Series 6

Transcript

[Music starts]

Jessica: [To listeners] This is the Listening Books Podcast. I’m Jessica Stone and today’s guest is London-based author Louise Hare, whose Canary Club Mystery series offers all the glitz and glamour of the golden age of crime fiction together with some insightful explorations of race and class. Today, we’re talking about the second in that series, Harlem After Midnight, set in the 1930s as Lena Aldridge disembarks from the Queen Mary with a blooming romance and a quest to find out the truth of her father’s life. But, as with any good mystery, there are secrets upon secrets and some of those secrets put Miss Aldridge in danger.

[Music ends]

[To Louise] So, Harlem After Midnight is your third novel and the second in the Canary Club series, right? Do readers need to read the first one, Miss Aldridge Regrets, before they read this one or is there anything that might be helpful for them to know from the first one before reading this one?

Louise: So, when I was writing Harlem After Midnight, the idea was that you could read it alone. So, I feel like there are things that if you’ve read the first book you might pick up on a few things, there are sort of a few little hidden things in there that you’ll maybe understand more if you’ve read the first book, but anything that you need to know is explained as it comes up. So, you know, you can still enjoy the second book, and then if you read the first book after, you’ll be, like, ‘Oh, that’s what that… That, kind of, connects back to this!’

Jessica: Yeah, that’s going to be my path, actually. [Louise chuckles] I’m looking forward to…! There are lots of little allusions that have piqued my interest and I’m like, ooo, I wonder what the story behind that is! [Louise chuckles] Your first novel, This Lovely City, takes place in postwar England but for the Canary Club Mysteries we’ve gone back a few years to the prewar 1930s and in the second book of the series we’re now in Harlem. So, I wonder, what is it about that particular place and time that called to you?

Louise: I think with the 1930s, because I’d decided to write this sort of murder mystery and because I knew I wanted… With the first book it’s set on a transatlantic crossing, on the Queen Mary, and so I knew that I wanted to have this ship. It wasn’t always the Queen Mary, it was only because I found out so much information about that ship because it was so iconic and 1936 was the first year of it sailing that I was like, I have to just use the Queen Mary because it’s so famous, celebrities used to… You know, that was the way that people travelled across the Atlantic before planes. So, you know, you had all these celebrities and really rich people, which I thought would be an interesting sort of dynamic for my character who is, you know, poor, mixed race and suddenly thrown into this crazy world with people with all this money.

And it’s just a really interesting period because there’s, sort of, so much going on, people don’t know that there’s going to be another world war, but Hitler’s in power so you can, kind of, play around with it. I think that’s just a really interesting time. Also, as I started to research, I realised there’s so much about that time that is very similar to what we’re living through now [Jessica: Hm.] with all these different conflicts and, you know, the rise of the right across the world, and so I, kind of, wanted to put that in. You know, it’s historical but it is also happening now.

Jessica: Yeah, so that’s interesting to me. There’s a really poignant part in the book… At first, I should say the main character, Lena Aldridge, she describes herself, as well as one of the other important characters in the book, as a black woman who looks white, and there is this moment when these two have been out shopping together and Lena realises how different the experience would be if she was there with someone who was more obviously black. It just made me think about when you’re writing in a time period almost a hundred years ago now, and maybe you just answered this question but are you more struck by the differences or the similarities to today?

Louise: Oh, that is a good question. I think when I was, sort of… I mean I don’t really plan my books [laughter], which is why it takes me so long to write first drafts, but I was, sort of, thinking about the character, I was thinking about Lena and who she was, and obviously it made, sort of, logistical sense to make her able to pass because she’s on this ship and I wanted her to be travelling first class, which would have been very difficult for her, you know, to survive in that environment if she was obviously black. But then I guess, because I started writing this… Probably back in 2017 or 2018 was when I was first thinking about this character, and it was about that time when, like, certainly the British press was just full of stories about Meghan Markle and, you know, the accusations of racism. Someone I knew said to me, ‘But can it be racist if she basically looks white?’ [Jessica: Hm.] and I thought that was really interesting because obviously racism isn’t just based on skin colour, the idea alone is enough to, sort of, provoke those feelings from people who are racist. You know, for example, in America they have the one-drop rule, so even if a great grandmother had been black you were still considered black, even if you had, like, red hair and freckles and blue eyes or whatever. So, yeah, so I think, sort of, looking at that part.

There is, I guess, historic in a way, because one of the books that influenced me when I was writing this was Passing by Nella Larsen [Jessica: Hm.] which is about two… So, I guess, these two women who live in Harlem and they can both pass as white and one chooses to live as white and one chooses to live as black. So, I did want to play with those two characters along those lines. But the initial inspiration was based on something that’s happening today, so I think things change but not that much!

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, and, I mean, were you also interested or did you notice differences or similarities I guess that you would want to explore between the experience of being black in London and the experience of being black in Harlem?

Louise: Yeah, because I guess for Lena, you know, there were black people in London at that time but not, you know, she’s then going to Harlem, which is, you know, a community of black people. I think for her, because she spent so long denying her heritage as well, that it was just really interesting to think, okay, you take this character who doesn’t really have black friends. Her one black family member died, you know, the year before, and so she doesn’t really have a connection to that community in any way and she, kind of, finds this link when she’s travelling to New York and then he takes her to Harlem. I just thought, you know, it’d be really interesting to see does she feel part of it, does she feel more isolated, because she doesn’t feel like she fits in because she doesn’t have those experiences that these people that she’s meeting have had.

So yeah, I thought it was just really interesting to explore that and I think because I’m mixed race and I grew up in a very white town and then moved to London in my twenties, I found that really interesting, and people expecting me to know, you know, like, London slang just because I’m black and I’m like, ‘I didn’t grow up here, I don’t know understand what that word or that phrase means either because I’ve just arrived from a place where people don’t talk this way’. So, I was thinking about that a lot and trying to use my own experiences for Lena in that way.  

Jessica: Yeah. I loved… I mean very early, first proper chapter, you describe the apartment in Harlem [Louise: Hm.] where she’s staying with Claud and Louis and, honestly, I felt, kind of, like I had just been looking at a House & Garden magazine spread…

Louise: Yeah!

Jessica: …the way it was described! So lovingly, so beautifully. It wasn’t just that I could see the room, it was like I could smell how fresh the sheets were. It was this really wonderful, evocative setting that you gave her and it struck me how she immediately feels safe there. It just was so specific that it made me wonder a couple of things. It made me wonder what do you think about when you are describing a character’s home, like what details are important to you?

Louise: Yeah, so I always like to look at pictures. So, I often, whenever I’m writing, I’m always on, like, estate agent, property websites, looking at…

Jessica: Aha!

Louise: …houses. So, I was looking at lots of really expensive brownstones in Harlem and looking at interiors but also, like, googling pictures from the thirties. So, people [Jessica: Hm.] like Langston Hughes at home and looking at, you know, the fireplaces and the armchairs and those kinds of things. Because I think for me it really helps if I know what the room looks like.

Jessica: Yeah.

Louise: To, sort of, imagine my characters there. So, I do always like to have those images and then try and, I guess, create them for the reader as well so that they can picture the characters and how they’re, sort of, moving around. Especially because that apartment is in so much of the book, so it’s a really key location, so I wanted people to be able to visualise it, and obviously there’s an accident that, sort of, happens there, or is it an accident who knows! [Jessica chuckles] You’ll know by the end! So yeah, it was really critical to have that, to know the layout and to know what everything looked like because that plays quite a big part in the solving of the mystery as well. So yeah, and I think as well for Lena I wanted to have that, sort of, safe space for her because she’s just come off this very traumatic journey across the Atlantic to get to Harlem and so I wanted her to really feel at home with these people and feel that she could trust them and that she was safe and I guess have that… Because when you’re writing like a murder mystery, there’s so much craziness going on and jeopardy that, for me, I need the character to have a safe space. So, in the first book it was her cabin, in this book it was the apartment or her bedroom specifically. Just to be able to, like, decompress in between crazy stuff happening!

Jessica: That’s lovely! I love that sense of compassion for your character, like, you know, let’s give her some rest…

Louise: Yeah, yeah.

Jessica: …she’s been through a lot!

Louise: And also for me as well because [chuckles] sometimes you just need to write like a quieter scene or, you know, analyse what’s happened and, you know, [Jessica: Hm.] it’s much easier to do it in those spaces, than just constantly having lots of action and her out and about and running around. You know, it’s tiring, and I think as a reader, some of my favourite scenes in books are those quieter scenes where you get to know the characters or you might have, like, just a quiet conservation between two characters.

Jessica: Yeah, for me as well, but I never thought about it in terms of actually giving them the quiet setting, giving them the safe space to relax into that, from a writing standpoint. That’s really valua-… I’m going to be looking out for that now when I read. [Louise chuckles] I like that. You’ve noted elsewhere that your shorter fiction tends to be contemporary but your novels historical, is there a reason for that divide?

