhatsApp chats, sharing early drafts and ideas, and championing each other along.

So it gives me great pleasure to see Sarah’s latest creative endeavour come to life, and hear the echo of working hard on it over those short, regular, manageable sessions come to life.

Painted Light is her new full-length album, available today to stream and buy on Bandcamp and Subvert:

I often think how the nature of story is such that, if you can tap into the personal—the truly deep, and detailed messiness of it all, it is more likely to resonate universally. Sarah’s album seems to embody that thought fourfold. And there were certainly many moments where a chord—literal or lyrical—struck deep.

I asked to interview Sarah about how she managed this creative practice, the songwriting process, juggling motherhood and being an artist, and tips for other caregivers. I hope you enjoy this deeply generous and fulfilling interview. And feel free to leave any other thoughts or questions for Sarah in a comment!

Over to you Sarah!

Hello Sarah! First, thank you for joining us! Can you tell me more about your new album, Painted Light—when is it out? What’s it about?

Thanks for having me Hannah! Painted Light is came out on 2 October (this month!). It’s a collection of 10 songs; reflections on love and grief and the duality, and the inner tension of these emotions. The record is a lot of my own introspection and very much inspired by becoming a mother and the love I have for my daughter.

Who, if you know, are your listeners?

I’ve lived in Edinburgh for the last 12 years, so I’d say most of my listeners are Scottish folk fans, but I’m hoping with this album and with a recent move back to Australia that I can broaden that audience a bit and especially connect with other creatives who are parents.

What does the album say which hasn’t been said before?

A lot of mainstream music and culture celebrates romantic love and so I hope that some of these songs about the love a parent has for their child shows how extraordinary that kind of love can be too.

I know you first as a writer, a poet. What’s the songwriting process like for you?

I’m still with my almost three-year-old most of the time and any beautiful dreams I’d had of me playing, singing or writing with her present have gone completely out the window. I get a lot of “stop!” and “no!” when I get my guitar out!

So the process of writing and creating, like all things, has really changed after becoming a parent. If an idea does happen to present itself to me in between domestic chaos, I’ll try to catch a sliver of it; in my phone or voice notes, then return to it at the end of the day if I’ve managed to stay awake past 8pm. Otherwise it is likely forgotten and gone forever! Or maybe not. Creativity works in mysterious and magical ways!

I used to sit down and write and journal every day. I had a lot of space for ideas to appear or even just to process my thoughts and wade through that. Now things feel like a collection of fragmented and fractured moments that are pieced together. Sometimes, though, there can also be a lot more directed focus — having less time can mean that I can get to what I want to make quicker (on the good days when there is less self-criticism in the room).

Can you tell me more about how you went about making the album, and how the process went for you?

There was a moment last summer where I suddenly felt that it was so necessary to me that I record some music; the idea followed me around until I decided to apply for Creative Scotland funding to make an EP. The grant application itself just about killed me and my partner W. We would put our daughter to bed and then stay up into the late hours fixing budgets and risk assessments and I actually couldn’t have done it without him. It was a long shot because the funding is very competitive, so when I found out that I’d actually received it, it was just amazing, so motivating and validating and I found it freed me up to write a lot more and I could believe in myself and what I wanted to say.

We had a very small amount of time to fit everything in. About five days for arranging the songs, of which there ended up being 10 (instead of six) and then two weeks for recording. The timing parameters meant that as the idea snowballed and expanded it often became overwhelming and stressful to manage alongside full time caring for my young child. There were a lot of logistics for one person to manage on very little sleep.

When you don’t have the luxury of sitting with songs for months or playing them live with a band again and again you can’t overthink things too much. There is an element of protection of the original idea and the soul of the song. It’s miraculous to me that I managed to make this record and now, in the more vulnerable time of releasing it into the world I can find myself forgetting the circumstances that we made it in. It’s easy to find yourself thinking “oh I wish I’d have done this differently”. But I am really proud of myself and the album is really a legacy for my daughter—a way to mark who we are in this moment.

What has the reception been like?

I’ve been reflecting on how to build real connection with an audience when machines and apps are the way through which we are told we have to reach each other.

I’ve intentionally not put my music onto Spotify as I am deeply opposed to the push towards artificial intelligence in music. This is difficult as an independent artist with a first release.

I’m really hoping I can connect directly with a smaller group of listeners who genuinely care about the human heart and labour behind the work, rather than feeding a machine that treats art like disposable background data. Ultimately, I hope it creates more opportunities for me to play music with other people and to perform.

How did a grant from Creative Scotland bake into this offering?

Since becoming a mother, I noticed a lot of cultural spaces were inaccessible to me. Venues don’t always welcome children due to rules or alcohol but also times of performances are mostly at bedtime.

My funding also included putting on two gigs that were aimed at making music spaces more accessible for parents. We did this at the Pianodrome in Edinburgh and The Glad Cafe in Glasgow (where we partnered with The New Mothers’ Writing Circle). The gigs were designed to challenge this lack of inclusivity and to talk about the importance of inviting children into live music spaces where it is not just “children’s entertainment”.

The gigs went really well. The Pianodrome gig sold out and so many parents told me how it was the first gig they’d ever been to with their children and how much they had missed being able to see live music.

What has been the most surprising thing about this project, overall?

How much admin there is! Gosh you wouldn’t believe all that goes into the licensing and the distributing. I’ve been very green, but it’s also definitely not a job for one person with only one day for admin per week.

You have an amazing track called ‘Modern Girl’, which speaks directly to themes around work and motherhood I’ve long been interested in, and wrote towards in Mother, Inc.

Can you tell me more about this track, and how do you juggle making music and motherhood?

‘Modern Girl‘ speaks to navigating feminism, ambition and possibility as a woman and new mother in the throes of late-stage capitalism. It was a really late addition to the album and I wasn’t sure about it, honestly. But I felt the lyrics spoke quite directly to part of my experience of becoming a mother and the stories I often heard from other women. I wanted to say something about that, and speak about how I felt like I was tricked into thinking motherhood would be this wholesome and perfect thing, but actually it has felt so hard. Society has very little sympathy for you! I think the idea that you are expected to do and carry it all, perfectly, and not complain whilst you manage something on your own that for most of human history has been done in collaboration with the support of others, can feel like a pretty rough deal.

I think I was really longing for more rites of passage around becoming a mother, more community and to feel celebrated for this radical act of trying to raise a young human well.

