Louise Doughty on the unrealised potential of older women

My guest today is the bestselling writer Dani Shapiro. Dani is best known for the memoirs that made her name. Startlingly honest works of self-investigation like Slow Motion, in which she examines the questionable decisions her younger self made (let’s face it, whose younger self didn’t?). And the book that catapulted her to the top of the bestseller lists, Inheritance.  In Inheritance, Dani explored the impact of taking a DNA test - just for fun! - in her mid 50s only to discover that her beloved dad was not actually her biological father. That book led to the top 10 podcast, Family Secrets featuring guests who have uncovered life altering secrets. It was unlocking those family secrets that enabled Dani to write her first novel in 15 years, Signal Fires, a bestseller since the day it was published in the states last year and praised by, my fave Jamie Lee Curtis, amongst others. It looks at what happens when one tragic mistake changes a whole family’s lives. Dani joined me from the East coast of America to discuss how it feels to discover that you are your family’s secret, her allergy to Empty Nest Syndrome and why there should be a handbook for middle age. We talked about coming into your full potential at 60, "losing your looks" when you’ve been told they’re your currency and learning to count ordinary blessings. Listen to Family Secrets here. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro 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 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Mars 202353min

We’ve all had those moments in our lives when everything feels… darker, colder, a little (or a lot) less hopeful. Those emotional winters were perfectly encapsulated by today’s guest, Katherine May in her transatlantic bestseller, Wintering, the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Her new book is another soothing antidote for the way we live now, Enchantment, Reawakening wonder in an exhausted age. I don’t know if it’s the aftermath of the pandemic, our always on culture, or just… life, but this spoke to me in exactly the way Wintering did. So, that’s a thumbs up from me. Katherine joined me from her home by her beloved seaside (hence the seagulls!) to talk about her midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. She told me about entering perimenopause at 29 but still being absolutely livid in her mid-40s, how she’s fully over “white male gurus” and why she wants to open up the conversation about meaning. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Enchantment by Katherine May 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 transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Mars 202346min

I first met todays guest, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, when I interviewed her in Glasgow a few weeks ago. We got talking about the nuts and bolts of midlife in the green room and I was thrilled when she agreed to continue the conversation on The Shift. One of our foremost singer songwriters, Martha has released seven critically acclaimed albums. The latest of which, Love Will Be Reborn, is on repeat on my personal playlist. She’s also - let’s just get this out of the way now - the daughter of “folk royalty” Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister of singer Rufus Wainwright. In short, she comes from a family of very distinct voices, which made finding her own a particular challenge. Martha joined me from her home in Montreal to discuss her extraordinarily frank memoir, the aptly titled Stories I Might regret telling you. This conversation goes to all the places: the struggle to make motherhood and the music industry mix, surviving her grim divorce, finding new love with a good man, leaning into your looks, and the agony of being unable to conceive in her 40s. Martha is as candid as her songwriting. Oh and she gave us a guided tour of her enormous vagina painting! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Stories I Might Regret Telling You by Martha Wainwright 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 transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Feb 202350min

This episode is a first for me: it’s the first time I’ve interviewed someone without knowing who they are. Because today’s guest, Carolyn Hays, is a bestselling novelist who has chosen to publish her new book under a pseudonym to protect her family’s privacy. That book is one of the most powerful memoirs I’ve read in a long time. A Girlhood is a moving, compassionate, thought-provoking letter to Carolyn’s now-teenage transgender daughter, who was considered a boy at birth, but insisted she was a girl as soon as she could talk. This is a story of motherhood, authenticity, identity and learning to be true to yourself. It’s a story about transphobia: a subject that’s become a powder keg in recent years. And, above all, it’s a story about understanding and how other people can change us. Carolyn joined me from her home on the East Coast of America to share the reality of being a parent supporting a trans child, the seismic impact of Child Protection turning up on your doorstep and how the fear of losing custody led the family to move across America to a state where they hoped their youngest daughter would be accepted. I want to thank Carolyn for her candour and I hope you’ll find this conversation as eye-opening as I did. In the light of the recent murder of trans teenager Brianna Ghey, it feels more important than ever. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Girlhood: A Letter To My Transgender Daughter and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. This Body I wore by Diana Goetsch is available from Amazon. * 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 transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Feb 202355min

