How is being a writer like being a mother? Writing a book and having a baby can be oddly similar experiences: both take a long time and are not exactly pain-free. Alice and Charlotte have even done both at once, and in today’s episode we talk about what it’s like to bring a book and a baby into the world simultaneously, and to write about it along the way.
We’re delighted to be joined by Helen Jukes, the author of Mother Animal, a memoir of pregnancy and birth and an unforgettably visceral exploration of the physical transformations of motherhood. Helen is an author and nature writer who has thought deeply about the complex physical experiences of mothering and writing. Mother Animal explores the many diverse variations on mothering found in the animal kingdom, and sparks our discussion today on what else mothering can look like and what it can mean more deeply as a creative process.
How important is community to the way we nurture new life? What do we mean when we talk about “natural” processes, and can a focus on nature blind us to the realities of toxicity and pollution? And how can we nurture the wild and animalistic sides of ourselves?
How do you balance the different forms of creativity in your life?
catch up
Hark: How Women Listen, with Alice Vincent
What could it mean to listen more deeply? Alice’s extraordinary new book, Hark: How Women Listen, is published this week, and in today’s episode of In Haste, Charlotte couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask her all about how it came into being.
Literature in translation with Lauren Elkin
Have we got over a cultural reluctance to read literature in translation?
Brunch in blue with Amy Key
This is the story of how we all piled round to Alice’s house in South London for everything bagels and blueberry pancakes, joined by the wonderful Amy Key, author of Arrangements in Blue.
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