Caroline Foran joins Kate and Michelle to discuss her new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety, a practical roadmap for anyone who has ever felt frightened by their own mind and desperate for a way through.

Caroline shares the story behind the book, why she designed it as a sequential road map rather than a menu of options and why she is more confident about this book than anything she has written before. She explains why anxiety is not something to be cured but overcome and what that distinction actually means in practice.

She also unpacks two of the book's most illuminating ideas: why morning anxiety is so much more intense than most people expect, and the very real neurological reason for it, and why scrolling through social media is one of the worst things an anxious nervous system can do, even when it feels like a way to relax.

Caroline opens up about her own journey from being physically crippled by anxiety in her twenties, to the extraordinary role her mother played in pulling her through, challenges of parenting and what that has required her to unlearn about parenting.

A warm and deeply honest conversation about anxiety, self-compassion, the nervous system and what it really means to get your life back.

Key takeaways for anyone living with anxiety:

• Anxiety is not a flaw or a failing. It is a nervous system response that can be meaningfully overcome.
• The foundational work matters. Skipping to the fix without laying the groundwork is why so many people go backwards.
• Morning cortisol is biological, not personal. Moving your body is an effective response.
• Social media is a slot machine for your nervous system. Even knowing that, stepping back is hard but the difference is immediate.
• Self-compassion is not a platitude. Meeting yourself where you are is the only real starting point.

Natter is proudly brought to you in association with Bookstation Ireland & IrishCentral.

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Louise O'Neill joins Kate and Michelle to discuss her new novel, Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone?, a story of twin sisters, a Hollywood casting that changes everything and the discovery of a storage unit twenty years later that forces Chelsea to ask whether she ever really knew her sister at all.

Louise unpacks how the Paris Hilton storage unit scandal influenced parts of the book, why she set it against the Y2K celebrity era, and what it meant to write about two women on opposite sides of a system that rewards compliance and punishes those who refuse to play along. She also reflects on the very real parallels between that era and what young women are navigating today.

She opens up honestly about handling the publicity of promoting new books, the tension between wanting your book to reach readers and balancing your energy levels during promotions and why being good at something doesn't always mean you enjoy it. Louise also talks about writing her memoir, due out in September.

A rich, wide-ranging conversation about sisterhood, navigating writing multiple books and holding onto hope when the world keeps giving you reasons not to.

Key takeaways for writers:

• Being good at publicity and enjoying it are two very different things, knowing the difference matters.
• Writing nonfiction requires finding a voice that is distinct from your fiction voice, even when it is your own.
• The most powerful character dynamics often come from showing two sides of the same experience.
• Holding onto hope is not naive, for writers exploring dark themes, it is essential.

Natter is proudly brought to you in association with Bookstation Ireland & IrishCentral.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bestselling Irish author Louise Nealon joins Kate and Michelle to talk about her much-anticipated new novel, Everything That Is Beautiful. A story of three women, an Irish wedding and the traumatic secret that has kept them from each other for years.

Louise unpacks how the novel came together, why she made truth itself the central tension of the book and what it means when people are right about something but still cause damage in the way they reveal it. She reflects on the fine line between honesty and being too harsh within families, and the question that sits at the heart of the novel!

She also opens up about the very real pressure of following a debut as celebrated as Snowflake. A deeply honest conversation about storytelling, the subjectivity of truth, imaginary friends and why the best writing often comes from getting out of your own way.

Key takeaways for writers:

• Placing impossibly high literary expectations on yourself is one of the fastest ways to stop writing altogether.
• Characters surprise you, the excitement of not knowing where they'll go is often what keeps you at the desk.
• A "scenes I'd like to see" document can be a more generative planning tool than a chapter-by-chapter outline.
• The sentences you agonise over most are sometimes the ones readers fly past.
• Finishing the book is the only thing you actually have to do, everything else follows from that.

Natter is proudly brought to you in association with Bookstation Ireland & IrishCentral.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.