Podcasts about Wickham

Adrian Lukis – Famously played Mr. Wickham in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice adaptation. His one man play Being Mr. Wickham returns to the stage this January

Tuesday is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, so today I spoke to John Mullan, professor of English Literature at UCL, author of What Matters in Jane Austen. John and I talked about how Austen's fiction would have developed if she had not died young, the innovations of Persuasion, wealth inequality in Austen, slavery and theatricals in Mansfield Park, as well as Iris Murdoch, A.S. Byatt, Patricia Beer, the Dunciad, and the Booker Prize. This was an excellent episode. My thanks to John!TranscriptHenry Oliver (00:00)Today, I am talking to John Mullen. John is a professor of English literature at University College London, and he is the author of many splendid books, including How Novels Work and the Artful Dickens. I recommend the Artful Dickens to you all. But today we are talking about Jane Austen because it's going to be her birthday in a couple of days. And John wrote What Matters in Jane Austen, which is another book I recommend to you all. John, welcome.John Mullan (00:51)It's great to be here.Henry Oliver (00:53)What do you think would have happened to Austin's fiction if she had not died young?John Mullan (00:58)Ha ha! I've been waiting all this year to be asked that question from somebody truly perspicacious. ⁓ Because it's a question I often answer even though I'm not asked it, because it's a very interesting one, I think. And also, I think it's a bit, it's answerable a little bit because there was a certain trajectory to her career. I think it's very difficult to imagine what she would have written.John Mullan (01:28)But I think there are two things which are almost certain. The first is that she would have gone on writing and that she would have written a deal more novels. And then even the possibility that there has been in the past of her being overlooked or neglected would have been closed. ⁓ And secondly, and perhaps more significantly for her, I think she would have become well known.in her own lifetime. you know, partly that's because she was already being outed, as it were, you know, of course, as ⁓ you'll know, Henry, you know, she published all the novels that were published in her lifetime were published anonymously. So even people who were who were following her career and who bought a novel like Mansfield Park, which said on the title page by the author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, they knew they knew.John Mullan (02:26)were getting something by the same author, they wouldn't necessarily have known the author's name and I think that would have become, as it did with other authors who began anonymously, that would have disappeared and she would have become something of a literary celebrity I would suggest and then she would have met other authors and she'd have been invited to some London literary parties in effect and I think that would have been very interesting how that might have changed her writing.John Mullan (02:54)if it would have changed her writing as well as her life. She, like everybody else, would have met Coleridge. ⁓ I think that would have happened. She would have become a name in her own lifetime and that would have meant that her partial disappearance, I think, from sort of public consciousness in the 19th century wouldn't have happened.Henry Oliver (03:17)It's interesting to think, you know, if she had been, depending on how old she would have been, could she have read the Pickwick papers? How would she have reacted to that? Yes. Yeah. Nope.John Mullan (03:24)Ha ha ha ha ha!Yes, she would have been in her 60s, but that's not so old, speaking of somebody in their 60s. ⁓ Yes, it's a very interesting notion, isn't it? I mean, there would have been other things which happened after her premature demise, which she might have responded to. I think particularly there was a terrific fashion for before Dickens came along in the 1830s, there was a terrific fashion in the 1820s for what were called silver fork novels, which were novels of sort of high life of kind of the kind of people who knew Byron, but I mean as fictional characters. And we don't read them anymore, but they were they were quite sort of high quality, glossy products and people loved them. And I'm I like to think she might have reacted to that with her sort of with her disdain, think, her witty disdain for all aristocrats. know, nobody with a title is really any good in her novels, are they? And, you know, the nearest you get is Mr. Darcy, who is an Earl's nephew. And that's more of a problem for him than almost anything else. ⁓ She would surely have responded satirically to that fashion.Henry Oliver (04:28)Hahaha.Yes, and then we might have had a Hazlitt essay about her as well, which would have been all these lost gems. Yes. Are there ways in which persuasion was innovative that Emma was not?John Mullan (04:58)Yes, yes, yes, yes. I know, I know.⁓ gosh, all right, you're homing in on the real tricky ones. Okay, okay. ⁓ That Emma was not. Yes, I think so. I think it took, in its method, it took further what she had done in Emma.Henry Oliver (05:14)Ha ha.This is your exam today,John Mullan (05:36)which is that method of kind of we inhabit the consciousness of a character. And I I think of Jane Austen as a writer who is always reacting to her own last novel, as it were. And I think, you know, probably the Beatles were like that or Mozart was like that. think, you know, great artists often are like that, that at a certain stage, if what they're doing is so different from what everybody else has done before,they stop being influenced by anybody else. They just influence themselves. And so I think after Emma, Jane Austen had this extraordinary ⁓ method she perfected in that novel, this free indirect style of a third-person narration, which is filtered through the consciousness of a character who in Emma's case is self-deludedly wrong about almost everything. And it's...brilliantly tricksy and mischievous and elaborate use of that device which tricks even the reader quite often, certainly the first time reader. And then she got to persuasion and I think she is at least doing something new and different with that method which is there's Anne Elliot. Anne Elliot's a good person. Anne Elliot's judgment is very good. She's the most cultured and cultivated of Jane Austen's heroines. She is, as Jane Austen herself said about Anne Elliot, almost too good for me. And so what she does is she gives her a whole new vein of self-deception, which is the self-deception in the way of a good person who always wants to think things are worse than they are and who always, who, because suspicious of their own desires and motives sort of tamps them down and suppresses them. And we live in this extraordinary mind of this character who's often ignored, she's always overhearing conversations. Almost every dialogue in the novel seems to be something Anne overhears rather than takes part in. And the consciousness of a character whodoesn't want to acknowledge things in themselves which you and I might think were quite natural and reasonable and indeed in our psychotherapeutic age to be expressed from the rooftops. You still fancy this guy? Fine! Admit it to yourself. ⁓ No. So it's not repression actually, exactly. It's a sort of virtuous self-control somehow which I think lots of readers find rather masochistic about her. Henry Oliver (08:38)I find that book interesting because in Sense and Sensibility she's sort of opposed self-command with self-expression, but she doesn't do that in Persuasion. She says, no, no, I'm just going to be the courage of, no, self-command. know, Eleanor becomes the heroine.John Mullan (08:48)Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But with the odd with the odd burst of Mariannes, I was watching the I thought execrable Netflix ⁓ persuasion done about two or three years ago ⁓ with the luminous Dakota Johnson as as you know, as Anne Elliot. You could not believe her bloom had faded one little bit, I think.John Mullan (09:23)And ⁓ I don't know if you saw it, but the modus operandi rather following the lead set by that film, The Favourite, which was set in Queen Anne's reign, but adopted the Demotic English of the 21st century. similarly, this adaptation, much influenced by Fleabag, decided to deal with the challenge of Jane Austen's dialogue by simply not using it, you know, and having her speak in a completely contemporary idiom. But there were just one or two lines, very, very few from the novel, that appeared. And when they appeared, they sort of cried through the screen at you. And one of them, slightly to qualify what you've just said, was a line I'd hardly noticed before. as it was one of the few Austin lines in the programme, in the film, I really noticed it. And it was much more Marianne than Eleanor. And that's when, I don't know if you remember, and Captain Wentworth, they're in Bath. So now they are sort of used to talking to each other. And Louisa Musgrove's done her recovering from injury and gone off and got engaged to Captain Benwick, Captain Benwick. So Wentworth's a free man. And Anne is aware, becoming aware that he may be still interested in her. And there's a card party, an evening party arranged by Sir Walter Elliot. And Captain Wentworth is given an invitation, even though they used to disapprove of him because he's now a naval hero and a rich man. And Captain Wentworth and Anna making slightly awkward conversation. And Captain Wentworth says, you did not used to like cards.I mean, he realizes what he said, because what he said is, remember you eight years ago. I remember we didn't have to do cards. We did snogging and music. That's what we did. But anyway, he did not used to like cards. And he suddenly realizes what a giveaway that is. And he says something like, but then time brings many changes. And she says, she cries out, I am not so much changed.Henry Oliver (11:23)Mm. Mm, yes, yes. Yep.Yes.Cries out, yeah.John Mullan (11:50)It's absolutely electric line and that's not Eleanor is it? That's not an Eleanor-ish line. ⁓ Eleanor would say indeed time evinces such dispositions in most extraordinary ways. She would say some Johnsonian thing wouldn't she? so I don't think it's quite a return to the same territory or the same kind of psychology.Henry Oliver (12:05)That's right. Yes, yes, yeah.No, that's interesting, yeah. One of the things that happens in Persuasion is that you get this impressionistic writing. So a bit like Mrs. Elliot talking while she picks strawberries. When Lady Russell comes into Bath, you get that wonderful scene of the noises and the sounds. Is this a sort of step forward in a way? And you can think of Austen as not an evolutionary missing link as such, but she's sort of halfway between Humphrey Clinker and Mr. Jangle.Is that something that she would have sort of developed?John Mullan (12:49)I think that's quite possible. haven't really thought about it before, but you're right. think there are these, ⁓ there are especially, they're impressionistic ⁓ passages which are tied up with Anne's emotions. And there's an absolutely, I think, short, simple, but extraordinarily original one when she meets him again after eight years. And it says something like, the room was full, full of people. Mary said something and you're in the blur of it. He said all that was right, you know, and she can't hear the words, she can't hear the words and you can't hear the words and you're inside and she's even, you're even sort of looking at the floor because she's looking at the floor and in Anne's sort of consciousness, often slightly fevered despite itself, you do exactly get this sort of, ⁓ for want of a better word, blur of impressions, which is entirely unlike, isn't it, Emma's sort of ⁓ drama of inner thought, which is always assertive, argumentative, perhaps self-correcting sometimes, but nothing if not confidently articulate.John Mullan (14:17)And with Anne, it's a blur of stuff. there is a sort of perhaps a kind of inklings of a stream of consciousness method there.Henry Oliver (14:27)I think so, yeah. Why is it that Flaubert and other writers get all the credit for what Jane Austen invented?John Mullan (14:35)Join my campaign, Henry. It is so vexing. It is vexing. sometimes thought, I sometimes have thought, but perhaps this is a little xenophobic of me, that the reason that Jane Austen is too little appreciated and read in France is because then they would have to admit that Flaubertdidn't do it first, you know. ⁓Henry Oliver (14:40)It's vexing, isn't it?John Mullan (15:04)I mean, I suppose there's an answer from literary history, which is simply for various reasons, ⁓ some of them to do with what became fashionable in literary fiction, as we would now call it. Jane Austen was not very widely read or known in the 19th century. So it wasn't as if, as it were, Tolstoy was reading Jane Austen and saying, this is not up to much. He wasn't. He was reading Elizabeth Gaskell.Jane Eyre ⁓ and tons of Dickens, tons, every single word Dickens published, of course. ⁓ So Jane Austen, know, to cite an example I've just referred to, I Charlotte Bronte knew nothing of Jane Austen until George Henry Lewis, George Eliot's partner, who is carrying the torch for Jane Austen, said, you really should read some. And that's why we have her famous letter saying, it's, you know, it's commonplace and foolish things she said. But so I think the first thing to establish is she was really not very widely read. So it wasn't that people were reading it and not getting it. It was which, you know, I think there's a little bit of that with Dickens. He was very widely read and people because of that almost didn't see how innovative he was, how extraordinarily experimental. It was too weird. But they still loved it as comic or melodramatic fiction. But I think Jane Austen simply wasn't very widely read until the late 19th century. So I don't know if Flaubert read her. I would say almost certainly not. Dickens owned a set of Jane Austen, but that was amongst 350 selecting volumes of the select British novelists. Probably he never read Jane Austen. Tolstoy and you know never did, you know I bet Dostoevsky didn't, any number of great writers didn't.Henry Oliver (17:09)I find it hard to believe that Dickens didn't read her.John Mullan (17:12)Well, I don't actually, I'm afraid, because I mean the one occasion that I know of in his surviving correspondence when she's mentioned is after the publication of Little Dorrit when ⁓ his great bosom friend Forster writes to him and says, Flora Finching, that must be Miss Bates. Yes. You must have been thinking of Miss Bates.John Mullan (17:41)And he didn't write it in a sort of, you plagiarist type way, I he was saying you've varied, it's a variation upon that character and Dickens we wrote back and we have his reply absolutely denying this. Unfortunately his denial doesn't make it clear whether he knew who Miss Bates was but hadn't it been influenced or whether he simply didn't know but what he doesn't… It's the one opportunity where he could have said, well, of course I've read Emma, but that's not my sort of thing. ⁓ of course I delight in Miss Bates, but I had no idea of thinking of her when I... He has every opportunity to say something about Jane Austen and he doesn't say anything about her. He just says, no.Henry Oliver (18:29)But doesn't he elsewhere deny having read Jane Eyre? And that's just like, no one believes you, Charles.John Mullan (18:32)Yes.Well, he may deny it, but he also elsewhere admits to it. Yeah.Henry Oliver (18:39)Okay, but you know, just because he doesn't come out with it.John Mullan (18:43)No, no, it's true, but he wouldn't have been singular and not reading Jane Austen. That's what I'm saying. Yes. So it's possible to ignore her innovativeness simply by not having read her. But I do think, I mean, briefly, that there is another thing as well, which is that really until the late 20th century almost, even though she'd become a wide, hugely famous, hugely widely read and staple of sort of A levels and undergraduate courses author, her real, ⁓ her sort of experiments with form were still very rarely acknowledged. And I mean, it was only really, I think in the sort of almost 1980s, really a lot in my working lifetime that people have started saying the kind of thing you were asking about now but hang on free and direct style no forget flow bear forget Henry James I mean they're terrific but actually this woman who never met an accomplished author in her life who had no literary exchanges with fellow writersShe did it at a little table in a house in Hampshire. Just did it.Henry Oliver (20:14)Was she a Tory or an Enlightenment Liberal or something else?John Mullan (20:19)⁓ well I think the likeliest, if I had to pin my colours to a mast, I think she would be a combination of the two things you said. I think she would have been an enlightenment Tory, as it were. So I think there is some evidence that ⁓ perhaps because also I think she was probably quite reasonably devout Anglican. So there is some evidence that… She might have been conservative with a small C, but I think she was also an enlightenment person. I think she and her, especially her father and at least a couple of her brothers, you know, would have sat around reading 18th century texts and having enlightened discussions and clearly they were, you know, and they had, it's perfect, you know, absolutely hard and fast evidence, for instance, that they would have been that they were sympathetic to the abolition of slavery, that they were ⁓ sceptics about the virtues of monarchical power and clear-eyed about its corruption, that they had no, Jane Austen, as I said at the beginning of this exchange, had no great respect or admiration for the aristocratic ruling class at all. ⁓ So there's aspects of her politics which aren't conservative with a big C anyway, but I think enlightened, think, I mean I, you know, I got into all this because I loved her novels, I've almost found out about her family inadvertently because you meet scary J-Night experts at Jane Austen Society of North America conferences and if you don't know about it, they look at scants. But it is all interesting and I think her family were rather terrific actually, her immediate family. I think they were enlightened, bookish, optimistic, optimistic people who didn't sit around moaning about the state of the country or their own, you know, not having been left enough money in exes will. And...I think that they were in the broadest sense enlightened people by the standard of their times and perhaps by any standards.Henry Oliver (22:42)Is Mansfield Park about slavery?John Mullan (22:45)Not at all, no. I don't think so. I don't think so. And I think, you know, the famous little passage, for it is only a passage in which Edmund and Fanny talk about the fact it's not a direct dialogue. They are having a dialogue about the fact that they had, but Fanny had this conversation or attempt at conversation ⁓ a day or two before. And until relatively recently, nobody much commented on that passage. It doesn't mean they didn't read it or understand it, but now I have not had an interview, a conversation, a dialogue involving Mansfield Park in the last, in living memory, which hasn't mentioned it, because it's so apparently responsive to our priorities, our needs and our interests. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I think it's a it's a parenthetic part of the novel. ⁓ And of course, there was this Edward Said article some decades ago, which became very widely known and widely read. And although I think Edward Said, you know, was a was a wonderful writer in many ways. ⁓I think he just completely misunderstands it ⁓ in a way that's rather strange for a literary critic because he says it sort of represents, you know, author's and a whole society's silence about this issue, the source of wealth for these people in provincial England being the enslavement of people the other side of the Atlantic. But of course, Jane Auster didn't have to put that bit in her novel, if she'd wanted really to remain silent, she wouldn't have put it in, would she? And the conversation is one where Edmund says, know, ⁓ you know, my father would have liked you to continue when you were asking about, yeah, and she says, but there was such terrible silence. And she's referring to the other Bertram siblings who indeed are, of course, heedless, selfish ⁓ young people who certainly will not want to know that their affluence is underwritten by, you know, the employment of slaves on a sugar plantation. But the implication, I think, of that passage is very clearly that Fanny would have, the reader of the time would have been expected to infer that Fanny shares the sympathies that Jane Austen, with her admiration, her love, she says, of Thomas Clarkson. The countries leading abolitionists would have had and that Edmund would also share them. And I think Edmund is saying something rather surprising, which I've always sort of wondered about, which is he's saying, my father would have liked to talk about it more. And what does that mean? Does that mean, my father's actually, he's one of these enlightened ones who's kind of, you know, freeing the slaves or does it mean, my father actually knows how to defend his corner? He would have beenYou know, he doesn't he doesn't feel threatened or worried about discussing it. It's not at all clear where Sir Thomas is in this, but I think it's pretty clear where Edmund and Fanny are.Henry Oliver (26:08)How seriously do you take the idea that we are supposed to disapprove of the family theatricals and that young ladies putting on plays at home is immoral?John Mullan (26:31)Well, I would, mean, perhaps I could quote what two students who were discussing exactly this issue said quite some time ago in a class where a seminar was running on Mansfield Park. And one of the students can't remember their names, I'm afraid. I can't remember their identities, so I'm safe to quote them. ⁓ They're now probably running PR companies or commercial solicitors. And one of them I would say a less perceptive student said, why the big deal about the amateur dramatics? I mean, what's Jane Austen's problem? And there was a pause and another student in the room who I would suggest was a bit more of an alpha student said, really, I'm surprised you asked that. I don't think I've ever read a novel in which I've seen characters behaving so badly as this.And I think that's the answer. The answer isn't that the amateur dramatics themselves are sort of wrong, because of course Jane Austen and her family did them. They indulged in them. ⁓ It's that it gives the opportunity, the license for appalling, mean truly appalling behaviour. I mean, Henry Crawford, you know, to cut to the chase on this, Henry Crawford is seducing a woman in front of her fiance and he enjoys it not just because he enjoys seducing women, that's what he does, but because it's in front of him and he gets an extra kick out of it. You know, he has himself after all already said earlier in the novel, oh, I much prefer an engaged woman, he has said to his sister and Mrs. Grant. Yes, of course he does. So he's doing that. Mariah and Julia are fighting over him. Mr. Rushworth, he's not behaving badly, he's just behaving like a silly arse. Mary Crawford, my goodness, what is she up to? She's up to using the amateur dramatics for her own kind of seductions whilst pretending to be sort of doing it almost unwillingly. I mean, it seems to me an elaborate, beautifully choreographed elaboration of the selfishness, sensuality and hypocrisy of almost everybody involved. And it's not because it's amateur dramatics, but amateur dramatics gives them the chance to behave so badly.Henry Oliver (29:26)Someone told me that Thomas Piketty says that Jane Austen depicts a society in which inequality of wealth is natural and morally justified. Is that true?John Mullan (29:29)Ha⁓Well, again, Thomas Piketty, I wish we had him here for a good old mud wrestle. ⁓ I would say that the problem with his analysis is the coupling of the two adjectives, natural and morally right. I think there is a strong argument that inequality is depicted as natural or at least inevitable, inescapable in Jane Austen's novels.but not morally right, as it were. In fact, not at all morally right. There is a certain, I think you could be exaggerated little and call it almost fatalism about that such inequalities. Do you remember Mr. Knightley says to Emma, in Emma, when he's admonishing her for her, you know, again, a different way, terribly bad behavior.Henry Oliver (30:38)At the picnic.John Mullan (30:39)At the picnic when she's humiliatedMiss Bates really and Mr Knightley says something like if she'd been your equal you know then it wouldn't have been so bad because she could have retaliated she could have come back but she's not and she says and he says something like I won't get the words exactly right but I can get quite close he says sinceher youth, she has sunk. And if she lives much longer, will sink further. And he doesn't say, ⁓ well, we must have a collection to do something about it, or we must have a revolution to do something about it, or if only the government would bring in better pensions, you know, he doesn't, he doesn't sort of rail against it as we feel obliged to. ⁓ He just accepts it as an inevitable part of what happens because of the bad luck of her birth, of the career that her father followed, of the fact that he died too early probably, of the fact that she herself never married and so on. That's the way it is. And Mr Knightley is, I think, a remarkably kind character, he's one of the kindest people in Jane Austen and he's always doing surreptitious kindnesses to people and you know he gives the Bates's stuff, things to eat and so on. He arranges for his carriage to carry them places but he accepts that that is the order of things. ⁓ But I, you know Henry, I don't know what you think, I think reading novels or literature perhaps more generally, but especially novels from the past, is when you're responding to your question to Mr. Piketty's quote, is quite a sort of, can be quite an interesting corrective to our own vanities, I think, because we, I mean, I'm not saying, you know, the poor are always with us, as it were, like Jesus, but... ⁓ You know, we are so ⁓ used to speaking and arguing as if any degree of poverty is in principle politically remediable, you know, and should be. And characters in Jane Austen don't think that way. And I don't think Jane Austen thought that way.Henry Oliver (33:16)Yes, yes. Yeah.The other thing I would say is that ⁓ the people who discuss Jane Austen publicly and write about her are usually middle class or on middle class incomes. And there's a kind of collective blindness to the fact that what we call Miss Bates poverty simply means that she's slipping out of the upper middle class and she will no longer have her maid.