Louise: Um, yeah, I don’t know how that happens. I think a) I’m quite bad at short fiction. So, actually my first two novels both started as short stories that I wrote because I was doing an MA in creative writing, so they were supposed to be short stories and both of them came back with the feedback, this is the chapter of a novel, not a short story! So, I guess technically they were historical short stories. I think I find it really difficult because, for me, when you’re writing historical fiction, because you do the research, you spend so long imagining this character and how they live, which would be slightly different to how we live today. And I think by the time I’ve done all that, I’m so invested that I find it impossible to keep it to, sort of, two or three thousand words. It has to be something longer because I want to create a world for them and I want them to go on a journey, which you can’t really do in a short story. [Jessica: Hm.] And I find it easier to write short stories that are contemporary because, you know, you can just, sort of, sit down and start writing and you have to figure out who the characters are, you have to decide where to set it, you know, is it just in one room or is it, you know, what is the location? But other than that, you can, kind of, just go with it. There’s a different level of investment for me, I think…

Jessica: Yeah.

Louise: …because I love historical…

Jessica: Yeah, I mean it sounds like just a different level of information required as well, to give to the reader.

Louise: Yeah, and, I mean, I feel like I’m in a total different headspace when I’m writing contemporary as well, [Jessica: Hm.] so… Because I’ve got an idea for a book, which I think is going to be partly contemporary and partly historical [Jessica: Oo!] but I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years now because I find it really difficult to do both at the same time! [Jessica chuckles] Because of that different sort of headspace. So, I think I’ll get round to it at one point but I might need to write the whole historical bit and then the whole contemporary bit and then see how it fits. I’m just, kind of, thinking my way into it, so…

Jessica: Yeah, well, I’m curious as well about, you know, in Harlem After Midnight the main story takes place in 1936 but we also have bits of the story that are told in, is it 1908? I think it’s 1908.

Louise: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah! I was curious whether you had made that decision from that start, that it was always going to take place partly in 1908 as well or what went into the decision to structure it that way?

Louise: So, I guess one of the main plotlines of the book is that Lena’s, sort of, trying to find out about her father, who is mentioned in the first book. He’s dead, he died, sort of, nine months earlier and she discovers some stuff during the first book, you know, things that he didn’t tell her about. So, she’s now in New York, which is a place that she knows he lived in for a while when he was young, a young man, so she decides that she’s going to try and investigate. So, I sort of knew that I wanted to write something that, I guess, tells you a) how he got to England… I can’t say too much about it because there’ll be spoilers for the first book!

But, I guess this is what I’m, kind of, saying about if you have read the first book or not, like you can read his storyline in the second book and, you know, it’s chronological and it’s all great but there’s definitely some stuff in there that maybe people in the first book will guess what’s going on a little bit earlier, [Jessica: Hm.] because of things that are in the first book. But it doesn’t spoil anything if you don’t know that, it will be revealed at the end. But yeah, I just… He was a character that was just supposed to be, sort of, mentioned and he just kept elbowing his way into the first book [Jessica: Hm.] and I just became really attached to him, and actually, when I’ve done talks at bookshops or libraries, people always, sort of, mention him.

Jessica: Yeah.

Louise: So, I, kind of, wanted to go, ‘Well, actually how did all this come about?’, and it made sense that Lena would be interested in that. So, it’s, sort of, a second investigation alongside the murder-mystery element.  

Jessica: Yeah. I also really liked the way we, kind of, shifted musical styles as well. Music is obviously really important in these books and in Alfie’s chapter, it’s in 1908, we’re in the era of ragtime, [Louise: Hm.] and then move into jazz in the 1930s, and I wondered if you’d like to say anything about your connection to those musical styles and if those different musical styles also reflect cultural changes between the generations as well.

Louise: Yeah, I think… Because one of the things when I was, sort of, originally thinking about this, especially with the two timelines was, like, I really hadn’t realised how much New York changed [laughing] in those three decades, so I basically had to do double research, which… [chuckles]

Jessica: Yeah!

Louise: Yeah, I hadn’t, kind of, planned for, but yeah, it was really interesting and, actually, reading about, sort of, ragtime and… Especially because there’s a ragtime, Maple Leaf Rag, that Lena talks about in the first book. It’s the song that makes her think of her father. So I was, like, okay, I need to, sort of, build that in and, yeah, I just love music, I love putting it into the books. I think jazz has been in all three of my books so far. Not in the next one because that’s way before jazz!

Jessica: Oh, okay!

Louise: But yeah, I think it’s just… I don’t know, it helps me connect with the characters as well. I think, you know, most people listen to music, it’s a really good way to get to know someone. You know, if you ask someone what kind of music they like, you make a judgement about that person based on, you know, what their answer is. So, I think for me, it’s always really interesting to get to know characters through music as one of their likes, so you can, kind of, figure them out [Jessica: Hm.] a little bit I think. But yeah, I think with writing about New York in this period, Harlem is, like, known for jazz, 1908 such a big ragtime period that it was, kind of, just part of that historical detail to include the music as well.  

Jessica: Yeah. Are you a musician yourself?

Louise: Well, sort of! [Jessica laughs] So, I used to play clarinet at school, like all the way through school and, you know, I’m not the best but I’d say I’m competent! [Laughter] But yeah, I just love jazz, I love… You know, it gives me an excuse to listen to some when I’m writing so, yeah.

[Music]

Jessica: [To listeners] I hope you’re enjoying this conversation with Louise Hare. There’s more to come, but first, a word from our patron Stephen Fry.

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Stephen Fry: Listening to audiobooks can be relaxing, riveting and sometimes educating, but what it always is for me is a space to forget about my everyday thoughts and worries and truly revel in being told a story. I’m patron of the wonderful audiobook charity Listening Books. They stock thousands of bestselling audiobooks that you can listen to at the touch of a button. If you have an illness, disability, learning difficulty or mental health condition and live in the UK, you can join today from as little as £20, and they offer free memberships for those would find the £20 a barrier to joining. So, what are you waiting for? Relax with an audiobook today.

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Jessica: [To Louise] I think I read that you had worked in the travel industry [Louise: Hm.] at one point as well, and I wondered if that has brought anything to the table with your writing. Has any of your travel experience, kind of, been included?

Louise: Oh, I think… I mean, probably in Miss Aldridge Regrets, which is the first in the series, you know, sort of setting it on an ocean liner, because I do love that, sort of, glamorous side of travel. [Jessica: Hmm.] Because I think we’ve kind of moved away from that, you know, with flights and with getting to places, sort of, relatively quickly and everyone’s, sort of, turning up in comfortable wear, trainers and, you know, jogging bottoms to travel in. Then you look at that period and everyone’s getting on in, like, their best clothes, their best dresses. [Jessica: Hm.] You know, you would buy outfits for… I mean, I guess like people do on cruises now, like the posh ones. You can still go on, you know, Cunard ocean liners and it is that kind of experience. But I think I’ve always been, sort of, fascinated with that side of it and things like, you know, we used to sell, like, Orient Express and those sort of really luxury trains and I was always… Like, I would love to go on those.

Jessica: Yeah!

Louise: So, I guess from that aspect it’s, kind of, living vicariously through the characters in that way. And I think I would like to, sort of, use some travel experience at some point. The right story hasn’t come that, sort of, fits that [Jessica: Hm.], just yet, and there’s definitely, like, a big push for thrillers set in, sort of, these beachy destinations, which I always think, you know, is an interesting, sort of, subgenre. But yeah, I think one day I’ll embrace that and really, sort of, explore it, but I just need to find the right idea.

Jessica: Yeah. You mentioned your next book is set long before jazz, [Louise: Hm.] so I gather it’s not part of the Canary Club series?

Louise: No, so the next book, which I’m trying to finish at the moment, is 1760s in London [Jessica: Oo!] so it’s very different, and again, it’s been, sort of, a book that’s really been bugging me for a long time. I, kind of, started writing it back in 2017 and then put it to one side because I couldn’t figure out certain aspects of the story. Then I literally only, sort of, clicked late last year and I got all the bits together and so I’m just editing now. And yeah, that’s been a totally different experience because all my books so far have been set in the twentieth century. So yeah, Georgian London is very different but kind of fun, it's before the Victorians get in there and make everything boring. [Jessica laughs] So, yeah, everyone’s drinking gin, like there’s a brothel on every street corner. So, it’s been, kind of, a fun experience still and I do still have a character who was a real-life person and he was a musician, so I do still have a musician in there.

Jessica: Do you still have murder in there?

Louise: Well, it’s not a murder mystery…

Jessica: Okay.

Louise: …but there is some death and there’s a trial, so it’s still got crimey elements to it, so, yeah!

