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- Today58 min
Melissa Auf der Maur on surviving the 90s and her big midlife resurrection
Today’s episode will take you ricocheting back to the 90s - in all the ways. Canadian singer, songwriter, photographer and producer Melissa Auf der Maur is best known as the bassist of Hole throughout the mid/late 90s, and consequently had a front row seat at the pillorying of Hole’s legendary front woman Courtney Love. As she puts it, ‘I watched society burn a woman at the stake’. For a few years, she was at the heart of two of the era’s biggest bands - moving from Hole to the Smashing Pumpkins - before releasing several solo albums. In 2007 she was named one of the 100 Greatest women in rock and roll, then she stepped away from the music scene when she had her daughter. It’s those years, the ‘fever dream of the 90s’ that Melissa revisits in her memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry - which takes us on a journey through the good, the bad and the ugly of what it meant to be a woman making music in the 90s. It will take you back, it will give you chills. It will make you cringe, it will make you rage. Melissa joined me from upstate new york to talk about her big midlife resurrection. what it cost to revisit those years of glamour and destruction, falling back in love with music in her 50s, discovering her redhead superpower, being an annoying mother, re-establishing joyful sisterhood with Courtney and reclaiming the innocence of the girl who started it all. As Melissa puts it, The Shift is real! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Even The Good Girls Will Cry by Melissa Auf der Maur as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago1h 10m
Katriona O'Sullivan on women's bodies, hunger & why women shrink
My guest today is Dr Katriona O’Sullivan. Katriona grew up in Coventry and her early life was marked by poverty, addiction and abuse. She became pregnant and subsequently homeless at 15, let down and written off by the adults who were meant to care for her. In 1998 she moved to Dublin with her son and entered Trinity College through the access programme. There She earnt a Phd in psychology and is now a professor at Maynooth university, directs the National Centre for inclusive higher education and writes a regular column for the Irish Independent. Amongst other things. Katriona’s debut memoir, Poor, an intimate personal examination of the complexities of growing up in poverty, spent an incredible 114 weeks in the bestseller lists. Now she’s written Hungry, a fierce and moving examination of her own battle with body image and the way trauma, class and gender shape the way women see themselves. Katriona joined me to talk about spending a lifetime trying to shrink herself to fit and how the world benefits from women hating our bodies. We also discussed why over yogaing is a class issue, holding mothers to a different standard, ambition hunger, parenting boys, really bad sex, how hunger comes from the soul not the stomach and why no longer being an object of sexual interest is a bloody enormous relief. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Hungry by Katriona O'Sullivan as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago1h 3m
Siri Hustvedt on living on when the love of your life dies
My guest today is the acclaimed writer Siri Hustvedt. The author of seven novels (including my personal favourite What I Loved and the Booker longlisted The Blazing World), five essay collections, a poetry collection and a memoir, The Shaking Woman, or a history of my nerves. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is also a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical college. Siri’s work has always explored the liminal space between mind, memory and heart but perhaps none more so than her latest memoir, Ghost Stories, a devastating (but also joyous) reflection on the 43 years she spent with her husband, writer Paul Auster, before his death in 2024. The ghost in question is him but its pages are haunted by the ghost of them. Siri joined me from her home in Brooklyn to talk about long love, losing your everyday, the grief that floored her and the way an enduring relationship moulds those who dwell in it. We also discussed why happiness is not a goal, how society fears death, learning not to feel guilty about being outspoken, writing to keep Paul and Siri alive, how grief made her creaky and how she misses the olfactory hallucinations that accompanied her after Paul’s death. This is a sad one, but I promise you, there is plenty of love and joy. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 3 weeks ago1h 6m
Bryony Gordon is done with people pleasing
There aren’t many people I let make a repeat visit to The Shift, but sometimes a guest proves so popular that I have to make an exception. That’s the case with journalist and author Bryony Gordon. The first time Bryony came on The Shift we talked mental health, alcoholism and the gratitude she felt in reaching 40 . A couple of years later it was all about perimenopause. Today, Bryony is back and we’re talking about what happens when you hit that pinch point in midlife where the people pleasing hormone heads for the door. First and foremost a newspaper columnist, Bryony spent 20 years at the telegraph and now writes a column for the Daily Mail. She is the author of four bestselling non-fiction books and has won awards for her mental health advocacy In Her debut novel, People Pleaser, we meet Olivia Greenwood, a woman in midlife who wakes up one morning and finds she’s lost the ability to bend over backwards to keep everyone else happy. It made me want to punch the air and eat a donut! Or four. Bryony and I met up to talk about people pleasing and spending the first forty years of our lives trying to be someone else and the next forty trying to be ourselves. We set the world to rights on man pleasing, fat shaming, mountjaro noise, fake eyelashes, wellness, work addiction, reinvention, perfectionism, learning to be willing to do things other people don’t like, mothering adolescents (her, not me) and star signs. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including People Pleaser by Bryony Gordon as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 4 weeks ago1h 9m
