Hi, and welcome to a CUBE Conversation with Wikibon. I'm Peter Burris, the Chief Research Officer of Wikibon, and our goal with these CUBE Conversations is to try to bring you some of the finest minds in the technology industry to talk about some of the most pressing problems facing digital businesses as they transform in an increasingly chaotic world. We're very lucky today to have a couple of great thinkers, both from IBM. Ed Walsh is the General Manager of Storage at IBM, and Eric Herzog is the one's product management for the storage group at IBM. Welcome to the CUBE Conversation today. It's always nice, thank you for having us. So guys, you've been running around Silicon Valley today telling your story. We got a couple of questions. Wikibon likes to talk about the relationship between data and digital business. A lot of people will wonder what digital business is. We say that the difference between digital business and business is how do you use your data assets? Now, that's a stance that's, I think, becoming a little bit more vogue in the marketplace today, but that means that storage has a slightly different role to play when we think about how we protect, secure, sustain those data assets. Do you subscribe to this? Is that how you're looking at it, and is that relevant to the conversations you're having with customers? I haven't heard it that way, but it actually makes a lot of sense, and you can jump in as well, Eric, but I would say however you look at your data, if a digital business is leveraging their data, it makes a lot of sense. We use different, I would say metaphors. One would be your data assets are kind of your oil, he who refines it gets value, so if you get insights from it. So if you're not using that, you're kind of putting yourself at disadvantage. We also see a lot of what I'll say is established companies getting disrupted by, true disruptors using their technology and insights of data to disrupt incumbency. We'll call the Uber of my business, almost like a verb these days. It's disrupting me. They're using technology against me, so the key thing, the best defense is actually using technology, getting insights, and then driving new business. But data alone, you need the right infrastructure, either on-prem or in the cloud, and put the right analytics and insight to it. So I would agree completely, and I would also say, think about it, 80% of data is behind your data, it's not searchable by the web, it's how to leverage your data assets in combination with other things to get true insights. Outside data, different things on AI, and really get true insights and then map them into your business. So I would agree with that, I haven't heard that way, but I would agree with that said, good definition of a digital business. Well, what we're seeing is, for companies that are really leveraging the data, it's their lifeblood. And the issue is, data is not small anymore. It's oceans of data, whether that be things from the internet of things, grabbing things, for example, all the telcos have sensors all over, all of their assets, and they're trying to keep the telco up and going.  Small companies have reams and reams of data, it's an ocean. And if they're not mining that ocean, if they're not swimming through that ocean correctly, the next thing you know, the competitor disrupts them. And that is their power, is the ability to harness these oceans of data and use that data in a way that allows them to get competitive advantage. So people think of storage as just a way to sort of place your data, but storage can be an active part of how you increase the value of that data and gain insights, as Ed was pointing out. Well, I think we totally agree with you, by the way. I think it's an important point. In fact, the observation that we've made is the difference between data as fuel, or the reason why that sometimes falls down, although I understand it, and I think it's a decent enough metaphor, is that, unlike fuel, data can be reused multiple times. And it makes the whole point that you're bringing up, Eric, about the idea that you combine insights from a lot of different places with your data, and storage has to play an active role in that process. But it also says something about the idea of storage as kind of something that you put over there at standalone. I mean, it used to be, we worried about systems integration a lot. Open systems kind of changed that. We just presumed that it was all going to come together. IBM's been around for a long time and has lived in both worlds. What do you think the role of systems integration is going to be as we think about storage, the need to do a better job of protecting and sustaining our data assets, especially given the speed and uncertainty with which the world's changing and the dependence it has on data these days. You want to take that first? Well, let me give you a real time example. One of the things IBM just introduced last week was a very powerful new mainframe. One of the key tenants of that mainframe is the ability to secure data end to end from the day the transaction starts with no impact. So while they are doing transactions, millions and billions of transactions on the server farm, it's encrypted from day one. But it eventually ends up on storage. That storage has to extend that encryption so that when you put the data at rest, while you're analyzing the data, you've got it encrypted. When you're putting it at rest, it's encrypted. When you pull it back, because you run analytics multiple times the data is encrypted, eventually certain data sets that take finance, healthcare does end up on archive. Well, guess what? It still needs to be encrypted. So that's an example of how the complete systems integration from the server through to primary storage through the archive is just one example of how storage plays a critical role in extending everything across this entire matrix of systems integration, not just one point thing, but across an integrated solution. And of course, in this case, it's secure transactions, it's analysis of incredible amounts of insight. And of course, where the IBM Z mainframe is incredible power and speed, yet at the same time keeping that data safe while it's doing all the analytics. So that's a very strong story. But that's just one example of how storage plays a critical role in this complete integration of data with a full systems infrastructure. And maybe I could add to that. So that's a good example of on-prem that also can host in the cloud. But if you think of system integration, your data is critical, you need access to it to actually do the analytic workload, the cognitive workloads on top of it. It can be on-prem or in the cloud or actually split between. So you do need, now you're relying on your cloud infrastructure to give you that enterprise class, not only performance, but availability. But it also matters, but it's no longer you as an individual company put that together. But it doesn't matter. The infrastructure doesn't matter how to get that performance. Also you mentioned security and protection, which is where IBM's cloud comes in. Well it's interesting to us that a lot, it's almost natural to expect that the public cloud companies are going to do deep integration. And they're talking about going all the way down to FPGAs. As long as they are able to handle or provide a set of interfaces that are natural and reasonable from an overall workload standpoint. I would expect that we'd see the same type of thing happen in a lot of different on-premise systems too. So the notion of integration, I think you guys agree, is an important trend where it's appropriate and where it's adding value and it should not be discounted just because it doesn't comply with some set of, some definition of open this, that, or the other thing as it has in the past. I'll agree too. It's an end-to-end system, especially when you look at availability performance, which you're talking about your asset being your data and getting insights. If it's just sitting there, it's not very valuable. In fact, you could say it's actually an exposure, but if you're leveraging it, getting insights and driving your business, it's very valuable, right? So you just need to make sure that infrastructure you have, either hybrid cloud or in the cloud allows you to do that, right? But security is becoming more and more a big issue. So I would agree. Well, race is the next question. So again, as long as we're focused on the data and the answer and not the underlying hardware as the asset, then I think we're in good shape. But it does raise the next question. As we think about converged infrastructure and hyper-converged infrastructure and storage, compute, network, and other elements coming together successfully, what will be the role of storage in the future? I mean, storage is not just that thing that sits over there with the data on it. It is playing a much more active role in encryption, in compression, in deduplication, in how it prepares data to be used by any number of different applications. What, how do you foresee the role of storage evolving over the next few years? Sure, I can jump in. You want to take a shot? Well, yeah, so I think one of the key things you've got to realize is the role of storage is to sort of offload some things from the primary CPU. So for example, if you've got a notions of data, what if we could track all that metadata for you? So when the system or the cloud looked for data, it could search everything, whether that was 20 million lung cancer pictures, whether that be MRI, whether that be the old-style X-ray, go back 20 years. If all that metadata is attached, then the CPU from a server perspective to run the analytics workloads is offloaded and the storage is performing a valuable function of tracking all that metadata so that when the server does its analytics and then has to reiterate several times, for example, Watson, IBM Watson, is a very intuitive element that analyzes, learns, analyzes, learns, analyzes, and it keeps going to get, and it's used as an oncology, Watson's used in financial services, and so if you could offload that metadata now to the storage where it's actually acting almost as if it's a sub-compute element and handling that offloading the CPU, then more time is spent with Watson looking at the financial data, looking at that medical data, and storage can become a very valuable resource in this future world of this intense data analytics, the machine learning, the artificial intelligence that systems are going to provide on-premises through a cloud infrastructure storage. That's just one example. How storage, as an intelligent storage vehicle, is offloading things from the CPU or from the cloud onto the storage and helping it become more productive and the data be more valuable that much faster. I would agree, and I think storage has always been evolving, right? So there's, storage has gravity, has value. If you think of storage as where you store data, it's going to change architecturally. You mentioned hyperconverge, you