We also hear a little child laughing and counting in the track ‘Distance to the Moon’. Why was it important to include this audio in the album?

Including some audio of my daughter was really special. I really love how this track came together. I hope it contributes to creating a particular landscape for the music and that it transports the listener to somewhere in their own memory whilst inviting them into our little world together.

What would be one of your tips for other creatives currently in the deep end of caregiving?

Go gently and give yourself grace. It’s felt important to remember that things are in constant flux and everything passes. There will be a time again when I will have more space for my creative ideas and pursuits. But! Also try to catch what you can as it happens and find a way that works for you. For me, it’s keeping notes on my phone (though I recommend backing them up as I recently lost all of these!) and remembering that making time to be creative is worthwhile and has value even though it often contributes zero dollars into the bank account!

What else have you got in the mix?

I would really like to write a series of short fairytales that look at motherhood and the archetypes of the maiden, mother and crone.

What does community mean to you?

Showing up for people! Making food together and sharing what we have, be that words, songs, plants, groceries, hugs, kindness.

What’s another storytelling project, book, album, or Substack you love and would recommend?

I’d like to recommend my good pal Siri who plays as Humbird. Siri has an album coming out in September called Morning When it Comes, it’s cosmic and totally wonderful and she has also just started a Substack here:

An album I’d also love to recommend is Dowally ‘Local News’. They are an Edinburgh band and they are Scottish folk at its finest.

Thanks so much to Sarah for taking part in this interview. Head to Bandcamp or Subvert to buy her new album Painted Light. The album is also available for streaming on Tidal and Qobuz. What are you listening to at the mo? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Thanks for reading this edition of Shelf Life where I speak to the musician behind Painted Light, Sarah Irvine. Previous interviews include Glasgow-based writer Helen Charman, illustrator Becky Barnicoat, author and women’s bookshop owner Jane Cholmeley, and author Josh Riedel.

One of the most instrumental moments as a baby journalist was during a two-week work experience stint at the former Birmingham Post & Mail, on the business desk, aged about 20 or 21.

I was turning out copy for the then Business Editor, Alun Thorne, a tall bald man who was smart, gentle, and kind. I would go out with a young reporter called Jonny whose car looked like he slept in it and get the story, come back to the office, file my copy and Alun would signal to me through the gap between our boxy computers to come over to his side of the desk. I would wheel my chair round, sit just behind him, and watch over his shoulder as he, no doubt at a slower place than would be normal for him, edited my copy. With every key stroke, every comma change or phrase rewrite, he would explain what he was doing as he typed and moved things around, trying different options, pasting and saving cuts. Why a sentence needed to be more succinct, and how to do that. Where to move clauses, how to think about word choice, repetition, sentence length, pace. How to think about what the reader knows, wants to know, doesn’t need to know. Where I was begging questions which I oughtn’t to. In essence, how to tell a good story.

Decades later, in my early mid-thirties and hiring my own baby journalists for Condé Nast, I would do the same. Sometimes over my shoulder, sometimes, if remote, asking them to enter the Google Doc at the same time as me so they could see me work and I could simultaneously talk them through what I was doing on a call. I still think this is the best way for any writer to learn, as I did. I still do this with students who float my way from various writing schools looking for advice.

My writing career now spans 20 years and I’ve had the privilege to work with a number of world-class editors from prestigious publications. I’ve graduated from baby journalist to writer and editor, though I still feel a total newb. Guardian editors, Vogue editors, ID editors, local newspaper editors, media editors, Bloomsbury publishing editors, Nat Geo editors, and more latterly, tech editors and founder-editors such as Hamish McKenzie, the founder of Substack, small indy publisher editors like JP at The Pound Project, and poetry editors. Gosh, they’ve all been amazing...

When I think back, when I really open a telescope through my memories to see what stuck, what I see are the kind, thoughtful, unhurried Alun Thorne-shaped editors who transformed how I think about writing as a whole. I remember the late newshound David English who scratched out all my ‘thats’ in big thick red marker pen at journalism school. Nick Booth, Sarah Hartley, Michael Macleod, Vicky Frost, Bailey Richardson, Farrah Storr… god, the list goes on and on. Every single editor, cowriter, and mentor taught me an extra nugget about writing to build on the rest. More recently, the incredibly smart and lovely freelance copyeditor I worked with while I was Managing Editor at Substack, Rina Bander, who taught me the minutiae of grammar which I THOUGHT I had a handle on (ht Eats, Shoots & Leaves and English degrees), but it turned out, I barely understood at all. Rina is so humble she’s on Substack as a lurker but doesn’t have a public profile. But she’s taught me so much.

The thing about being a purist about people who lean on AI for their writing—to be specific, people who turn to the two major GenAI chatbots in use today, ChatGPT and Claude to wage in on their words—is that it totally misunderstands how much people crave a collaborative writing process, and are desperate for a brilliant general purpose writing platform built for now, without realising it. How isolating writing can be. How most people think they are terrible at it. How most people never experienced being able to print out their copy and go and sit with someone experienced and discuss it, although it’s actually sort of built into our storytelling nature to do so. And how most online writing tools are crap.

I understand some of the sentiment behind “all people who write with AI should die” (Sam Kriss). I really do. I loathe slop. And it’s worth pointing out clearly at this point: I don’t use AI for any kind of writing. Or anything at all really. I crave the process. Plus I am naturally distrustful, and passionately against outsourcing your thinking to a bot that’s been trained on all the language in the world (often procured through theft), often programmed by men. I’m done with men trying to think for me. I dabbled with other tasks like mathematics. But, honestly, I find ChatGPT very boring. There are so many other things I’d rather be doing with my time and typing. Yes, I too, am worried about the internet becoming The Book of Sand. But I find arguments which polarise the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’ not just tedious and lacking specificity, but also part of the problem. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ arguments support an individualistic society which doesn’t value care, community (the IRL kind), and children. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ stops someone from helping other vulnerable people in public, ignoring a mother struggling with her shopping and upset kids for example, or seeing someone on the floor and not going over to see if they’re OK.

In favour of exploring the nuance, and because I’m naturally curious about how people use technology for storytelling, I want to prod at this bruise the writing world is crying dramatically about a bit further.

What I find? Like everything, when you take a moment to understand the person doing the thing you dislike, you often will see a lot more going on.