⁓ It doesn't actually mean, she'll still be living on a lot more than a factory worker, who at that time would have been living on a lot more than an agricultural worker, and who would have been living on a lot more than someone in what we would think of as destitution, or someone who was necessitous or whatever. So there's a certain extent to which I actually think what Austin is very good at showing is the... ⁓ the dynamics of a newly commercial society. So at the same time that Miss Bates is sinking, ⁓ I forget his name, but the farmer, the nice farmer, Robert Martin, he's rising. And they all, all classes meet at the drapier and class distinctions are slightly blurred by the presence of nice fabric.John Mullan (34:24)Mr. Robert Martin. Henry Oliver (34:37)And if your income comes from turnips, that's fine. You can have the same material that Emma has. And Jane Austen knows that she lives in this world of buttons and bonnets and muslins and all these new ⁓ imports and innovations. And, you know, I think Persuasion is a very good novel. ⁓ to say to Piketty, well, there's nothing natural about wealth inequality and persuasion. And it's not Miss Bates who's sinking, it's the baronet. And all these admirals are coming up and he has that very funny line, doesn't he? You're at terrible risk in the Navy that you'd be cut by a man who your father would have cut his father. And so I think actually she's not a Piketty person, but she's very clear-eyed about... quote unquote, what capitalism is doing to wealth inequality. Yeah, yeah.John Mullan (35:26)Yes, she is indeed. Indeed.Clear-eyed, I think, is just the adjective. I mean, I suppose the nearest she gets to a description. Yeah, she writes about the classes that she knows from the inside, as it were. So one could complain, people have complained. She doesn't represent what it's like to be an agricultural worker, even though agricultural labour is going on all around the communities in which her novels are set.And I mean, I think that that's a sort of rather banal objection, but there's no denying it in a way. If you think a novelist has a duty, as it were, to cover the classes and to cover the occupations, then it's not a duty that Jane Austen at all perceived. However, there is quite, there is something like, not a representation of destitution as you get in Dickens.but a representation of something inching towards poverty in Mansfield Park, which is the famous, as if Jane Austen was showing you she could do this sort of thing, which is the whole Portsmouth episode, which describes with a degree of domestic detail she never uses anywhere else in her fiction. When she's with the more affluent people, the living conditions, the food, the sheer disgustingness and tawdryness of life in the lodgings in Portsmouth where the Price family live. And of course, in a way, it's not natural because ⁓ in their particular circumstances, Lieutenant Price is an alcoholic.They've got far too many children. ⁓ He's a useless, sweary-mouthed boozer ⁓ and also had the misfortune to be wounded. ⁓ And she, his wife, Fanny's mother, is a slattern. We get told she's a slattern. And it's not quite clear if that's a word in Fanny's head or if that's Jane Austen's word. And Jane Austen...Fanny even goes so far as to think if Mrs. Norris were in charge here, and Mrs. Norris is as it were, she's the biggest sadist in all Jane Austen's fiction. She's like sort Gestapo guard monquet. If Mrs. Norris were in charge, it wouldn't be so bad here, but it's terrible. And Jane Austen even, know, she describes the color of the milk, doesn't she? The blue moats floating in the milk.She dis- and it's all through Fanny's perception. And Fanny's lived in this rather loveless grand place. And now it's a great sort of, ⁓ it's a coup d'etat. She now makes Fanny yearn for the loveless grand place, you know, because of what you were saying really, Henry, because as I would say, she's such an unsentimental writer, you know, andyou sort of think, you know, there's going to be no temptation for her to say, to show Fanny back in the loving bosom of her family, realising what hollow hearted people those Bertrams are. You know, she even describes the mark, doesn't she, that Mr Price's head, his greasy hair is left on the wall. It's terrific. And it's not destitution, but it's something like a life which must be led by a great sort of rank of British people at the time and Jane Austen can give you that, she can.Henry Oliver (39:26)Yeah, yeah. That's another very Dickensian moment. I'm not going to push this little thesis of mine too far, but the grease on the chair. It's like Mr. Jaggers in his horse hair. Yes. That's right, that's right. ⁓ Virginia Woolf said that Jane Austen is the most difficult novelist to catch in the act of greatness. Is that true?John Mullan (39:34)Yes, yes, yes, it is these details that Dickens would have noticed of course. Yes.Yes.⁓ I think it is so true. think that Virginia Woolf, she was such a true, well, I think she was a wonderful critic, actually, generally. Yeah, I think she was a wonderful critic. you know, when I've had a couple of glasses of Rioja, I've been known to say, to shocked students, ⁓ because you don't drink Rioja with students very often nowadays, but it can happen. ⁓ But she was a greater critic than novelist, you know.Henry Oliver (39:54)Yeah.Best critic of the 20th century. Yes, yes. Yeah. And also greater than Emson and all these people who get the airtime. Yes, yes.John Mullan (40:20)You know.I know, I know, but that's perhaps because she didn't have a theory or an argument, you know, and the Seven Types, I know that's to her credit, but you know, the Seven Types of Ambiguity thing is a very strong sort of argument, even if...Henry Oliver (40:31)Much to her credit.But look, if the last library was on fire and I could only save one of them, I'd let all the other critics in the 20th century burn and I'd take the common reader, wouldn't you?John Mullan (40:47)Okay. Yes, I, well, I think I agree. think she's a wonderful critic and both stringent and open. I mean, it's an extraordinary way, you know, doesn't let anybody get away with anything, but on the other hand is genuinely ready to, to find something new to, to anyway. ⁓ the thing she said about Austin, she said lots of good things about Austin and most of them are good because they're true. And the thing about… Yes, so what I would, I think what she meant was something like this, that amongst the very greatest writers, so I don't know, Shakespeare or Milton or, you know, something like that, you could take almost a line, yes? You can take a line and it's already glowing with sort of radioactive brilliance, know, and ⁓ Jane Austen, the line itself, there are wonderful sentences.)Mr. Bennett was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humor, reserve and caprice that the experience of three and 20 years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. I mean, that's as good as anything in Hamlet, isn't it? So odd a mixture and there he is, the oddest mixture there's ever been. And you think he must exist, he must exist. But anyway, most lines in Jane Austen probably aren't like that and it's as if in order to ⁓ explain how brilliant she is and this is something you can do when you teach Jane Austen, makes her terrific to teach I think, you can look at any bit and if everybody's read the novel and remembers it you can look at any paragraph or almost any line of dialogue and see how wonderful it is because it will connect to so many other things. But out of context, if you see what I mean, it doesn't always have that glow of significance. And sometimes, you know, the sort of almost most innocuous phrases and lines actually have extraordinary dramatic complexity. but you've got to know what's gone on before, probably what goes on after, who's in the room listening, and so on. And so you can't just catch it, you have to explain it. ⁓ You can't just, as it were, it, as you might quote, you know, a sort of a great line of Wordsworth or something.Henry Oliver (43:49)Even the quotable bits, you know, the bit that gets used to explain free and direct style in Pride and Prejudice where she says ⁓ living in sight of their own warehouses. Even a line like that is just so much better when you've been reading the book and you know who is being ventriloquized.John Mullan (43:59)Well, my favourite one is from Pride and Prejudice is after she's read the letter Mr Darcy gives her explaining what Wickham is really like, really, for truth of their relationship and their history. And she interrogates herself. And then at the end, there's ⁓ a passage which is in a passage of narration, but which is certainly in going through Elizabeth's thoughts. And it ends, she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. And I just think it's, if you've got to know Elizabeth, you just know that that payoff adjective, absurd, that's the coup de grace. Because of course, finding other people absurd is her occupation. It's what makes her so delightful. And it's what makes us complicit with her.Henry Oliver (44:48)Yeah.That's right.John Mullan (45:05)She sees how ridiculous Sir William Lucas and her sister Mary, all these people, and now she has absurded herself, as it were. So blind partial prejudice, these are all repetitions of the same thought. But only Elizabeth would end the list absurd. I think it's just terrific. But you have to have read the book just to get that. That's a whole sentence.You have to have read the book to get the sentence, don't you?Henry Oliver (45:34)Yep, indeed. ⁓ Do we love Jane Austen too much so that her contemporaries are overshadowed and they're actually these other great writers knocking around at the same time and we don't give them their due? Or is she in fact, you know, the Shakespeare to their Christopher Marlowe or however you want to.John Mullan (45:55)I think she's the Shakespeare to their Thomas Kidd or no even that's the... Yes, okay, I'm afraid that you know there are two contradictory answers to that. Yes, it does lead us to be unfair to her contemporaries certainly because they're so much less good than her. So because they're so much less good than her in a way we're not being unfair. know, I mean... because I have the profession I have, I have read a lot of novels by her immediate predecessors. I mean, people like Fanny Burnie, for instance, and her contemporaries, people like Mariah Edgeworth. And ⁓ if Jane Austen hadn't existed, they would get more airtime, I think, yes? And some of them are both Burnie and Edgeworth, for instance. ⁓ highly intelligent women who had a much more sophisticated sort of intellectual and social life than Jane Austen ⁓ and conversed with men and women of ideas and put some of those ideas in their fiction and they both wrote quite sophisticated novels and they were both more popular than Jane Austen and they both, having them for the sort of carpers and complainers, they've got all sorts of things like Mariah Regworth has some working-class people and they have political stuff in their novels and they have feminist or anti-feminist stuff in their novels and they're much more satisfying to the person who's got an essay to write in a way because they've got the social issues of the day in there a bit, certainly Mariah Regworth a lot. ⁓ So if Jane Austen hadn't come along we would show them I think more, give them more time. However, you know, I don't want to say this in a destructive way, but in a certain way, all that they wrote isn't worth one paragraph of Jane Austen, you know, in a way. So we're not wrong. I suppose the interesting case is the case of a man actually, which is Walter Scott, who sort of does overlap with Jane Austen a bit, you know, and who has published what I can't remember, two, three, even four novels by the time she dies, and I think three, and she's aware of him as a poet and I think beginning to be aware of him as a novelist. And he's the prime example of somebody who was in his own day, but for a long time afterwards, regarded as a great novelist of his day. And he's just gone. He's really, you know, you can get his books in know, Penguin and Oxford classics in the shops. I mean, it's at least in good big book shops. And it's not that he's not available, but it's a very rare person who's read more than one or even read one. I don't know if you read lots of Scott, Henry.Henry Oliver (49:07)Well, I've read some Scott and I quite like it, but I was a reactionary in my youth and I have a little flame for the Jacobite cause deep in my heart. This cannot be said of almost anyone who is alive today. 1745 means nothing to most people. The problem is that he was writing about something that has just been sort of forgotten. And so the novels, know, when Waverly takes the knee in front of the old young old pretender, whichever it is, who cares anymore? you know?John Mullan (49:40)Well, yes, but it can't just be that because he also wrote novels about Elizabeth I and Robin Hood and, you know... ⁓Henry Oliver (49:46)I do think Ivanhoe could be more popular, yeah.John Mullan (49:49)Yeah, so it's not just that this and when he wrote, for instance, when he published Old Mortality, which I think is one of his finest novels, I mean, I've read probably 10 Scott novels at nine or 10, you know, so that's only half or something of his of his output. And I haven't read one for a long time, actually. Sorry, probably seven or eight years. He wrote about some things, which even when he wrote about and published about, readers of the time couldn't have much known or cared about. mean, old mortalities about the Covenant as wars in the borderlands of Scotland in the 17th century. I mean, all those people in London who were buying it, they couldn't give a damn about that. Really, really, they couldn't. I mean, they might have recognized the postures of religious fanaticism that he describes rather well.But even then only rather distantly, I think. So I think it's not quite that. I think it's not so much ignorance now of the particular bits of history he was drawn to. I think it's that in the 19th century, historical fiction had a huge status. And it was widely believed that history was the most dignified topic for fiction and so dignified, it's what made fiction serious. So all 19th century authors had a go at it. Dickens had a go at it a couple of times, didn't he? I think it's no, yes, yes, think even Barnaby Rudge is actually, it's not just a tale of two cities. Yes, a terrific book. But generally speaking, ⁓ most Victorian novelists who did it, ⁓ they are amongst, you know, nobodyHenry Oliver (51:22)Very successfully. ⁓ a great book, great book.John Mullan (51:43)I think reads Trollope's La Vendée, you know, people who love Hardy as I do, do not rush to the trumpet major. it was a genre everybody thought was the big thing, know, war and peace after all. And then it's prestige faded. I mean, it's...returned a little bit in some ways in a sort of Hillary man, Tellish sort of way, but it had a hugely inflated status, I think, in the 19th century and that helped Scott. And Scott did, know, Scott is good at history, he's good at battles, he's terrific at landscapes, you know, the big bow wow strain as he himself described it.Henry Oliver (52:32)Are you up for a sort of quick fire round about other things than Jane Austen?John Mullan (52:43)Yes, sure, try me.Henry Oliver (52:44)Have you used any LLMs and are they good at talking about literature?John Mullan (52:49)I don't even know what an LLM is. What is it? Henry Oliver (52:51)Chat GPT. ⁓ John Mullan (53:17)⁓ God, goodness gracious, it's the work of Satan.Absolutely, I've never used one in my life. And indeed, have colleagues who've used them just to sort of see what it's like so that might help us recognise it if students are using them. And I can't even bring myself to do that, I'm afraid. But we do as a...As a department in my university, we have made some use of them purely in order to give us an idea of what they're like, so to help us sort of...Henry Oliver (53:28)You personally don't feel professionally obliged to see what it can tell you. Okay, no, that's fine. John Mullan (53:32)No, sorry.Henry Oliver (53:33)What was it like being a Booker Prize judge?heady. It was actually rather heady. Everybody talks about how it's such a slog, all those books, which is true. But when you're the Booker Prize judge, at least when I did it, you were treated as if you were somebody who was rather important. And then as you know, and that lasts for about six months. And you're sort of sent around in taxes and give nice meals and that sort of thing. And sort of have to give press conferences when you choose the shortlist. and I'm afraid my vanity was tickled by all that. And then at the moment after you've made the decision, you disappear. And the person who wins becomes important. It's a natural thing, it's good. And you realize you're not important at all.Henry Oliver (54:24)You've been teaching in universities, I think, since the 1990s.John Mullan (54:29)Yes, no earlier I fear, even earlier.Henry Oliver (54:32)What are the big changes? Is the sort of media narrative correct or is it more complicated than that?John Mullan (54:38)Well, it is more complicated, but sometimes things are true even though the Daily Telegraph says they're true, to quote George Orwell. ⁓ you know, I mean, I think in Britain, are you asking about Britain or are you asking more generally? Because I have a much more depressing view of what's happened in America in humanities departments.Henry Oliver (54:45)Well, tell us about Britain, because I think one problem is that the American story becomes the British story in a way. So what's the British story?John Mullan (55:07)Yes, yes, think that's true.Well, I think the British story is that we were in danger of falling in with the American story. The main thing that has happened, that has had a clear effect, was the introduction in a serious way, however long ago it was, 13 years or something, of tuition fees. And that's really, in my department, in my subject, that's had a major change.and it wasn't clear at first, but it's become very clear now. So ⁓ it means that the, as it were, the stance of the teachers to the taught and the taught to the teachers, both of those have changed considerably. Not just in bad ways, that's the thing. It is complicated. So for instance, I mean, you could concentrate on the good side of things, which is, think, I don't know, were you a student of English literature once?Henry Oliver (55:49)Mm-hmm.I was, I was. 2005, long time ago.John Mullan (56:07)Yes. OK.Well, I think that's not that long ago. mean, probably the change is less extreme since your day than it is since my day. But compared to when I was a student, which was the end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s, I was an undergraduate. The degree of sort of professionalism and sobriety, responsibility and diligence amongst English literature academics has improved so much.You know, you generally speaking, literature academics, they are not a load of ⁓ drunken wastrels or sort of predatory seducers or lazy, work shy, ⁓ even if they love their own research, negligent teachers or a lot of the sort of the things which even at the time I recognise as the sort of bad behaviour aspects of some academics. Most of that's just gone. It's just gone. You cannot be like that because you've got everybody's your institution is totally geared up to sort of consumer feedback and and the students, especially if you're not in Oxford or Cambridge, the students are essentially paying your salaries in a very direct way. So there have been improvements actually. ⁓ those improvements were sort of by the advocates of tuition fees, I think, and they weren't completely wrong. However, there have also been some real downsides as well. ⁓ One is simply that the students complain all the time, you know, and in our day we had lots to complain about and we never complained. Now they have much less to complain about and they complain all the time. ⁓ So, and that seems to me to have sort of weakened the relationship of trust that there should be between academics and students. But also I would say more if not optimistically, at least stoically. I've been in this game for a long time and the waves of student fashion and indignation break on the shore and then another one comes along a few years later. And as a sort of manager in my department, because I'm head of my department, I've learned to sort of play the long game.And what everybody's hysterical about one moment, one year, they will have forgotten about two or three years later. So there has been a certain, you know, there was a, you know, what, what, you know, some conservative journalists would call kind of wokery. There has been some of that. But in a way, there's always been waves of that. And the job of academics is sort of to stand up to it. and in a of calm way. Tuition fees have made it more difficult to do that I think.Henry Oliver (59:40)Yeah. Did you know A.S. Byatt? What was she like?John Mullan (59:43)I did.⁓ Well...When you got to know her, you recognized that the rather sort of haughty almost and sometimes condescending apparently, ⁓ intellectual auteur was of course a bit of a front. Well, it wasn't a front, but actually she was quite a vulnerable person, quite a sensitive and easily upset person.I mean that as a sort of compliment, not easily upset in the sense that sort of her vanity, but actually she was quite a humanly sensitive person and quite woundable. And when I sort of got to know that aspect of her, know, unsurprisingly, I found myself liking her very much more and actually not worrying so much about the apparent sort of put downs of some other writers and things and also, you know, one could never have said this while she was alive even though she often talked about it. I think she was absolutely permanently scarred by the death of her son and I think that was a, you know, who was run over when he was what 11 years old or something. He may have been 10, he may have been 12, I've forgotten, but that sort of age. I just think she was I just think she was permanently lacerated by that. And whenever I met her, she always mentioned it somehow, if we were together for any length of time.Henry Oliver (1:01:27)What's your favourite Iris Murdoch novel?John Mullan (1:01:33)I was hoping you were going to say which is the most absurd Aris Murdoch novel. ⁓ No, you're an Aris Murdoch fan, are you? Henry Oliver (1:01:38)Very much so. You don't like her work?John Mullan (1:01:59)Okay. ⁓ no, it's, as you would say, Henry, more complicated than that. I sort of like it and find it absurd. It's true. I've only read, re-read in both cases, two in the last 10 years. And that'sThat's not to my credit. And both times I thought, this is so silly. I reread the C to C and I reread a severed head. And I just found them both so silly. ⁓ I was almost, you know, I almost lost my patience with them. But I should try another. What did I used to like? Did I rather like an accidental man? I fear I did.Did I rather like the bell, which is surely ridiculous. I fear I did. Which one should I like the most?Henry Oliver (1:02:38)I like The Sea, the Sea very much. ⁓ I think The Good Apprentice is a great book. There are these, so after The Sea, the Sea, she moves into her quote unquote late phase and people don't like it, but I do like it. So The Good Apprentice and The Philosopher's Pupil I think are good books, very good books.John Mullan (1:02:40)I've not read that one, I'm afraid. Yes, I stopped at the sea to sea. I, you know, once upon a time, I'm a bit wary of it and my experience of rereading A Severed Head rather confirmed me in my wariness because rereading, if I were to reread Myris Murdoch, I'm essentially returning to my 18 year old self because I read lots of Myris Murdoch when I was 17, 18, 19 and I thought she was deep as anything. and to me she was the deep living British novelist. And I think I wasn't alone ⁓ and I feel a little bit chastened by your advocacy of her because I've also gone along with the ⁓ general readership who've slightly decided to ditch Irish Murdoch. her stock market price has sunk hugely ⁓ since her death. But perhaps that's unfair to her, I don't know. I've gone a bit, I'll try again, because I recently have reread two or three early Margaret Drabble novels and found them excellent, really excellent. And thought, ⁓ actually, I wasn't wrong to like these when I was a teenager. ⁓Henry Oliver (1:04:11)The Millstone is a great book.John Mullan (1:04:22)⁓ yes and actually yes I reread that, I reread the Garrick year, the Millstone's terrific I agree, the the Garrick year is also excellent and Jerusalem the Golden, I reread all three of them and and and thought they were very good. So so you're recommending the Philosopher's Apprentice. I'm yeah I'm conflating yes okay.Henry Oliver (1:04:31)first rate. The Good Apprentice and the Philosopher's Pupil. Yeah, yeah. I do agree with you about A Severed Head. I think that book's crazy. What do you like about Patricia Beer's poetry?John Mullan (1:04:56)⁓ I'm not sure I am a great fan of Patricia Beer's poetry really. I got the job of right, what? Yes, yes, because I was asked to and I said, I've read some of her poetry, but you know, why me? And the editor said, because we can't find anybody else to do it. So that's why I did it. And it's true that I came.Henry Oliver (1:05:02)Well, you wrote her... You wrote her dictionary of national... Yes.John Mullan (1:05:23)I came to quite like it and admire some of it because in order to write the article I read everything she'd ever published. But that was a while ago now, Henry, and I'm not sure it puts me in a position to recommend her.Henry Oliver (1:05:35)Fair enough.Why is the Dunciad the greatest unread poem in English?John Mullan (1:05:41)Is it the greatest unread one? Yes, probably, yes, yes, I think it is. Okay, it's great because, first of all, great, then unread. It's great because, well, Alexander Poet is one of the handful of poetic geniuses ever, in my opinion, in the writing in English. Absolutely genius, top shelf. ⁓Henry Oliver (1:05:46)Well, you said that once, yes.Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, yes. Top shelf, yeah.John Mullan (1:06:09)And even his most accessible poetry, however, is relatively inaccessible to today's readers, sort of needs to be taught, or at least you have to introduce people to. Even the Rape of the Lock, which is a pure delight and the nearest thing to an ABBA song he ever wrote, is pretty scary with its just densely packed elusiveness and...Henry Oliver (1:06:27)YouJohn Mullan (1:06:38)You know, and as an A level examiner once said to me, we don't set Pope for A level because it's full of irony and irony is unfair to candidates. ⁓ Which is true enough. ⁓ So Pope's already difficult. ⁓ Poetry of another age, poetry which all depends on ideas of word choice and as I said, literary allusion and The Dunciad is his most compacted, elusive, dense, complicated and bookish poems of a writer who's already dense and compact and bookish and elusive. And the Dunceyad delights in parodying, as I'm sure you know, all the sort of habits of scholarly emendation and encrustation, which turn what should be easy to approach works of literature into sort of, you know, heaps of pedantic commentary. And he parodies all that with delight. But I mean, that's quite a hard ask, isn't it? And ⁓ yeah, and I just and I think everything about the poem means that it's something you can only ever imagine coming to it through an English literature course, actually. I think it is possible to do that. I came to it through being taught it very well and, you know, through because I was committed for three years to study English literature, but it's almost inconceivable that somebody could just sort of pick it up in a bookshop and think, ⁓ this is rather good fun. I'll buy this.Henry Oliver (1:08:26)Can we end with one quick question about Jane Austen since it's her birthday? A lot of people come to her books later. A lot of people love it when they're young, but a lot of people start to love it in their 20s or 30s. And yet these novels are about being young. What's going on there?John Mullan (1:08:29)Sure, sure.Yes.I fear, no not I fear, I think that what you describe is true of many things, not just Jane Austen. You know, that there's a wonderful passage in J.M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace where the reprehensible protagonist is teaching Wordsworth's Prelude.to a group of 19 and 20 year olds. And he adores it. He's in his mid fifties. And he, whilst he's talking, is thinking different things. And what he's thinking is something that I often think actually about certain works I teach, particularly Jane Austen, which is this book is all about being young, but the young find it tedious. Only the aging.You know, youth is wasted on the young, as it were. Only the aging really get its brilliance about the experience of being young. And I think that's a sort of pattern in quite a lot of literature. So, you know, take Northanger Abbey. That seems to me to be a sort of disly teenage book in a way.It's everything and everybody's in a hurry. Everybody's in a whirl. Catherine's in a whirl all the time. She's 17 years old. And it seems to me a delightfully teenage-like book. And if you've read lots of earlier novels, mostly by women, about girls in their, you know, nice girls in their teens trying to find a husband, you know, you realize that sort ofextraordinary magical gift of sort Jane Austen's speed and sprightliness. You know, somebody said to me recently, ⁓ when Elizabeth Bennet sort of walks, but she doesn't walk, she sort of half runs across the fields. You know, not only is it socially speaking, no heroine before her would have done it, but the sort of the sprightliness with which it's described putsthe sort of ploddingness of all fiction before her to shame. And there's something like that in Northanger Abbey. It's about youthfulness and it takes on some of the qualities of the youthfulness of its heroine. know, her wonderful oscillations between folly and real insight. You know, how much she says this thing. I think to marry for money is wicked. Whoa. And you think,Well, Jane Austen doesn't exactly think that. She doesn't think Charlotte Lucas is wicked, surely. But when Catherine says that, there's something wonderful about it. There is something wonderful. You know, only a 17 year old could say it, but she does. And but I appreciate that now in my 60s. I don't think I appreciated it when I was in my teens.Henry Oliver (1:11:55)That's a lovely place to end. John Mullen, thank you very much.John Mullan (1:11:58)Thanks, it's been a delight, a delight. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Barbara Gordon was introduced to add some flair to the final season of Batman '66, to try to buoy the sagging ratings on the show. And while she didn't save that series, she has become the iconic Batgirl of the comics, a character who has had a long career in various identities. This week, friend of the show and Patreon backer John Wickham returns to talk about three different phases of Barbara's time as Batgirl. We get a retelling of her origin with a modern slant, one of the early stories from her return to the identity in the New 52 and the culmination of the "Batgirl of Burnside" era. Batgirl: Year One #1-9 Knightfall Rising (Batgirl V.4 # 10-13) Mindfield (Batgirl V.4 # 47-50) Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/ Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

