Ourshelves

Do we see being a carer as a feminist failure?   Claire Oshetsky’s new novel  Chouette  is about raising a non-conforming child, represented by a wild but lovable owl-baby. In this episode of Ourshelves she talks with Lucy Scholes about how wrapping what started out as a memoir in a fantastical world made it possible to be honest, especially about the violence of motherhood. They co...

Backstage with Eileen Atkins How does the writing we love create the roles we perform? Join Dame Eileen Atkins, stage and TV star, three-time Olivier Award winner and screenwriter of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ and ‘Mrs Dalloway’ talk about her autobiography,  Will She Do?  She tells Lucy Scholes how she created the first entertainment about servants inspired by her parents’ lives, how a cast...

Donna Coonan is Editorial Director of the Virago Modern Classics list, which was set up 1978 to demonstrate the existence of a necessary canon of women’s writing and to challenge the sometimes narrow definition of what a ‘classic’ is. Since 2005, she has brought over 200 new books including those by Muriel Spark, Barbara Pym and Patricia Highsmith to this beloved list with its iconic green sp...

How do you say ‘Me Too’ in Chinese – when it’s banned on social media? 吕频 Lü Pin, Chinese feminist activist featured in  Awakening  by Rachel Vogelstein and Meighan Stone, talks to Lucy Scholes about her work challenging gender-based violence in a state without freedom of speech or protest. Through ingenuity, humour and sheer determination, she says, because ‘nobody’ – not even th...

How do we get through the difficult days? Susie Boyt, author and theatre director, got through the pandemic by walking for miles listening to poetry podcasts to replace the conversations she’d have with friends about books. Here, she tells Lucy Scholes how she had a feminist awakening watching a play where women honoured the horror their friend went through; the sheer joy between grandmother and g...

How can we find light in the dark? Oceanographer, marine biologist and author of Below the Edge of Darkness , Edie Widder’s life has been as fascinating as the animals she studies, and she speaks with irresistible wonderment about watching them communicate with bioluminescence in the depths of the sea. Join her conversation with Lucy Scholes on squirting squids, being the only woman on the ship an...

Is writing a muscle?  Kamila Shamsie, prize winning novelist, fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Granta Best of Young British author, talks to Lucy Scholes about her great-aunt, Attia Hosain, whose books are newly reissued with her introductions on the Virago Modern Classics list, and how she once took her aside to say, ‘Never stop writing’. In their conversation, they traverse the...

Can solitude be a source of inspiration? In this bonus episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson talks to Lucy Scholes about her latest novel, Jack and its place in the Gilead quartet. Exploring the idea of solitude, Marilynne speaks with characteristic insight about living with her characters as she writes and the absence they leave behind.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...

Who is your feminism for? Austin Channing Brown was named by parents who deliberately wanted people to presume their daughter was a white man when applying for jobs. Now a speaker and writer working for Racial Justice in the US and the author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness , she explains how her hopefulness is not rooted in white people but in the work. With candour...

What can we learn from African women’s movements? If you knew about the women who fought a freedom war in 1914 Nigeria, would it alter your view of feminist history? Chibundu Onuzo, award-winning author and performer, talks to Lucy Scholes about her new novel Sankofa . Join a conversation of riotous laughs and deep thinking as Chibundu tells Lucy about the economics of cheating, Ugandan Mwenkanoka...

Would you become a surrogate mother? Publishing her first novel over the age of fifty, Susan Spindler writes brilliantly about post-menopausal life in her thriller Surrogate . Join her and Lucy Scholes as they discuss why older women are forced to emulate fertility or risk being called a ‘hag’ and to hear them talk about mothers in recent literature – from joyful physical intimacy to inherited tra...

How can you create your own world when this one doesn’t serve you? Join as we radically restructure myths, stories and genres – from the American West to fairy tales and nineties pop icons. C. Pam Zhang is author of How Much of These Hills is Gold , longlisted for the Man Booker and Rathbones Folio Prizes and one of Barack Obama’s books of the year. She talks to Lucy Scholes about defiantly imagin...

Join Lucy Scholes as she has a frank, funny and fascinating talk with Amanda Coe, author of three novels, and BAFTA award winning scriptwriter of Black Narcissus – for which she also wrote the introduction to the new Virago Modern Classics edition. Amanda talks about adapting novels for screen (like fancying someone on the first date) and...

How can reading rewire your brain? After a childhood spent calling Henry James her ‘dude’ and Evelyn Waugh her ‘friend’ R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries , talks to Lucy Scholes about how determinedly reading more people of colour and queer voices helps reconfigure her internal world to match her external world – where straight is not the default. Join her conversation with Lucy Scholes as th...

How can you be a strong woman in a world that’s not built for you? Justine Cowan is an attorney used to fighting environmental cases against huge corporations but writing about her mother’s childhood in her first book, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames led her to uncover a very different injustice. She joins Lucy Scholes to talk about finding mother figures in chosen families, rewriting history fr...

How can we write a life unexpected? Author of seventeen novels, fourteen plays, theatre-maker, co-director of Fun Palaces and Stonewall writer of the year Stella Duffy OBE is an inspiration of hard-won wisdom and appetite for learning new things. She joins Lucy Scholes for a conversation about living without children in a pro-natalist society, how existentialism and yoga inform her writing and the...

What do monsters do for us?  Join Lucy Scholes for a powerful conversation with Riva Lehrer, artist, activist and author of  Golem Girl , her beautifully illustrated memoir about living with disability. From the history of freak shows to the power – and limits - of politicisation, they confront the way monsters violate boundaries and give us permission to live differently. Host...

In this special bonus episode of OurShelves Virago Publisher Sarah Savitt, turns the tables on our host, Lucy Scholes, for a chat about her personal highlights from season one and her most anticipated up-coming Virago publications. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you balance motherhood and creativity? In this episode of OurShelves Lucy Scholes interviews Daisy Johnson, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Fen , Everything Under and Sisters , on rewriting the haunted house, why women are expected to use personal lives in fiction, and how books on motherhood are creating a feminist conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informatio...

How do you overcome criticism? In this episode of OurShelves Lucy Scholes interviews Sigrid Nunez, author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through. Lucy and Sigrid discuss the music of Odetta, the comfort of creatures, and Sigrid's friendship with Elizabeth Hardwick. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whose narrative do you believe? In this episode of OurShelves Lucy Scholes interviews Melatu Uche Okorie, author of This Hostel Life. Lucy and Melatu discuss Milkman by Anna Burns, Rosa Parks and the importance of challenging the narrative. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you have the courage to try again? In this episode of OurShelves Lucy Scholes chats to Irenosen Okojie, author of Butterfly Fish ; Speak Gigantular , Nudibranch and contributor to the short story collection Hag , about the wonder and power of short stories, finding joy in activism and literary legend Toni Morrison. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is the first book you saw yourself reflected in? In this episode Lucy and Liv discuss short storytelling, bingeing I May Destroy You and creating spaces where people can hold truth to power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we reconsider failure? In this episode of OurShelves Lucy Scholes interviews Linda Grant, a multi-award-winning author whose latest novel, A Stranger City, is out now in paperback. In this episode Lucy and Linda discuss Barbara Pym, Mrs. America and the importance of recalling our failures as well as our successes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Does nostalgia change the way you feel about the past? In this episode of OurShelves Lucy Scholes interviews Margaret Atwood, two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize and author of more than forty works, including fiction, poetry and critical essays. From the medieval inspiration for Game of Thrones to editing out mosquitos from your memories, this episode is a goldmine of...