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It’s hard to know where to put these next few words. If there’s enough of them or too many. If this is the right place, the wrong place. If words can ever come anywhere close to articulating the truth of what is happening. But it’s impossible to think about motherhood at the moment without thinking of the children of Palestine. 5-year-old Ward lost two of her brothers, her three sisters and her mother when an Isreali airstrike hit the school in Gaza City they were sheltering in at 1am.
In this clip from last week, Ward sits alone in rubble in front of a camera. When she is asked about her mother, through her tears she says,
“I love mama as big as the sky and earth and the stars”.
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Welcome to Episode 2: Alice Vincent on Motherhood and Creativity.
I wanted to talk to Alice because I admire her career immensely. I am fascinated by how she’s navigated the freelance waters as a new mother while building a fantastic body of brilliant writing and creative work, centred around women’s lives. As I said in last week’s newsletter, I wanted to know how she’s done it - the secrets, the strategies, the sacrifices. As someone with a lot of eyeballs on her, I wanted to hear how she percieves it all, how she’s felt about trying to manage motherhood with the need to make and create. Does she feel like it’s working?
For those who don’t know, Alice is a bestselling author of Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival and her latest book, Hark, How Women Listen (scroll down to find out how you could win a copy!), was a fairly freshly delivered manuscript when we spoke last year. Alice has many strings to her bow: she was formely an arts journalist at The Telegraph before becoming a gardening columnist for places like The Guardian and The New Statesman. She’s also a features journalist with bylines in The FT and Vogue (where her wedding photos also appeared), and a podcaster. Unlike many of the writers I know, Alice also has a flair for the aesthetic. There is a visual element that imbues her work and online presence. It’s poignant, thoughtful, quietly beautiful, and, more often than not, flourished with the natural world. She has a way of elevating the small details of life, giving them a glow that others can catch their reflection in. It’s not surprising to me that she holds writing retreats in beautiful places, even when her writing can deal with much darker, tougher issues. It’s a full-package approach to communicating with the world, and it's very effective.
When Alice and I spoke, her son was 15-months-old, and for all the curated beauty of her online presence, she was wonderfully honest. We talked about what happens to ambition after motherhood, giving up the sensible family-friendly job and figuring out how to pay for a baby when you’re a freelancer, writing a book on mat leave, and the often hidden reality that new mums can still create things and make things and are not incapacitated by alleged ‘baby brain’, despite what we might have been told, or however shameful that might feel to admit. From her garden shed, Alice helped me understand how hard she’s worked to balance a baby and her career, and how they are, in fact, essential to one other. It is a refreshing and much-needed take: her baby wasn’t the end of anything, he was the start of so many things.
To be completely honest, there is a lot I envy about Alice: she’s a bestseller, on book number four with a large and loyal following. She’s made great podcasts and worked on fascinating collaborations. Her success has only increased since the arrival of her son and she’s making life work for her on her terms. Or, at least that’s how it can look from the outside.
I, like so many of us, am extremely susceptible to the misconception that another person’s success says something about my own - even if we’re only seeing the carefully curated version. Speaking to Alice was an anecdote to how the highlights reel of social media can make us feel. She was honest and vulnerable. She shared nuanced and conflicted feelings. And it was an important reminder that trying to make and build something, while also trying to be the best mother you know how, is both doable and hard - however many books you’ve sold. Speaking with Alice reminded me of the greatest lesson I’m yet to learn (the one that Oprah famously instructed her army of young producers when making TV history): watch your own horse. Because this is clearly what Alice has done: she’s been strategic, deliberate, intentional and committed when trying to make motherood and creativity both fit in her life - not relying on a hope and prayer, like I know I have. So, if you’re worried about your creativity as a new mother, take comfort in Alice’s story. It won’t be easy, you need to get planning, and, as Alice told me, some days you won’t even get round to wiping the morning’s toothpaste off your crotch, but it can be done.
Listen here, on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify
And finally, Alice has kindly given me one copy of Hark: How Women Listen to give away! She describes it as “A book for those who have been through a change in their life and not known how to feel afterwards. A book for women who don’t feel heard. And it’s a book for people who want to listen better – to the world, to their loved ones and, crucially, to themselves”. And just look at those cover quotes! If you’d like a chance of winning a copy, hit the restack button below and I’ll choose a name at random. Good luck!
Marisa x
Ps. For all those not listening to the podcast, they’ll be one more episode published next week and then normal scheduling will resume. Stay with us!
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