Naomi Ishiguro on world-building, what makes a writer and why “hope is the only logical position to hold”

Naomi Ishiguro on world-building, what makes a writer and why “hope is the only logical position to hold”

Welcome to Season 2 of the How You Find Your Voice podcast. Expect more conversations on creativity, identity and voice, on and off the page. Summary What does it mean to become a writer, especially when writing can feel precarious, uncertain and difficult to sustain? And how do stories, communities and shared imagination help us find hope? In this episode of How You Find Your Voice, host Jessie Huth speaks with writer Naomi Ishiguro about her dazzling new fantasy novel The Rainshadow Orphans. Inspired by anime, Japanese folklore, yokai stories, coding clubs, bubble tea and the young people Naomi taught as a secondary school teacher, The Rainshadow Orphans blends cyberpunk and fantasy into a richly imagined world of dragons, hackers, sun spirits and resistance movements. Together, Jessie and Naomi explore the themes running beneath the novel: found family, friendship, hope, revenge, inequality, technology and the tension between individualism and community. Naomi reflects on how teaching teenagers shaped both the emotional heart and imaginative energy of the book, and how studying Jane Eyre in granular detail became an unexpected masterclass in writing fiction. The conversation also explores world-building, Japanese folklore and animism, the influence of anime and storytelling traditions, and why Naomi sees fantasy as a way of asking questions rather than providing answers. Naomi talks honestly about the realities of publishing, creative burnout, imposter syndrome and the difficulty of sustaining a writing life, even after publication. Naomi also shares why she believes being a writer has nothing to do with external validation and everything to do with the act of writing itself. This is a conversation about imagination, hope, creativity, storytelling, and what it really means to find your voice as a writer.   Topics Covered * The inspiration behind The Rainshadow Orphans * Anime, manga and Japanese pop culture influences * Yokai, animism and Japanese folklore * Building fantasy worlds and magic systems * Cyberpunk, fantasy and speculative fiction * Teaching creative writing and working with teenagers * Bubble tea, coding clubs and robotics teams * Found family, friendship and community * Collective values versus individualism * Writing across cultural influences and traditions * Worldbuilding in a culturally sensitive way * Fantasy as a way of asking questions * Revenge, justice and strategic thinking * Hope as a creative and political act * AI, technology and human creativity * Dragons, dragon pearls and mythological influences * Writing without rigid genre boundaries * Teaching Jane Eyre and learning narrative craft * Creative burnout and disillusionment with publishing * Imposter syndrome and creative identity * What makes someone “a writer” * External validation versus artistic integrity * Finding your voice through writing About Naomi Ishiguro Naomi Ishiguro is the author of the novel Common Ground and the collection of stories Escape Routes. She’s a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s MFA Creative Writing program, and has worked as both a secondary school English teacher and a freelance creative writing teacher. She also spent two lovely years in her early twenties working as a bookseller and bibliotherapist at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath. You can find out more about Naomi and The Rainshadow Orphans here.  [https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Rainshadow-Orphans/Naomi-Ishiguro/Rainshadow-Orphans/9781398544994]   About the Podcast How You Find Your Voice is the podcast that asks brilliant guests, mostly women, how they found or reclaimed their voices. Through conversations with writers, artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs, we explore the work they have made, the lives they have lived and the inner transformations that made it possible.   We talk about turning points and resistance, silence and expression, creative risk and process, and the often messy journey of becoming. Listen and Follow If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow the podcast and leave a review. It really helps more people discover the show and supports independent podcasts like this one. If you’d like to stay connected to these conversations and hear about upcoming events, salons and gatherings, you can join the How You Find Your Voice mailing list here.  [https://mailchi.mp/624c1ced4411/9iaxie3hg9] You can also follow along on Substack [https://substack.com/@howyoufindyourvoice]for longer reflections, or on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/howyoufindyourvoice/] for clips and updates. Keywords Naomi Ishiguro interview, The Rainshadow Orphans podcast, Japanese folklore fantasy, yokai and animism, cyberpunk fantasy novel, Studio Ghibli inspired books, anime influences in fiction, found family fantasy, speculative fiction podcast, writing and identity, creative burnout and publishing, fantasy world-building, dragons and mythology, hope in fiction, women and creativity, literary podcast, fantasy writing process, Japanese mythology books, finding your voice podcast, writers on writing

Alice Vincent on motherhood, listening, and the undocumented parts of women's lives