mentioned converse, you mentioned cloud, we talked about what we can do in the mainframe. It's all about how do you get the right accessibility and performance, but it will change, it will change rather dramatically. Just think of what's going to go on with, we'll say the traditional modernizing traditional workloads, what you do with VMware, and the arrays are getting much more complex. You can also do a software-defined arrays, which allows you to have just more flexibility in deployments, but in the new workloads, where you're looking at high-performance data analytics or doing things that you can actually expand out and leverage to cloud, that becomes much more of a software-only play. It's still storage. The bits and bytes might be on, it's going to be typically on flash, in my opinion, both on-prem or off-prem, but how do you move that data? How do you keep accessibility? How does you cure that data? How do you make sure you have it in the right place where you can actually get the right performance? And that's where storage is always going to evolve. So it doesn't matter if it's in this array, it's in a file system, in what we'll call a big storage array, or it's in the cloud, it's about how do you monitor and manage that through its full lifecycle. So it sounds like you're suggesting, and again, I think we agree, is that storage used to be the place where you put stuff, and it's becoming increasingly where you run data-related services, whether it's services associated with security, or prepping data, or protecting data, or moving data as effectively as possible. Increasingly, the storage resources are becoming the mechanism by which we are handling these strategic data services, is that right? Yeah, so think of it this way. In the old model, storage is so much passive, it's a place where you store the data. In the new world model, storage is actually active. It's active in moving the data and helping analyze the data, like for example, in that metadata example I just gave. So storage is not a passive device anymore, storage is an active element of the entire analytic machine learning artificial intelligence process, so you can get real insights. If you just relied on the CPU to do that, not going to happen. So the storage is now an active participant in this end-to-end solution that extends from on-premise into the cloud, as you guys have called it, the true private cloud, from Wikibon, the storage is active in that, versus being just a passive tool. Now it's very active, and the intelligence, and some of the things we've done with cognitive storage at the IBM site, allows the data, like our spectrum scale product, which is heavily involved in giant, hundreds of petabyte analytic workloads today, in production in major enterprises across the globe, as well as in high-performance compute environments, extending from on-premise out to cloud, but that storage is active, not passive as it was in the old days. So you mentioned cloud, so we're pretty strong believers in this notion of true private cloud, which is the idea that instead of thinking ultimately about in the industry that the architecture is going to move all the data to the cloud, that increasingly it's going to be moved cloud services down to the data and do things differently. And that seems to be picked, people seem to be, that seems to be resonating with folks. The question that I have then is, when we think about that, I've had, where's the data going to be located? It's going to have a major effect on where the workloads actually run. I've had three conversations with three different CIOs in the last six weeks, and they all said, I'm thinking differently. And instead of thinking about moving data up to the cloud, I'm now thinking about, how do I ensure that I always have control over my data, even if it's running in the cloud, because I'm afraid that if I move everything to the cloud, when I do have to bring it back, it's going to be such a huge capital expense that everybody's going to say no, and I can't do it. So it's almost like, maybe I'll do some stuff in the cloud, but I'll do backup, restore, or have protection on site. What do you think the role of storage is going to be as we think about multi-cloud and being able to do end-to-end, developing and putting various applications in various places? So you brought up a couple of topics there, right? So your concept and your research on true private cloud, actually, I find resonates amazingly well with clients. In fact, a lot of clients are trying to figure out a leveraged cloud, but they have a lot of data on premises and they want to leverage that. So the way I explain to clients, everyone wants to do everything they can do in the public cloud, all the agility, all the consumption models, all the DevOps models, and they just want to do the on-premises. So it's really an agility statement, but then extend to have the right workloads working the right hybrid cloud on their demand. But that brings a whole bunch of things. So the best use case I'll use, and then I'll get into the multi-cloud, but the one use case that all these companies, why did you end up going to Amazon or whatnot? And then it really gets down to developers. Developers were able to swipe or credit card, whatever, put their credentials in, swipe or credit card, do one line of code, spin up an environment, one line of code, spin down an environment, or they'd be a chef and puppet, and that would do the API calls, but they're able to do things very quickly. Try that in the enterprise. I mean, literally, they would have to go do a ticket, talk to Joe IT, which they don't want to do, it takes a lot of time, and it takes best case, about a week, four to five days, on worst case, up to three weeks to provision that environment. If you're doing agile development, it literally breaks the process of doing anything agile. So you're not going to do it.  So what we're doing is we're doing investments on-prem to do exactly, bring the agility. For example, the idea of swipe or credit card, we have a process, excuse me, a software product across as an API automation layer across all of our storage that gives you the last mile. How do you literally give API templates to your developers that they can literally, one line of code, spin it up, one line of code, spin it down, and it works across all our storage devices. But it took investment in another layer of API automation that the storage team sets up templates and able to, hey, gold, silver, bronze, provisioning your own storage, but in an enterprise way, or like a developer or an Oracle DBA, hey, spin up an environment free for test dev. But what we're able to do is a simple line of code to spin up a system, which should be, let's say four or five servers, last good snapshot from production that's been data-masked the way you need to do it, because you just don't give developers a whole database. But then literally that becomes a template that with role-based access, again, credentials, the developer or shuffer puppet natively can literally one line of code, spin up an environment and one line of code, spin it down. The benefit is on-premises you actually have your data. So unlike in Amazon, you're spinning things up, spinning things down, but it's not really running on what your production data looks like. You're literally able to keep that up to last night's data or the weekend before, but again, with all the data masking. But you can literally show, so our investment thesis is, we need to work on the next level of automation to allow people to truly do everything they can do in the public cloud on private, and we're making a lot of investments to do that. So it's actually one of our biggest investment thesis, and it really plays out well as far as clientele. You mentioned the next thing, and you can jump in on both of these, but you also mentioned the next thing is, well now, true private cloud allows you to easily extend to these different clouds. Well, then how do you keep track of where that is? How do you have, each one of the different clouds will have their own SLAs, but how do you manage it? How do you think through security? How do you know you're getting the right SLAs, and where do you put the right things for the right places? And one, there's management stacks that do that with software-defined storage, which all our products, all you do, we can run an extension of your device in any of the major public clouds and manage that securely. I can add a couple more, but do you want to jump in? Yeah, I think the key thing here is you've got to be able, in a true private cloud, the enterprise is mimicking what an Amazon or an IBM cloud division does, right? Except they're doing it in their own walls, on their own premises. Now that may be spread across the world if it's a global enterprise, but it's, if you will, it's their version of IBM cloud, but they want to be able to burst out. So all of our software-defined storage and even our array storage is designed so that if they need to move data from on-premise to IBM cloud, from on-premise to Azure, from on-premise to Amazon, they can transparently move that data. In fact, we can set up where they can automatically tier the data. When the data gets cold, boom, they dump it off to IBM cloud. That way the data that's in the private cloud, on-premises, if you will, but a private cloud that they configure is there for them to use and they take their access out for those, and by the way, talking to the chief security officer and the chief legal officer, they figure out what workloads is it okay to put out there at IBM cloud? And that way they have total control, but they have the flexibility of going out to the cloud, all done with the storage in an automated fashion. I think the key thing from a true private cloud perspective is storage as well as network and server infrastructure. They want it to be as automated as possible. They had the big town turn of 2008, yes, IT spend is back up, headcount is back up, but when you look inside the envelope of headcount, there aren't 40 storage guys at XYZ Global Enterprise. There's 20. They are now hired 40 people, right? So they got 40 people back, but the other 20 went to test and dev. They are not doing storage now. So those 20 guys need to be fully automated to support all these extra developers in a global enterprise and even small accounts now need that. So the true private cloud mimics IBM cloud, mimics Azure, mimics Amazon, and all those public cloud providers will tell you, they make their business by making sure it's automated, otherwise they won't make any money. So the private cloud does the same thing. And those 20 guys are now, as you said earlier, managing oceans of data where the business has no specific visibility and now that day is going to create value in the future. It's an extremely complex arena. So with that in mind, you guys have been invited to speak to the board of directors of one of the large enterprise clients about the value that storage will play in a digital business. What are some of the things that you tell them? So let me take that one first. So I think a couple of things. First of all, storage is not passive the way it used to be. You need to think of it as an active element in your cloud strategy to keep your data whole, to keep your data secure. And most importantly, to make sure your data offers value. So for example, you need to use all flash. Why? Well, because it needs to be instantaneous. It needs to connect right into that CPU as fast as possible to suck the data in so you can analyze it. And the guy who analyzed the data faster, for example, in dark trading and financials, if you're slower, you lose $10 million or $100 million. So storage is critical in that. So you want to A, let the board of directors know that storage is a critical component because it's not just passing it. Like we said before, it's active. So storage is an intelligence, not dumb. And people view storage historically as dumb. So storage is active, storage is intelligent. Storage is a critical element of your infrastructure, both in your private cloud, but also for what you do to cut costs when you do go to public cloud for certain workloads. And so you need to view storage as a more holistic part of how you handle your data, how you harvest the value of the oceans. Okay, if you're going to be fishing, you better make sure you get a lot of fish if you're going to feed the populace. And the more you do, I think of course you got to be able to protect it and you want to be able to secure everything.  