My Unlived Life

Jackie and Miriam discuss what might have happened if Jackie had learned to play the violin as a teenager, and used her skills to busk as a traveling storyteller across Spain, Africa, Mongolia and beyond. Along the way they discuss what it takes to become an artist, the joys and perils of traveling alone and how learning languages is a lot like inhabiting other lives. Jackie also encounters a lot of fabulous wildlife, and learns to ride a motorcycle.Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. She studied illustration at Hereford College of Art and Bath Academy and has illustrated many books, and written some. The Lost Words, co-authored with Robert Macfarlane, won the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019, and she was nominated again for The Unwinding in 2021. Her accordion books - Fox and Otter - are out now with Unbound.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 4 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason

Alice and Miriam discuss what might have happened if she hadn’t accepted a job offer in Poland in her twenties, and had stayed living and working in London instead. Along the way they talk about the perspective you get from travel, how to step back and examine the system you're living in and the pros and cons of mainstream publishing. Alice also has a very scandalous home counties affair.Alice Jolly is a novelist and playwright Alice Jolly. She won the 2014 V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize with one of her short stories, ‘Ray the Rottweiler’, and her memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns won the 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize. Her novel Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. In 2021, Jolly was awarded an O. Henry Prize for her short story ‘From Far Around They Saw Us Burn’ and the story collection of the same name is out now and available in your local bookshop.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 4 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason

*LIVE EPISODE*Lawyer and author Hafsa Zayyan and Miriam discuss what might have happened if she’d stood up to her parents at the age of 16, and insisted on attending her local school with all of her friends, as opposed to the exclusive grammar school two hours from home where she ultimately went. Along the way they talk about the friends we lose and the friends we keep, the weight of parental expectation and some particularly salient marriage advice.Hafsa Zayyan is a writer and dispute resolution lawyer based in London. She studied Law at the University of Cambridge and holds a masters’ degree from the University of Oxford, and she won the inaugural #Merky Books New Writer’s Prize in 2019. We Are All Birds of Uganda is her debut fiction novel, inspired by the mixed background from which she hails, and is available in your local bookshop.This episode of My Unlived Life was recorded live, at the Merky Books Literature Festival at the Roundhouse in London.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 4 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason

The poet Maggie Smith and Miriam discuss what might have happened if she’d left her native Ohio to go to graduate school in Tucson, and thus also left the man who ultimately became her husband. Along the way they discuss the impossible questions one gets asked in the aftermath of divorce; how writing your trauma can help you through, though not necessarily in the way you might think, and ways to find yourself when you’re far from home. Maggie also teaches Miriam a very important lesson about band t-shirts.Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and more. Her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, is out now and available in your local bookshop.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 4 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason

Maxine and Miriam discuss what might have happened if she had followed her heart and studied English Literature at university, as opposed to following a path which she said allowed her to stay a bit more hidden. Along the way they talk about the unrealistic and damaging pressure society puts on mothers, why we tend to want people to be just one thing, and how, in her words, communities can put the fire out on shame. In her unlived life Maxine also makes some very savvy property decisions.Maxine Mei-Fung Chung is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and writer with over fifteen years of clinical experience. She lectures on gender and sexuality, trauma and attachment theory at the Bowlby Centre and was presented with The Jafar Kareem Award for her work supporting people from ethnic minorities experiencing isolation and mental health problems. What Women Want is her first work of non-fiction and is out now and available in your local bookshop.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 4 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason

Tom and Miriam discuss what might have happened if, at the age of 17, he’d come out to his parents when an opportunity unexpectedly presented itself at a school picnic, instead of waiting until the age of 23 to tell them his truth. Along the way they talk about full moon parties in Thailand, the impact of hiding your identity at a formative age and how often others can see you more clearly than you see yourself.Tom Rob Smith's bestselling novels in the Child 44 trilogy were international publishing sensations. Among its many honours, Child 44 won the International Thriller Writer Award for Best First Novel, the Galaxy Book Award for Best New Writer, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the inaugural Desmond Elliot Prize, and is now a major motion picture. Tom’s new novel, Cold People, about a colony of global apocalypse survivors trying to reinvent civilisation under the most extreme conditions imaginable, is to my mind an intimate and hopeful look at how people can and do come together against all odds. Crucially, it’s out now and available in your local bookshop.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 4 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason

Caro and Miriam talk about what might have happened if she had attended a traditional university as opposed to going to drama school, which she describes as an 'intense and edgy place'. Along the way they discuss being two opposing things at once, the impossibility of actually having it all, and how tricky it is to find a good harp.Caro Giles is a writer based in Northumberland, whose words are inspired by her local landscape. She writes honestly about what it means to be a woman, a mother and a carer and about the value in taking the road less travelled. Her writing has appeared in journals, press and periodicals and she was named Countryfile magazine’s New Nature Writer of the Year in 2021. Twelve Moons, her stunning, enveloping memoir about finding yourself and your voice, is out now and available in all good bookshops.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 4 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason

Journalist & writer Emma Hughes and Miriam what might have happened if, after going through a rigorous application process, she’d received and taken an offer to work at M!5. Along the way they discuss the things we learn as we get older, the way society privileges certain types of intelligence and whether or not we need to be a bit more serious.Emma Hughes is a London-based freelance writer and editor who covers everything from food to travel, relationship advice to romcoms, for everyone from Time Out to Wired and the Guardian and many more. Emma's first novel, No Such Thing As Perfect, was published in 2021 and is available in all good bookshops and on Bookshop.org. Her second novel, It's Complicated, is out in July 2023.Make sure to subscribe to hear the rest of Season 3 – in each episode, Miriam Robinson interviews a guest about another path their life might have taken. Together, step by step, they write the stories of their unlived lives. Produced by Neil Mason #MyUnlivedLife