Jessica: Okay! [Laughter] So the audiobook for Harlem After Midnight is narrated by Leonie Elliot and Miss Aldridge Regrets is narrated by Georgina Campbell. Were you involved in the casting for either book?

Louise: I was to an extent. So, I got sent a few names and some recordings of stuff that they’d done previously, but I think with both of them I chose them because I, sort of, knew their work already [Jessica: Hm.] and… You know, Georgina Campbell was fabulous but then she, kind of, got too famous and moved to LA so we couldn’t have her for the second audiobook! But then Leonie Elliot, I saw her at the National Theatre in Small Island [Jessica: Hmm.] and I loved that production. So as soon as I saw her name I was, like, okay, please can we try and get her. And, yeah, they were both great and I’m…

Jessica: Was that her first audiobook?

Louise: I’m not sure, actually.

Jessica: Okay.

Louise: I’m sure she’s done other ones, but yeah, it was really nice, and I’ve, kind of… I’ve not met Georgina in person but we’ve Zoomed! So, I’ve spoken to her on Zoom, and Leonie, I was actually really lucky with this audiobook, it was the first time I was able to actually go into the studio and listen to it being recorded.

Jessica: What was that like?

Louise: It was so much fun because I can, sort of, divorce myself from, like, the process a little bit, so you sit there and, you know, I’m listening to it as if it’s someone else’s book because, I don’t know, when someone else is reading it with the accents and everything it feels like something so completely separate to what I’ve done or written [Jessica: Hm.] even though I’m like, oh, that seems familiar. Oh yeah, I wrote it! [Laughter] It’s kind of, like, a bizarre experience but… But, yeah, it was so interesting, because then they were sometimes like, ‘Do you want this to be pronounced this way or…?’, I’m like, ‘I don’t know, just, you say it’! [Laughter] Because also I’m, like, what if I pronounce it wrong and then everybody’s going to be, like, this word is wrong in this audiobook and it’d be my fault. So I was, like, I’m just going to listen very quietly. It’s just an amazing process to do, and also to read aloud for that length of time I think is, kind of, a marathon, so I’m really in awe of audiobook narrators.

Jessica: You sound like a dream author to have [Louise chuckles] in the recording booth because, from what I hear [laughing] it’s very difficult to be sort of, more hands-off with it. You know, I think understandably a lot of authors, because it’s their baby and a lot of them, they would have heard it in their heads as they were writing it, how they thought it ought to be, [Louise: Hm.] and then having somebody else interpret it can be a bit of a challenging experience I imagine, for some.

Louise: Yeah, I don’t know. I think everyone’s different and I just, kind of, feel like these are professionals, and, also, I chose them.

Jessica: Yeah.

Louise: Because I do think sometimes authors don’t have an awful lot of choice about who they get or some audiobooks you have, like, multiple narrators, which I think can also get a bit, you know, tricky [Jessica: Hm.] in terms of listening and seeing is everyone the perfect voice that you expected, possibly not. But yeah, I think I’ve been lucky with all three of my audiobooks.

Jessica: Yeah.

Louise: But, yeah, it has been nice to be able to listen to their other work and just go, actually, can I hear that voice of this character? Especially with these two books because it is written in first person [Jessica: Hmm.] for the most part, so it is, you know, Lena’s voice, sort of, narrating essentially. So yeah, but I think once I’d picked Georgina and Leonie I was, like, yeah, I like what you’re doing and you just go with it.

Jessica: Ah, that trust is such a gift to a performer, I think! Will there be more books in the series?

Louise: I’m not sure yet. I do have some other stuff lined up first, but I would love to go back to it because I just really enjoyed writing Lena, she’s such a fun…

Jessica: Yeah.

Louise: …because she’s interesting, she’s flawed, she often makes the wrong decision. I just, kind of, like those characters that have something about them. Like, perfect characters, they’re, kind of, boring, and I always think, like, what would I do in this situation, and the answer is always probably something terribly, you know, wrong or just stupid. I think that’s more realistic! [Laughter] But also, it’d be really boring if the characters did the right thing all the time, it’d just be, kind of, a boring book and the mystery would be solved by chapter five so…

Jessica: Yeah! [Laughter] My final question really is about what books you are currently pushing on your friends. Like, what’s so good you can’t stop recommending it?

Louise: The one that I have bought for a couple of friends is Another Country by James Baldwin, [Jessica: Hm.] which I, sort of, picked it up in a Waterstones when I was writing This Lovely City because it has a big focus on jazz and I guess I was interested to see, you know, how a master like James Baldwin includes music in his writing. It’s sort of a book… I think what it's got in common with my books, I mean I’m not trying to compare myself to James Baldwin [laughs] because he is incredible, but he writes a lot about community [Jessica: Hm.] and friendships and I think those have always been, kind of, important in my fiction, and having the music and… You know, you read the book and it was written in the 1950s but it feels like you could almost write it today because it’s so… It’s about this, kind of, bohemian group of friends and they’re black and they’re white and they’re straight and they’re gay and they just all get on, and sometimes they fight. It just feels very real and it feels, I guess, contemporary in a way because, I don’t know, I don’t think there was a lot of fiction like that coming out in the fifties. It, kind of, has everything, it has love, it has tragedy, and it’s just brilliant. So that’s the book I will give to people for, like, birthdays!

Jessica: That’s a beautiful recommendation. Louise, thank you so much. You’ve been wonderful. I’ve really enjoyed reading Harlem After Midnight, I’m going to have to go back and read the first one now [Louise chuckles] so I can find out what some of those teasers…

Louise: Yes.

Jessica: …were all about and what happened on the Queen Mary. But, yeah, I’ve been enjoying every moment of it. Thank you very much.

Louise: This has been great, thank you.

[Music starts]

Jessica: [To listeners] And thank you, for listening. Harlem After Midnight and Miss Aldridge Regrets are both available in the Listening Books collection. And you should also check out Louise’s website for some great extra content, including a walking tour of London for her book This Lovely City and some more excellent recommendations for books that capture the magic of jazz. That website is louisehare.com and, as always, I’ll put the link in the show notes. I’ll be back next month with Irish author Leanne O’Donnell, whose debut novel Sparks of Bright Matter has been one of the highlights of my reading year. I hope you’ll join me for that.

This podcast is produced by Listening Books, a UK charity that provides an audiobook lending service reaching over 100,000 people with print impairments. It’s simple to join. For more information, head to our website www.listening-books.org.uk.

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Becca Caddy Interview Transcript

[Music starts]

Jessica: [To listeners] This is the Listening Books Podcast. I’m Jessica Stone and, I wonder, do you ever feel like you spend more time on your phone than you really want to? This episode’s guest wrote a book just for you. And me. Becca Caddy is a writer who likes to explore the human side of technology, and her book Screen Time is here to help us take back a bit more control over our digital lives.

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[To Becca] Well, Becca, I’ve been looking forward to our chat, partly because I’m in the middle of an experimental break from social media!

Becca: Ah! Interesting! Okay!

Jessica: Yes! So, part of my interest in Screen Time is very personal…

Becca: Yeah.

Jessica: …and I know I’m far from the only person who feels the need to exert a bit more control over the way I spend my time and my attention. So, I’m curious, what was it that brought you to this subject? Was it also personal?

Becca: Yeah, it really was. I mean, I write about it quite a bit in the book but I have always loved technology and been… See, there’s a lot in the book around language use and I was about to say, ‘a bit addicted’! [Both laugh] But there’s a lot in the book around how I’m not sure that’s the best word to use but maybe we’ll get to that a bit later. But, yeah, I’ve always really loved technology and had, like a lot of people, a real love–hate relationship with it over the years. I see all the ways in which it benefits me and obviously I’m a tech journalist, I can’t quit using my phone or the Internet or social media, but I do recognise ways in which it’s distracting me, it’s making me stressed, it’s just eating up a lot of my time. And that’s going back years and years, probably since the days of Myspace, so maybe when I was, like, fourteen! [Jessica chuckles] So it was, yeah, a really personal book in many ways because I feel this kind of push and pull with technology. I don’t personally feel I can ever give it all up, maybe certain apps and platforms. But the more people I spoke to, the more I realised it was a really common problem and I think a lot of people think it’s all or nothing, right?

Jessica: Yes.

Becca: It’s either, I use everything all the time or I have to get, like, a dumb phone and take myself off all the apps. I just really wanted to both for myself and for everyone else to find a way that felt a little bit more balanced, a little bit in between.

Jessica: Yeah, yeah. I think people are going to be very encouraged to find that that’s not what you’re advocating, that all or nothing [Becca: Mm.] approach. And that’s why I, sort of, framed my break from social media as it’s an experimental break and, you talk a lot about awareness in the book, it is partly because I wanted to be a bit more aware about how I was spending my time. So, I wanted to see what I would be doing if I didn’t immediately revert to checking my social media apps.

