Podcast appearances and mentions of amy key

Before she became a well-known novelist, Margaret Atwood was an award-winning poet. She has been publishing poetry for more than 60 years, from the self-published, hand-set Double Persephone in 1961 to its follow up The Circle Game which won the Governor General's Award, to her latest, critically-acclaimed collection Dearly in 2020. Paper Boat (Chatto & Windus) draws on that impressive body of work, and expands on it with poems previously uncollected, revealing an artist who has somehow always managed to be at the height of her powers, and to have her finger on every pulse.Atwood appeared at Conway Hall to discuss her work with poet, editor and critic Sarah Howe. They were joined by poets Amy Key and Rachel Long who read poems from Paper Boat throughout the evening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of the podcast we wanted to talk about love, specifically how we move away from our societal obsession with romantic love and instead cultivate a more expansive, inclusive notion of love. One that releases us from the pressure to find “the one” and instead encourages us to find the romance in our platonic relationships. According to Pew Research, one in four people will now remain single for their adult lives; the number of people getting married has fallen significantly (in the US have decreased by 60% since the 1970s and 90% of the world's population now live in countries with falling marriage rates). Meanwhile, birthrates are falling globally and have actually halved since 1963. Yet, despite these changes in the extent to which coupledom, marriage and the traditional family structure are changing, culturally we are still seemingly fixated on romantic love as the pinnacle form of love. For women in particular, there remains so much pressure to find a husband and hence become a wife and a mother, as though our societal worth is pegged solely upon those two things.  And then there's the so-called ‘single tax', aka the aka the additional finances single people shoulder by virtue of not having a partner. But this wasn't a depressing conversation about the perils of being single. Quite the opposite. Instead it felt to us like a much needed, deeply galvanising discussion about all the ways in which we can find great romance in our lives outside of the prism of marriage and the traditional family structure. It was a reminder to all of us that there is so much to be celebrated in designing your life on your own terms and not waiting for someone to come along in order to create the life you truly want.  Joining Emma-Louise on the podcast was writer, poet and author of Arrangements in Blue, a book exploring a life lived in the absence of love, and Poppy Jay, the Bafta award-winning director and co-host of the Brown Girls Do It Too a BBC Sounds podcast. Book tickets to the next live recording of the Sex Talks podcast here. And subscribe to the Sex Talks Substack here.

For our third bonus episode of the summer, we all piled round to Alice's house in South London for everything bagels and blueberry pancakes, joined by the wonderful Amy Key, author of Arrangements in Blue.Arrangements in Blue is a beautiful, complex and richly textured memoir about exploring a life without the presence of romantic love, woven through with Amy Key's personal relationship to Joni Mitchell's immortal album, Blue.Join us for chat about writing (what's stopping us, and what's keeping us going), romance, Joni, poetry and the search for the perfect candle sconce that will solve all our problems.In Haste is produced by Holly Fisher for Hasty Productions, with original music by Maria Chiara Argiró and graphic design by Alicia Fernandes. Get full access to In Haste at inhaste.substack.com/subscribe

In 1971, Joni Mitchell released Blue, an album teeming with stories of a life shaped by romance, desire, longing, and the default path of sharing life with another person. The ideal might persist to this day, but what happens if the romance we are told will give life meaning... never shows up? How gorgeous and fulfilling can we make our lives, sans romantic partner? Amy Key, the celebrated British essayist and poet, sets out to explore exactly these questions in her memoir, Arrangements in Blue, with Joni's seminal album as its scaffolding. Amy embarks on an intimate, sometimes painfully candid journey to search for all the things a soulmate was supposed to deliver, working out how to live well in this culture that prizes romantic love. And she shares her findings with us. Amy's wisdom and tenderness guide us from an important shift in ideas about intimacy and solitude to the painful feelings we are often too ashamed to discuss: loneliness, envy, grief, and the sensation of wanting. In this episode, learn about the importance of building a home, how to travel alone, the importance of recognizing your own milestones, and why we should consider expanding the remit of friendship. Recommended by Caitlin and Ben: Living Your Best Single Life Simplify episode - Rebecca Traister and The Power of Being Single All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab Recommended by Amy: Kick the Latch by Katherine Scanlan Try Blinkist for free for 14 days by going to [https://www.blinkist.com/simplify][2], tapping on Try Blinkist at the top right, and entering the code arrangement. Let us know what you thought of this episode, or just come say hi on Twitter! Find Caitlin at @caitlinschiller https://twitter.com/caitlinschiller [2], Ben at @bsto https://twitter.com/bsto [3]. You can write us all an email at podcast@blinkist.com [4]. This episode of Simplify was produced by Caitlin Schiller, Ben Schuman-Stoler, Maria Levacic & Stéphane Obadia at Blinkist

Support the showIn this week's episode, I'm talking to the inspiring Amy Key. Amy is a poet and author who lives in London. Her poetry collection, Luxe, was published in 2013. Her second collection, Isn't Forever, was published in 2018 and was a Poetry Book Society Wild Card choice. Amy's debut non-fiction book, Arrangements in Blue, was published in spring 2023. The book uses Joni Mitchell's 1971 album, Blue, as a framework to investigate our cultural obsession with coupledom, and what it means to live a life in the absence of romantic love. Amy grew up in Kent and the North East, but has lived and worked in London since 2001. Topics that Amy & I cover are:how, when she broke up with her last boyfriend at the age of 22, she assumed her singleness would be temporary;how in her thirties she thought there was something uniquely wrong with her that was the reason she was alone;how putting romantic love at the centre of everything can be damaging to both singles and people in relationships;how Amy used to think of herself as a perpetual adolescent rather than a ‘proper' adult;how Amy still feels lonely at times, but how she has learnt to embrace her solitude;her advice for singles about the importance of being intentional with their weekend time;why we should question the relative importance of romantic love;how Amy came up with the idea for her book, Arrangements in Blue;how Amy has spent a lifetime listening to Joni Mitchell, and how she is in her blood;how she used the songs from Joni's album, Blue, to give the book a framework to reflect back the different elements of Amy's single life;how the song, All I Want, resonated with Amy as soon as she heard it at the age of 14;the meaning behind, and Amy's interpretation of, the songs Blue, A Case of You, and The Last Time I Saw Richard in the book;how the concept of having a ‘soulmate' can make single people feel even more lonely;how other things in life can make you equally as happy as romantic love.Check out Amy's website:https://amyvkey.com/ Buy Amy's book:https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447053/arrangements-in-blue-by-key-amy/9781787333895Follow Amy on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/msamykey/ Follow Amy On Twitter:https://twitter.com/msamykeyFollow Amy on Blue Sky:https://bsky.app/profile/amykey.bsky.social Amy's Substack:https://amykey.substack.com/ Support the show Book a FREE 30 minute coaching 'taster' session HERE: https://calendly.com/lucymeggeson/30minute Fancy getting your hands on my FREE PDF 'The Top 10 Most Irritating Questions That Single People Get Asked On The Regular...& How To (Devilishly) Respond'? Head over to: www.lucymeggeson.com Interested in my 1-1 Coaching? Work with me HERE: https://www.lucymeggeson.com/workwithme Join my private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1870817913309222/?ref=share Follow me on Instagram: @spinsterhoodreimagined Follow me on Twitter: @LucyMeggeson Follow me on LinkedIn: Lucy Meggeson Email me: lucy@lucymeggeson.com And thank you so much for listening!!!