In the heady days of mid-1990s Britain, the actor Adrian Lukis went to a screen test for a glossy new drama: an adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. To an actor, auditions come and go — most don't work out — and having hated the book while at school, he didn't have high hopes. They fell even lower when he bumped in to his rival for the part of Mr Wickham, a dashing man at least 10 years his junior.But Adrian got the part, and his life changed forever thanks to his starring role as Jane Austen's charming rogue — and decades later, he still gets stopped by fans wanting to talk about the greatest adaptation of what is arguably Austen's best novel (and one which quickly won Adrian over upon re-reading it). In the course of those conversations a seed was planted: was Wickham really that bad? How did he get that way, if he was? And are we trusting Mr Darcy's assessment, which might easily be horribly skewed? The result was Being Mr Wickham, Adrian's self-penned one-man show that shares the untold tale of the suave but slippery army officer.Adrian talks about his life, his career and the challenges of writing one of literature's most enduring characters — which even saw him poring over a dictionary Regency-era slang — as well as the perennial appeal of Jane Austen. It's funny, clever and enlightening in equal measure and we hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed talking to him.Being Mr Wickham is on in the Minerva Theatre at the Chichester Festival Theatre from January 20-24 — find out more and get tickets at the theatre's website.Episode creditsHost: James FisherGuest: Adrian LukisEditor and producer: Toby KeelMusic: JuliusH via Pixabay Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guillermo Del Toro's highly anticipated Frankenstein adaptation was finally released on Netflix last week, and thanks to Bilkent Cinema Society, we got to watch it on a big screen! In this week's episode, Wickham, Colleen, and Ada are joined by an audience formed of Bilkent Cinema Society, Bilkent Literature Society, Bilkent Culture Studies Society, and Bilkent Wizards for a live recording to talk about "Frankenstein" (2025, dir. Guillermo Del Toro).