Word processing got stuck in 2000

Google Docs and Microsoft Word are still the most-used “writing” tools today. Word is (was) called a word processor, to borrow Elizabeth McCraken’s metaphor—as if you throw in a bunch of words and it’ll turf out a smooth paste.

While other disciplines have built themselves better tools in the last 20 years as technology advanced, Figma, Miro, Notion, Airtable, Slack—eng, design, data teams all made new tools to help them do what they do. When GenAI arrived these teams could plug those AI backends into their tools to make them better: Notion, Airtable, etc—they all have AI built in and are improved.

But Docs and Word just got stuck. They stayed as these weird blank pages (so skeuomorphic!) with huge tool bars for formatting, changing the shape of words around on the page, and little else.

Formatting is useful. Formatting is pretty. But formatting is for publication, and a lot of the publication part is happening outside Google Docs and Word (and often isn’t going to be printed or published in the traditional way). So why didn’t they evolve to help with everything else?

Google Docs got better with collaboration, which is why it was my tool of choice for writing and editing for years—mainly for the ‘suggested edits’ function to work with collaborators. But it’s wildly foreign to many other aspects of writing which it could be better at.

I kind of hate Microsoft Word and have no idea why any professional writers or editors still use it. I despise tracked changes, they don’t feel anything like having a chat on the phone, and can be difficult to actually track… I crave that over-the-shoulder conversational re-versioning. With Google Docs, at least, there’s a back and forth about the word choice in the comments, and see what those edits might look like in real time.

Substack’s dashboard tool for composing drafts is internally called ‘the editor’ but it doesn’t do anything like an edit on the work, and doesn’t feel beautiful for composition either. It’s just another formatting space, a CMS, production hub, similar to Google Docs, except you can’t collaborate there with other writers. It breaks and has bugs. Most Substack writers I know don’t compose in Substack’s editor. You can tell because it changes their smart quotes to hash marks in their posts when they copy and paste from elsewhere.

Would anyone go back to cut and paste with scissors?

When Word took over from typewriters in the ‘70s and ‘80s it was adopted quickly. ‘Word processing’ lovers praised the ability to copy, paste, and rearrange large texts without having to print them out and use scissors and eyes to figure out a better structure. That shaved hours of time off the process. It made it quicker to see the benefits of moving stuff around. But not without a number of purists harking back to the good old days of pen and paper.

In Elizabeth McCracken’s craftbook, A Long Game, one of her fragments of writing advice discusses ways word processing software revolutionised writing by removing time-consuming frictions to creating what looked like a finished written product. In other ways, she says, writers have had to reintroduce these frictions to “trick” themselves into refining their ideas into words, since the typed document on a screen can so often appear “finished” when in fact, reading aloud, printing out, the Notes app, or sending to another device will highlight plenty of errors.

“The problem is that it can feel—when you start what you think of as a first draft on a computer—as though you are also starting on the final draft.

A writer has to fight against that seeming perfection… you have to fool yourself.” —Elizabeth McCracken

Writers are craving the next seismic shift in the craft of writing—allowing for even more support to unlock the writing ‘process’, while not removing the necessary frictions a writer needs to re-write and re-work the piece.

I can see why writers are gobsmacked and scared by slop. There is something very eerie about the human labour being removed from the process. There is nothing worse than reading writing which has been churned out, smoothed-down for consumption by a spinning machine wheel.

Enter the add-on tools

In a 20-year writing career, where I was considered a ‘digital native’ at graduation, I have tried all the writing tools under the sun. OmmWriter, Google Docs, Word, Pages, Notion, Adobe suite, Bear, Evernote, Apple Notes, a quirky Markdown app called Mou, and others I can’t remember now.

When I started writing fiction I quickly picked up a platform which made working on a large manuscript more manageable: Scrivener is widely known as the main software of choice for creative writing—with it’s ability to move scenes, store research notes and character files, track revisions, label rewrites, and snapshot versions of the text before you change it. But it has a huge amount of settings, can be cumbersome to adopt and use, and doesn’t allow for collaborative writing or editing. Publishing and poetry editors still tend to default to Microsoft Word for edits (why god why!).

At tech companies, while the engineers had amazing internal tools built for tracking bugs, logging data, measuring time spent etc, the small writer teams I was on had to actually hack the engineering tools to add fields to enter copy which might appear in the app. This was the opposite of ideal. Like using a toddler’s table and pretend cooker to create a restaurant menu for 30 covers. But we made it work.

Most companies I work for now still borrow a hodgepodge of other tools for their marketing and editorial teams—random stuff from Markdown editors to Notion to Adobe suite stuff.

I still default to Scrivener for fiction, Google Docs for Substack, work, and essays, and, a new kid on the block, Marker, for some of my professional work (see more on Marker below). I still pad out all the other needs with a variety of other tools: Airtable, monday or Notion for editorial calendars, Apple Notes for thinking on the fly, voice memo for odd thoughts, it goes on and on.

And then there are all the fun add-on apps and tools writers love to help with the writing life outside of composition—coming up with prompts and ideas, getting words on the page, and then editing and revising. Trying audio to text (Descript, voice memos), or formatting for other devices (Kindle).

Tools like Freedom (for a do-not-disturb mode), Write Or…, The Most Dangerous, Written Kitten, Oh Write Room, Cold Turkey Writer, and hardware solutions like Freewrite (the sort of modern typewriter). I like all of these as sort of fun add-ons. But we need a good, solid, well-designed place, to do all writing, pre-writing, and editing. As simple as the white page of a notebook, which doesn’t remove the fun, freedom, and necessary friction of the writing process (please please don’t take that away from me!), but can be as smart and useful as the editorial desk at the country’s top newspaper for getting copy through the production flow.

Ultimately, these are all just fancy tools with stupid names aiming for the same thing—the oldest thing we’ve done on the planet. Write something to be read. Writing is always always done with a reader in mind (I argue this for journaling too), and, in my imbued newspaper hound opinion, good writing is the kind which communicates the best. (I am very much of the George Orwell, David English school of writing—don’t use two words when you can use one, less flowery the better, less opaque and pompous sounds the better etc, cut it down cut it down cut it down, despite how long this current piece is).

Tools mean nothing without an editor

If you’re fiction writing, out of contract and with no agent or editor, you are likely doing it alone, for free, because you love language, and story. But, as every writer knows, writing in isolation can be excruciating. AND as a writer, as a journalist who knows the utter joy of working with an editor, or indeed a team of story people, as a fiction writer I really miss being able to gain that input, feedback, and discussion of the language.