Becca: Yeah, and I think, you know, that is a huge part of it because there are a lot of studies that show a lot of us overestimate the amount of time we’re on our phones [Jessica: Hm.] and a lot of us underestimate it. So, it kind of just shows that we don’t really know how long we’re spending on our phones. We don’t know exactly what we’re doing [Jessica: Hm-hm.] in specific apps. You know, you might think you spend all your time on email but it’s actually all your time on TikTok, you know, things like that. But also, it’s a good point you make about awareness, because it’s not just, kind of, time goes here, time goes there, it’s around mood as well. So, just one example would be, you know, am I waking up every morning and feeling a bit grumpy and stressed because I didn’t sleep well [Jessica: Hm.] or is it because I’m opening Twitter every day? And, you know, maybe it is the first one, maybe it is to do with sleep, and people are blaming Twitter, maybe it’s the other way round. So, I think your approach there to just, kind of, get curious about it is a really good strategy.

Jessica: Oh good!

Becca: Yeah. [Laughs]

Jessica: Well, I’ve picked up some more strategies from the book that I’m keen to implement!

Becca: Okay!

Jessica: But, you know, you mentioned there about how much you had to be careful with your words, with how you were describing [Becca: Mm.] things in the book. Actually, that was something that really struck me, was how many boundaries and definitions you had to be quite precise about. I’m just wondering, was that a big challenge to navigate? Because there’s words like technology, like addiction – that you spend a good deal of time saying why we should be really careful using that word, especially in relation to the Internet, which on its own is so broad – and, you know, screens. Well, which screens are we talking about? There are just… Because we spend so much of our lives on screens and online now, getting really specific about what we’re talking about so that we can talk about it in any kind of meaningful way, that seems like it must have been a real challenge in the writing of it. Did that take up a lot of your time?

Becca: Yeah, it did and I’m very… So, there are a lot of different reasons for that really. Like, firstly, I did Linguistics at uni, [Jessica: ah!] so I am just a massive word nerd! So that’s a big part of it. And often, I think, to make things accessible, I think a lot of the time the way we talk about technology, the way we talk about ourselves, our behaviour, it can feel quite general. So, we often say, ‘I’m addicted to technology’, right? [Jessica: Hm.] and so that’s why a lot in the book I do stop and pause and define things and get people to think about the words they’re using. Because I know many of us mean, maybe, like phones and laptops when we talk about technology, but what is technology? So, I really wanted to get us to think about that, because… I can’t remember the exact definition I put in the book now but I think I said something about it being a tool… 

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: …and I think that’s really important because the way we talk about technology, kind of, taking over our lives and our minds, it’s actually just a tool to help us do things. [Jessica: Hm.] That’s not to say it isn’t engineered to take up so much of our time. I’m very much not in the all-tech-is-great-and-neutral camp but at the same time I think it is important to get really clear that it is a tool to help us do things. That means we can take a bit more control over it. On another level, I’m, for myself and other people, just very conscious of the way that I talk about myself, my behaviour, the world, I really do think impacts myself, my behaviour in the world, right?!

Jessica: Yeah!

Becca: And that’s not just a… You know, sometimes I’ll say that in a way that I think sounds a little bit woo woo but there are a lot of studies around neuroplasticity and the fact that, you know, what you say about yourself every day does end up impacting how you feel about yourself, which impacts your behaviours, which impacts your emotions, you know? So, I think things we might say very casually, like, ‘Oh, I’m addicted to my phone’. I think I mention in the book, ‘My phone’s killing my concentration’, like ‘My brain is mush’, I think those words have power, especially… Well, I don’t know. I’m a very sensitive person, especially for me, I think if I say those things over and over again [Jessica: Mm.] I am cementing them to an extent. I think we’re all a bit different in that respect, so I wouldn’t say it applies to everyone but, yeah, I think language is so important, yeah!

Jessica: Yeah. Well, you brought up something else that I wanted to touch on, which was that you say in your introduction that you used to make the case that technology itself was inherently neutral and that it was only the way we use it that makes it good or bad. But you do say in your introduction that there is a way in which that case is getting harder to make and you alluded a little to that, about how it’s being engineered. Can you say a little bit more about how some of the technology that we’re using is, kind of, engineered from the outset, against our best interests?

Becca: Yeah, I do make the point that technology is a tool and it’s all about how we use it, but when something is made to be used, you know, to be as, kind of, sticky and appealing as possible, to make us want to be on there all the time. So, there are all kinds of little things used, from, like, the colours, the language, the layout, the way you get notifications. I mention it in the book a lot, but the way that you can, if you would want to and would have an infinite amount of time, the way you could almost infinitely scroll…

Jessica: Yes.

Becca: …especially if you’re using something like TikTok, which just has an immense amount of videos, I don’t know if you’d ever get to the bottom of it!

Jessica: Exactly!

Becca: Yeah! So, there are all these little things at play, to basically just take up so much of our time.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: So, as much as some people may still argue that tech is quite neutral, I can’t think of the specific phrase now, but it’s a very manipulated game. So, that’s why it’s so difficult to pull yourself away from it sometimes.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: And I think it’s really important to hold both of those things to be true, right? The fact that we have control here, it is a tool, you can pull yourself away from it but it has been designed to make it ultra-appealing and it’s getting more and more difficult. So, I wouldn’t say at all that we have no control and we can’t better manage our time but I think it’s good to acknowledge there are reasons it’s difficult. It is not just to do with, say, your lack of willpower or…

Jessica: Yes.

Becca: …the fact that you don’t get on with work and I think… You know, I’m very pro, kind of, not judging ourselves in that respect.

Jessica: Yeah, and actually you brought up the importance of our feelings about our online activity in relation to gaming [Becca: Hm.], which I think some people might be surprised to find out what the potential benefits of gaming are. Because I think gaming, somewhere along the way, got, kind of, a bad reputation and I don’t know if it still carries that or if we’ve, by and large, dispensed with it. But I wonder if you could say a little bit about the benefits that people have experienced from gaming and then, like, how your feelings about it can actually affect whether or not you receive those benefits.

Becca: Yeah, so I was really surprised by some of the research about gaming as well, to be honest. There aren’t loads of studies but there are quite a few studies now to suggest that it can have a real stress-relieving benefit [Jessica: Hm hm.] for a lot of people. I think the key there is for a lot of people, it’s not all people, this is all really, really subjective. But yeah, I think in one particular study among the people who consider themselves gamers, they were experiencing the same benefits as another group who meditated, so…

Jessica: Oh wow.

Becca: Yeah, which seems crazy because that actually applied to a lot of different games as well. We’re not just talking, like, calming, colour-matching games, we’re also talking what some would consider quite violent, first-person shooter games.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: So, I find that really, really fascinating and that’s why I think it’s really important that maybe what one person finds stress-relieving won’t be the same for another person, but we need to understand that. Especially maybe, like, parents and kids. Just because a parent doesn’t find a game particularly interesting [Jessica laughs] or good for them doesn’t mean… their child might. So, I think that’s really interesting. I guess it’s also worth pointing out that, it doesn’t work in the same way, but a lot of games are designed to take up a lot of our time as well, right?

Jessica: Right.

Becca: So that is worth thinking about, and, you know, the problem with not only gaming but so much of social media is when the time and the use feels really huge, like it’s taking up huge parts of people’s days. A lot of the research from a couple of years ago really did suggest that any, kind of, negative that we consider when it comes to gaming or social media, it’s when it’s taking up vast amounts of time. [Jessica: Hm.] So that might apply to some of us and to some people who consider themselves gamers, but often the amount that we’re using it isn’t quite as bad as we’d think, when it comes to some of the mental health and stress. But I think definitely with some of the social media stuff as well, so much of this, so much of the negative feelings are around perception and how you perceive your time online, and if you actually enjoy it and feel like you’re actually getting something from it. Even if you spend the same amount of time as someone else, you’ll feel different and your, kind of, self-report after will be different.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: Whereas if you’re constantly, kind of, shaming yourself for, ‘Why am I doing this? Oh god, I spend so much time online’, the self-report there will be much more negative. Which I guess when you think about it, it does make a lot of sense, but it’s that idea that not all time online is spent equal, even if it’s…

Jessica: Right.

Becca: Yeah, even if we’re both on Instagram doing the same kind of thing. If I’m thinking, well, I’m here to learn how to… I can’t think of an example but, like, I’m here to learn how to put eyeliner on, I actually want to be here, scrolling through loads of makeup videos, I’ve been on here an hour but I’m learning loads and it’s fun and I like it. But someone else might be like, why am I looking at this? I don’t need to know this, it’s fluffy, it’s a waste of time, you know? So, I think there is so much around how you judge yourself…

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: …for what you’re doing. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I also think… You make the point about how engaged you are while you’re doing the activities, which really makes sense for why the clear benefit shows up with gaming because gaming is something that you have to be, kind of, fully engaged in and you can reach that state of flow. But you can also be more or less engaged with other online activities as well. Like, if you’re on social media, for example, you can be someone who is actively commenting and engaging with other people, like using it to connect with people, or you can just be lurking, and that there is a difference in outcome, in how you feel about it, in how people experience the benefits or lack thereof.