Welcome to Season 2 of the How You Find Your Voice podcast. Expect more conversations on creativity, identity and voice, on and off the page. Summary What happens when you lose your connection to music, to sound, and to yourself? And how do you learn to listen again? In this episode of How You Find Your Voice, host Jessie Huth speaks with writer and journalist Alice Vincent about her most recent book, Hark: How Women Listen. After more than a decade as a music journalist, Alice found herself burnt out and unable to listen to music at all. What began as an attempt to reconnect with music became something much deeper; a search for meaning, identity, and a new way of listening to the world and to herself. Together, they explore how motherhood, trauma and major life transitions can fundamentally change the way we hear and process the world. Alice reflects on her experience of PTSD following her son’s illness, and how sound became both a trigger and a lifeline during that time. The conversation also looks at the idea of listening as a gendered experience, namely, how women are often taught to be good listeners, while their own voices and experiences are overlooked. They discuss the difference between patriarchal and more intuitive ways of listening, and the overlooked soundscapes of women’s lives, from baby groups to hospital wards. They also talk about matrescence, liminal states, and the cyclical nature of women’s lives, from adolescence to motherhood to menopause and how these shifts shape identity, perception and voice. This is a conversation about sound, silence, motherhood, trauma, and the process of learning to listen to yourself again. Topics Covered * Losing connection to music and identity * Burnout and stepping away from the music industry * Listening as a practice and a way of understanding the self * Motherhood and matrescence * The sensory and emotional impact of becoming a parent * Trauma, PTSD and auditory triggers * The role of sound in processing difficult experiences * Writing as a way of making sense of trauma * The pressure to “move on” after difficult experiences * Liminal states and identity shifts * Adolescence, motherhood and other transitional phases * Misophonia and heightened sensitivity to sound * Patriarchal listening vs intuitive or embodied listening * Why women are taught to be good listeners * The invisible soundscapes of women’s lives * Community, connection and shared listening experiences * Silence, quiet and the search for stillness * Nature, environment and listening beyond the human * Cyclical identity and women’s changing inner worlds * Finding your voice through listening About Alice Vincent Alice Vincent Alice Vincent is a writer, broadcaster and multi-platform storyteller fascinated by the often-overlooked parts of life. Her books include the bestselling Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival [https://canongate.co.uk/books/3926-why-women-grow-stories-of-soil-sisterhood-and-survival/], which was shortlisted in the 2023 Books Are My Bag Readers Awards and Rootbound, Rewilding a Life [https://canongate.co.uk/books/2902-rootbound-rewilding-a-life/]. Both were longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. You can learn more about her latest book, Hark: How Women Listen here [https://canongate.co.uk/books/5064-hark-how-women-listen/]. A career journalist, she was a writer and editor on the arts desk of The Telegraph before joining Penguin as an editor. Now a columnist for The Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/feb/17/meet-our-new-gardening-columnists?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco] and Gardens Illustrated, [https://www.gardensillustrated.com/author/alicevincent/] Alice has offered readers her fresh approach to nature, gardening and life in the city as a columnist for The Telegraph and The New Statesman. She writes for titles including Vogue, The Financial Times, The Sunday Times and The Observer.   Beyond the page, Alice is the host of the Why Women Grow podcast [https://anchor.fm/alice-vincent4/] – which topped the British podcast charts during its first week and unearths stories of the land with inspiring women – and In Haste [https://inhaste.substack.com], a fresh new books podcast and platform dedicated to exploring how books really get written. Her weekly newsletter Savour [https://www.alicevincent.co.uk/savour] offers thousands of readers a moment to pause and appreciate the delicious things in life.    About the Podcast How You Find Your Voice is the podcast that asks brilliant guests, mostly women, how they found or reclaimed their voices. Through conversations with writers, artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs, we explore the work they have made, the lives they have lived and the inner transformations that made it possible. We talk about turning points and resistance, silence and expression, creative risk and process, and the often messy journey of becoming. Listen and Follow If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow the podcast for future episodes. If you’d like to stay connected to these conversations and hear about upcoming events, salons and gatherings, you can join the How You Find Your Voice mailing list here.  [https://mailchi.mp/624c1ced4411/9iaxie3hg9] You can also follow along on Substack [https://substack.com/@howyoufindyourvoice] for longer reflections, or on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/howyoufindyourvoice/] for clips and updates. Keywords Alice Vincent interview, Hark How Women Listen, listening and identity, motherhood and matrescence, PTSD and trauma, sound and perception, women and listening, music journalism burnout, finding your voice podcast, writing and identity, female experience and voice, liminal states and transformation, misophonia and sound sensitivity, patriarchal listening, motherhood and creativity, writing through trauma, literary podcast, women writers, identity and change

