From Your Big Sister

Well, I wasn't joking when I warned you podcast episodes were going to be a bit erratic. As if to make up for lost time, though, my guest and I are tackling two listener questions: it made sense, since they're both to do with making and maintaining friendships, and since I was able to press gang my own best friend of 20 years to help me out. Lola Keeley (@LolaKeeley_) is a novelist, screenwriter-in-training and coder. After moving to London to pursue her love of theatre, she later wound up living every five-year-old’s dream of being a train driver on the London Underground. She has since emerged, blinking into the sunlight, to find herself writing books: The Music and The Mirror and Major Surgery are out now from Ylva Publishing, and Slammed follows in October. Buy Lola's books: https://www.ylva-publishing.com/authors/lola-keeley/ Submit a question: https://lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net/podcast/ Follow the show: @FromYrBigSister

From Your Big Sister is part of #PODSTRIKE, podcasters supporting Greta Thunberg and the Global Climate Strike on Friday 20th September. The podcast itself will be back in your feeds soon - lesfic author Lola Keeley, my best friend of 20 years, is joining me to answer two listener questions on friendship as an adult. Got a question only your internet big sister can solve? Submit at https://lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net/podcast/ or lisamarie@pixlet.net

I suppose when you hold yourself out to be the internet's advice-giving big sister, it was only ever going to be a matter of time before somebody sent in a dating question. The problem? I'm now almost 10 years married, and have been known to remark that it anything ever happened to my husband I'd happily start collecting cats rather than put myself out there again. Dating in 2019 seems exhausting for this extroverted introvert, and I really admire those of you with the bravery - and energy - to put yourself out there again and again, making yourself vulnerable to new people in the hope that you might find a connection. So, to celebrate our first dating advice question, I've called in the experts! Monstrous Regiment (@MonstrousRgmt) is an Edinburgh-based micropress with a passion for intersectional feminism and sexuality, and for publishing marginalised writers. Their biggest project to date is The Bi-ble, an anthology of personal narratives and essays about bisexuality, which has recently been reprinted together with a second volume, New Testimonials. I'm joined by Lauren from Monstrous Regiment along with Rebecca Wojturska (@Becky_Wojturska), a writer who is featured in the new edition. Buy books: monstrous-regiment.com. Submit a question: https://lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net/podcast/. Follow the show: @FromYrBigSister

Charlotte Dougall is a digital marketer, blogger and airport documentary enthusiast usually found in Glasgow, but currently driving everyone back home wild with jealousy with her Instagram stories on holiday in Mexico. Never one to shy away from a project, Charlotte started her blog-focussed “passion project”, Blog and Beyond, in 2017, as an inclusive online community by bloggers, for bloggers and a way to offer top tips, advice and support from a network of like-minded bloggers, as well as through real-world events. In March, after a month-long UK-wide workshop series, Charlotte announced that she was calling time on the project, although it still lives on as a Facebook community. Writing about her decision in a blog post she titled “learning from failure” (https://www.bycharlotteann.com/2019/04/learning-from-failure/), she spoke about how Blog and Beyond had become “too much effort for too little in return”, and how she had got to the stage where she was “just so exhausted that it was making [her] miserable”. And from one over-achiever with high functioning anxiety to another, I knew I had to get her on the podcast to talk about her decision, what she learned, and when she knew it was time to call it quits. Find Charlotte online at bycharlotteann.com and bletherdigital.com. I'm at lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net, where you can also find full show notes as well as submit your own question.

Today’s guest is author and journalist Kaite Welsh. As a writer of both high-quality arts and lifestyle journalism and award-nominated fiction, Kaite is the original multi-hyphenate career woman, and a big inspiration for a lot of my creative practice. She’s also an experienced creative project manager and creative coach - and the second of these is something I benefit from via Whatsapp on a regular, if informal basis. The Unquiet Heart, the second novel in Kaite's Sarah Gilchrist mystery series set in Victorian Edinburgh, is out on 30th May (https://amzn.to/2JD3qag), and if the book is anything like its predecessor it’ll be a gripping read, packed with just enough historical detail to set it in place without overwhelming the lay reader - and with enough of a modern-day feminist underpinning to add real depth to the story without making it smug or unrealistic. I joined Kaite in her home office in Edinburgh to drink tea, ward off Collins, her feisty youngest of four cats, and talk about just how one builds a multi-strand creative practice without compromising on your dreams - and while still making enough money for both rent and decent cheese. Find Kaite online at www.kaitewrites.com. I'm at lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net, where you can also find full show notes and how to submit your own question.

And we're back! I'm really excited about this episode, which is the first to feature a listener question and so probably the closest yet to the vision I originally had for the show. I'm joined by Briony Cullin, a Glasgow-based SEO and digital marketing expert who specialises in supporting independent businesses. There were so many topics I could have had Briony on to discuss and who knows, I maybe will in the future. But when I received a listener question about living with chronic pain she was the first person I thought of - in part, because of a fantastic blog post she wrote last year about freelancing and chronic illness (https://www.brionycullin.com/blog/freelancing-and-chronic-illness). There’s lots in our chat that will be relevant to those of you that live with long-term conditions and also just if you’re looking for a compassionate way of learning to navigate other people’s opinions - but even if you’re not, Briony is generally just an excellent person to chat to. Find her online at brionycullin.com. I'm at lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net, where you can also find full show notes and how to submit your own question.

Lis is joined by journalist, author and podcaster Fiona Thomas. Fiona was diagnosed with depression in 2012 and felt completely lost. She was unable to work for almost a year and turned to blogging, first as a hobby, but eventually as a means of honing her identity, creating a supportive community and building a successful freelance writing career, with work published on the likes of Metro, Healthline, Heads Together, Mind and Happiful magazine. Fiona has recently published her first book, Depression in a Digital Age (https://amzn.to/2STn7Re). It’s a memoir about living with anxiety and the subsequent depression, and about how a digital life helped Fiona to find her community, her voice and herself. Emma Gannon calls it “a brilliantly honest reminder about how to control your online space and not let it control you”. Fiona describes herself as a proud advocate for digital technology as a communication tool for those of us who suffer the often crippling symptoms of mental illness, and it’s in that spirit that we caught up for a chat.

Lis goes solo for the first episode of From Your Big Sister. She shares some practical tips for getting into good habits and looking after yourself better at the start of a new year, based on the last piece of advice she gave her actual sister before she headed home after Christmas - as well as her favourite books, films and music of 2018.