At the Guardian, I was writing sometimes five or six stories a day. I chatted with each subject section editor about the stories, the approach and tone, making them stand up, ways to make them better using other storytelling elements (media, links, comments), and then I had another subeditor to line-edit the piece. I loved listening to the ‘Readers Editor’ talk about writer ethics. I lapped up every change in the Guardian Style Guide (I’ve kept all my copies) and read the columns by the Style Editor about why we were no longer capping up job titles. I still turn to the Guardian guide for all things style, after AP. I love leafing the pages. Nothing will ever beat being able to shout something above the desk about words (“know how, or knowhow, or know-how??”) and receive five answers from word nerds like me (and one truth from the style editor).

Often, especially for printed words, I had a final subeditor who polished it up, making the whole thing an utter joy to read. Good writers do not write alone. It’s a collaboration. But today, with so much gatekeeping in publishing and subeditors being fired every day, this sadly an aspect of writing only a small percentage enjoy.

Weeks ago, I put a post out on Substack Notes about editors and fiction writing, where I’ve craved that quick feedback and collaboration I found in professional writing.

For novels one and two I sought out external editors to read and offer feedback on the work, sometimes friends, sometimes paid, sometimes as skillswap. These wonderful people always made the work better. I wrote about this at length in the acknowledgements of my latest book, Mother, Inc.

The writing industry actually feeds off this gap and desperation for feedback from solo fiction writers. You can pay minimum £500 for a Faber Academy employed editor to read your manuscript and get you a single page of feedback (they do not tell you who the editor is, or their qualifications). You can seek out feedback from The Literary Consultancy starting out at £1,100 for up to 60K words. Writers tend to team up with friends to form groups and share work and feedback. Every professional writer knows this kind of feedback and sharing is key to a fertile creative life—Ursula K Le Guin has a brilliant craftbook for writing groups to follow I’d recommend called Steering the Craft. Curtis Brown Creative and Arvon courses bring writers together for community, support, sharing, learning, and crucially—to be read and fed-back to by editors. A lot of the smaller writing prizes, which take payment to enter, Blue Pencil Agency, Peter Fraser Dunlop etc, offer feedback from an agent as their first prize. I’ve tried a lot of these. Some useful, some not. My writing group is the best thing that ever happened to my writing life, but we don’t edit each other’s work.

But most people—especially those who don’t have the funds or time to invest at whole lot in it—don’t have the budget, connections, or even the idea to seek editors out. They have no editor to work with, and look for quick solutions while they are in the flow.

So, people are turning to LLMs to help them as an editor might

Like most people here, I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about CEOs and power-tripping managers running all their employees’ work through an LLM to see if it will make it better, or sending it back to ask them to do the same.

They’ve been fooled by the drowsy, over-flattering voice of the chatbots: the brandy, vague churn-speak they spit out in nicely formatted bullet points. Those aren’t the people I’m worried about. They will always be bad managers, and bad writers, whatever tool they use.

But the solo writers, the ones who care about language and are seeking help. They are too ashamed about using LLMs to voice their need—these are the ones I care for as someone who could help them as a writer (or ghostwriter) and editor. It’s my job to help people get their story out, their message across, in their voice, and with a channel strategy that works. I’ve helped major companies, brands, bestselling authors and creative people do that, for years. I still do this for a number of solo writers and Substackers. It’s my absolute joy to be their writing partner, editor, and helper in all things story.

But I really feel for some of these writers now worried about being called out by pangram as a fake or dullard. Yes, I agree they should learn syntax, punctuation, and grammar themselves as much as possible, but—as per above—even when we think we know commas, we almost always continue to get them wrong.

A new writing tool for now

If it wasn’t clear already, I’m a tech optimist. And an early adopter. Always have been, and will be. I love finding out about how the internet started. I love hearing ideas from Tim Berners Lee, Kevin Kelly, and people who see technology as a tool to heal, not hinder.

I love finding ways technology can aide storytelling. So I couldn’t sit here with all this discussion about AI going on and not figure out my point of view.

Paul Graham advised early startups to think like a charity. To make do good their main goal. But many startups I’ve worked for loose that compass once their userbase gets beyond, say, 1m. Or the company is over 100 employees. One of those two.

Recently, I was asked to help a small startup with founders who, like me, think tools for writers could be better, and, importantly, want to do good in the world. And hate AI slop. Jon Steinback and Ryan Bowman started Marker to be the best writing tool for writers now, and an editor for writers to take thoughts on their torturously joyful journey into words. Jon and Ryan saw that writing tools have not been fit for purpose for writers. That LLMs offer a horrible future. They write about it better in their own words, two essays they’ve shared for the launch of Marker here:

Letter Assembly

What is the writer thinking?

“What was John Steinbeck thinking…

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4 months ago · 16 likes · Jon Steinback

Letter Assembly

A labour of the shadows

For most of history, editors worked only with dead authors. These first text workers were the scribes of antiquity – paid to literally rewrite texts (to which they only rarely, and daringly, added their own amanuensis-style adaptations…

Read more

4 months ago · 9 likes · Ryan Bowman

One of Marker’s early investors alongside Index Ventures is the Google Docs (née Writely) founder Steve Newman (as well as the Slack founder Cal Henderson). Jon said:

“People get to choose the future of writing, and I believe they will choose something that values the craft, rather than the slop brutally eroding it.”

And here about Marker’s origins:

“Our conversation was rooted in deep frustration… in the age of AI, the tools of writing have turned against the craft.”

This last note is to share, I’m working with Marker to help bring their vision to writers, and I’m pumped to be part of a team shaping the future of writing tools. I’m still consulting with my wonderful select clients who I love, but wanted to share more about this brilliant new writing tool and see if writers here want to try it out. More about how you can do that below.

A final word: can we please, at least, be nice?

A parting note. Honestly, I don’t really understand the huge global freak out about GenAI, but I think that’s because, as always, 1. I know too much, 2. I’m a tech optimist, see point above. I think tech has, overall, helped a lot of things for the better. Even if my husband and I ban screens on weekdays at home, have tried to throw out our smartphones for dumbphones, and I recently spoke on the Today programme about screentime for under 5s. But I’m not dogmatic on any of those terms. My main point on the Today programme was that we shouldn’t judge parents doing their best, often with very little help.