Lydia and Wickham are off to Newcastle, which is a disappointment to Mrs. Bennet, but she's soon comforted by the news of the arrival of a familiar neighbor - Mr. Bingley is back in town. What's more, he's brought Mr. Darcy with him. The gentlemen call at Longbourn, and both Jane and Elizabeth's emotions are in a flutter. It's all too much for the two eldest Bennet girls, as they alternate between hopes of rekindling old affections, attempting to stay calm, and mitigating the intensity of their mother's reaction to both gentlemen. As the girls work out how they feel in this week's Friday Favorites, let their story comfort you into a peaceful night of restful sleep. -----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Risk vs Pleasure Series Ep 165 Description:  "If you are focused on the risk, or you're worried or you're anxious about what's going to go wrong, that is taking up too much of your brain. We need to deal with it and put it into perspective so that we can clear the path to joy and pleasure." —Dr. Sara Wickham   Pregnancy is supposed to be a time of wonder, but too often the first word that comes up is "risk". Suddenly, every choice feels like a warning sign, and joy gets pushed into the background. No one talks about how heavy that constant fear can feel—or how much it steals from the confidence and pleasure that should be part of the journey. After decades as a midwife, researcher, and lecturer, Dr. Sara Wickham saw how the medical model's focus on risk overshadowed women's voices and experiences. Now, through her books and the Birth Information Project, she's breaking down the numbers and challenging the myths, showing women that evidence doesn't have to be scary—it can be liberating. In this conversation, Debra and Sara unpack how risk talk shapes pregnancy, why many "warnings" don't match the actual evidence, and how women can reclaim joy, confidence, and even pleasure in birth—including insights from her new book Plus Size Pregnancy. Expect tools, clarity, and a refreshing reminder that pregnancy isn't just about minimizing danger—it's about living the experience fully.   Connect with Debra! Website: https://www.orgasmicbirth.com  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orgasmicbirth X: https://twitter.com/OrgasmicBirth  YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/OrgasmicBirth1  Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@orgasmicbirth  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-pascali-bonaro-1093471    Episode Highlights: 03:13 The Cultural Obsession with Risk 06:31 The Impact of Risk on Women's Experiences 09:14 Understanding Evidence Around Risk 16:38 Induction of Labor and Its Implications 27:18 Plus Size Pregnancy and Evidence Discrepancies  36:15 The Importance of Reframing Risk    Resources: 

After a tantalizing slip of information from Lydia, Elizabeth has been eager to learn why Mr. Darcy was at the Wickhams' wedding, and a letter from her aunt Gardiner has arrived that answers all her questions and more. It turns out that Mr. Darcy was the one who arranged the entire thing, from finding Lydia and Wickham in London, to paying off Wickham's debts to secure the marriage. It's more than Elizabeth can handle, but she does not want to allow herself to hope too much, lest she be disappointed. At least she can sleep a little easier having learned the truth, and you will too, as our latest Friday Favorites carries you away into a night of sweet and gentle sleep. -----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Lydia and Wickham are married, and the scandalous newlyweds have arrived at Longbourn to visit the Bennet family. The two are as brazen as ever, while Elizabeth and Jane seem to feel more than enough shame for both of them. During one of their conversations, Lydia lets and important detail slip - Mr. Darcy was at their wedding. Elizabeth is astonished, and quickly writes to her aunt Gardiner, knowing that she will be unable to rest until she learns the truth. But fortunately, that isn't a problem for you, as this week's Friday Favorites helps you close your day with lots of restful and restorative sleep.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Happy Halloween! In this week's spooktacular episode, Wickham and Ada are discussing horror films that don't normally get the recognition they deserve: "Trick 'r Treat" (2007, dir. Michael Dougherty), "The Innocents" (1961, dir. Jack Clayton), and "Cure" (1997, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa).

Worship leader and songwriter Phil Wickham is back—this time with his wife Mallory, who pulls back the curtain on life at home while Phil is on the road. From privacy and boundaries to joyful chaos with kids, they talk honestly about the unseen sacrifices that make visible ministry possible. You'll hear the story of their relationship (from hesitant boyfriend to wholehearted husband), the reality of Summer Worship Nights—miracles, momentum, and whooping cough—and the everyday stuff: mice in the garage, sprinter van shenanigans, and why a five-gallon bucket is elite family gear. It's tender, funny, and full of faith for marriages and homes that put Jesus at the center. Connect with us on social! Phil + Mallory: @philwickham Levi: @levilusko Jennie: @jennielusko Fresh Life Church: @freshlife [Links] Listen to Song of The Saints on Spotify: https://bit.ly/48wvAPQ Listen to Song of The Saints on Apple Music: https://bit.ly/42ISrnI Get the 5 Gallon Bucket: https://bit.ly/sdl4sHY Get the Lusketeer Sticker: https://bit.ly/sdl4sHY Subscribe for more exclusive content: https://levilusko.com/hitl-subscribe Time stamps 06:50 – Mallory's first-ever podcast 23:42 – Mice infestation + whooping cough 36:24 – Billy Graham cameo & Phil raps 38:47 – Sprinter vs. the garage 43:31 – Five-gallon bucket mouse trap 53:27 – Song of the Saints tour preview

Worship leader and songwriter Phil Wickham is back—this time with his wife Mallory, who pulls back the curtain on life at home while Phil is on the road. From privacy and boundaries to joyful chaos with kids, they talk honestly about the unseen sacrifices that make visible ministry possible. You'll hear the story of their relationship (from hesitant boyfriend to wholehearted husband), the reality of Summer Worship Nights—miracles, momentum, and whooping cough—and the everyday stuff: mice in the garage, sprinter van shenanigans, and why a five-gallon bucket is elite family gear. It's tender, funny, and full of faith for marriages and homes that put Jesus at the center. Connect with us on social! Phil + Mallory: @philwickham Levi: @levilusko Jennie: @jennielusko Fresh Life Church: @freshlife [Links] Listen to Song of The Saints on Spotify: https://bit.ly/48wvAPQ Listen to Song of The Saints on Apple Music: https://bit.ly/42ISrnI Get the 5 Gallon Bucket: https://bit.ly/sdl4sHY Get the Lusketeer Sticker: https://bit.ly/sdl4sHY Subscribe for more exclusive content: https://levilusko.com/hitl-subscribe Time stamps 06:50 – Mallory's first-ever podcast 23:42 – Mice infestation + whooping cough 36:24 – Billy Graham cameo & Phil raps 38:47 – Sprinter vs. the garage 43:31 – Five-gallon bucket mouse trap 53:27 – Song of the Saints tour preview

