Jackie Kay on absence, adoption & the art of living together apart

CONTENT WARNING: There are many moments of joy in this conversation, but please be aware that Liz talks candidly about grief and the sudden death of her son, which some listeners may find upsetting.My guest today is the writer and climate activist Liz Jensen. Half Danish and half-anglo Moroccan, Liz started out as a journalist, working in radio before becoming a BBC producer. Then, Liz turned her hand to novels. She has now written nine, perhaps the best known of which is The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which was turned into a movie starring Jamie Dornan.Now she has written memoir, one no-one would ever want to write.Your Wild and Precious Life, is, at its heart the devastating story of the nine months after her youngest son Raphael died suddenly at the age of 25. Raph was a zoologist and climate activist, and this is also the story of Liz’s own awakening.She is a founder of Extinction Rebellion Writers Rebel, which combines words and action to highlight the climate and ecological emergency.Liz joined me to talk about surviving the loss of a child, translating grief into hope and opening herself up to the natural world. We also discussed magical thinking, the concept of kairos, the unexpected solace of being part of the terrible club and why she used to want to marry an ape!A note: The episode of The Shift Liz and I discuss in the first five minutes is my conversation with 103-year-old Dr Gladys McGarey, you can listen to it here.* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Your Wild and Precious Life by Liz Jensen and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are.I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never!So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period.But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections.And guess what: it’s not what you think.Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And Why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good!* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Come As You Are and Come Together by Emily Nagoski and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is a fashion editor on a mission to improve the representation of all women over 40 - not just the thin white ones with a ton of spare cash! Anna Cascarina has worked in the fashion industry for over 25 years, first as a fashion editor and stylist, then as a teacher.But as she got older and so did her body, something rankled. Yep - she was starting to feel like she and women like her (ie women over 40 and not a size 10) were not welcome here. In the stores she’d always shopped at, in the magazines she’d worked for, in ad campaigns and on screen.And so Anna started her Instagram account to help women who didn’t fit the mould feel empowered through fashion. 120,000 followers later it seems like she’s not the only one who’s hacked off with the fashion industry for invisibling her.Anna joined me to talk about her new book The Forever Wardrobe, Being a size 16 woman who loves fashion when it doesn’t love her back, The impact the fashion industry has had on her Body image and the responsibility she feels not to pass it on to her daughter. We also discussed how her epilepsy has impacted perimenopause and some ugly truths about ageing that no-one wants to tell you (hello arthritis!).* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Forever Wardrobe by Anna Cascarina and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today has blazed a trail through the British poetry scene ever since her work was first published in 1991. Born in Edinburgh, Jackie Kay MBE was brought up in Glasgow by her adoptive parents, Helen and John Kay, of whom much more later. She has had countless poetry collections, short stories and novels published to acclaim, as well as her glorious memoir Red Dust Road which tells the story of meeting her birth parents. The winner of over 20 awards, Jackie is a professor of creative writing at Salford University and for five years she was the Scottish Makar (that’s basically poet laureate).Her new collection May Day is an elegy to her beloved parents who (died within a year of each other) and taught her the meaning and power of protest. Something Jackie took to heart marching for women’s rights, gay liberation and Black Lives Matter.I went to Glasgow to meet Jackie while she was on tour. Her beloved older brother Maxie had just died and she spoke candidly about love, loss and absence, living with nothing between you and the sky and how poetry helps her survive. We also discussed coming back into yourself in your 50s and 60s, why there should be lists after white male writer’s names, the art of living together apart and why her emotional age is 150!* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including MayDay by Jackie Kay and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the writer, actress and comedian Helen Lederer. Helen began as a stand-up comedian in the “comedy swamp” of the 1980s, where women were like hen’s teeth and rose to fame with her sloaney girl at the bar in the BBC Comedy ‘Naked video’. Then came Saturday Night Live, The Young Ones, French and Saunders and Bottom with Rik Mayall. But she’s probably best known as Catriona the dippy journalist in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous.It was after writing her first novel, Losing It, that Helen set up the Comedy Women In Print prize to put funny women’s writing on the map and help ensure the next generation wouldn’t have to put up with the lack of recognition she endured. (Also, she was pissed off!)Now the woman Dawn French calls “the third funniest woman in the world” has written a hilarious and frequently painful memoir about surviving that swamp, Not That I’m Bitter. She tells truths, she names names and she gives herself an absolute hiding!Helen and I got together over a Zoom cuppa to discuss life as the lone woman on the 80s comedy circuit and why being a pioneer is all very well, but she’d rather have had mainstream success! She also talked about professional jealousy, not “being in the A team”, fear of authority, why she’s spent her life on a diet (remember Limmits biscuits?!) And being tougher on herself than anyone else.* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Not That I'm Bitter by Helen Lederer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days. Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture.Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?”It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games.Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”.* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the writer, film-maker and women’s health campaigner Kate Muir. Until perimenopause struck, Kate was the chief film critic of The Times, then all hell broke lose (as anyone who’s found themselves in the midst of the peri-maelstrom will understand). Her life and her job underwent massive turmoil. Now out the other side, she has produced two smash-hit documentaries for Channel 4 about the menopause, with Davina McCall, and followed that up with Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution.Alongside that she has written two books Everything You Need To Know About the Menopause (but were afraid to ask) and now Everything You Need to Know About the Pill (but were ALSO afraid to ask).In short, she’s a woman on a mission - to demystify, educate and empower women to have agency over their own body.A lifelong troublemaker, Kate joined me to talk about the menopause bomb that made her upend her life, going to film school at 50(ish), the story of her mum’s last period and the HRT/Alzheimers equation. We also discuss the fatberg of gender bias consuming women’s healthcare, why her daughter’s contraception experience made her turn her attention to the pill and the chameleon power of ageing.* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Everything You Need to Know about the Menopause and Everything You Need to Know About The Pill by Kate Muir and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today has lived a lot of lives in her 50 years. If you were knocking around in 1990, Amanda de Cadenet burst into your world when she became presenter on the seminal late night TV show, The Word, at 18 and appeared most days on the front of the British tabloids.Like many young women trapped in the public gaze, she has spent the rest of her life wresting back control.Since then she has achieved international success as a photographer (she was the youngest woman ever to shoot a Vogue cover), created and hosted The Conversation podcast series in which she’s interviewed the likes of Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Jane Fonda… And founded GirlGaze, which saw her named one of the Most creative people in business by Fast Company.But what does 50 look like when you’ve been in the public eye since the age of 16?Amanda joined me from her home in LA to talk about the lifelong project of reclaiming her own narrative, surviving on-stage perimenopause moments, going back to basics after losing her dad, Not having a five year plan for the first time in her life And why The new love of her life is a camper van.We started by talking about the impact of being constantly shamed by the British press in her teens…* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest this week is one of the most enduring movie actresses of our (by which I mean my!) generation. Minnie Driver made her first film, Circle of Friends in 1995, and went on to follow that with a lead role in Stanley Tucci’s gorgeous ode to Italian food, Big Night, an Oscar nominated turn in Goodwill Hunting. And my personal favourite Grosse Point Blank. Now 52, with a 13yo son, Henry, and over fifty roles under her belt, Minnie is still “doing Hollywood” very much her own way. As well as two albums and a podcast (Minnie’s Questions), she’s now written a memoir, Managing Expectations, a book about how things not working out for her inevitably led to other things working out.Minnie joined me from her LA home to tell me why being called outspoken makes her want to punch walls, overcoming the curse of other people’s expectations (and her own!), why she always felt like a failure for not being married, how getting fired never feels any less unjust and embracing her vengeful streak! She also introduces me to the concept of is-ness, shares her big hair survival tips and has things to say about why Hollywood dudes can be creased, but women can’t!You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, Minnie's book recommendation Send Nudes by Saba Sams and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A couple of weeks ago, journalist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup stepped down from her presenting role at Times Radio so she could concentrate full-time on the women's health advocacy that has become her life's work. Seemed like a good time to look back at our episode from two and a half years ago when she discussed why she was on a mission to make menopause mainstream. Original show notes below:-------My guest this week was known for her willingness for say it like it is even before she made a TV show about the menopause. No, not THAT one. The one BEFORE. Broadcaster Mariella Frostrup was banging the menopause drum back in 2018 when her own ignorance about her symptoms at first shocked her and then prompted her to do something bout it. The resulting documentary, The Truth About Menopause, was a smash hit. And she’s now followed that up with a book, Cracking The Menopause, written with her friend, journalist Alice Smellie. If you’re a fan of the book of this podcast - The Shift (how I lost and found myself after 40 and you can too) - Mariella’s book will be right up your street.Mariella and I talk candidly about all things menopause - from menopause ignorance to sleeplessness to “the bubble of poison bile” that surrounds the whole subject! She also has plenty to say about the insidiousness of women being “scrap heaped” at 50, why fearlessness is so much sexier than the ability to look 28 and why the time has come to just stop bloody putting up with it!• You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including Cracking The Menopause by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me!* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.