So the board of directors need to see as data is your lifeblood, data is your gold. You have to mine that data and storage helps you do that. It's not just a place you stick it. It's not a vault to stick the gold in later. It's helping you mine the gold, refine the gold, get the value out of that gold. How do you do 24 carat versus 18 versus 14? What do you charge for that? Storage can actually help you do all that analysis because it's an active element. What would you say? I agree with everything you said. And I'll actually play it back to how you started this conversation, which is the digital business is he who uses his data. So I probably start there and I used a classic metaphor of your data is oil and he who refines it gets a value of it. And I agree it's not perfect metaphor, but it's really about getting insight and leveraging the insight. And that does translate to a couple of things. So it does matter that you have a secure, but also matters you have the right performance, either on premises or in the cloud and get the right insights. Typically the right insights is leveraging the data behind your firewall, which is your proprietary data, which is 80% of data in the world is just not available to a public search engine. It's behind the firewall. And by the way, when you're looking at your business, you might want to combine it with different things like we talked a lot about our Watson ability to, you know, let's say you're in healthcare and you can bring in oncology. So Watson oncology can help you with your data or the weather channel. We can bring in weather into a lot of different applications. So you want to leverage other data sets that are publicly available, but also your private data centers and get unique insights to it. And you want to work with someone that those insights are actually yours, which is really where IBM differentiates the cloud from everything else. So you want to bring in AI or cognitive, but we actually have cognitive based upon industry. We've actually trained, the thing between a cognitive and AI is actually that train cognitive actually has to learn. But once it learns is able to give you very interesting, you know, insights to your data. We do it by industry, which is a very compelling way to do a data. And the other thing is you want to protect your data either on-prem, it's not only protection as far as if you have a failure, come back up and running. So recovery, resiliency, but as much also insecurity. So you need to secure it throughout. And then the other thing I kind of highlight is more compliance and everyone doesn't want to talk about compliance, but the price of compliance is nothing compared to the price of if you get audited or you're, and you have to get compliance back and prove that. Just do it right from day one and you need to be looking data that you're doing on-premises or in the cloud, especially multi-cloud, you need to keep compliance and ownership of the data because it's a highly regulated environment and you're seeing new things coming out in Europe. You really need to be on top of it because the cost of that compliance, it might seem, geez, that seems like a lot, but it's nothing compared to if you, after a lawsuit or something, you have to come back from it. That's what I normally would talk to a board about. So had you been back at IBM or at IBM now for a while, it's about a year, you're by five quarters or so, something like that? Four quarters. Four quarters. And you've had a chance to look at the assets that IBM has, IBM's obviously being a leader and the tech industry's going to remain so for a long time. But what will IBM be as a leader in the storage industry? What does leadership mean to IBM? It's kind of the one IBM-specific question I'm asking. So I think it's important. What is IBM leadership going to be in storage? So I think, and maybe it comes to the hypothesis of why it came to IBM. You know, to be honest, I think IBM helps people get from where they are to where they want to get to and helps them do that in what I'll say is risk-reduced steps. But very few companies have the breadth of portfolio or capabilities like what we have in cloud and cognitive than IBM. I also think storage, as an industry, is going through a major change. It might be the next era is about data, but as far as the storage industry, it's in a lot of changes. So I think it's a, I use the term big boy game because it's not about doing the next array, which we do, it's as much applying the right analytics and understanding the true flow of data and the right security to do it effectively. When I looked at kind of IBM, I kind of did four things and I think it does play to where our vision is, right? I actually think it is changing and our clients are being disrupted and they're looking for a partner to help them. And it's not just disruption of technology or consolidation or price pressures, but they're being disrupted by these, the Uber of my business is XYZ is a verb. So I keep on saying that, but clients, every industry are getting disrupted. So if they're hesitant, if they're on their heels, they're not able to lean in on technologies the worst thing you can do. So what they need is a partner that knows and it can have the right vision and capabilities to lean forward and with confidence move forward. IBM has a history of going ear to ear with clients. That's the first thing and we calmly do it and clients trust that we know where to go in. And that's a lot to do with our primary research looking out there. Second thing, I think we have the right vision, the cloud and cognitive vision. No one argues with me. How do you get the insight or your data in that matter? It's your definition of a digital business is right on. He who use their data to their advantage is really a digital business and is an advantage by that. Three, it's broad portfolio. So storage, we have the, you know, broadest portfolio in the industry and you need that because as we help clients it's not helping them with the next storage ray. It's helping them, here's your business and it's different for everyone. Here's where you want to go to as far as your infrastructure and transformation and I help you get there over time. That takes a broad portfolio, not only in storage but also overall the right services, the right software analytics becomes a big thing where the number one company in analytics and that comes to bear for all our clients but also have the right services capability that's going forward. And then I actually think where IBM Storage allows you to lean in is really the biggest thing. We're going to help you simplify so you can lean in with confidence because that's what everyone's looking for, a partner to allow you to get there and very few companies are positioned as well as IBM Storage to do that. And now I know I'm taking credit for a lot of IBM pieces but that's the strength because that's the leverage of using an overall company to help you industry by industry with industry vertical knowledge really help you lean in with confidence so you can grow your business and transform. So let me build on that because at the end of the day your ability to make these kinds of commitments to your customers is a function of your ability to make these commitments to IBM and other IBMers history of keeping the commitments they make to each other. So IBM as a culture, and I've been around for a long time and worked with a lot of clients and these things up and down, good and bad at a product level but you're absolutely right. IBM has a track record of saying here's where we're going if you want to come with us we're going to get you there. And during periods of significant disruption that's not a bad type of partner to have. I'd use the term people kind of say sometimes it's trust. They trust us to get there. I think that trust is well placed. Again, I came from the outside a year ago. We're the last company with primary research, right? So you have to say where's it going? We actually do primary research to, there's a reason we'd be able to go ear to ear as a company for a hundred plus years is because we actually do that and then loud people go ear to ear. I know sometimes IBM downplays it, I actually think it's a strength. But you know, the Watson Research Center in many respects is creating the new errors and has for many years and is doing so today too. It helped clients through those errors without leaving you behind, which is something that's rare. You don't see it, our competitors don't have that. And I think that's a big thing. All right, so I'm going to close it here. Ed Walsh, GM of Storage at IBM, Eric Herzog runs product marketing for the storage group at IBM. I want to thank you very much for being part of this CUBE conversation. As we try to bring the experts that matter and they're going to have a consequential impact on how the industry evolves. Thank you very much for joining us for this Wikibon CUBE conversation. I'm Peter Burris, until we talk again.