We are BACK, and for the first time we're broadcasting from LINC Library Innovation Center's podcast studio, and it's AWESOME! Couldn't be simpler, just sit down, push a couple buttons, and you're off! This time we covered: Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key: https://hpldencore.mylibrary.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2332616 Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey: https://hpldencore.mylibrary.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2329387 The Viking Heart by Arthur Herman: https://hpldencore.mylibrary.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2276699 Every Wish Way by Shannon Bright: https://hpldencore.mylibrary.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2340625 The Making of the Movie Leprechaun - "I Need Me Gold!" by B. Harrison Smith Evil Bigfoot Monster by FF Monsoon There's a Ghost in This House by Oliver Jeffers: https://hpldencore.mylibrary.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2290661 Playground by Aron Beauregard

Livros mencionados: Guerra e Paz, Lev Tolstoi; Remissão, Carlos Guedes; Na Terra Somos Brevemente Magníficos, Ocean Vuong; A Flor e o Peixe, Afonso Cruz;a Happy Place, Emily Henry; Uma Questão de Conveniência, Sayaka Murata; O Amante, Margurite Duras; Arrangements in Blue, Amy Key; August Blue, Deborah Levy; No Teu Deserto, Miguel Sousa Tavares; Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley; Cidade da Vitória, Salman Rushdie; Harry Potter, J.K.Rowling; Ilíada, Homero; Mataram a Cotovia, Harper Lee; Grandes Esperanças; Charles Dickens Mestres de Roma, Colleen McCullough. Qualquer ideia ou dúvida: leiturasembadanas@leya.com

We enter a world where romantic love takes a backseat, and the vibrant hues of independence and self-discovery shine through. Using Joni Mitchell's iconic album, "Blue," as her guide, author Amy Key takes us on a poetic journey through the uncharted territories of a life lived on one's own terms in her memoir "Arrangements in Blue." Growing up, the acclaimed poet dreamed of a life intertwined with romance, but fate had other plans. Now, in her forties, she has fearlessly embraced the absence of romantic love and embarked on a quest to uncover the hidden joys of solitude. She talks with Dr. Alan Campbell about the beauty of independence, the power of self-connection, and the boundless potential of self-friendship. https://amyvkey.com

This week's guest on the podcast is the poet Amy Key. We're here to discuss her first work of prose, Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life, which is a memoir inspired by the work of Amy's beloved musical icon, Joni Mitchell. Aged 44. Amy has been single for 22 years. Her book challenges us to consider the claim that life can both be wonderful in the absence of romantic love – and that it is yet still valid to want it nevertheless. Described by The Guardian as a ‘cathartic meditation on singledom', Arrangements in Blue is a book that reflects on the universal question of what makes a life rich and whole, in a way that resonates regardless of your relationship status. It is also a nuanced discussion of different kinds of alonement, from the luxury of living alone (it's worth mentioning. Amy speaks to me from her flat in London, where the walls are painted a gorgeous shade of pink, and there's a piano and her books in the backdrop) to the highs and lows of solo travel. We discuss, among other things:Why ‘alone', for Amy, means ‘attunement' [4:25]What was behind Amy's decision to theme her book around Joni Mitchell's ‘Blue' album [8:15]The challenge of living life on a different timeline to your peers [13:34]What people in long-term relationships could learn from Amy's account of long-term singledom [16:34]Do single people face discrimination? [23:55]The contagious joy of holidaying alone [26:59]Practising self-care and personal boundaries as a single person [34:08]Amy's platonic relationship with her mentor, the late poet Roddy Lumsden [38:30]Why Amy's asking for more, not less, from her dating life [44:46]You can purchase Arrangements in Blue now at all good bookshops. Subscribe to my weekly email newsletter at francescaspecter.substack.com to follow my personal writing plus podcast bonus content.You can also order my book, Alonement: How To Be Alone and Absolutely Own It, which is based on this very podcast, now from Amazon,  Waterstones and Bookshop.org.Thank you so much to WestLab for sponsoring this season of the podcast. Their bestselling Dead Sea bath salt range is a skin hero, containing a unique blend of magnesium, calcium and potassium, which is brilliant for protecting and repairing your skin barrier and managing conditions like eczema, psoriasis, acne and sensitive skin. Visit westlabsalts.co.uk/products/dead-sea-salt and quote the code ALONEMENT15 for 15% off when you spend £10 or more, excludes subscriptions,T&Cs apply. Code expires 31st August 2023.Twitter:*  @ChezSpecter@msamykey*Instagram:@ChezSpecter@msamykey With a one-off payment of £5, you can listen to the Alonement podcast ad-free. https://plus.acast.com/s/alonement. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Using Joni Mitchell's seminal album Blue - which shaped Amy Key's expectations of love - as an anchor, Arrangements in Blue elegantly honours a life lived completely by, and for, oneself. Joined by Megan Nolan, the author of Acts of Desperation, Key discussed the many forms of connection and care that often go unnoticed.Find more events at the Bookshop: lrb.me/eventspodRead Arrangements in Blue: lrb.me/amykeyblue Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love. In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell's album, Blue.  If you like this episode, check out: Why Medical Mysteries Plague Women   Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you'll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy's and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love. In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell's album, Blue.  If you like this episode, check out: Why Medical Mysteries Plague Women   Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you'll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy's and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love. In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell's album, Blue.  If you like this episode, check out: Why Medical Mysteries Plague Women   Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you'll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy's and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love. In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell's album, Blue.  If you like this episode, check out: Why Medical Mysteries Plague Women   Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you'll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy's and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love. In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell's album, Blue.  If you like this episode, check out: Why Medical Mysteries Plague Women   Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you'll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy's and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love. In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell's album, Blue.  If you like this episode, check out: Why Medical Mysteries Plague Women   Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you'll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy's and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love. In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell's album, Blue.  