I don’t see folks freaking out about using free platforms like Amazon, Google, gmail, Instagram, Alexa—all which use many elements of AI and have questionable founders doing questionable things, also making climate change worse etc etc. Is it double standards to be happy to use Amazon to deliver your toilet paper, meanwhile write that people should die because they use ChatGPT help create their weekly meal plan?

Ridiculing people who are trying to use GenAI to help them misunderstands why they might be turning to GenAI in the first place. It’s akin to laughing at a kid in the playground for having shitty packed lunch. Yes, I agree, writing made by ChatGPT or Claude is boring, repetitive, and I’m sick of it too. I think writing by humans is the best writing. It’s funny and fun and surprising. And as a writer, I love the process. It’s my meditation. It’s how I learn. Why would I outsource the thing I love doing the most to a machine? The same reason I don’t outsource my parenting, but I do sometimes need help with some things that supports me to parent, the bits I don’t like. Like a real-life accountant to do my taxes (hi Peter!).

I recently wrote my AI policy partly to detail all of this, partly to protect myself as an author and writer. You can read that here.

As you are now probably discovering, this isn’t a hot take. Marker’s Observations feature tells me this post is 3,999+ words, and I’ve already erased 3,077. I spent 162 minutes editing it. It’s 214 sentences. A 20-minute read.

I don’t do hot takes because we need more empathy in the world for what each other is trying to do, and where they might be coming from. What we need is more nuance, not less. More ideas, more openness to understand, more doing good. More fumbling around to get the right words. I think a lot of writers are earnestly trying to do that, and goodness do we need it.

Try the newest writing tool on the block

I have a small number of personal invites for writers who want to try Marker, for free, now, while it’s in alpha.

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Also, subscribe to Marker’s new Substack —where there’ll be updates on the product and community events, plus writer stories and more.

Tell me your thoughts in the comments!

Over and out,

Hx

I’ve been thinking a lot about time.

After reading Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary something about relativity just clicked like it hadn’t before (I haven’t seen the film, just happened to dive into the book before its release). The main character, Ryland Grace, experiences 4.5 years on his space expedition to Tau Ceti, where on earth they experience 12 years. Time dilation. I can’t understand it without doing the mental equivalent of squinting.

So was Monday to Monday this past week. It sped by in a blink. As if I’d fallen asleep during a movie and woken up at the end. Of course, everyone with little kids will tell you the days go fast, years slow etc etc… but then what of the excruciatingly slow summers of teenagehood waiting for the next big milestone that might unlock your freedom? What of the post-exam months of 2001, where it felt like endless days hanging out in each others’ parents’ living rooms watching each other play Halo? What if time is relative to life stage too?

I, like many other female writers, get asked a lot how I FIND the time, a lot. I always thought this was because I, like all the others, am jigsawing writing projects between paid work and child-raising … but no, it turns out even full-time bestselling author gets asked this question all the time (many times?) too, which frankly, I find flabbergasting. I love Emma’s analysis of how it might just be entrenched misogyny, which I’ve long thought. Male writers don’t get asked this. She writes (my emphasis):

There’s something revealing in what we assume is “normal” or even admirable in one direction, and slightly suspect in another. The idea of a woman carving out uninterrupted time can still be framed as indulgent, or something that needs explaining, whereas for men it often reads as discipline, seriousness, or even just part of a respected identity. The time itself isn’t the interesting part—it’s the permission we culturally put onto it.

It’s sort of implied that as a woman, shouldn’t you be doing something else, something more useful?? Than finding all this TIME to WRITE?

Like me, Emma is able to see how relative time is to each of us. She goes on:

Most of us? The majority? We do have some time. The elephant in the room is: usually “finding time” means sacrificing something else. It means being honest about your screen-time. It means putting your phone down. It means getting up half an hour earlier. It means saying no to that invite from an acquaintance.

[...] When we really want something (a dog! An hour at the gym! A spicy one night stand! A new TV!) we move heaven and Earth to make it happen. This is why I think “I don’t have time” when it comes to creative work is often a cover-up. It’s a thing we tell ourselves. It’s the first layer of the onion. It’s a way to shrug something off.

Okay, we “don’t have time” but also deep down: we’re also scared to give it a go. “I would, but I don’t have time” can sometimes be a creative excuse. Something else is lurking. Fear, worry, perfectionism, procrastination, people-pleasing, your inner critic. Call it out.

— ,

I was once in a writing group with other women which was less about sharing our work, and more for talking about everything surrounding our writing life—the how, and where, and roadblocks to making it to the desk. This kind of support group was far more effective in what we actually needed as women writers. We shared the usual tips about early rises, fixed dates with the project or cowriting accountability. But, ultimately, what I came to see is that for each woman, for each person, a lot of it was about permission. Permission to put writing high on the priority list above all the other clamouring needs everyone else will throw your way. Just like work, time for something will fill whatever container you give it.

This week, I interview to my longtime friend and collaborator, for On The Clock.

Before I was friends with Clare I admired her from afar. When I first moved to Cornwall, most of our network were other artists, since we moved mainly for the studio my husband was awarded in St Ives. It took me a while to find my ‘people’—who I might roughly group as ‘media folks,’ working in production, storytelling, design and journalism. Looking back, finding other creative people was mostly through being connected to Clare, and her wonderful agency .

I think Clare and I first met when I went along to a Stranger Collective Firelight event—where three speakers share their stories around a huge burning fire—and was hooked. Clare and her business partner bowled me over as these powerhouse women, running a studio around words, brands, story, which was environmentally connected, a node in a network of amazing creative people, and they both also seemed so lovely, genuine, curious, and interesting. And mind-boggingly smart. Oh and were writing their own books on the side and had families with young kids. They were role models just a few years ahead. And have been so ever since.

Clare and Helen were also part of the previously aforementioned writing support group—so I got to know them more intimately as artists in their own right, and all the vulnerabilities and anxieties about our work that comes with that. I get to see them both up close as humans, as mothers, as friends holding the ropes of many sails, and as business smarts, winning huge clients with their savvy and wisdom.

This is a huge privilege, and I’m so pumped we have Clare sharing the intricacies of her day, her writing routines and approach here today. Not least because I’ve been witness to the years of her hard grind—work which is coming to fruition with the publication of her first solo short story collection, Hirethow, published with Hermitage press this August, as well as her novel-in-progress (repped by Laurie Robertson for PFD).