After reflecting on the lack of economical thinking that brought him here, Mr. Bennet speedily agrees to the terms that Mr. Gardiner has secured for Lydia and Wickham's marriage. But he is determined to hold strong on one point - they shall not be allowed to enter Longbourn. That is, until Elizabeth and Jane convince him to allow a visit as the newlyweds are on their way to Wickham's new posting in the north. Meanwhile, now that the marriage has taken place, Elizabeth is wishing she hadn't let Mr. Darcy in on the sordid truth, since she is slowly realizing that he may in fact, be the right man for her. Elizabeth is convinced that her realization has come too late, but luckily, it's not too late for you to enjoy our latest Friday Favorites as it helps you into another night of soft and comforting sleep.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Longbourn is aflutter with the arrival of an express from London - Lydia has been found at last! She and Wickham are not yet married, but soon will be, as long as Mr. Bennet agrees to the terms of the agreement that Mr. Gardiner has secured. The cost to the Bennets is much less than they were expecting, leading them to suspect that their dear uncle has paid more money to Wickham than they can ever hope to repay. It's a troubling thought, but at least the Bennet daughters can occupy themselves with handling their mother's renewed energy towards wedding clothes. Securing Wickham and Lydia's marriage may have cost ten thousand pounds, but this week's Friday Favorites is free, so let it accompany you as you relax into a night of deep and restorative sleep.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Scott and Noah unpacks agency growth that actually moves the needle for Amazon sellers. They tackle conference takeaways, real playbooks for managing hundreds of brands, and how “unreasonable hospitality” builds sticky B2B relationships. You will hear how top teams stay resilient, communicate proactively, and keep speed and flexibility at the center of every client touchpoint. Also learn how AI is reshaping product discovery on Amazon, from ChatGPT workflows to Rufus and what that means for ranking, conversion, and revenue. Instead of chasing vanity metrics, Scott and Noah show how to optimize for sales and profitability first, with SEO as a supporting lever. If you run an Amazon agency or lead an in-house marketplace team, this episode is your roadmap to faster growth, smarter tools, and happier clients. Episode Notes: 00:50 - Noah Wickham Introduction 02:25 - E-commerce Beginnings and Favorites 04:20 - Joining My Amazon Guy 05:24 -  Leadership Journey with Steven Pope 09:55 - What Amazon Sellers Value 11:00 - The Four Pillars of Amazon Success 11:59 - Amazon Accelerate 13:35 - Amazon's AI Strategy and New Tools 15:45 - Building an AI Tool for Amazon Sellers 19:17 - Adapting to AI Search Behavior 20:25 - The Rise and Adoption of Rufus 21:55 - Golden Seller Awards 24:06 - Managing Hundreds of Seller Accounts 27:10 - The Importance of Speed and Execution 28:20 - Unreasonable Hospitality in B2B Contexts 29:10 - Fast Onboarding and Proactive Communication 31:04 - Business Growth, Innovation, and Culture Sellers United 2025 Related Post: Top 10 Creator Brands on Amazon in 2025 How to Reach Noah: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noahwickham/ Scott's Links: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/scott-needham-a8b39813 X: @itsScottNeedham Instagram: @smartestseller YouTube: www.youtube.com/@smartestamazonseller2371 Newsletter: https://www.smartscout.com/newsletter-sign-up Blog: https://www.smartscout.com/blog

Hey y'all! In this mid-week release, Colleen, Wickham, and Ada are joined by our special guest, Dr. Eric Sandberg of the City University of Hong Kong, to discuss Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, "One Battle After Another" (2025)!

A year later, we're back with yet another summer horror episode where Wickham, Colleen, and Ada talk about horror films that hit the theatres during the summer of 2025: "28 Years Later" (2025, dir. Danny Boyle), "Weapons" (2025, dir. Zach Cregger), and "Together" (2025, dir. Michael Shanks).

Mr. Bennet and Mr. Gardiner are both in London, doing their best to uncover where Lydia and Wickham may be hiding. No one knows of any of Wickham's friends or relations - all they have been able to uncover is lots and lots of gambling debts. A letter from Mr. Collins offers nothing more than his unhelpful opinions, and eventually Mr. Bennet makes his way home, leaving the Gardiners to continue the search. This week's Friday Favorites is exhausting business, so let the story help you beat your own exhaustion by falling into another night of peaceful and relaxing sleep.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Skip Intro comes to New York this week to talk to Louis Partridge of Enola Holmes fame. Partridge takes on the role of Edward Guinness in the new series House of Guinness. He also stars as Wickham in Netflix's upcoming Pride & Prejudice adaptation, as well as the younger Billy Crudup character in Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly. The 22-year-old actor shares what it was like to meet his first casting director, playing rugby and being mischievous in school, and his girlfriend's funny American accent. Video episodes available on Still Watching Netflix YouTube Channel. Listen to more from Netflix Podcasts.

Elizabeth and the Gardiners make their way back to Longbourn, where they are quickly brought into the Bennet family fold and learn how everyone's been holding up since learning of Lydia's flight from Brighton. Jane has been holding down the fort, while Mrs. Bennet has confined herself to her room and is convinced that Mr. Bennet and Mr. Wickham will fight in a duel. Meanwhile, Kitty is subdued after the loss of her favorite sister, and Mary offers Elizabeth the balm of sisterly consolation and a reminder about the nature of women's virtue. Elizabeth is grateful to be back at home to support her family, despite the circumstances. As she settles into the comfort of her own home, let this week's Friday Favorites help you settle into the comfort of a night of restful and relaxing sleep. -----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

What's up, y'all?! The summer of 2025 has been quite busy, as many anticipated films were released in theaters. Colleen, Wickham, and Ada are kicking off season 8 of the podcast with a collection of highly anticipated superhero films: "Superman" (2025, dir. James Gunn), "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" (2025, dir. Matt Shakman), and "KPop Demon Hunters" (2025, dir. Maggie Kang & Chris Appelhans).

There's only been one thing missing from Elizabeth's time in Derbyshire, and that's a letter from Jane, but luckily she's just received two. Unfortunately for her, the letters bear calamitous news - Lydia has run away from Brighton...with Mr. Wickham. What's worse, Mr. Darcy happened to call at the exact time that Elizabeth got the news, and is now privy to the whole scandalous truth. This week's Friday Favorites brings an end to Elizabeth and Darcy's budding friendship (or so Elizabeth believes), so let it also help you bring an end to your day as the comforting story brings you into another night of deep and restorative slumber.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Mark and Corey welcome Dale Wickham of Wickham Farms, who shares how his family's 1980s pumpkin stand grew into a nationally recognized model for “agri-tainment” while they also break down the latest real-estate numbers and mortgage rates.

In this episode, we explore the challenges of standing out in crowded marketplaces and driving real e-commerce growth.Noah Wickham, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at My Amazon Guy, shares his approach to helping brands succeed by focusing on differentiation, understanding the competitive landscape, and creating a strong brand identity. He also gives actionable advice on advertising, keyword research, and using data to boost sales.Topics discussed in this episode:  Why building a brand is crucial for long-term growth. What goes wrong when brands don't plan for a launch. How to differentiate your brand in a crowded market. What to do before your product launch on Amazon. How to optimize your product listing for customers and search. Why good design and imagery are so important. What advertising strategies to use for a new product. How to use a launch strategy for early sales success. What the four pillars of holistic growth are. Why investing in growth is essential for business. Links & Resources Website: https://myamazonguy.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/myamazonguyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahwickham/X/Twitter: https://x.com/myamazonguyGet access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at https://tinyurl.com/44c74nhf______________________________________________________ LOVE THE SHOW? HERE ARE THE NEXT STEPS! Follow the podcast to get every bonus episode. Tap follow now and don't miss out! Rate & Review: Help others discover the show by rating the show on Apple Podcasts at https://tinyurl.com/ecb-apple-podcasts Join our Free Newsletter: https://newsletter.ecommercecoffeebreak.com/ Support The Show On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EcommerceCoffeeBreak Partner with us: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/podcast-sponsorship/

Discover the upcoming winter season at Chichester Festival Theatre

Hey y'all! We're back with a syllabus special episode where Wickham and Colleen are discussing the films they teach in their classes. As always, we're talking about a bunch of films, but primarily focusing on "Moonlight" (2016, dir. Barry Jenkins) and "One Hour Photo" (2002, dir. Mark Romanek).

There are periods where certain characters have more of a spotlight than others. Sure, there are always a lot of Batman stories, Joker stories. But then there are pockets of time when we get lots of stories focused on Jim Gordon or the Riddler. Between 2003 and 2006, Mr. Freeze had his day. He appeared in major stories like "Under the Hood" and "City of Crime" in supporting roles, and was central to other stories. This week, John Wickham joins us again to talk about three of these stories: the final arc of the first Batgirl series where Freeze is a small player, a one off fill-in issue and a Legends of the Dark Knight arc with a different vision of Freeze's origin. Destruction's Daughter (Batgirl V.1 #66-73) Fire & Ice (Batman: Gotham Knights #59) Snow (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #192-196) Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/ Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

Elizabeth is back at Longbourn, but peace remains elusive, as Kitty and Lydia are desperate to follow the departing Meryton regiment to Brighton. Luckily for Lydia (and unluckily for Kitty), she receives an invitation as the particular friend of the colonel's wife. Elizabeth knows how badly this could end, and tries her best to convince their father not to permit Lydia to go, to no avail. At least there's one piece of good news out of all of it - the departure of the regiment means that Mr. Wickham is gone, and hopefully, out of their lives forever. As Lydia and the regiment make their way out of town, there's peace and quiet in the house. Let this week's Friday Favorites bring you your own peace and quiet as you settle in for another night of soft and restful sleep.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

After a quick stay at the Gardiners, Elizabeth, Jane, and Maria Lucas are on their way back to Hertfordshire. They're met along the way by Kitty and Lydia, who "treat" them to a lunch that's paid for by their older sisters, and then, at long last, they are back at home. For Elizabeth, this means she finally has the chance to unload the burden of her secrets and share the news of Mr. Darcy's proposal and Mr. Wickham's true character with Jane. This week's Friday Favorites is a moment of relief for Elizabeth, one that helps her feel relaxed, and it is a familiar story that will help you relax too, as you drift into a night of gentle and restorative sleep.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

The chief executive of Ballance with the fertiliser co-ops’ annual results. Plus Ballance Agri-Nutrients has been forced to take an $88 million hit on the value of its Taranaki manufacturing facility, given the uncertainty surrounding its future gas supply.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever wondered what separates wildly successful Amazon brands from those barely breaking even? Noah Wickman, VP of Sales and Marketing at My Amazon Guy, pulls back the curtain on the strategies driving $1.2 billion in annual revenue across 400+ brands.Noah's journey from eBay reseller to e-commerce leader offers a fascinating backdrop to his practical insights. While many sellers feel discouraged by Amazon's increasing fees and competition, Noah brings a refreshingly optimistic perspective: "There are millionaires made on Amazon every single day." The difference? A willingness to invest in testing new approaches rather than operating from fear.The conversation dives deep into advertising strategy, revealing that My Amazon Guy allocates approximately 89% of ad spend to Sponsored Products across their client base—challenging conventional wisdom about ad distribution. Noah also shares a startling finding: about 20% of most sellers' ad budgets are completely wasted, with zero sales resulting from those expenditures. His practical advice for auditing campaigns and identifying these inefficiencies could save listeners thousands.Perhaps most valuable is Noah's framework for sustainable growth. He outlines the four unchanging pillars of Amazon success: catalog management, design, PPC, and SEO—with the latter being the consistent needle-mover for 90% of brands. "The more keywords you have, the more search volume you get. It's essentially just widening that funnel," he explains. Even brands doing $23+ million annually continue to optimize SEO monthly.For those struggling with profitability, Noah offers an unexpected suggestion: test price increases. "You can usually raise prices about 15-20% before your conversion really takes a hit," he notes, provided your listing already ranks well. This single insight could transform margins for many sellers.Ready to accelerate your Amazon business with strategies from someone who's seen what works across hundreds of brands? This episode delivers actionable tactics you can implement immediately. Subscribe now and join us as we continue to unlock the secrets of e-commerce success!How to connect with Noah:Website: https://www.myamazonguy.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/myamazonguyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/my-amazon-guy/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenpopemag/Twitter: https://x.com/myamazonguyYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/myamazonguyReady to scale your Amazon business? Click here to book a strategy call. https://calendly.com/firingtheman/amazon Support the show

The Daisies discuss episodes 3 & 4 of Love is Blind UK (season 2). They chat about Katisha's back and forthing between Demola and Javen, and what they make of her decision. Daisy G reveals her favourite couple of the series, and they compare the LIB experience to the start of their own relationship. They talk about Kal's type, and whether he can choose to break old patterns. And Patrick enters their bad books as his hatred of humbleness is revealed.Follow and DM us on Instagram @doingthemafs or email daisygrantproductions@gmail.comWatch us on Youtube www.youtube.com/@doingthemafsClick here to sign up to our PATREON!