Susanna Crossman: Utopia, Untoldness and Finding the Words

Episode Summary What does it mean to grow up inside a utopian experiment, and how do you find your voice afterwards? In this episode of How You Find Your Voice, host Jessie Huth speaks with writer, essayist and clinical arts therapist Susanna Crossman about her memoir Home Is Where We Start and her novel, The Orange Notebooks. Susanna grew up in a politically radical community in the late 1970s that set out to reinvent family, gender roles and society itself. In this conversation, she reflects on the reality of that upbringing, the gap between utopian ideals and lived experience, and how long it took to find the language for what it really was. Together, they explore masking, people pleasing and the idea of the “false self”, and why growing up in a collective environment can make it difficult to know who you are. They also discuss silence, untold stories, and the power of language in expressing what often feels unspeakable. The conversation also turns to The Orange Notebooks, a deeply moving novel about maternal grief, and the challenge of writing about the loss of a child, one of the most taboo and difficult subjects to give voice to. This is a conversation about identity, grief, language, and the long, complex process of finding your voice. Topics Covered * Growing up in a utopian community * Communes, cults and collective living * The impact of alternative childhoods on identity * The gap between ideology and lived experience * Family dynamics and the dismantling of the nuclear family * Masking, people pleasing and the false self * Learning a script and unlearning it * Silence, secrecy and untold stories * Writing memoir as a way of understanding the past * Finding your voice after a silenced childhood * The role of language and etymology in expression * Grief, motherhood and The Orange Notebooks * Writing about the loss of a child * Clinical arts therapy and working with patients * Helping others find their voice About Susanna Crossman Susanna Crossman is an award-winning Anglo-French fiction and non-fiction writer, published internationally in print and online. She’s author of the the acclaimed memoir Home is Where we Start, (Fig Tree/Penguin, 2024), about her childhood in a utopian commune, a Guardian 2024 “Book to Look Out For!” Her new novel, The Orange Notebooks was published by Bluemoose Books (UK) and Assembly Press (NA) in 2025. She has recent work in The Guardian, Aeon, Vogue, Paris Review, Electric Literature & elsewhere. A published novelist in France, she was a 2022 Hawthornden Fellow, and resident at Hosking Houses Trust in 2025. Winner of the 2019 LoveReading Short Story Award, she was nominated for Best of The Net Non-Fiction and is a member of the Dangerous Women project. Susanna grew up in an international commune. Alongside her writing, she works as clinical arts-therapist on three continents, teaches and mentors writers. About the Podcast How You Find Your Voice is the podcast that asks brilliant guests, mostly women, how they found or reclaimed their voices. Through conversations with writers, artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs, we explore the work they have made, the lives they have lived and the inner transformations that made it possible. We talk about turning points and resistance, silence and expression, creative risk and process, and the often messy journey of becoming. Listen and Follow If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow the podcast for future episodes. If you would like to stay connected to these conversations and hear about upcoming events, salons and gatherings, you can join the How You Find Your Voice mailing list here. [https://mailchi.mp/624c1ced4411/9iaxie3hg9] You can also follow How You Find Your Voice on Substack [https://substack.com/@howyoufindyourvoice] for longer reflections on voice, creativity and the ideas behind the podcast, or on Instagram for updates.   Keywords finding your voice podcast, Susanna Crossman interview, Home Is Where We Start memoir, The Orange Notebooks novel, growing up in a commune, utopian community childhood, cult vs community, masking and people pleasing, false self psychology, silence and voice, grief and motherhood, writing trauma and memory, literary podcast, women writers, clinical arts therapy, identity and belonging, language and expression, untold stories