So, and welcome to this British Library event notes on the great work of meeting yourself with Yes Daily Ward. My name is Maxime and I'm a live screening producer at the British Library. In this event we'll be delving into Yes's latest book The How, a beautiful mix of poetry and heartfelt advice.  Nikita is a British Indian poet and has written and curated many volumes of poetry including Your Soul is a River, Wild Embers poems of rebellion, fire and beauty, fierce fairy tales and other stories to stir your soul, great goddesses, life lessons from myths and monsters, your heart is the sea and the girl and the goddess. She has been described as one of the most successful insta-poets, sharing her work on social media to over 600,000 followers. Her collection Slam was shortlisted for the Clipper 2021. A few notes on housekeeping before we begin. During the event you may post your questions in the form just below the video. On the web page you can also find links to Bayer's book and give feedback or make a donation to the British Library. This event has speech to text captioning. To activate the captions just press the button within the player video. A huge thank you to you all for joining us tonight and an even bigger thanks to everyone from the Living Knowledge Network, our partnership of national and public libraries. I really hope you enjoy the event. Over to you Nikita. Thank you very much, Maxine. I am absolutely delighted today to be talking to Yesa Daly Wood, who is an English writer, model and actor. She is known for her debut poetry collection Bone, as well as her spoken word poetry, which has always blown my mind. Her memoir The Terrible was published in 2018 and in 2019 it won the Penn Ackerley Prize. She also co-wrote Black is King, Beyoncé's musical film and visual album, because she's awesome. She's also given TED Talks and has changed the world for the better with a COP26 World Leaders Summit. So to briefly introduce The How, which has been so spiritually changing for me. The How notes on the great work of meeting yourself as a splendid collection of essays, verse and wisdom that helps us as readers to connect with our real selves, not the cells that we have grafted in response to our surroundings, or the ones we have greeted to appease others, but instead our most intimate self, the one we visit in dreams, the one that calls to us from a glimmering future. Yesa, thank you so much for being here. And can I just say what a privilege it is to do this with you? Hello, I'm so, so, so happy that it's you that I'm speaking to today. So thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this. This is amazing. Yeah, I'm so delighted truly. And can I just like go right into this, because I just I just this actually really did just blow my mind. You read out the you performed the most beautiful poem at COP26 at the World Leaders Summit. And you opened for David Attenborough. And I would love to know more about that. I've watched that video so many times. So I would love to know more about that poem, the process and how you ended up doing that. Well, they approach me. Thank you. Good question. They approach me and asked me to they wanted the poem commissioned. And it was very, very, very close to the event, actually, which is actually the way I like to work funnily enough. I don't like to have days and days and days. I just like to have this short amount of time to really turn something over in my head. And what is more what's a what's a more pressing thing and a more important thing to discuss in the future of the climate of this this this this place that we we have the privilege to to belong to. And so it wasn't I didn't have to reach very far for that that poem, you know, and I didn't have to reach very far for the lines. It's it's I'm strange, but you'll know this when something means something to you. It's like it's like the lines are already there.  So so that talking about, you know, the hour is now. And this is the time that we have to decide what we're going to do in addressing it to world leaders, the people in whose in hands this this this falls, the people who can do the most, it seems really pertinent. So it was a pleasure to do. And yeah, I was honored to be asked to do that.  I think there were so many of my friends who came up to me and said, Have you seen this beautiful spoken word poem? And I'm like, Hi, biggest fan. Of course, I've seen it. I don't miss I don't miss a thing she she does, like I'm just saying. So I just want to get into in because I think the how ties in very nicely because you talk so much about nature in the how and it ties so well into your into the cop 26 poem that you did. But you know, from the formation of your poetry collection bone, the beautifully written memoir, this the terrible to the how you've always created this really stunning genre defying work. And I was wondering if you could like talk a little bit about your path, you know, as a writer, because there's been a lot of evolution in your work. So I'd love love to hear more about that. Yeah, I think I don't like, first of all, I'm easily bored. And secondly, I don't like to stick to one thing, you know, so much that we I mean, everything that is human is an amalgamation of things, isn't it? You know, so, you know, when we're when we're writing this, the stuff that that leans towards the horror and then the leads leads towards the love and leans towards the poetic.  And it's always a it's nothing that I set out to do. But it appeals to me deeply. I love poetry and prose. And even when I'm writing longer pieces like fiction, there's a poetic energy that's never going to leave me. And also, the other reason why it's so genreless, I think, is because I don't really know what I'm doing when I start writing a book. So I just, you know, it comes out and then I might think, Oh, I like this part written like in the terrible, a lot of it is written in this sort of prose section, and then it will be like in the third person, then it's in the second person, you know, and I don't want to commit to one. So if you can tell it five ways, then I don't see why not. I mean, also, if if it just felt right to just continue, then that's what I would do. But there are so many different moods and, you know, little twists that sort of that find their way to me when I'm writing. So I just go with it. I just go with it and let it let it let it flow. And that's why I think it's genre less, because it, you know, it becomes its own thing. It's like water. And I think that's what makes you such a powerful writer, though, for for me, like as soon as I start reading your work, I'm just it's just I get drawn in and I just get locked inside your thoughts. And it's very hard then to put the book away. So I have to finish it. I was very I was very lucky that I got like, you know, four or five hours with the how because I couldn't put it down. I just couldn't put it down because I was like, my God, it's like she's speaking directly to me. And I think you hear that a lot from people on your social media and stuff. I think people say that a lot to you. It's like, it's like you wrote this for me. You wrote this specifically for me. But I think that's exactly the same with your work as well. You sort of take this, this moment in in time and because, because of your honesty and because you are it's raw. And what I feel like when you're honest, of course, people, people see it and it speaks to them because we're all the same things relatively. So I get that as well from your work, this sense of oh my God. And it's always a sense of I needed to read this at this time in my life. Because these are you very, I mean, spoken very elegantly and written very elegantly. But these are very universal themes that that you deal with and I deal with. So it's like, Oh, I love it. I love it. I love how much of a bridge of connection that using words just gives you, especially if you're like an introvert or something, which I am. So this is my space to like really, like go out into the world and tell the truth in ways that I might not have without sort of being being able to write. And I think you do that like with the how first of all, like, I was about to burst into tears when you said such lovely things about my work. So thank you. I didn't even know that you knew who I was.  So that means a lot to me. So thank you. But then I it's one of the things that I have noticed in the how you you have such and it does come from being introverted. So I'm an introverted. No, I'm an extroverted introvert is what I've been told. So I can do both where I can, you know, have that social battery a little bit.  And then I'm just observing everyone from the outside. And I think you do that so well in the how because you do this thing where you you're in you're in the moment, and you can see how someone is being is perceiving their surroundings and reacting to them. So much of the book is about that is like, how much of ourselves we built out of reacting to our surroundings.  Oh, I haven't heard anyone say that before, but that's that's such a beautiful way of describing it that it's, yeah, it is that it is the lens change and what happens then and and how we relate to ourselves outside of ourselves via everybody else. Like there's so many different camera angles if you if you want, you know, and it's it's really interesting what we have just, you know, in terms of propriety and what we're supposed to do and say and think and and those concerns or deep concerns about how how we will be perceived. I mean, they get in the way of everything. And it was really just sitting there during a pandemic with nowhere to go in my apartment. When all of this stuff, a lot of this stuff just just came out. It was like, well, okay, what do I do if I don't have anyone to impress or, you know, what do I look at my Instagram? Like, what am I going to do? You know, so it's it's yeah, it's it came to me because of those, those sort of meditations. And they come across so beautifully in the book. In fact, can I bother you to do us to do a reading so everyone gets a believer? Yes, yes, yes. And was it the one? Oh, wait, was it the one that is talking about you were more than? Yes. I think it's like page 31. Okay. Yes, yes. All the block capitals. Okay.  This is something really special about reading, listening to your voice, read out your work. I actually have the audiobook of the house well, because I do this thing where I go into full immersion mode where I need to have the audiobook in the book in front of me to really sense. I do that too. I love that. I love that. You create a tunnel of like the authors like voice and the left the left scene, the left. I love that as well. It's really special, isn't it?  And I think like that I was just going to say like it particularly struck me like how in the how that you were you wrote about gratitude, thinking and journaling.  You know, like the idea of gratitude. Because I think a lot of people talk about it, but in that very kind of preachy way. But you you went into it going, I I was like very skeptical on this. And then you talked about why. And I thought that that was such a great way of getting someone into the idea of gratitude. You know, so can I can I ask more about how the practice changed your life? It's oh my God, these practices, I have to live my life by them now. And the reason why I talked about them in that way as well is because even with the skepticism, it doesn't go away.  