Send us a textPhil Wickham took a Rich Mullins classic chorus and breathed new life into it with his song What An Awesome God. This chorus has stood the test of time because it is rooted in solid theology. On this episode, we'll explore Scripture that confirms the truths we sing—that our God is awesome, that He reigns from heaven, and that He reigns with wisdom, power, and love.Key PointsWhy theology (study of God) should always lead to doxology (praise)Using the BITE of making a list to uncover God's character in Psalm 68Defining the words awesome and reign to deepen our understandingA word study on the Hebrew word ḥesed (steadfast love)How the “new” lyrics added by Wickham are also firmly grounded in ScriptureScriptures referenced in this episode:Psalm 68Nehemiah 1:5Deuteronomy 7:21Exodus 15:11, 18Psalm 99:1–3Psalm 93:1; 97:1; 103:19; 147:4–5Isaiah 40:26; 66:1Matthew 6:9–10; 8:27Romans 14:11Philippians 2:9–11Revelation 4:2–3; 19:6, 12Bible Interaction Tool Exercises (BITEs)Make a listDefine words in the English dictionaryComplete a word study in HebrewRead in contextStart with God (look for His character, conduct, and concerns)Additional ResourcesDownload the free Episode Guide: michellenezat.com/519downloadLyrics for What An Awesome God by Phil Wickham – NewReleaseToday.comBible study tools mentioned: BibleHub.com | BlueLetterBible.orgLearn more about my favorite Bible Study Software with a 30-day free trial and links to my favorite Bible resources - Logos Bible Software Affiliate LinkThis Week's ChallengeFollow the pattern I've used this week. Seek out areas of Scripture that confirm that God is awesome and reigns from heaven with wisdom, power, and love. Read these verses in context, make lists, look up English definitions, and complete Hebrew and Greek word studies. Read and interact with Scripture for yourself. And then lift your eyes and your heart to God in heaven and praise Him, for all of your efforts toward theology should lead to doxology. And we serve an awesome God who is worthy of our praise.Purchase your copy of A Seat at the Table today! Change your music. Change your life. Join my free 30-Day Music Challenge. CLICK HERE.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen | Full Discussion & ReactionJoin us as we dive into Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility—a timeless classic of love, heartbreak, and societal expectations. We break down the iconic sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, analyze the contrasting themes of reason vs. emotion, and discuss how this novel still resonates today. Whether you're here for the romance, the drama, or the Austen wit, this episode has something for every book lover.✨ Expect:Character deep divesAusten's take on love and classWhy Willoughby still makes us madOur favorite (and least favorite!) momentsComparisons to other Austen works

What a letter! Elizabeth has never read something that has shaken her quite as much as this. Everything she thought she knew for certain about Mr. Bingley and Jane, Mr. Wickham, and even her own family has come into question upon reading Mr. Darcy's perspective. In our latest Friday Favorites, Elizabeth is sparked to question her own prejudices and shift her perspective - let her story help you shift your own perspective from an active day into a restful night of restorative slumber.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

The Kapuni urea plant, operational since 1982 and employing around 120 people, manufactures approximately one third or 260,000 tonnes of New Zealand’s urea annually, specifically for use as a nitrogen-rich fertiliser. Should an affordable and reliable supply of gas not be found soon, the plant is at risk of closure, says the chief executive of Ballance Agri-Nutrients.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The House parliamentarian.  The C-SPAN audience knows the parliamentarian from House rules and procedures and various parliamentary inquiries and interruptions… But what about the personal side of the job?  …. The unrivaled opportunity to see Congress history up close and personal – watching it all from the front, facing the chamber, and seeing all the faces…  What's that like? In the latest episode of C-SPAN's podcast "The Weekly," we find out. We talk with former House parliamentarian Tom Wickham .. His career in Congress spanned over a quarter century.  And during that time, from his front row seat, Tom Wickham witnessed first-hand some of the most dramatic and iconic moments in House history. Tom Wickham left Congress in 2020. He's now Vice President at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And now – Tom Wickham is back on C-SPAN! He's picked the five most memorable moments he experienced as House parliamentarian — and he reveals that list in "The Weekly." What are Tom Wickham's five most memorable House moments — and why? Go behind the scenes and find out — in the latest episode of C-SPAN's podcast "The Weekly" — with Tom Wickham. Find C-SPAN's "The Weekly" wherever you get podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A temporary shutdown may be on the cards for fertiliser manufacturer Ballance as it struggles to secure affordable gas. The farmer and grower co-op says it may close its Kapuni plant for up to four months as a contingency. The company manufactures about a third of New Zealand's urea fertiliser each year. Chief executive Kelvin Wickham says they aren't able to secure gas on a long-term basis. "We are hunting for short-term gas - and if we can find some short-term gas, we'll use that. But if we can't, then we'll be forced into a short-term shutdown." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode we take a deep dive into Mr. Wickham's character, contradictions, and complaints.

It's the morning after Mr. Darcy's proposal, and Elizabeth knows that the only thing that will calm her unsettled mind is a walk. But despite her best efforts, she encounters Mr. Darcy yet again, and this time, he has a thick envelope with a letter he absolutely must give her. It's time for Elizabeth to hear Mr. Darcy's perspective on Bingley and Jane's relationship, and to learn the truth about his history with Mr. Wickham. Be not alarmed at our latest Friday Favorites, as we revisit a turning point in the relationship between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and it helps you turn your own busy day into another night of peaceful and relaxing sleep. -----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Chloe Wickham is a designer whose work sits at the intersection of creativity, business and behavioural insight. With a degree in Business and Design from Griffith University, Chloe's path began with a love of art and a desire to help out with her dad's business, and quickly grew into a passion for strategic, purposeful design that connects with people and shapes the way we live.Freshly graduated, Chloe is now building her freelance practice from regional Victoria, and in this episode, we speak aboutwhat it's really like to move from the structure of university to the ambiguity of creative entrepreneurship.We speak about routine and rest, black-and-white thinking vs the grey, and how both city streets and bushland walks can shape your creative output. We'll also dig into the psychology of design, the impact of visual communication on behaviour, and why Chloe believes design should always serve people and the planet.Want to know how she would spend day two if she had $100 million in the bank? Please enjoy this thoughtful and energisingconversation with Chloe Wickham.> Connect with Trish: https://www.instagram.com/trishjohnstone/> Learn more about Oath + Stone: https://www.instagram.com/trishjohnstone/> Apply to be a guest: https://www.instagram.com/trishjohnstone/

Hello Hello! 2025 has featured some pretty good films already, and this week, we're talking about so far the biggest two, where both feature lead actors doing double time! In this week's episode, Colleen and Wickham are joined by Taylan to discuss "Mickey 17" (2025, dir. Bong Joon-ho) and "Sinners" (2025, dir. Ryan Coogler).