If you like this episode, check out: Why Medical Mysteries Plague Women   Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you'll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work. This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy's and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brenda Shaughnessy's Liquid Flesh (Bloodaxe) gathers together poems from across her first five collections, as thrilling and unpredictable as any contemporary American poet. Writing about her work in the Boston Review, Richard Howard says that ‘when anything is as fresh as this diction, as free as these associations, as fraught as these passions, it is not descriptions or definitions which are wanted but the thing itself, the new words in new places, the necessary instigations'. Brenda Shaughnessy was in conversation with Amy Key, whose second collection, Isn't Forever, came out with Bloodaxe in 2018, and whose new book inspired by Joni Mitchell's Blue, is forthcoming in spring 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Further Reading Lists are available at public-library.online @phoebelovatt @phoebelovattpubliclibrary @msamykey - My guest today is the author and poet, Amy Key, whose debut novel, 'Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life', came out last month. Inspired by Joni Mitchell's seminal 1971 album Blue, the book is a poignant exploration of what it means to live without romantic love. Writing with great honesty and vulnerability - and also, beauty -  Amy recounts her, often painful attempts to reconcile with her long-term single status in a world obsessed with coupledom. But Arrangements in Blue is also a celebration of the joys of solitude and a manifesto for the importance of decentering romantic love in our lives and pouring into all the other relationships and practices that sustain us. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

On this month's show, we talk to poet Amy Key about her new book ARRANGEMENTS IN BLUE and her appearance as part of Brighton Festival's books and debate programme on April 20th; to local writer Kate Bradley about her new novel THE SISTERHOOD – a feminist retelling of Orwell's 1984; to Cathy Haywood and Mark Slater about the Creative Writing Programme, and author of this month's book club book, WORLDS APART, Jane Crittenden.

Georgina Godwin speaks to poet and essayist Amy Key about her new book ‘Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life'. This beautiful and vulnerable memoir inspired by Joni Mitchell's 1971 album ‘Blue' looks at the different ways in which an absence of romantic love shapes a life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining me on the CIHAS pod this week is writer and poet, Amy Key. Amy has a new book coming out in April called Arrangements in Blue, which explores living in the absence of romantic love. She also wrote this incredible essay for the Vittles Substack called In Praise of Cravings which I was a little skeptical of at first, as you'll hear us talk about, but which ended up transforming the way I thought about cravings. Amy subverts the idea that we should pathologise our cravings and invites us to explore how food can be a gateway to satisfying non-food cravings as well. Amy also talks really openly about her own relationship with food and how she experienced an eating disorder as a teen, and how part of that healing now is trying on the word fat and noticing how that feels. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Amy's work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Pre-order Amy's book here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Sign up to the Raising Embodied Eaters workshop here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Amy: And you're sort of doing all this mental gymnastics that, um, for me just became a huge waste of intellectual effort. And I thought to myself, I'm just not prepared give food that bit of my brain anymore and that much time.I'd rather focus it on making delicious food that I enjoy to eat, that I enjoy preparing, that I want to share with other people. And also I'm not prepared to be hungry because if I am hungry, I'm thinking about food all the time. And I, you know, I find that I don't really, don't really have like much snacking type habits because I'm satisfied in a way that I don't think I'd previously been. And it was, that was really liberating for me. Just saying, ah, I'm gonna let, just let all that bit of my brain go, cuz let you know, life's too short for me to devote all this brain power to it and I've got other things I could be doing.INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome to another episode of the Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now, and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to the writer and poet Amy Key.Amy wrote this incredible essay for the Vittles Substack called In Praise of Cravings, and as you'll hear us talk about, when I first read the essay, I was kind of skeptical about it, but there was this moment in it that transformed the way that I thought about what Amy was saying, and now I can't get the idea of trusting cravings and leaning into cravings out of my head.Amy subverts the idea that we should pathologise our cravings and invites us to explore how food can be a gateway to satisfying non-food cravings as well. So like how creating someone's favourite dish can help us feel connected to someone we miss, and someone who we're longing. Amy also talks really openly about her own relationship with food and how she experienced an eating disorder as a teen, and how part of that healing now is trying on the word fat and noticing how that feels.So we'll get to Amy in just a minute, but first of all, a couple of notes. This is your last shout for my Raising Embodied Eater's Workshop on the 21st of February. It's a 90 minute workshop where we're going to be reflecting on your own relationship with food and your body growing up and thinking about how you want to parent your kids around food and around their bodies.We'll talk about how food rules pressure restriction and trying to micromanage how much and what our kids eat can backfire and harm the relationship with food, and it could also make picky and fussy eating worse. We'll talk about how to support kids innate hunger and fullness cues with flexible structure. We'll think about how to let go of the pressure to feed kids perfectly. We'll talk a lot about embodiment and supporting body autonomy, and also think about ways to respond to food and body shaming comments from family and friends, plus loads and loads more. I'm actually not sure I'm gonna fit it all in. We'll figure it out and there will be some time in the end to ask questions too. So if we don't get to cover absolutely everything we can, you know, answer it in the q and a at the end. And if that sounds good to you, the link to sign up is in the show notes and transcript. Um, it's also on my Instagram bio, so if you're, I don't know, on Instagram, then click click through the link in the bio. It's 15 pounds and the recording will be available for a week after to catch up. You'll also get a copy of my Raising Embodied Eaters download, which is like a 10 page PDF with loads of helpful things that you can share with family and friends. And, um, like I said, there will be some time at the end to answer your questions, so all the links are in the notes, in the transcript and in my Instagram bio.And just before we get to Amy, I wanted to ask a quick favour. If you've been enjoying these episodes, then please think about leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It lets people who are on the fence about listening know that it's worth their time. Just a few sentences would really mean a lot and help us grow the Can I Have Another Snack family. So thank you if you do that. I super appreciate it. It's a really low-key, we low-key way that you can support the podcast and the newsletter without becoming a paid subscriber, if that's not something that's available to you right now.All right, team, I think you're gonna really love this episode. So let's get to today's guest, poet, and writer Amy Key.MAIN EPISODELaura: Amy, I'd love it if you could share with us who or what you're nourishing right now.Amy: So, I am nourishing my garden by planting all the bulbs that I did not manage to plant before Christmas, because I had a really bad case of flu. And one of the things that