Like, how can I be full of gratitude when this is like, not, you know, I'm not going to swear, but you know what I mean? Yeah. And and you have to constantly I talk about it in the book, you forget and remember and forget and remember and forget and remember that things work. And I think the cycle is important. I mean, it's not about getting straight A's and A's stars and every day going, I'm so grateful for this and this and this when the, you know, your life is like in flames around you. No, sometimes it's tough. But what I find that these things help is that when you start to stack habits and you start to stack these things that you know work, then on the days when you feel shakier, you don't have to lean into motivation like this because their habits are there.  And and and certainly sometimes you don't get to do it every day and that's fine. But I do notice the positive correlation when I pay attention to things like gratitude, they have to be real things, you know, tangible that I can see, you know, it has to be something I find beautiful. It can't be I can't just be running it off. But it's really important because when I am feeling depressed or, you know, the anxiety starts to have an edge to it. There are definitely things I can hook into that make that are the wire me in a way and help me to just if only for five minutes just connect with something else to shift my vibration a bit because it's just so small incremental vibrational shifts that matter, not trying to like turn the terrible mood into a great mood.  So yeah, I lean hard into my practices, especially now is winter. So yeah, I double down on that. I think like what you just said about anxiety and like having these practices because that's what they say for anxiety, isn't it like you put in patterns or instruments almost like you create a bunch of instruments which for for for me reading the how the practices that you talk about in a way that how is almost like a workbook. Like it's a workbook of of meditations and how to meditate and how to put these things into place because I was reading it and I was like, OK, I'm going to do this today. And like it's something that you've spoken about so concretely. But at the same time, because I was reading Saphos fragments, like those those capital letters bits really feel like fragments like Saphos fragments. There's something very ancient about them as well as modern and I love that it reminded me of something Roman when I was writing it for a start when I was writing it, I was I was fragmented because I was sitting there in the middle of the pandemic speaking, oh my God, what what? And then it was that time when they were saying, oh, maybe in a month, you know, everything all we had and we didn't realize like the breadth of time, but this was going to occupy. And yeah, it was just that the false sort of like promises from the government and everything like that. And yeah, I was just everything was very fragmented. So it came out exactly. I mean, this is this is my brain at the time. And it's a beautiful brain because, well, because, yeah, I've recently gone through a period. Well, I'm starting a period of brief, actually, because I lost someone this morning. And this book, because I've reread it, I've reread it after. And it said something completely different to me on that reread after this experience of losing someone quite suddenly to a painful like it's it's such a painful experience. And reading a book prior to that from in a stable state of mind and then reading the how when you are going through that grief and there's that slight instability inside you, there's something so soothing, especially listening to your voice. And I feel like that's one of the things that your work has done for me repeatedly, with bone, as well as with the terrible and with the how is that it's given me a safe space for my grief, because grief makes you feel so unmoved. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about grief in a way which is like, you know, people tend to shy away from grief or walk away from it or like, they mention it, but they don't go into the depths of it. Like you go into the depths of it. You're like, here, here's the discomfort. Sit with it. Here's the pain. Sit with it. You've done it like repeatedly over the course of your work, but with the how you show us how to sit with it, which is why I think it's the title of the book is amazing, because you keep coming back to that. And I'd like to talk to you about that if you're comfortable about your relationship with grief, because you talk about it's so beautifully, you know. Yeah. I mean, first of all, sorry for your loss. It's, it's, it's such, it's, it is such a time of surprises and, and it's such a levelling time.  It's like, it's so, it's so many-sided. And that's, that's why, I mean, I guess you were right. All three of the books deal with grief. I mean, life is a long grief. It is, it's beautiful, but it's also, it's that, it's an exhale, it's, it's a lot of, it's, it's a lot of stuff rolled into one. And in a way, and we're grieving tiny, tiny ways, I think, most days, but some, we're so used to, and so, so, we've just become, like, so desentitized to some things that are so deeply wounding that we just roll with the punching and then there's grief, there's grief that, that happens and just knocks you off your feet and you're like, what is this? I do like to talk about it because one of the things I know is when, like, especially with like the loss of parents is that people, you don't, you don't get prepared for these things and you don't learn about it in school, which is wild to me, that we learn other things and, and when I say learn about it, yes, like the pain and yes, the, the inevitability, we kind of sweep it and I don't know if that's because we're both sort of brought up in England. And it's maybe another, like, cultural cultures or cultures, it's different, but we don't get those tools. But I'm also talking about as simple as knowing what to do when it happens, knowing what to do practically and what, what it's like to be left with that and left with the responsibility, especially at certain ages and, and nothing prepares you. So I do like to talk about it because I, I naturally mean to what's talking about the things that we don't talk about so much, but I think it should be on curriculums. I really do because it affects everybody. A hundred percent agree. Especially in the, the two years that we've had, our relationship globally with grief has changed so deeply because everyone knows everyone who is affected or passed away or they couldn't say goodbye to or, and collectively what does that do to us as a global community? Right? Like what does that do if we don't know how to process our grief if they're not taught how to do that? Because I find that online we're going to go into like my favorite subject social media. But, but online I find there's a lot of hurt people. A lot of, a lot of hurt people are carrying a lot and they haven't been taught to process it and then they'll come to say your page or my page and they'll see us talking about something like mourning or grief or pain and they'll just, they feel either they feel like they lash out at us for talking about these things or they, they trauma dump and they tell you this the entire like you know the square and the risk triggering not only you but other people who read that and it all comes down to what you just said it's like we haven't been taught how to process grief in a healthy way. So we do these very unhealthy things. Yeah, there's a, there's a lot there, isn't there? Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. And I think that's, that's so right that if we're not taught how what to do with this emotion and it can come out. I mean, it can be a lot of transference.  And then, as you said, the other thing where there's like, I don't want to say overshare because I think sharing is, yeah, will share because they, they need to, they have it on their chest. But if there were ways, if there were ways that more ways more places for people to go, then it wouldn't build up in that way. So I do also understand when, when people like in my DMs, sometimes I'm like, oh my God, this person just told me all of this, but I understand it because I'm like, well, maybe that's the only, I'm the only person that told and there isn't space where they live or maybe it's just not the done thing to talk about it. It's, it's, it's wild. I think we need new ways of expressing ourselves, especially when it comes to these very common universal things like death, is universal as having a baby, is universal as getting married or grief, death, love, pain, like falling in love and then breaking up with some, all of these things are very universal, but also, it's really interesting to me what you just said right now because I think that's a really good way to look at it. When someone DMs you and they give you like this whole kind of like story of this very traumatic thing, which is trauma dumping, but like, like you, I feel a responsibility to that person because I'm like, who else it all comes down to the fact that therapy isn't accessible. You know how on, on, on Twitter, people do this thing where they go, just get therapy. Just get therapy as if it's that easy. Yeah, yeah. As if it's easy.  There's access. There's, whether that person is allowed to go and do it. There's, there's, there's all of those things. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. And it's, and also interesting, we talk about it in the how as well, how we expect everybody to, to sort of get the same knowledge at the same time of different things and different world issues and, and different groups of people. No, that, that, it can't be the case. It just can't be the case. So it's, yeah, I find it, the, the thing, I'm sure we're going to get into social media, but that's why if I'm really interested in about social media, this sort of shaming of, of people who, who, who believe a different thing. And I'm not talking about the, the hugisms, but I'm talking about, like, like smaller things that happen, but it's just so unfair. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, someone makes a mistake, a genuine, honest mistake, and suddenly there's a massive pylon on them and they'll apologize, and that apology isn't good enough. And then they'll apologize again, and that apology, like people just won't let it go.  And, and that, yeah. Yeah, it's, oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah, no, no, you were going to say, I think it's again, people not having a place to put their pain. So this all gets transferred on this, on this situation. Yeah. It, it's really interesting because I find the how really compassionate about that.  