The Clearing with Katherine May

When it comes to getting together, Priya Parker turns our assumptions on their heads: gatherings, she says, benefit from firm rules and careful management, which allow us to relax more, communicate better, and come away feeling positive. It’s all about clarity of purpose. A lack of structure leads to chaotic and draining events, and may even put us in conflict.  In this episode, Katherine ask...

Susan Cain’s groundbreaking book, Quiet , taught a generation of readers to perceive and value their introvert qualities. Her latest book, Bittersweet is a song to the complex space between happiness and sadness. In this episode, Katherine talks to Susan about how she came to move so comfortably in the understated parts of life, and why the minor key is so beautiful.  While we’ve been away, T...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. Author Raynor Winn talks to Katherine May about the losing her home when her husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and finding new life from having nothing. Raynor Winn has captured a multitude of hearts with her book, The Salt Path , which recounts the time she lost her home just as her husband received a terminal diagnosis. With noth...

While we take a rest over the summer, we’re sharing some remastered episodes from Season One, chosen by listeners. This week, I talk to Leah Hazard, NHS midwife extraordinaire and author of Hard Pushed, part memoir of Leah’s life on the labour ward, and part exploration of the current state of the profession. Leah is as funny, wise and warm in person as she is in print, and she talks about the lif...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. While we take a rest over the summer, we’re sharing some remastered episodes from Season One, chosen by listeners. In this episode, I speak to journalist and broadcaster Remona Aly about her life-changing decision to call off an engagement, and how it echoed through the years to teach her about forgiveness, faith and empathy. This is such a spe...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. Producer Note: You'll notice a slight change in Katherine's audio in the second half of the podcast. This is just due to a necessary 'source switch', where we had to change where her recording was coming from. Your ears will adjust very quickly but apologies for the ever so slight dip. Thank you! This week Katherine talks to Emma Dabiri, author...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. 'I am my childhood’s wildest dream,’ says Saima Mir. This episode is about the process of getting there, not just the determination and hard work, but also the intangibles: the beliefs, ambitions and understandings that you don’t even know how to articulate, but which hold you up on a decades-long journey to becoming.  In this conversation...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week, Katherine talks to Ross Gay about finding delight in dark times. Ross’s practice of writing down a daily delight - a small surprise or pleasure that might otherwise go unnoticed - is the foundation of The Book of Delights , his bestselling essay collection. Here, he talks about the way that delight can sit alongside our fear, anger,...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week, Katherine asks Aja Barber how we can change the way we buy clothes. Many of us have an uneasy feeling about the clothes we buy and wear. Although we know that there are ethical issues with their production, few of us understand how to change our behaviour, and make better choices. As a stylist and fashion consultant, Aja makes it her...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to writer Joanne Limburg about the ways that we can find connection in the experience of outsidership. While writing her astonishing new book, Letters To My Weird Sisters , Joanne sought out women from the past who were marked out as ‘weird’, from Virginia Woolf, who was unable to choose the ‘right’ ballgown, to Kathar...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to writer and poet Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies .   Unable to speak up as a child, Cole talks about how she learned to find her voice amid a family of gifted talkers and storytellers. Cole describes her father and grandmother as inspirational figures who nevertheless...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to journalist and writer Alexandra Heminsley, author of Some Body to Love. After infertility treatment, a challenging pregnancy and a sexual assault, Alex found her relationship drifting apart for reasons she couldn’t fully understand. But when her partner finally disclosed that they wanted to transition to being a wom...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to poet and author Meghan O’ Rourke . In a fascinating conversation with Katherine, Meghan talks about the struggles she’s endured (and endures) with chronic illness. As she mentions in the episode, there is an invisible quality to many forms of illness which makes it very hard to navigate and manoeuvre through, and we...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Sara Tasker , writer, social media expert and coach. While you might expect a full on party-popper celebration of social media from someone like Sara - an expert within the realm, this is a very honest chat which takes many entirely relatable routes and tangents which surely many of us can relate to. Sara and Kather...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Gemma Cairney , presenter, curator of greatness and author of ‘ Open: A Toolkit... ’ and more. There's a strong chance you're familiar with Gemma through her prolific radio and broadcast career, but if not - as you've surely come to notice over the Wintering podcast - you're about to meet another new best friend. Ge...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Aimee Nezhukumatathil , author of ‘ World Of Wonders ’ and more. An uplifting, soulful and inspiring chat with Aimee and Katherine, beginning with a foundation of wonder and never dropping the ball once. Moving from prose to poetry and immediately feeling boundaries being lifted, Aimee has put out some truly valuabl...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Elissa Altman , author of ‘ Motherland ’ and more. Katherine finds Elissa in that pre-Christmas zone, which serves as the perfect jumping-off point for a very upfront, candid and fascinating conversation on family. Specifically, Elissa's relationship with her mother. Like every family, it's a relationship which is u...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Maggie Smith , poet, writer and editor from Columbus, Ohio. You may know Maggie's tremendous work via her poem 'Good Bones', which she has a difficult relationship with. The poem is often referenced in times of crisis, which she thinks of as a 'disaster barometer' - she break downs this fascinating dissonance in her...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Cheryl Strayed , author of ‘ Wild ’ and so many more. A luxurious chat from the beginning til the end, this is a wonderful chance to get to know Cheryl a little better and hear the voice behind the books. It’s a true comfort, which folds in everything from the power of walking and what it can do to you, the unfinish...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Jennifer Pastiloff , a speaker, teacher, and author of ‘ On Being Human ’. In a warm and honest chat with Katherine, Jennifer perfectly lays the table for where she finds herself at this point in time, as a yoga instructor, public speaker and best selling author. With an attitude of ‘I Got You’ - extended to a commu...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Jackee Holder , coach and author of ' Writing With Fabulous Trees ', among many more. Jackee Holder is a writer, walker, coach, interfaith minister and daughter of the windrush. In this uplifting conversation, she talks about the capacity of life to uplift us, her love of libraries, and how a tree helped her to trea...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to author Michelle Adams . Michelle Adams is best known as the author of Little Wishes, Between the Lies and My Sister. In this episode, she talks about a sudden and unexplained illness that disrupted everything she knew about herself, and how vital her support network became during that time. In other areas of this op...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Angela Barnes , podcaster, comedian and regular panel guest on Mock The Week (and much more!). Angela Barnes has zero tolerance for anyone reassuring her that she's pretty - it talks over her lived experience, and does nothing to change her self-perception. Here, she discusses living with Persistent Depressive Disor...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Josie George , author of ' A Still Life: A Memoir '. Josie George has always lived with a complex of medical conditions that are difficult to name, but which leave her permanently in pain and having to carefully manage her mindset and energies in order to cope with everyday life. Here, she talks about the joys she f...

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. This week Katherine chats to Georgina Lawton , author of ' Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong '. For most of her life, Georgina Lawton was aware that she didn't look like her white family, but by her teens, she was no longer able to believe her parent's line that she was a genetic 'throwback' to a Black...