Reading about Clare’s day, and preparing for this workshop, another quote from the Canadian novelist Sheila Heti struck me as apt. Usually, I self-chastise for blending work and the rest of life, trying to stick to vague compartments, the containers. But more recently, I’ve realised if I let writing seep out into everything else, it all just works better together, and the good feeling I get from a session at the desk continues throughout the week. Sheila writes:

“More and more as I get older I want my writing and my life to interweave. I don’t want my books or writing itself to be something separate from what I would do anyway, or to be about something apart from what I am thinking anyway—my writing should be no different from my thoughts going through the day. I don’t know if I have come to this because I can’t seem to separate out a privileged space for writing, in which I imagine other worlds, or if it’s the reverse, but it’s important for writing and life to be fairly seamless; to be the same thing. So that I can come to the computer any time—night or day, for ten minutes or two hours, and begin writing from where I am—from what I am thinking about. I want writing and living to be one thing, so that writing is just me living, but on the page—an extension of the living I was doing before I sat down to write.”

— Sheila Heti, from Daily Rituals, Women at Work by .

There is something of Sheila’s words in Clare’s discipline and schedule here too, which Sheila openly never found. Clare starts the day writing, and sometimes ends it too, sometimes thinks about it elsewhere. Clare finds the time, and doesn’t ask permission. Make note of her name, Clare Howdle. you’ll be seeing plenty more of her in years to come.

Clare, over to you…

Name: Clare Howdle
Age: 46
Job: Writer, editor, brand strategist (co-creative director and partner at )
Location: Falmouth, Cornwall
Who’s in your Mother, Inc.? my son, Fox, 10, and husband Zander.

Take us through a typical day?

My typical schedule is challenging to define as every day brings something different with it—but then I suppose that’s the typical! There is always a need to flex and move plans, relinquish writing time for other demands and readjust expectations of what gets done, when. I’ve become a master at switching hats very quickly and clawing out hours (even minutes!) wherever I can find them!

5.30am: Get up, make tea, get to my desk. I write best early, when the rest of the house is asleep.

7.25am: Wake up my 10-year-old and get him moving for school. While he’s showering I make his packed lunch, sort his PE kit, fill in permission slips or any other school admin needed for the day, put a wash on, make breakfast.

8.25am: Walk to school for drop-off, then exercise. Usually a run, or reformer Pilates both of which work wonders for my brain.

9.30am: After a super quick shower, I grab coffee and breakfast and rush to my desk. Most days are spent on client work. I do a lot of messaging and tone of voice work as well as shaping brand narratives and devising content campaigns, all of which flexes my creative thinking, problem solving, wordcraft and editing skills.

1ish: Lunch, almost always at my desk. I check in with any fiction-adjacent projects on the go, which could be workshops I’m planning, talks I’m hosting or taking part in, or promo. I’m also trying to get better at taking at least 10 minutes out—to walk to the river or bike to the beach. Oh, and hanging out the laundry, if I remember.

4pm: My son arrives home, so I step away to catch up with him about his day.

6.30pm: Work mostly done, we hang out as a family. Board games, a film if it’s raining, sea swims or garden time if it’s hot. Dinner (my husband and I take turns cooking), chat. It’s so tempting to try and slope off and write when I’m on deadline, and sometimes I do, but equally I know how important this time to connect is, so I try and stay present for it, as much as I can.

9pm: Bedtime for the boy, then, if I have the energy it’s back to the desk again to write. If I’m not feeling it, or want a break, we watch TV. I’m a huge admirer of the brilliant writing of prestige shows like Succession, The Bear and Beef.

11.30ish: Write a To Do list for tomorrow (I couldn’t live without lists) with everything jumbled up—school admin to remember, shopping, emails to send, a plot point to iron out. It isn’t really usable in that form and I know I’ll rewrite it in the morning but unless I get it out of my brain I struggle to sleep. Then, bed.

Reading it laid out like this it’s crazy to see how completely packed every day is. It doesn’t seem possible. But although there is some flex here and there and I’ve managed to set Fridays aside purely for fiction writing so that day looks very different, this is genuinely my schedule. So it is possible because I am doing it. And I know I’m not the only one. Squeezing every second I can out of the day, filling every gap, making time, spinning plates, trying to find balance of some kind wherever and however I can. Sometimes it feels too much, most of the time I like the pace and there isn’t a part of it that I can sacrifice. It’s all important to me. Although finding a way to get a little more sleep would be nice—but if I did, I’d probably just fill it with something else that needs doing.

Follow here on Substack, or on Instagram @clarehowdle or check out her work on Stranger Collective.

On the Clock is a new series documenting 24 hours in the lives of working creative women. A huge thanks to all the mothers who’ve taken part so far. Share this post with someone who needs it <3

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July events!

Join my creative writing workshop Write Like a Feminist on Friday 3 July, 2pm GMT. Find out more here.

If you’re in Penzance, I’ll be in conversation with at Pixel on Thursday 9 July at 11am. More here.

Hello dear friends!

I recently read ’s brilliant piece on learnings from 10 years of consulting (HT to my new client who pointed it out to m…

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“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Hello friends!

In one month I’ll be running a new workshop I created to run alongside my recent publication with , Mother, Inc.

I’m here to invite you along… if it sounds like your…

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“I’m trying, in my early thirties, to unlearn some of the gendered conditioning that profoundly coloured my earlier adulthood”—Helen Charman

It’s interesting to me as both a writer and a reader that when we find a really good book, one which resonates with us so deeply and fervently we cannot put it down, we liken the experience to being close to death w…

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I last wrote my last Close of Play letter to you around the Gaelic spring marker, and this weekend passed May Day (and locally May Horns) to celebrate the end of winter and oncoming of summer. I never really intended to track the rhythm of the seasonal Celtic calendar with these personal news updates—but I do live in wild, distant, folkloric pla…

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Today is publication day for Mother, Inc.! Let me share that with you all, my fearless Substack tribe: Happy publication day friends!