I’ve been trying to get today’s guest into The Shift hot seat for the longest time - after a mixture of long covid (me) and impromptu trips to the jungle (Her!), we’ve finally made it.  Charlene White has been a journalist for over 20 years. She was the first black woman to present the ITV News At Ten (in 2014… I know, right?), and is that rare thing a news journalist who actually sounds like a human being when she presents. Charlene has featured on the Black Powerlist countless times, co-presents Loose Women and has a column in the i-paper. She also, of course, starred in last year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Charlene joined me to talk facing your fears, the tyranny of the ticking clock and surviving the onslaught of small kids in your 40s. She told me about having to grow up fast to care for her siblings when her mum got cancer, the power of lifelong friendship and the enraging way "serious media" looks down on anything loved by women. We also talked about our yoyo weight, learning to work the red carpet in her 40s and why she wouldn’t have had the first clue about menopause if not for her Loose Women gang.  * 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. * 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 transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Feb 202356min

I’m delighted to welcome back my good friend Jojo Moyes. Jojo was one of the very first people I interviewed for the pod back when it was just a random idea. Like all good friends do, she had my back! For that and many other things, I owe her. As I’m pretty sure you already know, Jojo is the global bestselling novelist of Me Before You, and 16 other novels. I think! She’s sold 51million copies globally and several of her books have been turned into hit movies, including Me before you, for which she wrote the screenplay. Her latest, Someone Else’s Shoes, will definitely be joining them. It’s an action packed, emotionally astute, laugh out loud look at what happens when two very different women accidentally pick up each other’s gym bags. It tells the good, the bad and the ugly about middle age, it’s a love letter to female friendship and an ode to the totemic power of shoes. I met with Jojo for a very long overdue catch up. We talked the liberation of being in our 50s, growing into your looks in middle age and surviving the midlife maelstrom of divorce, kids leaving home, parental death, perimenopause and workaholism! She talked candidly about the mental health crisis that made her put the brakes on her career, and she wouldn’t have got through it without her female friends. Oh, and guess what? She’s a secret petrolhead! Who knew?! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes 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 transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Feb 202352min

Hello and welcome back to The Shift. Somehow we're onto our 11th season and I'm thrilled to start 2023 with podcasting legend, the creator of Griefcast herself, Cariad Lloyd. If you’ve been unfortunate enough to join what she calls The Grief Club, chances are you’ve already encountered Cariad, through her conversation-changing, taboo-busting, award-winning podcast Griefcast. A much-needed place to talk about the many messy faces of grief. Now in her 40s, Cariad lost her dad, Peter, to pancreatic cancer when she was just 15. In the late 90s, nobody talked about death, let alone what it was like to join "the dead dad club" in your mid-teens. Now she’s written a funny, frank book about her experience, You Are Not Alone: a new way to grieve.  Cariad is also a comedian, actor, improviser and writer who has appeared on Peep Show, Have I got News For You and QI amongst others. So whilst this episode is moving, illuminating and thought-provoking, it is far from sad. I promise. Cariad joined me to talk grief (of course), how pregnancy, therapy and approaching 40 collided, doing "grief maths", why thinking about the future makes her twitchy and how she feels about approaching the age her dad died. We also compared our inner goths and she advised me on how to ask your partner if they want to be buried or scattered! You can listen to Griefcast wherever you get your podcasts. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. The Death Book is available from Victoria Health. * 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 transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ And if you already subscribe - did you know you can buy a Gift Membership of The Shift for a friend at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/gift_plans • 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

31 Jan 202356min

Over the Christmas period and into the new year, I'm going to be replaying some of my quiet-favourite episodes of 2022. This week is the utterly fearless Clover Stroud. This episode first aired last March. ---- It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last. But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46.  The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief. Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at Bookshop.org, including The Red Of My Blood 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 transcripts of the podcast, please join The Shift community. Find out more at https://steadyhq.com/en/theshift/ • 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Jan 202355min