Becca: Yeah, and I think if we’re maybe a little bit more aware we all could probably, kind of, recognise that difference in states.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: I often compare it to the idea that sometimes half an hour will have gone on Instagram and I’ll have felt like I can’t really remember it and it’s like I’ve been, kind of, sleepwalking through it. Then half an hour on, say, TikTok, which I’m actually quite pro TikTok at the moment…

Jessica: Yeah!

Becca: …because the algorithm seems to show me just stuff that I love…

Jessica: Me too!

Becca: …about makeup and space. Yeah! Makeup, space, travel, technology, it feels very good, which has pros and cons because it means I never leave. But [laughter] I do think a lot of the time I’m, having spent time on TikTok, I’m now thinking well, I know where I want to go, where I want to travel to next…

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: … I learned this, I learned that. I’m definitely not saying that there are no negatives to TikTok but I think there is a real difference from if you’re actually taking things in and you feel awake, you don’t feel like you’ve slept-walked through it. And the point you made as well about commenting, I think is really good. There is a real difference between that, I think I call it in the book active and passive…

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: …like, how active are you being? Are you learning things? Are you bookmarking things? Are you commenting? Or are you just, you know, like sitting in front of the TV but you haven’t even chosen the channel, you know?

Jessica: Right.

Becca: And personally, for me, that’s when I lose track of time in a negative way and I leave feeling like, well, I’ve wasted time, I don’t know what I’ve got from it, I feel a bit icky, you know? [Laughs]

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: Yeah, I mean I can personally really notice the difference now, I think.

Jessica: Yeah. You were saying, you know, how a lot of the apps that we engage with, whether they’re social media or games or whatever, they are kind of engineered to have not any real stopping point. [Becca: Hmm.] There’s no, like, cue really to prod you to sort of say, oh, maybe I’ve had enough now. It’s just bottomless. But there are ways that we can artificially impose some stopping points, and maybe even use technology to help us with that. Could you give some examples of ways that we could, kind of, impose some external stopping points?

Becca: So, most of the operating systems now have their own built-in settings. So, the ones in Apple are called Screen Time, like the book, and they’re really great. They have limits that you can set for certain times on your phone, you can apply them to certain apps, you can add different ways of bypassing them so it can be easier or harder. Like, some days I have restrictions on all my apps but some days I’ll actually be using them to research or…

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: …they’ll be something that I need to keep watching because I’m generally interested, so sometimes I, like, set it so that I can easily bypass them. Other people, if you can easily bypass them, they’re, like, ‘I’m not going to stop doing it’. So, there are more strict settings within Screen Time. But then there are also apps that you can get, like third-party apps that make it almost impossible to penetrate those time limits. So, you have to, kind of, play around and see what works for you. And even within the apps now, definitely TikTok and Instagram, they have their own settings that do a similar thing. They’re not quite as comprehensive as maybe the Screen Time settings or the third-party apps, so there are just certain time limits, but they do have a built-in app, which is quite nice because if you feel like, well, actually I don’t have a major problem other than TikTok, you can just go in TikTok and change their settings, you know.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: As I say, these seem to work well for certain people and not others. So it is, kind of, about playing around with it and seeing what works for you. There isn’t really a one-size-fits-all approach with how they work but I tend to set things… I live in a lot of twenty-five-minute chunks…

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: That’s how I do a lot of work and how I crunch time…

Jessica: The Pomodoro Technique, right?

Becca: Yes, the Pomodoro Technique. I mention that in the book because I love it!

Jessica: I use it too!

Becca: Yes! Oh great! Yeah, I think there’s something about those twenty-five-minute chunks of time that just work so well for me. Knowing I have that small break after and I even… Yeah, I divide up time on TikTok and Instagram and things that way as well because it just works so well for me and it means I don’t have to think about anything, [Jessica chuckles] everything is just twenty-five minutes at some point. So, yeah.

Jessica: Actually, maybe we could just… I know what it is because I use it…

Becca: Ah, okay.

Jessica: … but maybe we could just stop and explain what the Pomodoro Technique involves.

Becca: Yes. I’ve completely forgotten who first came up with it but someone came up with this time-management technique where you work for twenty-five minutes, you take a five-minute break, you do that four times and then you have a longer break. I can’t remember what the official one is but I usually take a twenty-five-minute break then, I think it’s meant to be a bit longer, maybe an hour. Then you work in those, kind of, chunks throughout the day. And I find that twenty-five minutes is just perfect for me to get started, get into the flow of a task and then I almost stop when I’ve still got steam but I think there’s something really powerful in that not stopping when you feel, like, oh god, I’m desperate for a break. So, what you get then with those four twenty-five minutes is obviously just under two hours, and I like assigning a task to two hours, I just feel like that’s a nice amount of time, so…

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: …throughout the day I’ll divide my day up like that. So, I’ll use it for work, I find that is really, really helpful, and then I will also set a lot of my TikTok and Instagram settings to twenty-five minutes, sometimes per day, sometimes not, because I just feel like that’s a good amount of time as well. I feel like I’ve rested, I’ve taken in some stuff and I can call it a day then. So, it just really works well for me, and I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but I think it’s worth trying.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, it strikes me how much of this book is really relevant very broadly to our lives and not just to our use of technology. Because it really is about being more aware of how we want to spend our time and using tools to make sure that we’re able to live, kind of, in alignment with the life that we envision for ourselves, like the way that we want to spend our time and attention. So, I think a lot of the good advice in here is good advice not just for tech but for our lives in general.

Becca: That’s really great to hear, yeah. I like that, and, yeah, I think getting more intentional and aware about how we’re living is really important. Also, I think it’s really important to mention as well that I really like dividing my days up by these twenty-five minutes, but knowing that I can do that, especially on a weekend or days off, I can choose to do the exact opposite.  

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: So, I think if you know that’s how you work well, you know that rest then means a complete opposite of that. [Jessica: Hm] Because I think that’s really… Obviously, I mention balance so much in the book, but I think having that balance is important because otherwise your life is then too regimented and everything is just in twenty-five-minute chunks and you can get a bit obsessed with that! [Jessica laughs] But I think knowing… I even apply that to social media sometimes. I’m like, well actually, I just want a break and I want to look at an hour of videos about where I’m going to travel to next, and I’m going to choose to do that and that’s going to feel good for me and restful. [Jessica: Mm hm.] But at least I know it’s a choice, you know? So, I really don’t advocate for being so strict all the time but just being aware enough to know when, oh yeah, I am choosing to rest and, you know what, I want to do that right now and I want to feel a bit mindless and passive while I’m looking at pictures of a beach, you know?

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: So, I think as long as you’re aware that that’s what you’re doing, that’s actually fine.

Jessica: Yeah.

[Music]

[To listeners] I hope you’re enjoying this conversation with Becca Caddy. More to come, but I also wanted to let you know that there is a YouTube-only special episode of the podcast with author B. A. Paris about her psychological thriller The Guest, and that’s available on our YouTube channel. I’ll leave a link in the show notes.

[Music]

[To Becca] Of all the advice that you’ve researched and that you’ve shared in your book, was there any technique that you found most transformative for you or most helpful for you in taking control of how you use technology?

Becca: I know it might sound a bit, kind of, nebulous but it’s the awareness.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: So just turning on to some of these techniques, you know, like realising, oh yeah, there isn’t anything to stop me, whereas in a book there is something like chapters, you know? I think just becoming aware of things like that. And I mention, kind of, getting hits of dopamine in the book and how there’s this thing called intermittent reinforcement, which is that every time we log into an app, we don’t know what’s going to be there. Like, there could be some notifications, there could be a new video from our favourite creator, there could be nothing. And learning that that intermittent reinforcement, that, kind of, like, what’s there going to be, I never know, learning that that is so… Again, I don’t like using the word addictive [Jessica laughs] but it’s what gets us to keep going back, it’s what’s really appealing. Learning that that is engineered doesn’t always completely take the power away from it for me but makes me think, okay, this is just me hunting for dopamine, could I actually go and do this instead? There is just some power in that and even though I still get sucked into it, often it feels like I’m living a life that is much more deliberate and aware and intentional just by knowing it, in a way.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, you know what, we should talk about the audiobook!

Becca: Yes, yeah.

Jessica: Which was beautifully read by Julie Maisey. Did you play any role in the casting or production of the audiobook?