After an amazing three-week sales window, the book is double-proofed, printed, and will now be packaged, posted…

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buy the book

I was bowled over by the response from beta (first) readers. I also reached out to a few writers I admire to see if they’d read the book before it was announced and share any words about it. I was also pumped to receive the follow…

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There’s just three days left to get your copy of Mother, Inc., which includes three beautiful new essays by these stunning writers as part of Volume Two.

buy the double-volume

I managed to get together , , and to talk about everything to do with writing motherhood for what turned into an incredible hour-long discussion about themes in their work, balancing our creative needs among everything else, and bringing to light the unseen aspects of being a mother-writer, and what that means in 2026. We had a bunch of great participants join the session live (thank you!), but I wanted to share the recording for anyone who couldn’t make it, as it was such a generous and fruitful discussion, not just for parents, but anyone wanting to carve out a life for their creative practice which works around other competing responsibilities.

Thank you again to my guests Kerri, Aimee, and Alice. Your work speaks so deeply into many corners of the mothering experience which, I believe, thus far have been left hidden.

Please support their work by getting your copy of the book before the sales window closes in three days. The Pound Project believes in the value of good story, and I promise you will not regret having the voices of these amazing writers lingering in your mind:

buy the book

Prefer audio only? Listen back

Show notes

• Buy Mother, Inc. to read the three essays discussed in the show

• Empty House: poetry and prose on the climate crisis (Doire, 2021)

• ‘Sorry i Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back’ by photographer Andi Galdi Vinko (Trolley Books, 2022):

  Burning House Books

  The Baby is Not on the Fire Escape...

  ‘In the foreground, children grow and develop, while off in the distance the mother as a person with a narrative of her own disappears from view…

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  3 years ago · 36 likes · Aimee/Burning House Books

More about our guests

’s books include Milk: on motherhood and madness (Picador, 2023) and Wake of the Whale (Mayo Books, 2024) which was a Sunday Independent Book of the Year, and The Ethics of Cats (Broken Sleep, 2025). Her work spans poetry, prose, performance, and hybrid texts utilising narrative and both archival and field research. She’s an Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Artist, and lives in Co. Mayo. Outside of her own creative work, she is an editor and arts worker. She writes on Substack.

is a mother, writer and grower. Her first book, Thin Places (Canongate, 2021), was awarded the Butler Literary Award 2022. Cacophony of Bone (Canongate, 2023) was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2023. Kerri is moved by the way we tend and attend: to ourselves; to one another; to the living world. She has written for The Guardian, BBC, RTE, The Irish Times and others. She lives in the west of Ireland with her family. She writes on Substack.

Aimee Ballinger () is a writer, editor and the director of Burning House Books based in Glasgow, UK. Her work has appeared in Worms Magazine, The Creative Independent and The White Review.

This evening I had the absolutely pleasure of hosting a live video conversation with JP Watson—editor, writer, and founder of independent press The Pound Project, publisher of Mother, Inc. (available until Tuesday).

Since we are both journalists by trade, and Brummies too, we decided to do things a little differently: we interviewed each other in a back-and-forth, did not to share the questions for each other ahead of time and had one rule—we both had to answer each question.

What follows is a pretty fun, spicy, deep, and entertaining joint interview. I hope you enjoy it!

We cover starting new things, whether technology helps or hinders parenthood, the uncomfortable quicksand where creativity thrives, plus our favourite Brummie words and a toast v sandwiches debate. And of course we talk about independent publishing and how we put together The Pound Project’s current book project, of which I’m author, Mother, Inc. Which you can buy here (only until April 14!):

get the book

Thank you to subscribers who tuned in LIVE for the conversation with JP of ! Join us tomorrow for a live discussion with the writers in volume two about “writing motherhood,”— , , and . Details of the live zoom link will be sent in the morning to paid subs.

Subscribe now

Get more from Hannah Ray in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Head to The Pound Project to find out more and…

buy the book

My latest book Mother, Inc. is a two-volume, A6 pocket-book which slips neatly into a sustainably-made cardboard sleeve. The constraints of the books’ size, and this beautiful presentation, means as the writer you have to hit the word count exactly—and each volume has to be identical. This meant we had to make some very, very, hard decisions in the edit. And, in one case, cut a whole chapter on sleep entirely. A chapter which my structural editor, the wonderful Erica Hesketh, was very keen on. So, as an exclusive for Tell Their Stories paid subscribers, I’m publishing that cutting-room-floor chapter in full here.

Content warning: maternal mental health, postpartum anxiety, allusion to postpartum psychosis, pregnancy and baby loss.

Please head to the following places for support, like I did, if you need it: NHS, Pandas, Mind, and maternal mental health alliance.

The rest of Mother, Inc. Volume One is very much in this tone. So if you enjoyed today’s exclusive, go ahead and get yourself a copy before the sales window closes:

Buy Mother, Inc.

The stupid winged sleep bag

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BUY MOTHER, INC.

In a special Mother, Inc. edition of On The Clock this month, we have a real treat.

I first met Nhung Lê through my work at Substack with the wonders that are and . In my role as Storytelling Lead for Substack, I commissioned Nhung to create th…

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Join myself, Kerri, Alice and Aimee for a LIVE DISCUSSION about the book and writing motherhood on Thursday 9 April, at 12–1pm GMT. Available to paid subscribers of our Substacks—Tell Their Stories, Glimmers, Creation in Crisis and Burning House Books only. Upgrade to receive the live link:

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If you’d like a signed copy of Mother, Inc. head to The Pound Pr…

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In a world where we are technologically more connected—to family, to history, to each other—somehow, women in the early years of motherhood are feeling more isolated than ever.

BUY THE BOOK

I never expected to write about motherhood. To want to write about motherhood. If I’m honest (and I am ashamed to say so now), I saw it as some kind of weakness. A weak subject. A boring one too. Why do all new mothers want to harp on about motherhood? Why do all women who’ve just given birth labour into extreme detail about their experience? But, like all brittle beliefs about parenting held on the flip side of that membrane-like portal, this prejudice snapped when I eventually, painfully, walked through. Like Neo in the Matrix, based on Plato’s cave allegory, which I think about often, I had the goggles of the simulation lifted off. Oh. This, this, is what it’s all about then. And yet, everyone else seemed to go on in the pretence. Like it’s not about creating new life, and being an animal, and the blood, and guts, and the raw close-to-death experience of it all. I saw motherhood as slippery as the slime you see kids playing with. Society was asking me to hide this gloop into neat, sanitised boxes. But it kept spilling out.

My preconceptions of writing about motherhood were just as dripped in the patriarchy as most of my pre-parenthood ideals. I saw the subject matter as weak because I’d been trained into thinking women move into weakness when they shape-shift into mothers.