And if you don't fit in with exactly the exact knowledge that they have at the time, you're canceled, you're out, you're, you know, forgotten, you're not a part of that community anymore. You can't do that to people, people always looking for a place to belong, right? And that's what you say in the book. Yeah. And everyone doesn't learn at the same time or at the same pace. So it's not something to expect. Definitely it's, we should educate ourselves and that's a responsibility. That's a personal responsibility. And we shouldn't look to harm others. But we, there's also, we need compassion. We need compassion, I think. A lot of compassion. I think that's part of the problem that we're facing today is that the, there's this idea, when you touch upon it in the house, well, there's this, that these very archaic ideas about strength, you know, coldness is strength. And like, you know, not reacting when someone is, someone is hurting you and you don't react that strength. And like, it's very archaic ideas. Some of them are based in religion, I think, but like, and culture and different, like cultural groups of what's expected of them and what it means for them to be strong. Yeah. It's really, it's really like, this is, I think why your work is so empowering to a lot of people because there is that compassion there, you know, that compassion that I feel is slowly going missing. And social media is a culprit in that, but we're going to get into that.  And I don't, I feel quite like, I love the way you use your social media because there was this whole, you do this thing where you show people when you're writing. And I love that. I love that because it's, it's giving people a view into your process, which I think is such an intimate thing and you're welcoming people into that. And I thought that was something so special. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about that, you know, the idea of like welcoming people, showing them as you write. You know what, what I think the kids, I think I was saying to this to you before that, once the work, even the process of it, once it meets the air, it becomes, it's for the reader. So yes, I've written it, like I've shaped it. I didn't invent language. I'm just shaping it, like for shaping it. And then I put it out there. And so I don't over identify with what comes out there, which is why I can show my work. Like I can, you know, write my newsletter with, with typos in it. Or I can show, oh, I changed that phrase because it wasn't strong enough. I really don't have that thing that's like, oh my God, it has to be perfect. I, I don't, I just don't subscribe to it because, hey, it just wastes time. I have this sense of urgency built in my being and it comes from like, parents dying early. It comes from hustling. It comes from desperate situations. It comes from growing up. It comes from poverty. It comes from everything. I want to do things. I want to do things now. And not to say that I don't want a great good piece of work to be out there. I care about the work and there is some conscientiousness in, in that, but it's not overly done. I always think, put the poem out because there'll be, if I want to say something slightly different, there's another poem for that. So I put it out. I put it out because I'm not promised tomorrow. You know, I'm not. So, and I, and then, you know, it's it might be a bit of anxiety, but I have that thing in me that's like at now, and I have it for a lot of areas in my life. Like, you know, I like it. I like fire burning. So I'm like, right, what am I doing tomorrow? Yeah, I find that, I find that's just the way I am and the way I work. So I think showing the workings of that, I just found it just, it doesn't feel like a big departure from, from how I feel about, about anything really. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, but I found that special specifically because you, I found it unusual, but also like, it's such a breath of fresh air because I talked to, I talked to writers who tell me things like, ah, you know, it's kind of like a, it's an underhanded compliment when they say this to me.  Yeah. I think that's really brave. And I'm just like, I'm like, it's, it's I, I felt something, which was very like, you know, sometimes it's about a school shooting and something, I've felt something really powerful at that time. And I know people use my, as they use your comment sections to, to talk about these things. And that's a safe space for that. And when I put that work out there, it's feeding a very different, like I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to be literary. I'm trying to, to make space for something. And I think you do that, you make space for something with your work. And these are just raindrops.  You know, we're not in lack. So I'm happy to let that, let that come out. And yeah, I also am not trying to be literary. I love books. I eat, sleep, breathe, reading. I love it. I'm a better reader than writer, I think. But yeah, there's always time and space for the next thing. I don't, I don't hold myself up to any, like, literary ideals. You know, I just want to do the work and be honest. And that's it. And I don't really want to let anything get in the way of that. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And it's so clear. Like your books are such a different medium than your social media. Then you treat everything that you do, the mediums that you work in the platforms, you work in a completely different from each other. You're a different artist in those spaces.  And I think that's something really to be admired and to be understood. But unfortunately, I think about this when it comes to the establishment. They are determined to define, like, to put artists in a box and define them by their platforms. And I think you, you have that same thing as I have where they call you an Instapoint. And it's like, what does that mean?   It's almost like they're credit, they're crediting your success to a platform, which isn't true because... Right, right. And actually the book came before, the first book came before. But I think... Thank you. I also think there's, I don't think that's always innocent. You know, I think there's a reason somebody would want to, or some organizations or maybe types of people would want to minimize you in that way. And it has to be about them. It can't be about me. And I made that decision really early on to kind of... I've moved inside of that because at first I was like, I don't care, probably what they want is just a word. And then I started to think about it more like two years into it, two, you know, three books in. And I was like, huh, very interesting that that happens. I think it would be different, you know, perhaps if I wasn't... If I didn't present the way I present, you know, if I wasn't a woman, if I wasn't a block... You don't know, you don't know, but it's very interesting. And then there's also the very obvious thing that Instagram is the brilliant platform that has carried my work to a lot of places and yours too. And we have that deep gratitude for that. But also the work can't be minimized, you know, it exists in paper, on papers, in bookstops. And I also don't know why that is a thing to be minimized, even if we didn't have the books as well because we're using the tools of today, just like any old English writer would have been doing if they had been born now. So it's just deeply interesting to me what comes along with this. I do think it's really funny that you mentioned this because I was having a discussion the other day with a bunch of my friends because the word Instagram really does get under my skin. And when people use it in a specific way, they know what they're doing. And they know what they're doing. But I was saying people are pretending Byron and Emily Dickinson and they wouldn't be on social media on Twitter and their work fits in. Like you're telling me all of these writers, especially Byron, wouldn't take full advantage of putting his work on social media and sliding into the DMs of young women. You're trying to tell me that. E.E. Cummings would definitely be on Twitter or like... All over Instagram. Yeah, all have really cool Instagram squares. Absolutely. With that capital text. Oh my God. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. But you're right. It's of the time. It's of the time. And people will always want to minimize. I think it's a shame because what happened with poetry is it started to... When it's taught in schools, it's just like... I mean, thankfully, I think I'm not at school age, obviously. Hopefully they're doing something new now. I really hope so. I see that they are studying poets that are modern, contemporary, do cool and interesting things. But when I was at school, it was very, very, very dry and difficult to access. And so I think there's still the idea of poetry for people. So then when we come along, it's like, well, what's this? So that's where I think some of the difficulty arises. And this idea that relatability and access is a bad thing. I was in Hamburg a few months ago and I was at the literature house and they were wonderful to me. But one of the questions I got asked was, don't you think like what you're doing is essentially dumping down... You're dumping down your... Yeah, that's what I got told that. I got told that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, I don't understand that who came up with this idea that to be intellectual, you have to use as many difficult words as possible so that no one understands what you have to say. Like surely access, language belongs to all of us and access therefore is probably the best way to show how intellectual and intelligent you are. I think so. And there's a way, I mean, few writers when they're dealing with the complicated language or this like lexicon that's really sort of flowery, when that's done brilliantly, it's incredible. And when it's clunky, it's... How can you even see into it? And I think the idea of exclusivity, the like that sort of like snobbery is dangerous because it tells some people you can and most people you can't.  I just want to ask to remind our audience to please send some questions into us because I'm very happy to monopolize all of your sustain because I think she's brilliant. But you should probably ask us some questions yourself as well. I have like 10 questions that I still have to get through with her. So please, please send in your questions so I can ask her. Thank you so much for being so gracious with all your answers as well. I think I'm learning... This is so nourishing. I'm learning so much from you. And for me, I love this conversation. So can I ask you something? We've touched on it very briefly where we spoke about the gratitude we have to a platform like Instagram but at the same time, there's that ambivalence. In regards to your work, you give your work out to the world basically. There are two schools of thought about this, right? Once you've given the work out, it's gone. It doesn't belong to you anymore. But on the other hand, it's still our work. Yeah. So what is your relationship to that? Honestly, it's like my relationship to a lot of things. I do... There's a transience to object, to life, to experiences. So I just love and respect the work that I've done. And I'm happy I've done it. And I look at the... As I said, I was saying, I look at the books in the shelves sometimes I think. Or if I'm in a bookshop and I see my...  