Margaret Busby: Britain's first black female publisher on the power of passing it on
My guest today is the pioneering publisher, Margaret Busby. It is safe to say that without Margaret’s lifelong work the publishing industry today- and indeed our bookshelves - might look very different. In 1965, at just 22, she became Britain’s youngest first black female publisher, when she formed Allison and busby with Clive Allison, who she met at a party at university. Margaret was editorial director there for 20 years - when the business was bought, the buyers retained Allison, but not Busby. Hmmm... Since then she has been a publisher, editor, writer, interviewer, scriptwriter, presenter and awards judge, including chairing the Booker Prize. She has also compiled two groundbreaking anthologies to champion the work of women of African descent, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa. “[She] helped change the landscape of both UK publishing and arts coverage and so many black British artists owe her a debt. I know I do,” wrote Zadie Smith Her career has been the very definition of paying it forward, or as she puts it passing it on. At her home in North London, Margaret took me back through the incredible life she documents in her autobiography Part Of The Story. She told me about a lifetime spent being the only Black woman in the room and constantly being mistaken for an old white man! The importance of picking your battles, the women who shaped her, Why she will never stop opening the door for other black women, the irrelevance of age, why marriage is the least interesting form of emotional connection and loads more. If you’d like to see the pictures discussed in this episode, you'll find them here - https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Part of the Story by Margaret Busby as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 14, 202651 min
Abi Morgan on rebuilding just about everything in your 50s - THE SHIFT REVISITED
This episode first aired in May 2022. Today’s guest is a woman I’ve admired for the longest time: stage and screenwriter Abi Morgan. Throughout her thirty year career Abi has written some of our most memorable drama: Shame, Sex Traffic, The Queen, Iron Lady, The Hour (for which she won an Emmy), Suffragette and, most recently, the BBCone hit, The Split. In her work, female characters took centre stage long before that became the fashionable thing to do. But now, Abi has been forced to take centre stage herself. Four years ago, she returned home one lunchtime to find her partner of 20 years, Jakob, collapsed on the bathroom floor. It was the start of a sequence of events that would upend their family forever. And it’s the subject of perhaps the most extraordinary memoir I have ever read - This is Not a Pity memoir. And it isn’t. It’s about love, trauma and ultimately - weirdly! - about hope. Abi joined me to talk candidly about the cataclysmic impact of Jake’s illness, the long - and ongoing - journey to rebuild their family and how, in the midst of all that, she coped with her own breast cancer diagnosis. She also told me about being a lone woman in a world of white men in leather jackets, budging up to make room at the table and why she’s done with being “user-friendly”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including This Is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 7, 202656 min
Emily Nagoski knows the surprising secret to long term intimacy - THE SHIFT REVISITED
This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2024. I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are. I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never! So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period. But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections. And guess what: it’s not what you think. Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Come As You Are and Come Together as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Mar 31, 202647 min
Elif Shafak on the power of older women & why menopause can be the end of shame - THE SHIFT REVISITED
This episode of The Shift first aired in August 2021. My guest today is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed - and I’ve interviewed A LOT. Writer and academic, Elif Shafak has written 19 books and 12 novels and been shortlisted for countless literary prizes, including the Booker Prize. Known for her bravery and outspokenness in the face of oppressive regimes, she has almost 2million followers on social media and is the best-selling female novelist in Turkey - a country to which she has been unable to return for the past 5 years after being put on trial for, amongst other things, insulting Turkishness. Her latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, about the partition of Cyprus, is also about love, longing, exile and the environment. I think it might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever written, but you’ll have to judge for yourself. Elif talks about what home means to her, the importance of freedom and sharing your truth, the two very different women who made her, the importance of lifelong learning and the art of storytelling, and why menopause signals the end of “ayip” (shame). Oh, and being a middle-aged metalhead! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and her most recent bestseller, the gorgeous There Are Rivers In The Sky, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Emily Sandford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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About The Shift with Sam Baker
The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi B
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