We met our first child, our daughter, during the summer of the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. In 2024, we had a son. And in 2025 I went to a mother’s day circle and everything changed. That same week, my life tipped over and I did not go back to work as planned. From the rubble, two things remained. What I’d really wanted to lean into for the last five years: to mother, and to write—and this book is the first creation in a new life.

buy the book

It’s been an absolute joy to work with JP from , and now become one of 32 other book projects they’ve put out into the world. I wrote last week about why, as a Brummie born and bred, this is the perfect collaborative publisher for my first book, and I’m over the moon to be alongside so many esteemed writers from their archive, including , , , , , , and a whole lot more you can browse here. The Pound Project’s tagline is “small change, one story at a time,” and JP has spoken at length before about how success doesn’t look like book sales, it looks like impacting one reader, just one reader, with your words. I very much feel this to be true, with this book especially.

The Pound Project operates on a kickstarter-campaign like model, releasing one short story at a time, producing only what it sells. It champions readers and writers first, and believes in the value and worth of a good story. The book itself is gorgeous, can easily be read in one sitting, fits in your back pocket, and feels like a vital drop into a very big sea. There are some exciting packages on offer with the book too: signed copies, a limited edition tee featuring artwork I commission by Nhung Lê, a new workshop with me on writing like a feminist, a discounted subscription to this newsletter, and more.

Writing about motherhood, in attempting to find the language for my experience of it, I believe now is my most powerful act of resistance. There is hope in it too. I hope this book goes some way to dig deeper into the issues and tensions today’s mothers face, particularly in relation to the world of work, through the lens of my personal story. My hope is for ideas and solutions and worlds where mothers can live out full lives with less pain and despair. This book is for all the mothers, and their little ones, and our future.

three weeks only–get your copy

Introducing the writers behind Volume Two

You may have noticed from the beautiful mandarin and lavender covers (cover reveal!) that Volume Two is by “Hannah Ray & Company”. I’m delighted to finally share more about what that entails.

The second half of Mother, Inc.—Volume Two—brings together voices of prominent and exciting new writers exploring modern-day aspects of motherhood. Divided into three themes: work, mind, and body, three essays from skilled mother-writers delve into their unique lived experience of the modern mothering conundrum: looking at the workplace, childcare, Covid, finding home, community, fertility, isolation, tradition, stereotypes, family support, technology, capitalism and (of course) the patriarchy.

The essays

• ‘Solidarity (with children) forever’, by Aimee Ballinger—writer and bookshop owner (Burning House Books) in Glasgow, UK and writing on Substack here.

• ‘Break a few’ by —poet and author of Milk, on motherhood and madness. Writes on Substack at Creation in Crisis

• ‘Now you have her’ by Kerri ní Dochartaigh—author of cacophony of bone, runs mother-writers workshop and group. Kerri writes on Substack at Glimmers

Putting together Mother, Inc. Volume Two, commissioning, editing and bringing together a wonderful kaleidoscopic lens on the subject matter, was an absolute dream come true. I’ve commissioned many a piece of published work for the internet, for the Guardian, Instagram, Vogue, and of course Substack, but this felt different. This wasn’t a big media overlord. This wasn’t for a book available on Amazon. It is for the power of the story. I’m so proud of what we achieved.

With the beautiful illustration by Nhung Lê, which is exclusively available to those buying the printed book or limited edition T-shirt, this been a transformative process for me. I can’t wait for you to read the amazing words of these women and see Nhung’s spectacular work too. So go ahead…

BUY MOTHER, INC.

Mother, Inc. launch events

I have a few one-time offline and online events coming up to celebrate and launch this work into the literary world. As my supporters and biggest fans, I hope you’ll be able to join in some way or other.
Here’s what’s coming up:

Book launch Q&A with Hannah Ray and ,
Hypatia Trust, Penzance, Cornwall, UK
Friday 27 March, 7–9pm

Join me and for the launch Mother, Inc. at my local feminist bookshop in Penzance, Cornwall, UK (yes we have our own feminist bookshop!)—The Hypatia Trust. I will be in conversation with Becky about the book, how it came together, working with an independent sustainable publisher, and speaking into the wider discourse of work and mothering. Becky is super clued up on everything publishing, motherhood, memoir, and Cornwall living following the paperback launch of her latest book Cry When The Baby Cries (which I interviewed her about here), so this is sure to be a lively, fun, and special conversation

This is a relaxed Q&A and all are welcome to attend, including children and babies. Please let us know if you have any accessibility requirements. Tickets are available on the door with all proceeds going back into keeping Hypatia Trust running.

In conversation with of ,
Substack Live
Tuesday 7 April, 3pm GMT

Journalist-turned-bibliotherapist Toni runs on Substack—the world’s first dedicated self-help book club, where readers are able to join real conversations with like-minded book lovers seeking to design lives they love. I’m excited to chat to Toni about Mother, Inc. as I’ve seen some of her Substack lives with other (“real”) authors and the conversations are always super deep, thoughtful, and meaningful. Subscribe to Toni’s Substack to join.

JP from The Pound Project and me interview each other :)
Substack Live
Wednesday 8 April, 7.30pm GMT

What do you get when you put two Brummie journalists running other creative projects together? The desire to interview each other of course! Join me and JP, founder of The Pound Project for a very real double-interview about putting together Mother, Inc., Birmingham, journalism, publishing, Substack, and everything in-between on Wednesday 8 April at 7.30pm GMT. Subscribe to either of our Substacks to join.

Writing motherhood, LIVE ZOOM event
Thursday 9 April, 12pm

On Thursday April 9, 12–1pm GMT I’ll be co-hosting a LIVE ZOOM with contributing writers to Volume 2 of the two-part book, , , and . To join, simply become a paid subscriber to any of our Substacks and we’ll send you the direct link in the morning.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining me on this journey. Please do leave a comment below. And waving madly from Cornwall.

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But the feeling—something between letting go, and having the bald radical optimism of a blooming magnolia in February. Quietly fortifying.

As Imbolc has passed, the days start to lengthen, and Spring is peep…

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There’s a comic strip from Spare Rib magazine, the December 1975 edition, which I often think about.

It says: “some people have one job” and shows a man going to and from work, walking the dog, reading the paper, falling asleep to the tv.

Then b…

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