Under Water: Tara Menon on Writing Friendship and Grief

Episode Summary What happens when you lose a friend who felt like a soulmate? In this episode of How You Find Your Voice, Jessie Huth speaks with novelist and Harvard professor, Tara Menon, about her brilliant debut novel, Under Water. It's a moving and beautifully written book exploring the themes of friendship, loss and the natural world. Set between two approaching storms, the 2004 tsunami in Thailand and Hurricane Sandy in New York, the novel explores the aftermath of losing a friend, and the ways memory, grief and trauma shape how we move through the world. Tara reflects on the absence of language around friendship grief, the influence of literary traditions from Tennyson to the flâneur novel, and the challenge of writing fiction after a career spent analysing it. Together they explore ecological loss, the emotional resonance of the sea, and what it means to let go of control in the creative process. This is a conversation about grief, memory, observation and the long process of finding your voice. Topics Covered * Grief and the loss of a close friend * The absence of language around friendship grief * Dual timelines and writing towards catastrophe * The 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Sandy * Memory, trauma and how they shape perception * The natural world, coral reefs and ecological grief * Writing the sea and underwater environments * Manta rays and animal behaviour * Greek mythology and literary references * Male entitlement and the experience of women in cities * Tourism, colonialism and exploitation * Moving from literary criticism to fiction writing * Letting go of control in the creative process * Finding your voice as a writer About Tara Menon Tara Menon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Nation, Paris Review and Public Books, where she co-edits the Literary Fiction section. Tara was born in India, grew up in Singapore, spent a decade in New York, and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You can read more about Tara Menon and Under Water here. [https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Under-Water/Tara-Menon/9781398549159]   About the Podcast How You Find Your Voice is the podcast that asks brilliant guests, mostly women, how they found or reclaimed their voices. Through conversations with writers, activists, artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs, we explore the work they have made, the lives they have lived and the inner transformations that made it possible. We talk about turning points and resistance, doubt and silence, creative risk and process, as well as the messy business of becoming.   Listen and Follow If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow the podcast for future episodes. If you would like to stay connected to these conversations and hear about upcoming events, salons and gatherings, you can join the How You Find Your Voice mailing list here. [https://mailchi.mp/624c1ced4411/9iaxie3hg9] You can also follow How You Find Your Voice on Substack [https://substack.com/@howyoufindyourvoice] for longer reflections on voice, creativity and the ideas behind the podcast, or on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/howyoufindyourvoice/] for updates. Keywords finding your voice podcast, Tara Menon, Underwater novel, friendship grief, ecological grief, literary fiction podcast, women and grief, writing trauma and memory, coral reefs and climate change, female friendship novels, Harvard English professor, novelist, creative writing process, literary influences Tennyson, flaneur, voice and identity, how you find your voice podcast

Sarvat Hasin on Strange Girls, Female Friendship and Creative Ambition

Episode Summary What happens to a love story that has nowhere to go? And who has the right to tell it? In this episode of How You Find Your Voice, host Jessie Huth speaks with novelist Sarvat Hasin about her novel Strange Girls, a story about female friendship, creative ambition and the complicated emotions that can exist between admiration and rivalry. The book follows two young women who meet at university and become deeply entwined in one another’s lives. Their friendship is creative, admiring and competitive all at once. It is the kind of relationship that can leave a permanent imprint. Jessie and Sarvat talk about the emotional complexity of intense friendships, the strange grief of friendship breakups and the ways our lives gradually move in different directions as we grow older. They also discuss creative ambition, the realities of becoming a writer and the ethical questions that arise when fiction draws on shared experiences. Who owns a story when two people have lived it together? This is a conversation about creativity, longing, rivalry and the things that are often left unsaid between friends.   Topics Covered • Intense female friendships and formative relationships • The emotional complexity of friendships formed in youth • Creative admiration and rivalry between friends • The strange grief of friendship breakups • The ethics of fictionalising shared experiences • Who owns a story when two people have lived it together • Creative ambition and the realities of becoming a writer • The role of circumstance, time and opportunity in creative life • Writing towards questions you do not yet know the answer to • Sarvat’s approach to writing by “chasing the feeling” of a moment   About Sarvat Hasin Sarvat Hasin is a novelist and dramaturg from Pakistan. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. Her first novel, This Wide Night, was published by Penguin India and longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her second book You Can't Go Home Again was published in 2018 and featured in Vogue India's and The Hindu's best of the year lists. Her third novel, The Giant Dark (Dialogue Books, Hachette UK) won the Mo Siewcharran Prize was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award. She lives in London. You can read more about Sarvat Hasin and Strange Girls here [https://www.dialoguebooks.co.uk/titles/sarvat-hasin-2/strange-girls/9780349703114/].   About the Podcast How You Find Your Voice is the podcast that asks brilliant guests, mostly women, how they found or reclaimed their voices. Through conversations with writers, activists, artists, thinkers and entrepreneurs, we explore the work they have made, the lives they have lived and the inner transformations that made it possible. We talk about turning points and resistance, doubt and silence, creative risk and process, as well as the messy business of becoming.   Listen and Follow If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow the podcast for future episodes. If you would like to stay connected to these conversations and hear about upcoming events, salons and gatherings, you can join the How You Find Your Voice mailing list here. [https://mailchi.mp/624c1ced4411/9iaxie3hg9] You can also follow How You Find Your Voice on Substack [https://substack.com/@howyoufindyourvoice] for longer reflections on voice, creativity and the ideas behind the podcast, or on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/howyoufindyourvoice/] for updates.   Key Words Sarvat Hasin, Strange Girls novel, female friendship in literature, creative rivalry between friends, women writers podcast, writing fiction process, ethics of storytelling, creative ambition, literary podcast, finding your voice podcast