Becca: I didn’t. So, I had an editor who, from the start… I was very lucky, we just clicked so incredibly well. She really got the tone that I wanted to capture with the book. She liked that we weren’t going all or nothing with technology, which, you know, there are a lot of great books out there that do go one way or the other and I love some of them, they’re really, really fantastic but I was very keen not to do that. For a lot of the reasons I’ve said, like, because that’s just not my experience. And so, it was very important me to find an editor who really understood that, and she really did. So, I think from the start I just felt in a very safe pair of hands. So, she made the decision to hire Julie and I got to hear a lot of her samples and, you know, I always had the choice to say, like, let’s try someone else, but I think my editor nailed so much of the book that she just was perfect as well.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: So, even though I didn’t play an active role in, kind of, casting for that, my editor did; she was just as much a part of making the book happen as me, so I was just really delighted with how that worked out, yeah.

Jessica: Yeah, and that’s interesting too because having an editor who gets the tone of the book, the spirit of the book, which, I mean, you would hope that of your editor, I mean you would want to be on the same page! But I’m just thinking in terms of an audiobook, like tone really does… You know, it comes across not just in the words but how they’re said as well, and I love that your book doesn’t have any kind of a scolding tone, there’s no hands-on-hips, put-down-your-phone kind of…

Becca: Yeah.

Jessica: You know, it sounds like, again, with the having to be very careful around different boundaries and parameters, you are also navigating that line between alarmism and moral panic about how technology is taking over!

Becca: Yeah.

Jessica: And on the other hand, are sure it’s all inherently neutral, and so being able to walk that line between those two and give what I think... What is it? It’s not scolding, what it is is empowering, that’s the word I’m looking for.

Becca: Yeah, nice, yeah.

Jessica: Empowering, yeah, and that’s a lovely tone to hit, so I think that carries across in the audiobook as well. 

Becca: Great, I’m really glad because I think I made the point in the book quite a few times that how around so much of what we see online as well, especially news headlines, things like that, are very overly positive or overly negative, to try and get us to click on things. So, I think writing a book about technology that was intentionally not either of those [Jessica: Hm hm.] was quite… I wouldn’t say it was challenging for me personally because that is where I am, in the middle, but I know… Like, I made the terrible author mistake of looking at Goodreads when it first came out…

Jessica: Oh no!

Becca: The reviews, yeah, and there was someone who put, like, ‘I like this book but it was frustrating she didn’t say if tech was good or bad’, [Jessica laughs] you know, some version of that, paraphrasing slightly. And it was like, I’m almost glad that they said that in a way because I think that really shows how much we want things to be amazing or terrible, this or that…

Jessica: Yes.

Becca: …and it’s like actually in life there is so much more nuance than that! So, I’m just really glad that you’re saying that came across a lot in both the book and in the way it was narrated as well. So that is great, yeah.

Jessica: Do you listen to audiobooks yourself?

Becca: Yes, I do, yeah.

Jessica: Ah!

Becca: Some of my favourites, I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, fantasy author.

Jessica: Oh yeah!

Becca: Yeah, and I love hearing him read his own books because his voice, to me, is just so incredibly soothing! [Jessica chuckles] Yeah, so I’d say some of Neil Gaiman’s books are my favourite audiobooks…

Jessica: That’s quite rare as well, isn’t it, for an author to read their own fiction books? You’d find that more often in nonfiction but with fiction…

Becca: Yeah.

Jessica: …it’s quite rare to have the author narrate.

Becca: Yes, you’re right, and I think there’s just so much magic to Neil Gaiman’s writing anyway, but the way he reads is so soothing. And what’s strange is I’m not the kind of person who will tend to physically read books again and again but I can listen to the audiobook of, well, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, I can listen to that a lot.

Jessica: Ah, yeah.

Becca: Yeah, and then in terms of nonfiction, I’m listening to Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making It So, and that’s really great, and again, he’s reading it and it’s about his life and that is… Yeah, I mean I’m a huge fan of him, so that’s very lovely to be listening to him talk about his life, yeah.

Jessica: Yeah, I mean, it strikes me as well, maybe because a lot of my reading is actually on my phone [Becca: Mmm.] and so where reading for a lot of people is a way to get away from screens, it actually, kind of, reinforces screentime for me, so audiobooks can be a really good way for me to…

Becca: Yes.

Jessica: …put the phone down and…

Becca: Yeah.

Jessica: …get away from the screen but still scratch that itch to have stories told to me and…

Becca: Yes, me too, yeah.

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: I love that about audiobooks, yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I suppose I’d ask you if you have any recommendations for further resources once people have read the book. Are there particular apps or websites that you would recommend? I love that I’m, like, asking you to recommend technology too for…! [Laughter] Perhaps books!

Becca: So, the things I’d recommend… I mention it quite a few times in the book, but the Waking Up app is a meditation app that I really like…

Jessica: Okay.

Becca: …and it’s, what’s the word, it’s nonsecular [sic] so it doesn’t feel very rooted in a particular kind of religion or spirituality, it’s just very simple and easy to follow, and I really recommend that maybe for people who’ve tried meditating before. If you’re a complete beginner, Headspace is amazing. I know a lot of people use that already but, yeah, I’m like a very big, kind of, proponent of meditation.  

Jessica: Yeah.

Becca: I really like the book Hello World by Hannah Fry. [Jessica: Hm] That goes into quite a lot of the AI and algorithm stuff in my book in much more depth and I think it puts in a way that makes some really technical and complex things quite accessible and easy to understand. There are a lot of really, really good examples in there, so I’d really recommend that. What else? There’s a book called Irresistible by Adam Alter that is very good, again, for, kind of… Imagine maybe the concentration and focus and addiction chapters of my book but, again, in much more depth. So, it’s almost like if you want further reading in that respect, go and read Irresistible by Adam Alter. That has a lot of examples of the ways that social media and tech is designed to be irresistible, so that’s why it’s called Irresistible!

Jessica: Yeah!

Becca: They’re the main things that come to mind.

Jessica: Wonderful. Well, Becca, thank you so much for your time and thanks for sharing all of these tips and tricks and wisdom that you’ve gathered from your research, I really appreciate it. 

Becca: Yeah, no problem. I’m really glad that some of it has helped you on your journey as well!

Jessica: Yeah, me too!

[Music starts]

[To listeners] Thank you for listening. You can find more on Becca Caddy on her website beccacaddy.com. Screen Time is available at bookshops and libraries, and the audiobook, narrated by Julie Maisey, is available in the Listening Books collection. I’ll be back next month with Louise Hare, author of The Canary Club Mysteries, which I highly recommend for fans of Agatha Christie or really anyone who likes a bit of glamour with their cosy crime. We’ll be talking about the second book in the series, Harlem After Midnight, I hope you’ll join me again for that.

This podcast is produced by Listening Books, a UK charity that provides an audiobook lending service reaching over 100,000 people with print impairments. It’s simple to join. For more information head to our website www.listening-books.org.uk.

[Music ends]

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Episode One: Author Sierra Godfrey

Jessica: This is the Listening Books podcast. I'm Jessica Stone and today I'm sharing a conversation with Sierra Godfrey, author of A Very Typical Family, a novel that follows main character Natalie Walker as she attempts a reunion with her siblings following their mother's death, and the news that she's left them her historic mansion in Santa Cruz - but only if all three siblings come back to claim it together. Since Natalie is the reason her brother and sister went to prison years earlier, there's just the tiniest bit of family tension to resolve.

Sierra, thank you so much for making time for me today. Most of the story of A Very Typical Family takes place in Santa Cruz, California, and the setting is a really, really vibrant part of the story. It's not just background. I wonder if you could talk a little about what's so special to you about Santa Cruz.

Sierra: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I was born and grew up in Santa Cruz and it's an incredibly special place. It's a seaside town on the California coast. It’s a little bit - not hard to get to, but it's isolated. You have to go over mountains to get to it. Or drive up through, you know, coastal area. And so, it's just this wonderful haven of beach and dramatic coastline of cliffs, and it's a big surfing stop for a lot of surfers, there is an amusement park called The Boardwalk on the Beach, and it's just really magical, very laid back. So, I really wanted to do it justice and tell a story set there, as part of the story. You know, it's almost its own character. I live about an hour from it now. And don't get to get back as much as I want, but I do get to visit a couple times a year and it just always feels like coming home because I think there's that sense of - you know when you're from a place, it's kind of part of who your foundation is. And it always just feels, you know, maybe it's those early memories, but it always just feels like home. And so, I knew that setting a novel there was going to be very special to me. And getting it right was also very special. I relied on a lot of memory, but I also went down to Santa Cruz and really tried to pay attention to the sights and the sounds and the colours and the vibe of people living there.

Jessica: Yeah, I really loved the depictions of the Victorian architecture in the book as well, which is a really prominent part. My husband and I were in Northern California last spring and we didn't make it to Santa Cruz, unfortunately. But some of the places that we were in – that was really striking, these old Victorian houses from this particular era. And they're so colourful.