Liz and Sarah talk about why it’s important never to delete anything substantial. They never know when they’re going to want to put something back into a document. It happens! In Take A Hike, Sarah shares why being at her lake house in Minnesota made her realize it’s important to “look down.” Next, Liz and Sarah revisit the topic of crying at work in Take Two. Listeners have so many observations and insights! This week’s Hollywood Hack is great for summer — try mini soda cans. Finally, Sarah recommends the Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney mystery book series. Sign up for Liz and Sarah’s free weekly newsletter at https://happierinhollywoodpod.substack.com. Get in touch on Instagram: @Sfain & @LizCraft Get in touch on Threads: @Sfain & @LizCraft Visit our website: https://happierinhollywood.com Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/HappierinHollywood/ Happier in Hollywood is part of ‘The Onward Project,’ a family of podcasts brought together by Gretchen Rubin—all about how to make your life better. Check out the other Onward Project podcasts—Happier with Gretchen Rubin, andSide Hustle School . If you liked this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends! Note: Go to the Happier In Hollywood Facebook Group for Liz and Sarah’s extensive Teens/Tweens Gift Guide. Thanks to listeners for such great ideas! Link below. https://www.facebook.com/groups/903150719832696/permalink/3081705578643855/ LINKS: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: https://amzn.to/4lfLdi2 Diet Coke Mini-Can: https://amzn.to/4nzzEE0 The Murder of Mr. Wickham: https://amzn.to/4lDdoqX Photo by See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight's bedtime story is the continuation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. In this episode, Elizabeth reveals some of the contents of Darcy's letter to Jane. Wickham leaves Meryton..Support the podcast and enjoy ad-free and bonus episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts. For other podcast platforms go to https://justsleeppodcast.com/supportOr, you can support with a one time donation at buymeacoffee.com/justsleeppodOrder your copy of the Just Sleep book! https://www.justsleeppodcast.com/book/If you like this episode, please remember to follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favourite podcast app. Also, share with any family or friends that might have trouble drifting off.Goodnight! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Christmas at Longbourn, and that means the arrival of the Bennet girls' favorite uncle and aunt: Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. They're always a warm and wise addition to the family, and now is no different. Mrs. Gardiner's offers to let Jane return with them to London, to help ease the pain of the Bingleys quitting Netherfield (seemingly for good), and her advice for Elizabeth on how to handle Mr. Wickham is as sound as ever. Her comforting presence is a balm to them all, so let it be a balm to you too, as this week's Friday Favorites helps soothe you into a night of peaceful slumber.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Karen Dukess's first book, The Last Book Party, was wildly successful by any measure—sold at auction, Indie Next pick, Discover New Writers pick… you probably read it. The second…Didn't sell. Not as in, not very many people bought it but as in, no publisher published it. She spent the requisite couple years or so, her agent signed on but… no takers. She felt like she was the only person in the whole entire world that that happened to… until she started asking around. Turns out, you know how people say writing books is hard? And publishing is tough? They're right!Never fear, Karen lived to tell the tail. Her next novel (do we call it second or third?), Welcome to Murder Week, is wonderful and available in a bookstore near you (and as you'll hear, I loved it and it's the perfect page-turner but not-anxiety-producing read for a swimming pool, beach, airplane ride or couch). But the real joy is that Karen is willing to dish. You'll hear:What happens when you want to be a bullet journal sticker getting writer with your butt in the chair but you're just … not.How to have fun writing a book that maybe no one will want (and why you'd better).How Karen found the right mindset to keep going.Karen's one rule as a beginning writer who couldn't quite get the hang of 1000 words a day. Links from the Pod:LauraPaloozaKaren Dukess, The Last Book PartyZibby EventsThe Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray#AmReadingKaren: The Original, Nell Stevens KJ: Welcome to Murder WeekKaren's Substack Keep Calm and Carry On, a Substack from Karen Dukess or find her on Instagram @karendukess, or her website www.karendukess.comDid you know Sarina's latest thriller is out NOW? Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she's a mess. She knows that stalking her ex's avatar all over Portland on her phone isn't the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she's out of ice cream and she's sick of romcoms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He's dining out while she's wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.Digital books at: Amazon | Nook | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Audible Physical books at: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | More paperback links here!New! Transcript below!EPISODE 452 - TRANSCRIPTJess LaheyHey, it's Jess here. A few years ago, I got to go to Laura Palooza. Laura Palooza is the conference that is run by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association. I was invited because I wrote about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House on the Prairie books, and at the very beginning of The Gift of Failure, there's a mention in the opening chapter. And I was invited to go, and it was fantastic. And I got to meet Dean Butler, who had played Almanzo, which was quite a moment for me, because I had been quite in love. Anyway, this year's Laura Palooza 2025 is going to be taking place July 8 through 11th, 2025. Laura Palooza 2025's theme is prairies, pioneers and pages. If you want more information on attending Laura Palooza 2025, you can go to L-I-W-L-R-A — L-I-W-L-R-A dot org slash laurapalooza. I will be putting it in the show notes for whatever episode this ends up on, and it's going to be really, really great. I'm jealous that I can't go again because it's not going to be near me. It's going to be in De Smet South, I hope that's how you pronounce it, South Dakota. But they're going to even have, like, a feature on the fashion at the time. They're going to have a section on planes, claims and all those land deals, a beginner's guide to mapping homestead claims. It's going to be cool, challenging gender norms. Laura Ingalls in fiction, and Rose Wilder Lane in reality. Folklore, fiction or forecasts, separating and linking science, storytelling and mythology in weather, lore, that's going to be by Dr. Barb Boustead, who has been on this very podcast. She's fantastic. Laura Palooza 2025... July, you should go, you should sign up. It's really fun. They're going to be doing a field trip also to the Ingalls Homestead, I believe. Check it out. It's pretty cool.Multiple Speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is Hashtag AmWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction, in short or really actually, usually long. We are the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done. And I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of a bunch of novels, the most popular of which is The Chicken Sisters, and the most recent is Playing the Witch Card, and you should read them all. And I have with me today a guest that I'm really excited about for a topic that you all are going to love. So, with me today, I have Karen Dukess, and she is the author of The Last Book Party, which you might have read in 2019 because it was unmissable. It was everywhere. It was an Indie Next. It was a Discover New Writers pick, it was...it was all over the place. And that is partly what we're here to talk about today. And we're also here to talk about her new novel, Welcome to Murder Week, which I have just read and enjoyed, but mostly we're here to talk about the six years in between. So, welcome. I am so glad to have you here. So, Karen and I have met in person. We met at a Zibby book event and at an event for the amazing Annabel Monaghan, who also has a book out this summer. The lovely thing about the universe is that nobody reads just one book.Karen DukessThat is true. Thank you.KJ Dell'AntoniaSo, you can be like, yes, read Annabel's book, read my book. Read. I mean, anybody who reads? I mean, yeah, there are people who read just one book, it's probably not going to be ours. Oh, well, people seem to like the Bible. I don't know that's a popular one. See that? A lot around a lot of Crawdads, also see that. Okay, so anyway, tell us what the story of the long six-year journey between your very, very successful debut novel, and what is about to be your very different sophomore novel.Karen DukessSo, I feel like I have an upside-down writing career in that most people write a lot of novels that don't get published before they write a novel that gets published, and mine went backwards. So, The Last Book Party was my first novel, and I wrote it...Didn't... I wrote it, finished it when I was in my early 50's, around 54 -55, spent about four years writing it, and I had done a lot of writing before, then stopping and starting and thinking that. I must not have what it takes, because this is too hard. I didn't realize that novel writing just is hard, and that is the way it is for all but a few unicorn people. So that novel, I was so happy when I finally finished it. I was so satisfied to just finally have written a novel, and I was truly thrilled, and I I felt like, if it doesn't get published, I'll publish it myself. I'm just so happy to have achieved this goal. And then it sold incredibly quickly. It was unbelievable. I mean, it was like beyond my wildest dreams. It went to auction. It sold very quickly for a good advance, and the publishing experience was great, including the fact that they were originally going to publish it in 2020, but they decided to bump it up to 2019 I don't know why. But I was like, sure, I've waited to my 50's to get this book out, like the sooner the better. And then I dodged the bullet of waiting all these years to publish a novel and have it come out during the pandemic. So, the paperback came out in the pandemic, which wasn't great, but I still felt so grateful that I had gotten this book out before then. So, then I started working on my second novel, which later someone had given me some someone, a friend...it might have even been Annabel. Someone gave her the advice that your second novel, don't make it very, very personal. And I kind of wish I had gotten that advice, even though I'm not sure I would have listened to it. But the thing about a second novel, and I don't know if you experienced this, KJ, but if you have success with your first novel, the second novel is scary because you're like, was I a one hit wonder? You know, was it a fluke? Can I do this again? And people would say, well, you know how to write novels now. And I'd be like, no, I know how to write THAT novel. I have no idea how to write another novel. And the novel I wanted to write at that time was drawing on the many years I spent studying and living in Russia and working as a journalist in Russia. I was in Russia in the 90's, and I wrote a novel that was about an American woman's journey in Russia and some American journalists in Russia. But it was set in Russia in 2017 and with flashbacks to the 90's, and it was hard to write. It was not fun. I think I had, like, sitting on my shoulder this sort of like, oh, can she do it again? You know that kind of thing. And I knew that the luck I had the first one, like, you know, I knew it was unlike, unluck, unlikely to be like that again. Plus, I had this sense of like, this is my Russia novel. And even though it wasn't a novel like, directly about Russia, it still was my chance to sort of give my take on things there. So, I think I also had sitting on my shoulder, like all the journalists I know knew in Russia, and people that studied Russia and the real Russia experts, and what were they going to think of my take?KJ Dell'AntoniaOh, yeah.Karen DukessSo it was, it was not writing, sort of like joyfully, it was a tough novel to write. And then it was also, it was fiction, but it was sort of personal, midlife kind of novel. So, there was just a lot of baggage with that novel. And the writing of it was tough, you know, it was just, it took longer than I thought it it just, I just remember a lot of sort of hair pulling, kind of, you know, those writing days. I had a lot of them. I finished it. My agent said he loved it. I don't think he loved it as much as the other two novels I've written, but, you know, he was ready to send it out on submission. But as I was finishing it, I was getting more and more concerned, because I finished it right around when Russia invaded Ukraine. And my novel, which was set in 2017 Russia, now things were so different, and they had been increasingly becoming different. Suddenly it felt very anachronistic, because I wasn't writing with these big current events in mind. Plus, there was this whole kind of like, oh, Russia, yuck, nobody, you know. And I felt that too. So, I was nervous about it, and my agent was like, just finish it. You've spent this much time on it. Let's finish it and see what happens. And so, we sent it out, and the response I got was kind of... Uh not great, you know, it went to my publisher first. They'd write a first refusal, and we're like, this novel. It about American woman in Russia right now, it's just not the right time. And, you know, there may have been other things about the novel as well, but it was kind of a, like, not a good sell. So, we sent it out to maybe five or six more editors, you know, I got lovely rejection letters, you know. Well, I really enjoyed it. This part was so interesting. But, yeah, I don't know, I don't know how to market this novel right now. And it was, you know, it was crushing, of course, but it also kind of echoed my feelings about the novel. The whole thing gave me a knot in my stomach, yeah, so my agent said, well, we haven't really exhausted the possibilities yet. We can send it out another round, or you can revise it, or you can set it aside. And I felt really sure at that point that I just wanted to, I didn't want to keep submitting it. I just felt like not the right time. And it was disappointing, but it was also kind of a relief, because if someone had decided to publish that novel, I think I would have been really nervous for the whole time before it came out.KJ Dell'AntoniaI think the only thing worse than having your second novel not published is having it published to like, you know, universal hatred.Karen DukessYeah exactly.KJ Dell'AntoniaOr just, or just to your own disappointment, you know?Karen DukessYeah. And then there's a long lead time between the time and novel gets accepted and the time it gets published. And to just feel like, nervous that whole time, I just...KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Karen DukessSo, I was relieved and disappointed. And I remember very well thinking like, oh, well, this is what people talk about. When they talk about, you have to be able to deal with rejection as a writer, because I hadn't dealt with it yet. I had been so lucky, and I really had this sense of like, all right, well, now I get to find out if I'm really a writer, like, can I deal with this and or can I not? And so, I was like, I'm going to write something else. But I was determined to write something very, very different. Like, I needed the whole experience to be different, yeah, and it ended up being kind of liberating, because I went on a trip with my sister to England. We went to the Peak District in England for a week. We rented a little cottage, and this was right before the novel went on submission, I think, or maybe right after, maybe it was on submission, I don't know. So, it was around the time when I wasn't feeling good about the novel, but I wasn't sure it was like a dead deal yet. And we had this absolutely fantastic week in the Peak District, where I was my first time traveling in the English countryside. I'd been to London, but I'd never been in the English countryside, and I felt like I was just stepping into the pages of all my favorite English novels, like Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. And also, like I was stepping into scenes of every BritBox masterpiece, mystery thing, I had written, you know, think, oh my god, there's a vicar. And just really, I was in a... my sister, we have similar reading tastes, and we were just both in this mood, like everything was just kind of entertaining us, and we were laughing at ourselves for seeing England through all these fictional characters. So, when I came back, I think I came back, and that's when I kind of realized this Russian novel was dead or shortly thereafter. And I thought, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to write something about Americans going to England. I want to continue that mood. And I really felt like, if I'm going to do now that I knew you could spend years writing a novel and have it not get published, which I knew intellectually before, but I didn't, hadn't experienced it. I I just felt like, if I'm going to spend another couple years writing a novel like fun has to be the number one thing. It just has to be fun. I'm like, not going to be miserable again. I can't do something like the Russian novel again. I have to just entertain myself and make myself happy, and hopefully it will entertain other people and make them happy too. And that's how I landed on the idea of sending these writing about Americans that go to England to solve a fake murder mystery, which is what Welcome to Murder Week is about. And I just had such a good time writing it. And I wrote it quicker than I've ever written. I wrote it in a little over a year, and it was honestly delightful. Like, I couldn't believe it. Like, writing could actually be really fun.KJ Dell'AntoniaWho knew? The result is also delightful. It just, it's, it's kind of like every warm and lovely book setting on to you you've ever read. It is it Is that I really enjoyed it, So...Karen DukessI'm so glad.KJ Dell'AntoniaI don't know what the Russian novel was like. That doesn't sound fun.Karen DukessI mean it wasn't really heavy, because I'm not like a heavy writer... like it still had...KJ Dell'AntoniaRight.Karen DukessIn it, and it had emotion, etc., but I'm not sad that it's not out.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Karen DukessLet's put it that way, yeah. So, yeah, this one was just fun. And I, you know, my initial idea was to send a group of Americans to England. Initially it was going to be a writing group. I like the idea of putting characters together who would not ordinarily know each other, but to have them together in a space and then a friend of mine said, Okay, so that's an idea. You're going to send some writers on a writing retreat to England, and what are they going to do there? Like, write? Like, that's not very interesting. And that's how I, kind of, you know, ended up moving to this thing where I could have them participate in this weeklong, solve a fake English village murder mystery. And I could have, you know, the villagers, some of them participating in this, and some eagerly participating, some cynical and send a bunch of Americans, you know, Britbox crazed Americans, to compete in this thing. And, yeah, that's, that's how it ended up. And it was fun.KJ Dell'AntoniaI, yeah. I mean, it reads like you had fun. I, as someone who has... so Playing the Witch Card has like a big game sort of Halloween event at the center of it. That would be really hard to do in reality. This is kind of like that.Karen DukessYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaLike, this is like the dream murder week, both from some of the point of view of someone who might want to put one on and from someone the point of view of someone who might want to go and do one. It's not, it's um, you know, it's not. Sometimes you read these and they're like, they're like, silly and hokey. It's like, very sincere, super fun murder week that anyone would wish that they could do that likes that kind of thing. Anyway, I yeah, I totally enjoyed it. All the characters were really fun. I could see that you must have had fun writing it.Karen DukessI did. And I also, you know, people often say, like, write the novel you want to read. And I really did that with this because I wanted it to have so it has a fake mystery, but then it has a real mystery as well.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Karen DukessLike the main character, thirty-four-year-old Cath, little do you know, she goes on this trip because her estranged mother, before she died, booked them on it, and she's sort of reluctant to go, but can't get a refund. And then I sort of developed this whole story about she teams up with her house, shares a cottage with people to solve the fake mystery, but that she also solves the real mystery of why her mother wanted her to go, her late mother, and that was sort of like the writing the story you want to read. Because I like light and funny, but I also like something that has, like, some emotional heart to it, like I wanted to try to story that was fun, but that has something going on. And the more I wrote, the more Cath's serious story became part of the story, I think, in the first deeply satisfying, yeah, and the first version, the first draft that my agent read, and I had never shared a draft before with him, and, you know, I think I was just hoping he would be like, it's almost perfect. And he was like, well, I think Cath is the hardest story. I think you need to develop that more. And then I went back and did and sort of... blended the two. So, the whole experience was just, yeah, of course. Now I'm like, can I have fun again?KJ Dell'AntoniaYes, yes, you can. Nobody ever tells me my first draft is perfect, and I really hate that.Karen DukessYeah, I know. I think it's, I don't even know if I should have shared it with him, like, I just wanted him to say, like, it's amazing. And he was like, yeah, it could be really good.KJ Dell'AntoniaWell, but you just want them to know that you're doing, yeah, I'm a I'm going to share the first draft of the thing I'm doing with my agent, and it might be a terrible idea, but I'm going to do it anyway, because I want her to know I'm doing a thing. And yeah, I'm excited. And yeah um...Karen Dukess I also think that, like, you know, when I said that, it was liberating, in a way, to sort of have the experience that I had with the Russian novel. I think it was also maybe by the time, you know, getting to the third novel, or maybe it's getting to my age. I felt sort of like, I think I gave my permission, myself, permission to write a novel that, yeah, it has a serious story at the heart of it, but it's not like a deeply serious book, you know? And I think there's a tendency to think like, you know, I would look at the world around me sometimes, when I was drafting it, and feel like there's so many serious things to write about, and I'm writing this funny story, like, is that super fluffy? And, you know, it was like, this is what I wanted to write? That's okay, you know? I don't have to prove anything. Like, here is my serious tome. You know, I really just wanted to give people like, an emotional, amusing, heartwarming experience. And that is okay.KJ Dell'AntoniaIt is funny how locked we get into that, both as writers and as readers, this idea that if it's not serious or experimental or deep or dark, it's, I don't know, somehow not worthy. There was somebody was reading somebody's Substack the other day, and they were sort of deeply apologizing for the book they had recommended, which sounded really amazing. And I was like, why you, you know, you clearly enjoyed this, and it sounded great. And I don't. I mean, as a reader, I don't want to read things that are dark and deep and serious A. all the time...Karen DukessYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd B. sometimes not at all.Karen DukessYeah, I do like to read dark and serious, but I've learned that I don't like to write that like writing a novel is, it's always so much more time than you think. I mean, even this one was quicker than usual. It's a lot of time, like you're living it. And I was just like, I can't live in a dark place, like I can read a dark book in a couple days, you know? And...KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Karen DukessWipe my eyes and move on. But...KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Karen DukessYou know...KJ Dell'AntoniaA light one.Karen DukessYou could assume... but you know. When I'm writing a novel, I'm going to bed thinking about their the characters, and I'm thinking about it when I'm exercising, and it's just like churning in there, and I just don't want to be in a dark place for two years.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, and most of the time people, I mean, I guess it just depends on, on who you are. But a heart, it's hardly ever dark all the time. I mean, even people that I have known that we're going through some really horrible things have found, you know, levity and joy and pleasure in in some parts of it. And I think we all hesitate to say, well, that's everyone. Or you got to, you know, we don't want to impose that on every, on anyone, because that's kind of also where we are is, is this delicate dance of not wanting to expect anybody else to be the way you think they're going to be. But I it just seems like people find levity, even in even the worst, even in the worst moments. And people want, um, solace, you know?Karen DukessYeah.KJ Dell'Antonia Something... something pleasant... something.Karen DukessYeah, I work with an editor, kind of a more like a writing coach, like she doesn't actually edit, but she sort of helps me figure out the story and stuff. And there was one point when she was reading a draft, and there's a scene in the book. I don't know if it's a minor thing, but when my main character Cath, who there's a little romance in it. And when she's first together with this guy, and they're sort of rolling around in bed, the first draft that, the first version of it, she accidentally hit her head on the headboard, and then she's like, “Oh my god, are you okay?” And she was like, “no”. My coach was like, no, no. I don't want to be anxious that maybe this guy is a little violent. Like, no, no, you've got to take that out. I don't want to be anxious in the reading of this book. And it was such a minor thing that I think she was like...KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd you had him hit his head instead, right? Yeah.Karen DukessBecause I don't think anyone was going to worry that she's violent. But it was funny. It was like, she was very much like this book is, there are books where you want the reader to feel anxious, but she's like, this book is not that I don't want anxiety in this book you know?KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, yeah.Karen DukessLike she's still concerned about Cath and her story. You can feel sad about what she learns, but not anxiety.KJ Dell'AntoniaYou know I think you've really put your finger on something, because that is exactly right. This book is a page turner, like you want to find out what happens. You want to be with the characters you want to it's a hang and it's like, like, I read something recently where, um, in the middle, you, I found myself sort of, I was still reading it because it was a good hang, but in the middle I was just kind of, like, I forget why we're here. I forget what I'm wondering. You're not really wondering anything, but I like it, so I'll keep this. Your book was not like that at all. This is a fantastic hang but you're right. It never, it's not... that's exactly right. It's not, it's not anxiety producing. And I think that's its own vibe. Like you can have romances that are fun and they're good, but they actually, you do have anxiety around, you know, like, how the characters are going to pull themselves out of this, or how they're going to feel or, yeah, and you can have them or you don't. I like that as, like, a sort of a line in the sand.Karen DukessYeah, yeah. And then I kind of thought about it as I continued, like, yeah, okay, that's right. We're not going to go to like, the really unsettling places.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah. I mean, even if you really want to know what would what will happen, and you really want, like, the things that happen to turn out in satisfying ways, but it doesn't feel like, if they turn out in some like, there were a variety of available options, none of which felt horrible.Karen DukessYeah, exactly.KJ Dell'AntoniaThank you for that. Thank you for a lovely reading experience. So, what else did you take away? Like, what else did you change between the drafting of the book that does not end up being published, which you know, for all we know, is actually great, but the timing was really bad. What should you change?Karen DukessWhat changed for me... in writing?KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, what are you changing? Did you change anything in your process?Karen DukessUm, I think I, I don't know if it was completely because of the experience with this book, but definitely it fed into it. Um, I worked with the same writing coach on the Russia book, and she keeps saying that book will be published someday. I'm like, yeah, maybe, maybe not. I don't really care, honestly at this point, but one thing that she really pushed on me, which I discovered in the writing of murder week, was really true, is that to be open and playful and just really to be creative, I needed that. I needed to be in the right mindset, like, I know your thing is always butt in chair, butt in chair. And it is true, you have to, you know, you have to push yourself to finish a novel. It's not easy. And there are times when you just have to push forward. But for me, in the drafting of it, like the butt in chair thing, for me, is more important in the revising and the final draft, when it's like, you've got to get through it, and you've just got to keep sitting there and doing it. But when I'm in this sort of creating stage, when I'm not sure what the story is, when I'm in those moods where I'm just like, sit down and work at this like, I don't write good stuff. I just don't. And she would sometimes say to me, like, if I would talk to her, and I was really angsty and I was really self-critical, or I don't like what I've written, or I don't know where I'm going with this, or whatever , she was really she would very much say, like, when you're in that kind of mood, just walk away. Don't sit at your computer. Like, that is not the time for butt in chair. That is the time for just go do something else and like, lighten up on yourself. And that was really true for this. And I'm trying to remind myself that as I work on the next novel that you know for me, being kind to myself and feeling playful and open is when I'm going to write the best stuff and surprise myself. And that applies whether I'm writing like a serious scene or a funny scene. And the tricky thing about it is, you know, it's always a little scary to write, so it's like, Am I walking away because I need to lighten up my mind, or am I just plain procrastinating?KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, or am I walking away because I just don't know how to...Karen DukessSo, I think that is something though, that I do feel like I write better from a free place than from a sort of, like, grim, determined place.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, that makes sense.Karen DukessI think I was learning that and trying to learn that when I was writing the Russia novel, but it really came true with this one, which is why I think I was able to write it quicker, because it's actually, you know, the weaving together of the fake murder mystery and the real mystery and the arcs of all the different characters. Like, it wasn't simple putting all together, but yet it was simpler for me to write, because I was just looser about it.KJ Dell'AntoniaRight. I think you learned to trust that you would finish this, even if you didn't finish it today.Karen DukessYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaDoes that make sense?Karen DukessYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaI, yeah.Karen DukessAnd I just think, like, trusting the process is so important, you know. And I talk about this with friends in my writing group, you know, sometimes when you're like, working so hard to figure it out, because it feels good to figure the novel out before you write it, because then you don't have the anxiety of, what if I don't figure it out? But it doesn't always work best that way. I don't think, like, I think there are times for that, and there are times to just, like, just keep going and like, let it go a little and let some interesting things happen, and then you'll figure out how to put it all together for me anyway. But obviously I'm not a plotter kind of person, so...KJ Dell'AntoniaI think, yeah, I think that varies. But what's what I'm really hearing here is that, like, even you knew, okay, if I don't, maybe I don't sit down today. That doesn't mean I'm never sitting again, down again. And I think that is, that's part of what I struggle with in my like 1000 words a day. Just, just keep doing it time. And I, and I think I, too, have come around to the idea that I'm going to finish it like...Karen DukessYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaI'm not. I'm not suddenly, you know, just because I only got to 700 words today, that doesn't mean tomorrow I'm going to be like, yeah, I'm not a writer anymore. Oops!Karen Dukess Yeah, exactly. Well, I think, and I think I've learned that, like, I can't tell you how many times, I mean, I've listened to your podcast forever, and, like, years ago, I would listen to it, and I would be like, Yes, I'm going to do the stickers, or, Yes, I'm going to do 500 words a day, or, Yes, I'm going to text a friend or you know, none of that stuff. I could never sustain it.KJ Dell'AntoniaIt doesn't work for you.Karen DukessI have no routine; I have no methods. But what I've learned now is like, but I get books done, so it's okay, like, yeah, I will sometimes go a couple days where I don't write, or I will, you know, think I'm on a routine of 500 or 1000 words a day for a while, and then I'm not, and that's okay, because it's just like, I know that I can still get them done in my crazy way.KJ Dell'AntoniaThat is what we have tried to start saying more often, is, listen, this doesn't work for everybody. If you're doing something different and you're getting the work done, then you're great, yeah, if you're doing something different and you're not finishing things, then maybe try this.Karen DukessYeah, well I remember, like, when I was working on The Last Book Party, right before I got kind of serious on it, I was in a writing group, and I was starting, then I was like, I was learning in the writing group through, finally being in a community with other writers. So, like everybody struggles. Published writers struggle. Really great writers struggle like and that, and I loved reading interviews with writers like I couldn't get enough of interviews and essays about writer's struggles, because I had to, like, keep convincing myself that like, my struggles didn't mean I wasn't a writer. But then there was one point where I remember making a rule for myself. And I was like; I am not allowed to read about writing if I haven't written that day. You know, spend a lot of time...KJ Dell'AntoniaYes.Karen DukessWorking on your novel, but what you're actually doing is like, reading about writing and reading interviews and listening to podcasts. So, it's like, I cannot listen to KJ's podcast until I've done some writing. So, I've had to, I have had to make some rules.KJ Dell'Antonia Yeah, well, that's, I mean, that's how you turned yourself into somebody who gets the work done, and now into somebody who has her own like now you have a way people ask you, so what's your process? How did you get this done?Karen DukessI don't think anyone has tried my process, but yeah. And it can be different for every book, I guess, you know?KJ Dell'AntoniaHorrifyingly, I think that it can when you see pointed out, yeah, you that you knew how to write that book, that is so true, and that has been a huge thing for me, is to realize that even after writing a bunch of books, people still struggle, it's still hard, every book is hard. Every book has, I mean, we have a joke among the podcasts, you know, because you get to a point where you're like, okay, I hate this now, and we'll all be right, right-on target,Karen DukessExactly.KJ Dell'AntoniaBaby's developing nicely. Here's our 18-month checklist. Aww and you're crawling, and you hate your book. Yay!Karen DukessYeah, yeah. I don't think the process gets easier, but I think knowing that you can get through it makes it a little easier. Maybe it diminishes the panic a little bit like, you know, you'll figure it out. You'll figure it out.KJ Dell'AntoniaWell, this, I mean, this has been great. I'm sure it's going to be inspirational for everyone. It is inspirational for me, because I also... so I have a book that I worked on for the last year and a half, and I, we didn't, we didn't try to sell it because, because it's not very good.Karen DukessAre you still working on it? Or...KJ Dell'AntoniaIt's leaving, it's living. I make these gestures as though, like, there's like, a blobby object over here that is my, but is my finished, but also not revised and not good uh...Karen DukessI had this theory about books, like, it's the same theory I had with au pairs.KJ Dell'AntoniaOkay.Karen DukessWe had a lot of au pairs when my kids were growing up and I was working out of the home, you know, not writing. And I felt like every time I selected, you know, they would come for a year. One or two of them stayed for two years. But every time I selected a new au pair, it was in reaction to the problems of the other... the previous au pair. So, like, when I had an au pair that was like a horrible driver, so much so that we had to, like, get rid of her. Then I was like, okay, where is it hardest to get a driver's license? Germany. Okay, I'm having a German au pair, you know. Then I had, like, a German au pair who was great, but it was like, she was too, I don't know, whatever if I had an au pair, that was like, two lax, then the next one was like, oh, this person has, like, you know, worked in a boys school. I want that.KJ Dell'AntoniaRight? yeah.Karen DukessAnd I feel like, you know, I wrote Welcome to Murder Week because I had had this tough experience with this Russia novel. Then it was like, I'm going to do something really fun. So, and I don't know that I would have written that if I hadn't needed so badly to have fun. I don't know that I would have said, no, yeah, forget doing something, you know, serious or with some geopolitical things in it. I'm going to write a, you know, a murder week story. I don't know that I would have written it if I could have gone on that vacation and just had a great time and come back and not felt the need.KJ Dell'AntoniaWritten something else.Karen DukessSo, you know, maybe the one that's not working is going to lead you to write the next fabulous thing.KJ Dell'AntoniaWell, I hope I'm already well into... I'm well into something else, but, yeah, it's, you know, you spend a lot of time on something, not everything works. It's one of the reasons this is a terrible job, and you absolutely shouldn't do it unless you know, you can't do anything else,Karen DukessExactly.KJ Dell'AntoniaOr unless you really want to.Karen DukessYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaThere. That's that. That's really good advice. That's going to make a great bumper sticker. All right. So have you read anything good lately besides Welcome to Murder Week, which, in fact, is what I will be raving about in just a second.Karen DukessUm, yes, I read a book called The Original by Nell Stevens. It out in June. She's a British writer, and it's really good. It's sort of an also kind of genre, blending the way my book is, but it's very different. It's like a gothic novel. It's set in an old house in England in the 1800's and it involves an orphan who's being raised by relatives, and she has an incredible talent for painting forgeries, and she sort of has this secret business in selling forgeries, but it also involves an imposter who returns from abroad in the family, and there's a queer romance in it, and it's totally unlike anything I've read, and very compelling.KJ Dell'AntoniaOof, I love that.Karen DukessIn a really compelling way.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd by the time people hear that, that this, this will either be out, or like, buy your next week self a present. That sounds great.Karen DukessYeah, it was very... it's very good. It's kind of like a rainy day book. You know?KJ Dell'AntoniaI love that. Well, I already raved about Welcome to Murder Week, but I'm telling you all, it's a real it's a real joy. I want to compare it to things. But there's almost like it's, I'll think of things that I that I want to...Karen DukessIt's hard to compare because it's not a traditional mystery,KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, no, um, I feel like Clare Pooley's books are, and I can't even think of the titles of them, but that, yeah, that is kind of ringing the right bell for me. I don't know who else a little bit of the like the murder, like, if you really thought The Murder of Mr. Wickham was super fun, which I absolutely adored, that is completely different, and yet also it's the same, like, it's the same... I think the vibe we're looking for here is page turner, no anxiety. And I love that. I love that for all of us...in England.Karen Dukess Yes, yeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaSo go grab this one. You're going to enjoy it, all right. Well, thanks so much. This was really fun. Thank you for being so open, and not just, you know, wandering around saying, well, I just it took me six years to write this because it's very good.Karen DukessYeah, I have to say, you know, I think that writers should talk more often about their failures. And by that...KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Karen DukessI mean, like novels that they wrote and abandoned, or novels that they wrote and tried to get published and couldn't, because it was only until I wrote this Russian novel and didn't sell it, and I would mention it to people. Then all these writers I knew, and people I knew, you know, would suddenly tell me about their own published novels. And I was like, why did I know about this beforehand? There's no shame in it... you know? It's a tough business. It's a tough business. The writing is tough; the publishing is tough. And now I'm like, oh my god, like so many writers I know have novels that did not get published, and for whatever reason. And I'm sure many of those novels are great novels, and but knowing that you know the journey of being a writer, just like I don't know a single author who hasn't like lost their editor at some point, you know, their editor leaves. Then they find a new, you know, be assigned to a new editor. That happens everybody, and I realize how many people have novels that did not see the light of day, and it was comforting to know it. So, I think people should be more open about it.KJ Dell'AntoniaI think we just are afraid that, you know, a reader will hear, well, I don't know if she's capable of writing something... that doesn't work, maybe it's not very good, which readers aren't listening to anything. They can barely remember our names. They just know if the book sounded good and someone pressed it into their hands.Karen DukessYeah, had a great cover.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, had a great cover. Yeah, all, all of the things, and it's just, it's, it's just a little scary to admit, because I guess one of the scary things about it, of course, admitting that that has happened means it could happen again. And hey It could! Oh well.Karen DukessYeah, but I've survived it. So...KJ Dell'AntoniaYou've survived it, you would survive it again. And also, it didn't happen this time. Welcome to Murder Week is great, and everyone is going to be sitting with it by the pool looking very happy. This is my wish for you. All right?Karen DukessThank you. Thanks so much KJ.KJ Dell'AntoniaOh, thank you. Hey, anywhere people should follow you? Oh, you have a Substack. What is it? I love it!Karen DukessI have a Substack. I mean, I think on Substack you can find it by my name Karen Dukess, it's, I don't know... it's called, “Keep Calm and Carry On”, but I think you can just look me up by name on Substack, and I am on Instagram more often at Karen Dukess, as I post about books that I'm reading all the time. Obviously, there'll be a lot of quarter week stuff, but I try to, you know, I'm reading eclectically and all the time. So, I'm always posting about books. Those are probably the best places to find me. And I have my website with all my events on it.KJ Dell'AntoniaIt'll be linked. It'll be linked.Karen DukessGreat.KJ Dell'AntoniaHopefully I can get to something... all right. Well, thank you so much. And all you listeners out there, I mean, you know you do you, but in some way, keep your butt in the chair, hey and or your head in the game.Jess LaheyThe Hashtag AmWriting podcast is produced by Andrew perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output, because everyone deserves to be paid for their work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