makes me so happy in the spring is seeing all the spring bulbs come up, and I hate, hate, hate winter, so it's kind of like a little present to myself that says the future has hope and bright colours in it.Um, so I've been doing that and also I've moved some of the plants that were not flourishing in the places I'd originally placed them. I've moved them into the communal spaces of the garden and I really hope that they'll take root there. So that's what I'm nourishing right now.Laura: Oh, I love that. First of all, I'm slightly relieved that I'm not the only person who is only just thinking in January about my bulbs. I literally overwintered my tomatoes this weekend and we're like almost at the end of January. SoAmy: That's amazing. Are they still doing their business?Laura: Yeah. So I discovered that. So I live in a flat in London. My balcony for whatever reason, I think because it's almost like an internal balcony. So like only one side is exposed and it has like a little microclimate going on, which I think is because I'm losing all the heat through my patio door, but it's like five degrees warmer than like what the weather app is telling me the weather is, right.So, um, yeah, I've got like eight strawberry plants. They're not producing anything, but like, they were like runners from last year and I've got a couple of tomato plants that I think I can salvage. I mean, they're looking a bit ropey, but I think I can salvage. But you know what, the best thing that happened to me at the weekend was I found a little like potted plant that I got from M&S last year that was full of daffodils. And I like tied a knot in the dead daffodils, threw them in a Sainsbury's bag. And then this past weekend I saw the little, the little bulbs sprouting so I've replanted those. Happy days,Amy: I love it.Laura: And I've got a whole bunch of bulbs as well. I spent way too much money at the Garden Center, but that's, that's, this is how we get our kicks. Right.Amy: I love that idea that things are just like waiting under the surface to surprise you. We don't know where they're gonna come up.Laura: And this is such a perfect segue because you alluded well, you didn't allude, you outright said , I hate winter. And that you're waiting for that hope, that promise that that spring offers of a new life and activity. And, and I think that's something that you also alluded to in your essay that you wrote for Vittles called In Praise of Cravings.Amy: Yes,Laura: I wonder if you could tell us a bit about that essay and really what you were trying to communicate through idea of cravings.Amy: Yeah. So, um, maybe I'll talk a little bit about where it came from. So I was at a family member's house and there were little prompts posted about their flat on cupboards and on the fridge that interrupted the person before they opened the fridge door or opened the cupboard and said, stop, think about it. Are you depressed? Are you thirsty? Are you angry? Are you bored? And I found, I found these prompts so depressing because they were, you know, basically trying to interrupt this desire from a kind of moral point of view, you know, that the tone of it felt a bit cruel to me. And I thought, oh, I wish those things weren't there.I wish those things, I wish that everyone could just be in their kitchen. You know, might, they might wanna snack, they might want to eat a stick of celery. They might want to open the cupboards and think about something they'd really like to make for dinner. And I feel like if I was always interrupted in this way, it would make me feel very bad about myself.So I, that's why I wanted to write about cravings from the perspective of thinking about it in like much more colourful, pleasurable ways, you know that you can follow an impulse and you can trust your body to tell you what you might need in that moment, and that that should be free of any judgment. Laura: Yeah. Oh, I can imagine the scene like it sounds like this person maybe has a trickier, complicated relationship with food and they're, they're sending these, well, I guess we're, we're sort of instructed right by diet culture that our, our cravings, our appetite, our hunger is unreliable. It's untrustworthy. We shouldn't ever indulge it, God forbid that we trust our bodies. Right? And that they needed this. Yeah this physical reminder or like this physical manifestation of the food police on their cupboards to interrupt, that yeah, their desires, their, their need for pleasure, which, which is exactly how diet culture functions, but it's, I can imagine that that was really confronting.Amy: Yeah, it was, and I think, because it's taken me a long time to break down some of the shame I feel in eating and like, because my body is a fat body, um, you know, there's always that sense that I should be denying myself food nonstop, let alone the food that I would like to eat. Or that, you know, there's an assumption that if you have a fat body, you are greedy, um, or that you are eating the wrong things in the wrong way at the wrong time. And that made me really sad because actually food is such an exciting, like place for expression, for creativity and for like friendship and communication. And just downright pleasure, you know, like taste sensations, , all of those things. So all that was all kind of in my mind and it was almost, I felt almost like, oh God, I just wanna write a manifesto, if you like. That is just about being in search of, of what it is I want and, and owning that.Laura: Hmm. I love that idea and this sense of kind of conviction really comes through in the essay of like, I own my appetite, I own my desires, I own my cravings. And that it felt really self assured and confident. But from what you were saying there, it sounds like that wasn't necessarily always the case in your relationship with food, and I wondered if you'd be comfortable sharing a little bit more about your relationship with food was like maybe growing up and, and later into to adulthood.Amy: Yeah, I think like, as was the case for like lots of women, probably of my generation who were you know, children and teenagers in the eighties and nineties, there was always dieting in the house. There was always this sense of like, uh, having a body that should be taken in hand because it got out of control, um, and that, you know, those cycles of that happening all the time. And, you know, I just had like a quite average body. And then as I got into my later teens I developed an eating disorder, you know, ate as little as I could, became very thin and was rewarded for, for being thin. I was rewarded with attention, you know, concerned attention, and, um, I was rewarded by the sense of being able to wear clothes that were much smaller and having access to all of that, that too. But that period of my life didn't last very long, and I remember as I was like a young adult in, you know, in my early teens and sort of settling back into what was probably just my normal body, which wasn't a thin body, um, feeling like I'd somehow like lost this battle of wills and I'd somehow not mastered the art of having a body that was a respectable body in society, um, if that makes sense. And it, it's taken me a really, really long time to try and, unlearn that, like to try and let go of this goal that I probably had at some point, which was, oh, I know that I can be thin, so I'm gonna try and return to that teenage body again. And it'll probably happen at some point in the future if I just, you know, work, work hard enough. And it was, it was through really making sure that I engaged with content showed fat people, um, and you know, like the body positivity movement for, for all its faults has in some ways been really, really helpful for me. So, replacing the negative images with really positive ones and just making sure that a, I broaden my own scope of what is beautiful, for example, what is good and what is, um, you know, what wellness should mean has really helped me, I think, become a lot more accepting of where my, you know, where my body is and helped me break