Hello, this is Emma Ganon, and thank you for listening to this podcast. I just wanted to let you know that my new book, The Success Myth, Letting Go of Having It All, is out on May the 18th.

I think it's my best book yet, so I'm excited for it to come out. And the book unpicks the eight success myths from happiness to money, to productivity, to celebrity, to the idea of finally arriving, and how chasing a version of success that doesn't align with your values can really take you off track, and this book is about getting back to yourself.

Breaking free, finding a new way forward, and it's available on May the 18th. If you love this podcast, you'll love the book, and it's available soon from all good bookshops, so you can order yours now. I hope you like it.

Hello, and welcome back to Controlock Delete. This is a replay of an episode with the brilliant author Holly Bourne. She's the best-selling award-winning author of many novels. She wrote the Spinster Club series, which helps educate teenagers about feminism, and she's gone on to write so many incredible novels for adults, such as How Do You Like Me Now, Pretending, and her latest book that's just come out called Girlfriends, all of which that I totally loved, and they gave me so much to think about.

They always do. In this episode, we discussed pretending as that had just come out, and it has been described by Dolly Olderton as unsettling and hopeful, enlightening, and entertaining, a thoughtful, intelligent, urgent novel women need to read.

That really does sum up Holly's work. They are full of meaty topics. She doesn't shy away from uncomfortable themes, and I just wanted to give you a heads up actually that we do discuss sexual assault in this episode.

In case that's not something you want to listen to today. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with the lovely Holly Bourne, and if you did, please go and leave a little rating. It really, really helps the podcast. Hope you enjoy.

This is Long Over Do. But I did look back at my blog post from like 2013, sort of time. And do you remember I interviewed you for my blog?

I do. I do about fandom. Yeah. And it got such a good response, and you just gave such brilliant answers. And I thought, oh, that was before podcast, but who would have thought that I did?

I know so long ago. Well, thank you so much. First of all, because I know you're very busy. And if you're not writing books, you're talking about books. And for anyone listening who hasn't read, because I mean, you've written so prolifically now. And I know that at the end of 2019, you did that tweet that was like my decade in books.

I know I really boasted. Sorry. I mean, you have to take these moments. Did that blow your own mind? It did. Cause I think I'm really lazy.

Because I just watched way too much television and just sit in a towel a lot of the time just staring at the wall. And then I was like, oh, somehow managed to do all this alongside. So yeah, I think, yeah, it did blow my mind as well.

So brilliant. And I wanted to go back to the beginning just quickly before we get into specifically some of your adult fiction. And I've loved all your books, but I've adored your most recent two that will talk about a bit more detail. But you used to be a journalist in you. And I've only known you as a fictional author. But when I read up about your career at the beginning, it didn't surprise me that you've had stints in like being an agonian and you've written about many different things and your work with charities. And I was like, of course, this all kind of makes a little bit more sense.

It makes a little bit more sense of the knowledge you have. Yeah, I was a news reporter for a local newspaper for two years, which was the worst thing I've ever done in my life.

Like lots of worse things you've ever done. You're like, you learn a lot. And after that hair raising experience also say hair losing experience. I did actually go bald from stress.

I got into charity journalism and working for a website that helps in people. And then when I was there, I kind of just got so invested in the work that they trained me up to be an agonian and kind of work on some different line services as well.

It's amazing. And how did the jump happen from that to the YA books? I feel like I haven't actually ever asked you that. I actually started writing my first YA novel when I was a news reporter just because I was so stressed and miserable and just didn't understand how I'd got myself into the situation.

I went into it very naively. It's basically you just can't be a news reporter if you're an empathetic person and you feel people's feelings because you're just exposed to people having awful experiences every day.

And having to put a headline on it. Yeah. And having to work out how to pitch it in a way that it was so on papers. It was just literally my time you were just hurting thinking about it.

It was just like the most ridiculous job for someone like me to have because I just get crying when people had bad things happen to them. And they wouldn't be crying.

And I'd be like, it's my dude, it's my life. And I'm like, oh, I just wasn't cut out for it.

So I used to come away from like a 12, 13 hour shifts and would start writing a team book to kind of escape.

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