Hollie McNish is a poet, writer and Ted Hughes Award-winning author of Nobody Told Me – a collection of poems and stories about raising a child in modern Britain..

Hollie writes with raw honesty, warmth and humour, but as well as great critical and mainstream success, she’s also had her fair share of setbacks and her work articulates perfectly the ‘everyday sadness’ that we all experience.

In this episode, Hollie and Helen chat:

Motherhood myths
The commercialisation of parenthood
The frustrations of modern life
Guilt
Class and snobbery
Online abuse
Not belittling our sadness
The unexpected freedoms of being a single parent
Sting’s next project…
…and reframing selfies as ‘the oil paintings of the Tinder age’

Trigger: suicide

Find out more about Hollie’s work here and follow Hollie on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @holliepoetry

Hollie’s next collection of poetry, Slug, is out in May.

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones or Amazon. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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