free of a cycle, I guess, of denial, of contrition of you know, self admonishment that just made me unhappy, but also just was terribly draining on the brain because I found that I filled up so much of my brain with ideas about what I was going to eat, that I sort of lost any enjoyment in eating. So the thing that's changed for me in terms of like how I eat is that previously, and I think for much of my life, cause I wasn't trusting what I felt like I wanted, what I desired, I would be like mentally trying to like problem solve something else that might fix that desire, but it could never, never be fixed.You know, it might be eating several different things as, and then realising that no, no, I'm still hungry. So like you go to the fridge and you get this one thing, and you're like, if I'd just eaten a slice of toast with some butter on it, that probably would've completely fixed that craving that I had.But instead, I ate four raspberries, a handful of nuts, a square of cheese, and it just gets very, very elaborate. And then, and you're sort of doing all this mental gymnastics that, um, for me just became a huge waste of intellectual effort. And I thought to myself, I'm just not prepared give food that bit of my brain anymore and that much time.I'd rather focus it on making delicious food that I enjoy to eat, that I enjoy preparing, that I want to share with other people. And also I'm not prepared to be hungry because if I am hungry, I'm thinking about food all the time. And I, you know, I find that I don't really, don't really have like much snacking type habits because I'm satisfied in a way that I don't think I'd previously been. And it was, that was really liberating for me. Just saying, ah, I'm gonna let, just let all that bit of my brain go, cuz let you know, life's too short for me to devote all this brain power to it and I've got other things I could be doing.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds as though letting go of that anxiety and fear and concern about food and, and not letting it take up as much space in your brain open things up for you is thatAmy: Oh yeah, definitely, I think so. Yeah, you know, it makes me want to say, for example, write, write about food. It makes me want to grow food, or talk to people about it without that sense of it being a problem that I need to resolve.Laura: Yeah.Amy: I do have a fat body and some people think that that's not okay. But I am grateful to live in the body that I live in and I haven't got a perfect reaction to the way in which fatness is perceived like far from it, but I have certainly become a lot more relaxed about other people's opinions about how my own body should look because cuz it's none of their business and it's certainly none of their business what I eat.Laura: Oh, I'm so excited by everything that you've just said there that, um, I'm trying to figure out where I want to dig deeper, and I think one thing that that stood out for me, and it's something that I kind of bump up against quite a lot in, in my clinical work and just through conversations with people who've read my books, is the, the idea that you alluded to where you've attained a thin body. Now in your case it was through, um, an illness and for other people it's through oftentimes disordered eating and the, the head space that is devoted to food being sort of 90% of your brain sometimes. And then being afforded some of the privilege that that confers, right, the thin privilege and then losing that privilege through our bodies changing as bodies are want to do. Right.Amy: Yeah.Laura: And, and then it sounds as though there was this kind of, um, enduring desire to return to that, to maybe return to that privilege. And I just wondered if you could speak, speak to, to that and, and how, you know, a lot of people talk about grieving within ideal or, you know, just having to navigate letting go of what we're told that weAmy: I think it's so hard cuz it's also for me, it's bound up in, in ageing a little bit as well. So I'm 44 now and like the point at which I was thin was like maybe two years between like 17 and 19. And I think it's somehow how you tell yourself that that was the one true you and like how you are supposed to be, even though rationally, I know that it took so much, um, sort of powers of delusion and control for me to be that way. It was never gonna be the same again. It's not something that I know, you know, I know that it's not something that I could just practically maintain, even if I attained it temporarily, and part of me thought, oh God, I don't wanna go through that again.You know, this idea of, because people do, I was thinking about this the other day about, there was a point in my life where some people close to me got very thin and I watched them be praised more than, I'd seen them be praised for anything else in their life. And that really disturbed me because, yeah I found it really disturbing and I also thought, I know that that's bullshit, so I'm not prepared to. I'm not prepared to sort of give that power, because that's one thing I can control. I can say I am not gonna reward people for losing weight. Like, it, it's tricky cuz you want, you want to be supportive of people who want their bodies to be particular ways and, and, I dunno what I'm trying to say here, but. Everyone should be able to be in control of what goes on in their body basically. That's what I think. Um, but I think disengaging from diet talk and disengaging from saying to people things like, oh, you've lost weight, or That is flattering, or talking about myself in derogatory ways has been. It's like a practice that I just need to keep on with because I think if I lose that I could very easily fall into a kind of self-loathing trap again, and I would never be thin again. But I would feel a lot worse about myself. Like it wouldn't matter how many diets I did, I would never be that thin again. I might, you know, and so it, yeah, to me, it feels like, you know, like a black hole that would just take all of my energy and give very little back. Laura: Yeah, and I think you spoke there too, the idea of, of body autonomy, and that's such an important piece of this conversation. I think that, you know, I would never want any individual who was pursuing weight loss, intentional weight loss to feel shamed about that. But it also, we don't exist in, in a vacuum and you know, I think slightly delusional if we think that it's entirely under our own volition this desire to be thinAmy: Oh yeah,Laura: And we're swimming through diet culture, which of course, as we know, and you spoke to there as well, is the nexus of ableism, ageism, patriarchy. White supremacy. You know, it's, it's just kind of a an easily identifiable way of naming all of these ways that we are oppressed.Amy: No, I think it's so interesting cause I was reflecting on how I was talking to somebody about how they wanted to lose weight ahead of a special occasion and they said, oh, you know, I just wanna look nice in the photos. And if you are fat, it's quite hard to hear that and think, ah, Do I mess up photos because I haven't become thin?Uh, you know, and, and I'm somehow unacceptable photographically to the world. But if I were thin, then um, I would look nice and it would be recorded that I once in my life look nice as a thin person in a photograph. And when you start interrogating that more, I think you've go gods this is a load of nonsense that it, but it's so hard to unlearn because it's just everywhere. And I think, yeah, like you say, if you are, you know, I'm lucky because I'm cisgendered, I'm white woman. You know, I've got blonde hair and blue eyes, some, some western beauty ideals. But I am ageing and I am fat. And I am single and all of those things society does not accept or think, you know, they think you, well, you should sort yourself out because you are almost like wasting your body on the world if, if you are gonna allow yourself to be in this way. And that's the way it could feel sometimes.Laura: That's such an interesting idea that you just