Sierra: And huge too! Really huge houses. A lot of the Victorians and Queen Anne’s in Santa Cruz are original, you know. There's quite a few. There's whole streets that still have these original, old homes. So, it's really wonderful to see that.

Jessica: Yeah, I like how much this big mansion takes sort of centre stage in your novel as well. That's a really fun part of it for me. But I like - I don't know why I like it when a big house is kind of part of the personality of a book.

Sierra: Yeah there’s so much - I think there's so much possibility with a big house, you know, a house has character too in it. I love the idea of it absorbing the families and the dramas of the people who live in it. And if this were a different kind of book, you know, maybe the house would have been more of a character. Even though - it kind of is. You know, the cat goes missing and definitely is around in the house, hiding. And I think the house does have a lot of secrets to tell.

Jessica: Yeah, between the cat and the lizard and the crickets and the seals, I'm going to just hazard a wild guess that you're an animal person?

Sierra: I am an animal person, yes. I have a lot of animals. I love animals. Yeah, I've got two cats. A dog. We have a turtle. We've got fish. It's a lot, including the children!

Jessica: I enjoyed the bit of comic relief from Penguin the cat, throughout the book.

Sierra: Yeah, and that's what he really was, that real element to provide a little levity and really of comic relief as you said, he was fun. He was a lot of fun.

Jessica: Yeah. So, some of the animals like Penguin were living and some of the animals were dead, like the seals. [Laughs] And it just struck me, the proximity that the characters had to death, because two of the siblings kind of made choices to be quite close and personal with death in their careers, but at the same time their mother's death, which is what kickstarts this whole sequence of events that brings them together, is really far removed from them. They weren't there for the death and it is not - the reality of it isn't very in their faces. I just kind of I wondered, if there was something that you wanted to explore yourself about our relationship with death, or that you wanted the characters to discover about that?

Sierra: Yeah, I think that's right on. I think that our relationship with death is complicated and depending on you know, how we grew up, or, our cultural norms surrounding it, it's a strange thing. And in this story death is a huge theme, as you mentioned, and they definitely - the characters, the siblings, definitely haven't dealt with - probably their father's death, and then their mother's death. I think that if you have a poor relationship with somebody and then they die, there's a lot of unfinished - a lot of unsaid things that can bother people. And Lynn's choice to work in funerary services is maybe her attempt to meet that head on where she's taking care of people who've passed away, and she's their last - you know, if you're working in cremation or, you know, in a funeral home, you're sort of the last person who handles somebody after they've passed away, and that's probably significant for her. It also numbs her a little bit to death, which is very interesting. And for Natalie too, that's the same where she's up close to animals that are no longer living. So, I think that's absolutely it. They all kind of deal with death in their own way and maybe what they do for a living helps on a subconscious level, deal with that more.

Jessica: Yeah…

Sierra: I had a reader ask me, you know - there's this scene where Lynn comes in the house and she's got - she's just covered in some gross things from her work, and I had a reader say, ‘why? Why did you write that scene?’ And I said, ‘well, you know, it's gross. And it was kind of funny because it was gross. But it also you know, it sort of - I wrote it to show that Lynn could be confronted with the actual physical realities of death and be fine with it. But she's not OK with the psychological aspects of it. You know, when it comes to her family. So, it was just kind of a way to show that in another way.

Jessica: Yeah. I want to - just for a brief moment, go back to setting just because I noticed that your second book, The Second Chance Hotel, takes place on a Greek island. Which is, I mean, who doesn't want to go there?

Sierra: Right?

Jessica: How important is the setting when you're first dreaming up a new story? Does it come first and the plot follows, or the other way around? Or are they kind of intertwined from the beginning?

Sierra: That's a really good question. I would have said no, the setting isn't the most important thing to me, but actually that's not true at all. [Laughs] As it turns out, the setting is very foundational to me, and it really matters where I put things, because when I'm writing - I'm seeing it. So yes, it matters where things are set. I definitely, you know, I spent some time in Greece as a kid. And so, I was drawing from those memories too. In subsequent stories I'm working on, I'm definitely setting them in important places that I've been, and I can see, and I've experienced. Some of the settings you know, I want the - I guess the vibe for lack of a better word, you know the architecture, the character, I want that to influence what happens in the story. But not in an overt way. I want it to be a very subtle just, you know, adding texture to what's going on. So yeah, those matter a lot to me. So yeah, I would say yes. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah, I just would like to flag for listeners that your website has some amazing resources - like I noticed your newsletter has some Greek recipes.

Sierra: Yes, I love it when there's extras along with the book! So, I definitely wanted to add those. The Greek recipes that support my second book, The Second Chance Hotel, my mother helped me write and come up with. So those are really fun and you can download little cards of those on my website. And then for A Very Typical Family, I've written a whole bunch of blog posts and you can get those on the website as well, of places around Santa Cruz. Just kind of my own tour of Santa Cruz. For those who aren't familiar. So those were really fun to do too.

Jessica: Yeah, yeah, that's sierragodfrey.com, by the way. I do recommend it. It's a great resource. Now, I want to touch on the audiobook of A Very Typical Family. It was read by Gail Shalan, did you have an active role in the casting and or production of it?

Sierra: Yeah - not in the production. I was able to listen to a few samples of audiobook narrators and they - different companies do it different ways, but they all sort of read a page or two or maybe a chapter and then I got to listen to the samples, and Gail stuck out to me right away. And she was lovely, loved her voice, loved the way that she went into the story. So that was the extent of it. I got to OK it and hear it ahead of time. And then yeah, she went forward and recorded. Yeah, but there wasn't any other input other than that.

Jessica: Did you feel a little nervous about handing it over to somebody? I mean, I don't know if you have sort of fixed ideas about what the characters sound like in your head, but was that kind of a nerve-wracking thing?

Sierra: Yeah, it is. But also it's out of my hands, you know.

Jessica: Yeah.

Sierra: When you traditionally publish a book, there's so many people involved, right? There's your editor. There's your copy editor. There's your line editor. There's the cover designer. There’re all these people who care about it, who are putting it together, you know, there's the production designer who designs the page. There’re all these people interpreting parts of it and then the marketing, right, the marketing campaigns and the PR. So, it's really a whole team and it, you know, it's commodifying art, right? So, then once it's published, the readers get it and they experience it in a totally different way. So yeah, it's out of my hands. I just have to be OK with that.

Jessica: It sounds like by the time you got to the audiobook that you were well practised in relinquishing control.

Sierra: Yeah, I am, but Gail's great and we, you know we still talk on Instagram and she's lovely and I love having that. I love being able to ping and say, ‘hey!’ She's won some awards I think at the Audie Awards, so I’m pleased for her. So, it's great to see her go on and do amazing things.

Jessica: Ah, that's fantastic. Yeah, that is great to hear. The main character of A Very Typical Family, Natalie, she discovers that she's been on a career path that she doesn't love, and she finds the courage to follow her true vocation. And I wonder, is that in any way a reflection of your own experience? Since I know you've worn many hats besides novelist.

Sierra: A little bit. I've been a career technical writer for a long, long time and I really enjoy. But I've also taken side journeys to do other things and just try things out. But I'm always coming back to technical writing for a day job so, and, you know, writing in general. So that's been great. But I think there's a lot of things I would have loved to do if I had the time or the training and technical illustration is definitely one of them. I find it to be a fascinating field. It's probably a field that is a little small because you know, you can do a lot of illustration digitally. But the people who do it by hand are just astonishingly talented, and I love seeing that kind of work. And yeah, let's see what else - I would have loved to learn how to DJ [laughs], love to just try a whole bunch of different things that won't happen! But yeah, I think that Natalie was - I wanted to show that, you know, you can train for a long time and be in a job - I think a lot of people are in jobs for a long time. But they're there out of inertia, right? They just don't move on because they've put in the time and they're kind of riding it out, but they would love to do something else, but loving to do something else is hard. You have to train again and start from the bottom again, and that's a lot to ask. So, I don't know that it happens a lot for people, but I love it. I love hearing about it when it does.

Jessica: I hope you're enjoying this conversation with Sierra Godfrey. Next up, Sierra has some great reading recommendations for us, but first, a quick word from Listening Books patron Stephen Fry.

Stephen Fry: Hello, I'm here to tell you about the wonderful audiobook charity, Listening Books. If you, or someone you know, finds that your illness, disability, learning difficulty, or mental health condition impacts on your ability to read the written word or to hold the book, then Listening Books could be for you.

They have over 10,000 audiobooks in the collection, from fantastic fiction to fascinating non-fiction, compelling autobiographies, and best-selling novels. You can find books for children and adults alike, with titles read by the most brilliant narrators, including me, Stephen Fry. A whole year's access to Listening Books costs just £20, with completely free memberships available if you find this fee a barrier to joining the service. So go on, visit their website and join today at www.listening-books.org.uk/pod. Oh, do let them know that I sent you their way.

