Today’s guest on The Shift podcast is a personal favourite. Actually, let’s make no bones about it, I love love love love love this episode!
I first met Kate Weinberg (the bestselling author of The Truants) when I was stricken with long covid and a mutual friend put us in touch. “You need to talk to Kate,” she urged. “She’ll be able to help.” Kate was able to help - and did. Thanks, in large part, to Kate, I went from feeling like my old, functioning life had gone forever, to regaining more than a semblance of normal. Whatever that is. Because Kate is not only one of the first people to have long covid, she is also an immensely kind and generous woman who wants to use her experience to help others.
That experience - of living an illness that doctors dismissed as “all in her head” - led to her new novel, There’s Nothing Wrong With Her - a comi-tragic story about mental health, the way women’s illness is dismissed, living up to early midlife expectation and surviving modern life. It also stars a goldfish called Whitney Houston!
I went to Kate’s envy-inducing north London house (I was green!) to talk about running away fantasies, the impact of losing her mum at three years old and how she’s spent her life assembling a patchwork of mothers. Her career finally waking up in her 40s, going on HRT in her 30s, embracing crone energy and, yes, the impact of living with an illness you’re told is “all in your head”.
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