presented this sense of, of wasting your body.Amy: Yeah. Like, why be fat when you could be better looking? Like, it feels like that that's, that's the kind of choice that, that, um, people think you're making, like this choice to be less attractive. Like why are you being less attractive for me when you could be more attractive to me , if that makes makes senseLaura: Hmm mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I think it's just, it speaks to how fucked up our cultural values are or where we put our values as a society on aesthetics, on appearance, on this outward socially constructed idea of beauty or, yeah, which bodies, which people hold value and, and which don't. And it's, yeah, like when you start to kind of tug at that a little bit, it, it become, it unravels pretty quickly. I don't know how we can defend these ideas.Amy: I don't, I remember like having a conversation with a friend where I was talking about how when my, uh, one of my grandparents died, I was given a thousand pounds, like, which was the money that they'd left in their will, and I spent some of it on a laser hair removal machine, and I remember saying to my friend, , oh yeah you know, I can't cope with having both hairy legs and being fat and you know,Laura: Hmm.Amy: Together, like that's, that's even, that's even worse. Like I can only deal with the kind of emotional armour I have to put up with on one thing without there being another bit of my body that other, that people are gonna be objectionable to, which is kind of cowardly if me, in a way that I felt I needed to do that, but it was almost like, I can't deal with having more things that people will find undesirable about me.Laura: No, I've definitely heard and felt, you know, similarly that, you know, well, I guess it speaks to how we can only, there's only so much that we can deal with as individuals, even when we're kind of well versed in, you know, even when we hold deeply feminist values and we are, you know, committed to body liberation, but there's only so much that we can do on our own there's only so much armour that we can, can continue to, to put up. And so I think for a number of folks, when we come to fat positivity, fat liberation, there is this sense that, okay, I can be fat. And I have to be beautiful. And I have to be young, and I have to be, I have to perform health. I have to, um, you know, in some other way exonerate myself.Amy: Yeah, I've certainly heard a lot about that. You know, like people saying, you know, uh, I'll choose a salad when I'm eating, with some people who feel like inhibited by what other people might think is okay for them to, I mean, I will eat what I want and I'm lucky, I think because the people who surround me, you know, wouldn't be pay that any attention whatsoever.And it must feel so horrible to feel like you've gotta perform this idea of like the perfect fat person who exercising all the time and proving all the time that they eat healthily and all of this kind of stuff. But if you reject those notions of, of healthy ness as we are sold it in like a capitalist society, which is very different really from I think what we would like to embrace as an idea of health then I think we would all be a lot better off.Laura: Mm. But I think what I was kind of searching for before and, and struggling to find was, okay say we accept that bodies change and our body weight tends to track in or trend in one direction, right? And, I think, you know, holding onto these other, you know, whether it's about body hair or beauty or fashion or, um, you know, the fucking cosmetic industrial complex, like what it fundamentally boils down to is safety and keeping ourselves safe in a world that does not value our existence.Amy: Yeah. And that's really tough, isn't it? Particularly I think when you look at how health, healthcare seems to be orientating around, I mean, has for a long time, I guess, but orientating around like this idea that some people deserve to be treated and some don't. I've just realised it's tricky for me to talk about, cause I work in healthcare. Um, I feel like basically if fat phobia becomes, I mean, it's hugely prevalent anyway, but if it also becomes sort of state legislated as an unacceptable practice through laws and guidance and procedures and policies that are enacted through work, through healthcare education and so on. That's, it's just gonna make the lives of fat people so much worse. And it certainly won't make anyone thinner. Laura: Yeah.Amy: you know, if we as a country are serious about mental wellbeing, then we can't be going down that road.Laura: Yeah. I think what you're speaking to is this sort of neoliberal idea of personal responsibility and, and how we are all, You know, it's our duty as good citizens to control and restrict our bodies and to, you know, it's our job, it's our responsibility to stay thin for the good of the country and, you know, this is what is expected of us.Amy: Yeah, so that we are more productive and that we cost the state less and all of this, all of this business.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. something I was thinking about, well, I have, I guess, a confession to make that. When I first started reading your essay, when it got delivered to my inbox, I started reading it and I was really skeptical at first I was a little bit like, okay, where's this going? And then I'm gonna read this back to you. I read the line, “As a fat woman, I can feel inhibited talking about food because the gaze from which I imagine and know I'm perceived is one of greed as though I can't be trusted with my own appetites. Because of my fatness, I'm disallowed hunger. I refuse to be disallowed craving.” Sorry, I'm butchering your writing there. But that changed everything for me because, and I realised I was reflecting on it and I was like, up until that point, I assumed you were a thin person talking about your cravings.Amy: Oh, that's so interesting.Laura: And I think I'm doing this a disservice by assuming that they would've put some sort of like, I don't know. I'm not gonna like name tag anyone here, but you know, there was a very specific image that came to my mind of who you were until I read that line and I was so relieved because I felt like I could trust you. I felt like I could trust what you were saying.Amy: That's so interesting because I was really unsure about putting the fact that I'm fat in the piece. Um, for a couple of reasons. One, because. I'm still dealing with like the internalised shame of saying out loud to the people that I'm fat as though they haven't already noticed.It's almost like, you know, it's like, oh yeah of course other people are gonna see me as a fat person, but you know, sometimes in my head, that's not part of my self-image. I dunno what my self-image is, but, it's maybe my self-image isn't as embodied as it needs to be somehow. Um, so every time I say I'm fat, I'm like practicing becoming comfortable with that, owning it and, and using it as a term that is, is a neutral term. It's like a statement of fact. So like not in the space of, I know, and this is, you know, I'm supportive of this, but like trying to claim it as a word of pride. Just more in the space of this, this is a word we can use and it's okay. It's not gonna hurt me and I'm not gonna hurt myself by using it. So I wondered about that. And then I wondered also about writing about, you know, cravings and pleasure and colour and keeping things in this like very sort of sensory saturated, um, place, which is where the essay is predominantly. I wondered whether it had a place in there, but I realised that. It was so fundamental. The idea of having a fat body was so fundamental to almost like the, the cheekiness I felt in deciding to write about cravings and saying, I'm going to have fun writing about cravings. And I'm not going to be looking over my shoulder for people who think that I am wrong,Laura: yeah.Amy: So, um, it's really interesting that it's something that, it made the essay more persuasive for you. That's quite interesting for