The night that all of Hertfordshire has been waiting for is finally here: Mr. Bingley's ball at Netherfield. Elizabeth, looking lovelier than usual, is disappointed to find that Mr. Wickham isn't there, and even more disappointed at her choice of dance partners. After dancing the first two with Mr. Collins, she finds herself dancing with Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth's not one for negativity, so she tries to make the best of the night, but it seems like each member of her family is determined to make the evening as difficult, and humiliating, as possible. In this week's Friday Favorites, return to one of Austen's most beloved ball scenes, and let the evening at Netherfield be your companion into your own evening of soft and restorative sleep.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

There's a handsome new soldier in Meryton, and he's caught the eye of everyone from the Bennets to Mr. Darcy. That's right, it's none other than Mr. Wickham, and after seeing Mr. Darcy's reaction to him in Meryton, Elizabeth's curiosity is insatiable. Luckily, Mr. Wickham is more than willing to share the story of his many misfortunes. Elizabeth knew Mr. Darcy was proud, but this is another level of cruelty she wasn't expecting. Yet, with all these facts and dates, Elizabeth is sure there's no way it could be false. In this week's Friday Favorites, revisit Mr. Wickham and his definitely-true account of his past, and let the comforting familiarity of his tale help you forget your day and drift into a night of gentle sleep. -----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

This week's talk is an exhortation given on at the San Diego Ecclesia by Brother Max Wickham on the topic of Distractions. We hope this strengthens your Faith and brightens your day!Thank you for listening, God bless, and talk to you next week.Send talk suggestions or comments to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠GoodChristadelphianTalks@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠For Show Notes, visit our website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠GoodChristadelphianTalks.com⁠⁠⁠⁠Social Media: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.insurgentspod.comA few weeks ago it was easy to dismiss Trump's talk of Canada being “The 51st State” as bluster or jokes, but three months into this thing, as the trade war between the two countries has started to really heat up, it's become abundantly clear that he was not kidding. Meanwhile, Canada has a new incoming Prime Minister and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a bu…