And there's a slight dissonance but I think it keeps me healthy. Like I think it... But I think it... Yeah, I think I dissociate a little. But I don't think that that's a bad thing. I just... I have the utmost respect for what I was when I... When I especially like bone. And some years ago now, different person. We're also the same soul. And yeah, I... I have a lot of love for them. But it doesn't define me. Because I'm like always changing shape. And that's complete. That's how I feel about it. I love that people... When people are moved by the work. And not everyone's going to be moved by the work. And that's okay. These are offerings. And yeah. I mean, I don't know how you feel about that. But it's... Yeah, I kind of... I leave them here. But I still love them as like something that... Like I've birthed into the world. They're your children. That's how I feel. I feel like my work is... It's my child. And then that's... You have to let them go off and do their own things, right? Yeah. Like very much how I feel as well. You're absolutely right. But one of the things... This is just like a personal thing for me. Reviews. When you get reviews, right? And I don't tend to get a lot of reviews in like broadsheets or anything like that. Because people really don't take my work seriously. But you won the Penn Ackerley Prize. Which is a very, very wonderful, very literary prize. And you won it for The Terrible. Which is a... It's an extraordinary book. It's an extraordinary beautiful book. Which has meant a lot to me. How do you feel when people review your work? Because it's kind of connected to my own question.  And then people kind of... Sometimes they can decontextualize it. And they will interpret it. Like... And that's really interesting when someone puts a new spin on it.  I do do that. But honestly, I'll tell you this. I don't really engage with it. Because it's kind of not my job to engage with it. It's after the facts. The book is out there. Whether they, you know, can't bear the way I've done it. It's not going to help now.  And it's just like, oh. If I saw it, like, pop up on my thing, I'd be like tempted to go, oh. But it's not, I don't look for it. And especially when a new book's out. Like, if I saw it, it was like five stars amazed and I'd be like, oh, I'll read it. You know. Yeah, I'm, you know, I'm protective of myself. Because I sit here alone writing the work. And especially like last year, I spent an obscene amount of time last year alone. You know, it was a pandemic and I had to look after myself. And I look after myself first. I do. That means sometimes, that means not engaging with that or saying no to things. I mean, not doing too much and not scraping the bottom of the barrel only to read a horrible review.  But yeah, I don't engage in reading about myself. Like, I know myself. I know the book. And that's really empowering to hear. That's really empowering to hear because I think a lot of young writers especially, no one teaches us how to do this, do they? No. No one comes up to us and says, don't do this, do this, do this. This is how you get published and these are the right publishers to go to and this is how you publish that. No one teaches us any of that. No one, no one does. Especially when you come up the the sort of self-publishing route as well. When you just kind of do it, do it yourself. And then, yeah, it's it's heavy, isn't it? Yeah. It's heavy because you're learning on the job and like no one is telling you are you doing this right or wrong, which is very liberating in one way. Especially reading your work, I can see how it's very liberating because you are so sure of yourself when you and that comes across in your work, the how specifically for me, I feel was so soothing because you were so sure of what you were saying. And I say saying because I was listening to it in the audio book and reading it. It just made it just, there's a whole world being built around me with your language which is so so beautiful and so powerful and you're giving people a lot with your work. Thank you. Do you think about that? Do people ever come up to you like constantly? This must happen to you all the time. Just before we did this. Your work means so much to me. Oh my God. It's like you are writing for me specifically for me. It's like you craft your work specifically for me. And it's beautiful to just I feel lucky because it's beautiful to have the chance to take anything that's happened and we've all had a whole lot happen and to be able to alchemise it into something that can be useful. I mean for God's sake. There has to be a reason we've gone through some of these things, right? There's always a reason. It's not, as it says in there, like no experience is useless, not one. So it's, yeah, it shows me that the filtration system or whatever we're, whatever terrible euphemism and belief is working. You know, it's something that's changing and I'm able to put 100% Can I ask you like just because you mentioned reading a lot, like you love reading can I ask you some of your favourite writers or like who you're reading right now or I will tell you because I don't, it's hard to have favourite writers because I'm always coming across gorgeous like can you gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous new like terms of phrase and new things that I'm working with and I'll fall into like a writer and then I do this thing which actually I shouldn't do. I fall into like this right and then I start ordering all of their books but then I'm like after the second one I'm like I shouldn't have done that, like space it out, you know, don't try and do everything but it's back to that thing that I do. I'm like I have to have it all now. But I, the person that comes to mind, only because I'm reading their book right now again is, I always talking about Jeanette Winterson because of the way that Jeanette Winterson writes about love and I'm reading and written on the body again and I just love that book. It's a really powerful book. I like books that you know go into the dream world and go into the past and come back and go into the present and you know or the distant past. I like that for time travel because we're always time traveling in a way. You know, always you'll sit here and you'll think, you'll be thinking about yesterday and you'll think about tomorrow. I find that just really interesting. You do that really beautifully in the terrible Thank you, thank you. Coming back and forth in the dream world because you had me hooked from that first page where you talk about your brother and you seeing this seeing a unicorn, isn't it? I'm just sitting over there and I was reading it and I was like, is this a dream? Did they actually see this? It's so beautifully written that you don't know and I think that that slight sense of being a bit unmoored is so powerful for a reader because then you go into the rest of the book with that feeling of feeling slightly like your feet have been lifted up the floor. Yeah, yeah which is a real childlike thing to experience but also something actually you've kind of inspired me saying that I feel like I'm going to write after this conversation and I don't usually write like in the the day when the day is it's 3.19 here but I'm never usually writing at this side, I write in the morning but yeah, there is something about that heady kind of being children and then also when really frightening things are going on and happening and what it feels like to not quite have your feet on the ground and what that's like as a you know in girlhood or when you start to look like a woman and again your feet not quite being on the ground because of perceptions and people like you know being around so it's yeah I've that book, that book, I didn't expect to write that book but it came out just like the how, it wasn't planned at all Tell me more about that because that's really interesting to me I would never have written the terrible but I was when Bone was self-published and then I had an agent who's brilliant, it's still the same agent I have and the agent was like do you have anything else and maybe the hustler was like yeah I didn't have anything I didn't have anything but I know how to turn things around in a short time and so I started, I thought it would be a fiction book, I was going to write this fiction book about a girl and her brother and they see a unicorn but it's what happened so as I'm writing, I'm like oh I'm writing more and more of it's all me, it's not, I'm not, this isn't a fiction book and then I'm like oh am I going to have to write everything I didn't really think about that, I just did it, if I thought about it I wouldn't have written it and yeah and then before you know it I've got this memoir with things inside it that I would never have told anybody under any circumstances but then when you give it to the book you give it to the book. And then you change the world with it, that's what you did you put that book out there, this book that you didn't plan on writing and you just changed the world, you changed my life with it for sure, I mentioned the terrible specifically in The Girl and the Goddess for this reason and you because it really did change my the way that I thought about the world and it's because you do that slight thing which isn't quite magical realism but it sort of is where you kind of make the reader kind of go oh I've been pulled into something different there's a dream and you do that with the how as well in a slightly different way and I'm noticing this because obviously I'm a writer as well right so I'm like going into the how going, she's done it here as well but she's done it in a way of like that that thing which I spoke about where you are in the situation and you're talking about being in that consumerist culture and being in all of those things and then going but if you go a little bit further back and you look at it from here instead of looking at it from in here these are the things you might notice and there's something so different about the how for that reason because there's so many books out there that talk about graduate writing and things like that but no one shows you when you're inside it that anxiety that you're scared, you're scared there's a whole bit that you go no no no no no no no no no no in the book and that no one sees that in those because those self-help books tend to be very like this is what you're going to do yeah yeah but this book doesn't do that because it's not pretending to be anything other than what it is which is you know very literally and beautifully going let me show you a different way just come with me over here for a little while and I'll show you something a little bit different and that's really empowering and powerful to read as a reader I think and really beautiful thank you I think it's because you know we're all going for it we're all going through the same thing so when you're inside it of course you can see it and sort of split it apart a little yeah I love that I love the how I loved it specifically today because I really needed it today and I think