me to hear. Laura: It felt subversive. It felt like a fuck you, it felt like, I'm here and I'm owning this and you can't take this away from me. Um, and that, that really sealed, sealed the deal for me, and then I went back and reread it through that lens. And , I'm not trying to say like, you have to be fat to be trustworthy, or you have to be fat. Yeah, to take pleasure in food. But it just, it just shed a different light on it for me. So I was really, um, I think grateful to you for, for disclosing that because there was no picture of you. I didn't know what you looked like untilAmy: I mean, I feel like I totally get it because I, I often start out reading from a point of pure skepticism, particularly personal essays where, you know, say it's, um, somebody writing about, um, how I'm only 28 and I've just bought my first house. And then you get to the end and it's like, oh yeah, it's because you got 30 grand from your parents. And you got to live in granny's attic for two years. So this kind of disclosure is important for credibility of what people say. So I'm, I'm totally with you.Laura: Yeah. Well, there's something else that I wanted to ask you about. Sort of coming back to this essay. At the beginning you talked about food being exciting, being a place for creativity and connection, and I just wondered if you could. This is obviously what you explore in the essay and I'll link to it.It's a paywall piece, I believe, but it's like, if you don't have a subscription to this, what are you doing with your life? Honestly, But I just wondered if you could kind of Yeah. Try and sum up the feeling or feelings that you were connecting to and expressing through food. Subsequently through this essay.Amy: So I live alone. I think, I think I write about this in the essay a little bit. I live alone and I think when you live alone, you're often sort of encouraged. You are not encouraged, but there's a sort of sense that if you are just one person, food doesn't need to have a sense of occasion to. Like you, it's more functional and it's just me so I'll just get this, I'll just eat this ready meal or I don't bother. If it's just me, I'll just have beans on toast or, or whatever. I love, I love beansLaura: I was gonna say, that's a fine food. Don't knock me.Amy: food. And, and you know, I have a very elaborate beans on toast method of course that I cherish. I do want to challenge that and sort of work against it and think what is something that I can make for myself that really sort of vibrates with its meal just for one type intention and, you know, and things like that might be having a steak that is cooked just the way that I want it, that gets the flat all full of smoke and that I can eat with, um, you know, some oven chips and it feels very, very decadent. But I'm not impressing anyone. I'm just going for it on myself. And I think, giving yourself a, a, like a treat, a special treat, and paying attention to yourself as somebody who is deserving of, of pleasure, of decadence, of nourishment, um, even when nobody is looking or there's nobody to share it with.That that is something that's always behind how I think about food. And sometimes, you know, it, it might be like spending hours making a chicken stock and making sure that I've got some soup for myself during the week, or.Laura: Yeah.Amy: or standing over the sink eating a pear, uh, which is something that I write about in that essay and something that I did last night, I sliced it up and then there was just juice everywhere and I was just really enjoying this moment of being alone with my pear. But then there's also doing that for other people and the conversations that that might generate across a dinner table and how, for some reason, at a dinner table, I always feel at home and ready to get to know somebody better. That's really important for me and how I think about what food, the role food is playing in my life.Laura: I think there's something so interesting that I'd never really considered before about the narrative of what it means to, you know, the cooking for one. And yeah, how it's framed as being just really perfunctory and something that you have to do and, and that it's, there's no sense of occasion and the extension of that is that the only reason to kind of make, um, a song and dance about cooking, about preparing food, about sitting down to enjoy a meal is if you're doing it for someone else, but in, but very specifically in the context of a relationship, right? Like,Amy: Yeah, it's all bound in with like romantic love, I think. And it, I kind of write a little bit about this in, in my book. So I've got a book coming out in April called Arrangements in Blue, which explores living in the absence of romantic love.Laura: Hmm.Amy: And one of the things I kind of say in there is, you know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that making a six pan five hour meal for one person is a radical act, but it kinda is cuz it's kind of saying, you are, you are, you are worth this effort.And if I didn't make any effort for the meals for which I prepare for myself, So many things would be off the menu for me. I'd be like living quite a grueling life. So, it's really important that I kind of push the boat out for myself basically.Laura: Yeah, yeah. No, I love, I love that idea a lot that, you know, in a, and I don't mean this in a like, Bubble bath self-care way, but in a, like, I am actually gonna invest in myself because I deserve the pleasure, the joy, the nourishment, um, the fulfillment that, that comes from not just the process and the act of cooking, but eating and enjoying this food as well.At the end of every episode, I ask my guests, Who or what is nourishing them? So what, what has been nourishing you in this season of, well, shit winter, January season, but also I am gearing up to, to publish a book and.Amy: Yeah, I feel very insecure. It's horrible. It's like I can't tell whether I'm waiting for something great to happen or waiting for something terrible to happen, but it's just this prolonged feeling of anticipation I'm not great with. So I think the, who's nourishing me, so my two cats, Minnie and Bam Bam, have been absolute stalwarts, always there for the scriptures and, you know, stupid faces. And. You know, just general demands on my attention, which is good distraction. My best pal Becky, who has been listening to me have every single neurotic thought that you can havepre publication and probably I should put a special mention in for my agent Ang who, um, has also had to deal with the kind of tremors of, uh, pre-publication. So they've, they've all been fantastic and I, I owe them a lot for their kindness and, and friendship.Laura: I'm glad that you have people caring for you during what is, I know a very, very anxious and yeah, I know that, that pre-publicationAmy: Yeah,Laura: Like black hole. It's a lot. Okay. And very, very last question is what are you snacking on at the moment? So, it can be anything from a literal snack that you are enjoying eating all the way through to something you're watching or reading or listening to. So what do you have for us?Amy: So, I finished reading a couple of weeks ago a book called Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan and is so amazing. It's a kind of novel made out of conversations that, uh, Kathryn had with a horse trainer called Sonya. It sounds like a strange premise for a book, but it's like a, a jolt to the brain.Laura: Ooh, I need one of those.Amy: Yeah, it's really, really fantastic. It's published by Don BooksLaura: Okay. I will link to that in the show notes. I'm very intrigued by that. Um, okay. My thing is definitely not as lofty. So, I, this is an Instagram account that has kind of blown up recently. Uh, you might have come across it. So the person is Lisa Timmons, and she, I think, Or they're a comedian.And, they basically they make these reels where they do a voiceover of celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, like cooking in the kitchen, and then just like voiceover with like, I'm such a