Jessica: I was reading again on the wonderful website that you've got, I was reading about some of the writers that you admire and I noted, I guess because I'm in Ireland myself, but I noted that Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes are some of the authors that you really admire. And I wondered if you might just say a little about what it is that you love about their storytelling?

Sierra: Well, Maeve Binchy, I've read since I was a younger teenager and she's sadly passed away now, but she really wrote these epic stories about family and love, and I mean her books were really, you know, thick, wonderful long ones. And oh, and Rosamund Pilcher too. She's not Irish, but she also wrote along those sort of, epic lines. And just, I don't know, there was something about - you can read those books at any age of your life and find a whole new thing to pull out of them. And I have. I've read them at different stages of my life. Just to revisit and see what I relate to differently, but I don't know what it is exactly. Maeve is so, just comforting in the way that her storytelling is, and in the way that she writes friendships and people figuring things out. And that was definitely - I loved it. Just really a comfort read always. And Marian Keyes is hilarious. The funniest, the funniest writer. I've read everything she's written and still do. And she's just great. She's, you know, I think a lot of people refer to her as one of the early Chicklit writers, when that was still a term being used, and that's both true and not true. And anyway, she I think probably taught me a lot about humour…

Jessica: Yeah.

Sierra: … and really difficult, complicated families or personal circumstances. She does that really well.

Jessica: Yeah, I have this memory of reading one of her books and I was on a plane and I was just cracking up laughing, like trying and trying not to disturb any of my seat mates, but just she was cracking me up.

Sierra: Yeah, here's how good her books are. I actually remember where I was when I discovered her. I was working for a company that I had to do a trade show for, and I was passing through Houston, Texas, and I was leaving and there was an airport bookshop. And of course, I'm drawn to any bookshop. Anywhere. So, I went in and that was my happy place, and it was actually quite a large bookshop. And they had a whole row of her books. And I said, ‘that's really interesting this author has a lot of books!’ So, I picked one off the shelf and I read the back and I went, ‘sounds great!’ I picked the next one of hers off and I went, ‘that sounds great too!’ I think there were like four books there and I'm like, ‘all of them! This sounds really wonderful!’ And then I read the first page, I think it was of her book Watermelon, her first book, and I went, ‘done. This is everything I want to read.’ I bought them all and just read them all on the plane.

Jessica: I love when that happens. My airport bookshop recollection is looking at a row of books and if it wasn't Marion Keyes it was recommended by her, like it was endorsed by her. I mean, the way airport bookshops rely on her!

Sierra: Yeah, it's a sure sale. And if you said it was recommended by her, fine, I'd buy that too, anything!

Jessica: Yeah, exactly. Just when we were talking about Marian Keyes and Maeve Binchy, I was just thinking that one of the things I think your book has in common with theirs, is a really appreciation for female friendships. That's elevated, and you show some really good examples of what you don't want in a romantic relationship. I mean, red flags all over, Paul! But, I like that the two main friends, the one in Boston and the one in in California - you don't paint one of them as the bad one or the false one or whatever, these are two important friendships and the way that they support her throughout the book is a really lovely thing to watch.

Sierra: Yeah, I think you know, the urge to pit women against each other is never a wonderful thing to see. And we have friendships in our lives that serve purposes at some parts in our lives more than others. And I think that her friendship with Teensy wanted to show that was really important to her after she left California, to begin with Teensy was her found family. Took her in and gave her what she needed to sort of move on. Then you know, now Natalie's in the next phase of her life, where she's moving on again - and Teensy’s still going to always be a good friend but maybe the, you know, intensity of the friendship is a little less. And that's OK because our friendships change as we age and we do different things, and you know, get married or have families and different people come in our lives and are there at the moment. I think friendships come at the right time of your life for the right reasons, and it doesn't mean that they're that when they're not playing a more prominent role, that they're not as good friends. It's just, you know, people support us in different ways when we need it. And it's nice to see that.

Jessica: Yeah. With that, we know you love Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes. I wonder if there is something that you could recommend? The last thing you read that you would wholeheartedly recommend?

Sierra: Oh, you've caught me off guard with that! I read a lot. I love reading. If I'm not writing, I'm reading and I track it pretty excessively! I'm just looking at the last few books I've read - I don't know! I really liked this book of The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young. That was a recent read, and I really enjoyed that. I think people will like that one a lot. Oh, here's a really good one. Clover Hendry’s Day Off by Beth Morrey. Loved it! That's a fantastic one. It's hilarious. That's a really good one.

Jessica: Wonderful! How do you track your reading?

Sierra: I use Goodreads to just track what I'm reading because I like their statistics, that you can set a goal for yourself, for reading for a year, and I like to see how many books I've read per month and per year, and then I really like it when I meet the goal and then surpass it! I guess I just really like that. And then I also track them in a paper planner. I print little stickers of the book covers and track them! I'm really, really silly about it, but it brings me a lot of pleasure!

Jessica: You print out little stickers of the book covers? That's adorable!

Sierra: It's fun because then I can look at it at a glance. I know it's really nerdy, but it's really fun too.

Jessica: Like that's its own separate hobby. Like there's the reading, and then there's the tracking of the reading.

Sierra: Exactly. Yeah. But it's so fun because, like I said, I read a lot and I read fast. So, I'll read a book maybe every two days. And it's like, oh, I get to, you know, print little stickers and then I’m done with that one! You can put it in there. It's really silly.

Jessica: I don't know about you -  I find, and I don't track mine in any rigorous way, I just sort of write down a title in the back of my diary when I've completed one, but I find like the first quarter of the year, I'm like flying through books and then there's some part of the year, and I think it's usually probably in the summer, where I hit a wall. I don't know. There's like this real lag and I lose - like, I'd have been getting really excited, like, ‘oh, if I keep this up, I'm going to have read so many books by the end of the year!’ And then I don't know what happens. Like the break hits.

Sierra: Yeah, I think we get busy and we go out and do stuff.

Jessica: Yeah, live our lives!

Sierra: Yeah exactly. We're out, out and about! I don't know last year I had a goal of reading 50 books a year, which would have been the most I've ever read in a year. But I surpassed it. I think I read like 120, I don't even know how! I just went on this kick, my speed sped up and I had a lot to get through. I had so many good books and I just tore through them so, I'm on track to break that again. So, I'm really excited!

Jessica: Yeah, are a lot of the books you're reading now for endorsements? Are publishers looking for you to endorse other people's work now?

Sierra: Some. That's so fun, that is just such a privilege and a pleasure to be able to do that. I love it, but others are, you know, just friends’ books, peer books, books that are coming out that I know of that I'm so excited about. So yeah, there's a lot of that.

Jessica: Yeah.

Sierra: I read a lot through Libby, the library app.

Jessica: We love Libby.

Sierra: Yeah. Yeah, Libby's so good. So, I do a lot of reading through there too. And what I love is putting things on hold. And then, you know, it'll be like an eight or nine week hold. And that's fine because I've got so much to read in between and then it will come up. Like, ‘oh, great. Now it's ready! And it just fits right in.’ The worst is when you know, three or four come ready at once and then you're like, ‘ok well, I can't talk to anybody I've got three or four Libby books to read!

Jessica: Yeah, sometimes the timing just…

Sierra: …always at once.

Jessica: Yes, always at once. First, there's like nothing available that I've got on my list, and then everything's available at once.

Sierra: Yeah. And I think that they should give awards for returning the Libby books early!

Jessica: You should get something, yeah.

Sierra: Yeah, like a sticker or something.

Jessica: Yeah, they should have like a point system or something where you get, like, I don't know, for those of us who appreciate stickers, we need, we need our little star.

Sierra: Right. Master Returner of Earliness.

Jessica: Ok. Very last question. I wanted to ask you, if you are working on something at the moment and if you'd like to say anything about it?

Sierra: I am working on something at the moment, and I can't say anything about it. I love it. It's really fun, and it's almost done and I'm almost ready to send it off to my agent and we'll see what happens. Yeah, it's definitely got a strong romantic element in it and…

Jessica: Oh, that's exciting.

Sierra: I will say this, it starts off in Madrid, so…

Jessica: I was just about to ask, can you tell us the setting? It starts off in Madrid. Wonderful.

Sierra: Yeah. I'm really, really enjoying working on it.

Jessica: Oh, that's great. Thank you so much, Sierra. It has been a delight to talk to you!

Sierra: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jessica: And thank you for listening. A Very Typical Family is available in libraries and shops and also in our Listening Books collection. We'll be back next month with Becca Caddy, author of Screen Time: How to make peace with your devices and find your techquilibrium.

This podcast is produced by Listening Books, a UK charity that provides an audio book lending service, reaching over 100,000 people with print impairments. It's simple to join, for more information head to our website www.listening- books.org.uk.