a lot of people will say that about this book because it's very hard to write a book which can speak to everyone and I think that's not what you ever intend to do with your books you don't you don't intend to go there and it's like I'm going to be the voice of every single person out there but that's precisely what makes your work so brave because I think that the bravest books out there don't pretend to be anything other than what they are and I've I've tried writing the not brave book you know trying to appeal to everybody I'm not going to say which one it is but yeah I've written that book I was like I can't think of that I don't think I don't I can't guess that that book yeah yeah I have written that but like you you don't you you are so I would call you a literary talent like a major literary talent and a major literary talent that also knows how to you know do social media very very well and who knows how to like create in two different spaces beautifully or three different four different because you're so many things aren't you you're an actor and you're a writer and you do this stuff for social media also model so you know how to use your your body like a canvas and like this this art piece but how did that's one question how does that all lend itself to each other do you find a lot of crossover in all of those things well you know you're one person you're going to make it all work like you you know put very like bluntly I mean it's good to have like a few different streams of what you're doing you know you can't rely on one I mean we're not you don't rely on one one form if if that's not being you as I said like a hustler you know but like hustling people like but like a hustler like a gambler but you know somebody who you know I like to to figure out okay this I need to do this and this is how I can support myself doing this because I've been supporting myself for a long time you know since I was a teen so it's like you know I if what I what I can what I can do I do do on what I can use I use and the it's all one you know body is canvas like body as as as vessel for like new thoughts as as as actor as as as as you know thing that that moves as as as thing as as as I guess as instrument to to spread the messages as something resonant it's it's all one so people might say oh yeah how you know modelling and how does my house modelling link to poetry but it does because it's in the one person so that that person's a model and they and they're the site in a poem it's all one thing hmm you know and these things are not they're not these separate entities it's you the full person with everything that you've got so yeah nice you know some days it's it's one thing some days it's another and also stops me from going like I don't want to do the same thing every day I just don't 100% you know you know I mean I illustrate my own books for this reason I love I love drawing and painting but they all they both feed each other that's what I wanted to know from you and that does sound like all feeds each other which we're almost out of time but I really wanted to know what you're working on next like purely on a like a I'd like to know I'm writing I'm playing with something and I'm writing another book and it's fiction and well kind of you know you know me so it's like it's like in and out but it's taking me on quite a wild ride so I'm really really enjoying it I mean they're very early stages but I'm like tapped into it and that's what I'm doing that's what I'm doing with my mornings at the moment that's so exciting I can't wait to read fiction from you because you've done you've done the poetry you've done the memoir you've done this beautiful book in the how and you know notes on meeting yourself and now you're writing fiction ah you're gonna blow my mind I can't wait I really can't wait that's what I thought I would only be when I was a kid being a writer I only thought of fiction I didn't imagine these other things to come but they came first you know there was a lot there was a lot to like that had to come out first I think yeah I think you you you smashed so many like genres though like you you've gone like I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it really well I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it in fiction as well yeah I need to be out there screaming I want thriller I want I want you know what I mean this is a conversation horror so I write horror but under pseudonym like elsewhere on the internet so we could have a conversation about horror I would love I did not know this and I'm very intrigued and I'm gonna find out everything will we get off this because that's incredible I did not know that I mean this is really exciting because I feel like we can have like a big conversation women in horror is like a whole thing for me like I've been I'm so excited because I think we write such unusual stories you know not the norm so I'm really excited to hear that you want to write horror because I'm like yes everything everything everything that you know brings about a feeling you know some of life is horror you know it's reality you know there's a lot of horrific things going on so yeah 100% I can't believe this conversation it went so fast it went so fast I want to say thank you so much for joining me today and for having this really nourishing very rich conversation about craft and writing and God we touched on so much didn't we like beyond social media being writers just you know the different notions about what being a writer is and I want to thank the British Library for facilitating this conversation and I'm so so delighted so thank you thank you thank you amazing


Thanks for coming back with us on Yankees batting practice today presented by Audi earlier this morning a new stamp honoring Yogi bearer was released by the US Postal Service. I chatted with Yogi's granddaughter Lindsey about the event. Lindsey what a day your family has been part of so many honors for the years through your grandfather's accomplishments and heroics and now a stamp bearing his likeness. How does that feel? How do you all feel about it? My family is so excited about this stamp. I think it's especially because of my dad who has been a stamp collector his entire life. He's one of those people and so I grew up with an appreciation of stamps and it's just such a piece of Americana a US Postage stamp and I mean sadly you have to have already passed away to be considered to be on a stamp but the fact that his whole lifetime achievements kind of made the post office think of him as emblematic of America to be put on a postage stamp is just really a great thing and it's a great way for us to kind of you know keep his legacy alive for a new generation of people who may not know who he is. I think that you've seen the photo of that that's on the stamp that the artwork that's on it and it's just this great smiling picture of my grandfather and even folks who don't know who he is as a baseball player I think they'll see this super smiley image of him on their mail and think who is this happy fellow bringing a little joy into my mailbox and then maybe they'll google to see who Yogi Berra was and they'll learn something about him and that is just a great way for us to just kind of continue to share him with the world. So true so fantastic so take us through it please from conception to realization. So I actually didn't have a whole lot to do with it from the beginning it was more my father and my uncles but about a year ago the post office reached out to my family and said that they had been thinking about putting my grandfather on a stamp since 2016 which was the year after he passed and they reached out kind of mid 2020 saying that they had decided to do that there's a whole bunch of approvals that it has to go through there's a board that that kind of assesses the ideas that they have for stamps and approves which ones they want to move forward with so when they decided to go forward with my grandfather they called my family for permission obviously to use his image and they kind of kept them included in the process as I understand that they went through about nine different variations of artwork there are artists at the post office uses to create the the images that appear on the stamps and I think the first few were pictures of my grandfather playing baseball from afar but there are a lot of Yankee fans at the post office I guess and they all said no Yogi was such a personality we need to see his face and get that personality across in whatever artwork we use for the postage stamp and that was how they settled on this the great image that we have now of him smiling you see the NY on his hat he's in his catcher's chest protector so you kind of get everything you know that he's a Yankee you know that he was a catcher the big smile you know he was a guy with a lot of effusive personality so it really does capture him well I love it how can people get the stamp so the stamp was officially released by the post office this morning and it will be available in every post office starting today or you can also order the stamps online at the US Postal Service website and they'll ship them right to you the stamp is a forever stamp how appropriate is that right because it's timeless just like your granddad that's pretty cool right I think it's amazing you know I want his legacy to live forever and the fact that the stamp actually says Yogi forever on it is pretty tremendous for us and I always say you know grandpa was an Italian immigrant the son of immigrants he volunteered to fight for his country in World War II because he thought it was his duty to to be there for his adopted country he went on to live this you know amazing life afterwards with everything he did in baseball and then away from baseball as well and I always say he's like a little microcosm of the American dream and I think that all fits so well in this little stamp and I just definitely warms my heart that Yogi forever is going to be in mailboxes all across the country and maybe across the world and finally before we let you go you knew your grandfather so so well what do you think he would think about a stamp in his likeness today I think that he would think it was a really cool thing because the stamp is such an iconic thing and it's such a cool honor to be on the stamp a lot of people ask me what I think he would say but yes I did know him very well and I knew him well enough to know that if you can't imitate him you shouldn't copy him so I will not try to give a Yogi-ism for the stamp but I know that he he would have been thrilled and it's just such a cool honor Lindsey we're thrilled to have had you today thank you so much for taking time out and congratulations to your whole family thank you so much everybody go to the post office get your stamps so great to catch up with Lindsey Yogi becomes the eighth Yankee celebrated with a forever stamp and these can be purchased wherever stamps are sold Barrett becomes the 31st player in baseball history to be honored with his own stamp