privileged fucking white lady and just that, it's just always so on point and like I was just watching one before we got on the call and it was basically, it was Gwyneth Paltrow chopping up some salad and like it probably had like, did not have enough calories to sustain a human being. And the voiceover was basically just like, you know, like, and uh, the idea here is to get as few calories as possible so that you have brittle fucking bones as you grow older.It's just like, yeah, that is what happens when you don't eat enough food. So that's my recommendation, Lisa Timmons Instagram. It's very funny if you, especially if you are navigating, unlearning and unsubscribing diet culture. I will link to that in the show notes. So you briefly mentioned you have a book coming out in April.You wanna tell us, um, how we can pre-order that and where people can find more of your work?Amy: So if you go onto the Penguin website, which I think is penguin.co uk, you can find my book Arrangements in Blue. It's published by Jonathan Cape and there were lots of pre-order links on there. And you can also follow me on Instagram or Twitter.Laura: We will make sure that the links are right there for anyone who wants to go and pre-order Amy's book. And I think you have some more of your writing on your website as well, which I'll link to. And your piece In Praise of Cravings, which we've talked a lot about. I'll link to that in the show notes.Amy, it was such a delight to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here, and I can't wait to read your new book.Amy: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.OUTROLaura: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. 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In this special, feature-length episode, we bring you our live event at SkyLines Festival of Poetry & Spoken Word in Coventry, which took place in July 2022. Renowned poets Roz Goddard and Rishi Dastidar are in converation with hosts Michael Shaeffer and Roy McFarlane about the poems that have been friends to them, alongside live readings from The Poetry Exchange archive. Roz talks about 'Pulmonary Tuberculosis' by Katherine Mansfield; Rishi talks about 'Lousy with unfuckedness, I dream' by Amy Key. We are hugely greatful to Roz and Rishi for joining us for this event and for sharing the poems that have been friends to them so openly and beautifully. Our thanks also to the Belgrade Theatre and SkyLines Festival team, especially Jane Commane for inviting us to be part of the programme and Jason Sylvester and Debbie Harlow for their support on the day. Thank you to Amy Key for allowing us to share her brilliant poem - you can find it in Amy's collection 'Isn't Forever' from Bloodaxe Books: www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/isn-t-forever-1181 Roy also reads 'A Short Story of Falling' by Alice Oswald. Many thanks to Alice Oswald and United Agents for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. 'A Short Story of Falling' can be found in the collection 'Falling Awake' (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016. ********* Pulmonary Tuberculosis by Katherine Mansfield The man in the room next to mine has the same complaint as I. When I wake in the night I hear him turning. And then he coughs. And I cough. And after a silence I cough. And he coughs again. This goes on for a long time. Until I feel we are like two roosters calling to each other at false dawn. From far-away hidden farms. Lousy with unfuckedness, I dream by Amy Key each night I count ghostlets of how my body was wanted / behind with deadheading / rose hips have come / behind with actions that count only / when the timing is right / I took out a contract / it was imprudent in value / behind with asepsis / hello microbes of my body / we sleep together / hello cats / I make my bed daily / of the three types of hair on the sheets / only one is human / I count the bedrooms / I never had sex in / but there were cars / wild woods / blackfly has got to all the nasturtiums / you cannot dig up a grapevine / and expect shelter to come / I am touched by your letter / writes a friend / you prevaricate desire / says message / all this fucking / with no hands on me Copyright Amy Key. From 'Isn't Forever' by Amy Key (Bloodaxe Books, 2018).

SurfingNASH invited four attendees to the NASH-TAG wrap up (three first-timers, two corporate executives) to focus on presentations and discussion from the fireside chats. Highlights include:4:20 – Introduction of first-time panelists Amy Articolo (Novo Nordisk), Erin Quirk (Terns Pharmaceuticals), Rachel Zayas (AGED Diagnostics) and the returning Ian Rowe (University of Leeds)12:55 – Opening question: what about NASH-TAG 2022  surprised you most?13:04 – Consensus: energy and passion. Rachel mentioned the vast divergence in  balloon hepatocyte readings16:19 – Led by Stephen, group discusses powerful single slides22:51 – Question: What single presentation had a real impact on your thinking?23:04 – Rachel: Single Cell Transcriptomics, which can identify disease drivers. 25:53 – Ian: Scott Friedman's point about the need to balance blocking fibrosis with maintaining sufficient collagen for scar healing.27:16 – Amy: Talks about upstream effects resonated because Novo Nordisk works to develop combination therapies.28:53 – Erin: One “pleasant takeaway” was big companies sharing findings “shoulder to shoulder” with smaller ones.30:04 – Roger: Rate reaction to fireside chats using 6-point scale. Erin, Amy, Rachel all say 5. Liked diverse viewpoints, high energy level. Ian says 4, maybe 3. Fears that following the path laid out in meeting will lengthen drug development. 36:06 – Stephen: We need to improve use of histopathology, design and implement a multi-year path to NITs as outcome drivers and develop NAIL-NIT, a multi-company, “agnostic” data repository to utilize everyone's data to “ask the big questions” and drive large prospective trials. Also, we should provide analytics and perspective on unresolved issues that are delaying final FDA guidance document47:02 – Amy: Key is to impact patients' lives, which is more “function and feel,” less survival. We'll look back on this as "The moment of change” 48:59 – Roger: FDA has becoming more open and encouraging since 01/21 webcast 50:33 – Roger: Stephen's push to lower screen fail rates from 80% to 50% will drive 2.5x increase in eligible patients, thus shortening trials, reducing costs 52:35 – Stephen: This can also reduce placebo response rates, which are a major issue in interpretation 54:27 – Erin: Should we even be looking at liver tissue when pathologists are so mislaligned on balloon hepatocytes? Stephen: Eventually, perhaps not. But the ongoing trials today have to rely on histology55:02 – Erin: Are we creating medications that patients actually will want to take, given that many choose not to participate in trials? Louise: Decision is individual, but those who take time to make it wisely have the greatest prospects for success57:14 – Ian: Findings from trial populations and natural history populations can vary widely. Also, the NITs we use in trial need to work financially for the larger population59:20 – Amy: Expanding trial population into primary care or OB/GYN would broaden target dramatically1:01:02 – Question: something you hope to see that is different in a year and something you believe you will see1:01:14 – Louise: Patients and advocates at future Fireside chats1:01:29 – Rachel: Tests that look separately at the different NAS elements instead of creating composite scoring1:02:02 – Erin: A positive Phase 3 study result1:02:31 – Amy: Solid and actionable programs to create solutions to issues identified this past weekend1:03:03 – Ian: Expect positive Phase 3 data. Hope to see discussion around NITs that correlate consistently with histology and drive changes in outcomes1:03:21 – Stephen: Hope to report positive Phase 3 trial1:05:04 – Roger: Believe AI histopathology will play larger role; hope this entails more than simply emulating human brain 1:08:03 – Busines