The Clearing with Katherine May

Comedian, podcaster, radio presenter and bona fide history nerd Pierre Novellie joins Katherine in The Clearing for this week’s episode. A geekfest of language and ideas, they launch straight into the etymology of the word ‘dork’, why you can’t choose your own clown as a stand-up, and the politics around the changing language of autism. Like Katherine, Pierre received a late neurodivergence diagnosis. Unlike Katherine, his came after a heckler suggested he might be autistic during a live stand-up show.  A lovely, chewy episode for the brain, with Katherine bidding for them to be the hosts of ‘The Rest is Neurodivergence’ and Pierre sprinkling his imagined getaway with some Orkney magic. Katherine’s new book, Tending: How Care Binds the World is out in March and you can pre-order it here https://katherine-may.co.uk/tendingLinks from the episode:Pierre’s website https://www.pierrenovellie.com/ Pierre’s book Why Can't I Just Enjoy Things Pierre’s BBC Radio 4 show https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002pfbr Pierre’s gaming podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/button-boys/id1827054353 Baldur’s Gate 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate_3 Kingdom Come: Deliverance II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Come:_Deliverance_II Portugese writer Antonio Lobo Antunes Night Watch by Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus episodes, our ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreat.Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice LloydMusic - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

Caitlin Moran is somewhat of an icon in the UK. Growing up as the eldest of eight kids in a three bed council flat, home-educated from the age of 11, she became a published author at just 16 and a TV presenter not long after that. A long-time columnist for The Times, she has a well-deserved reputation for being one of the UK’s funniest writers. She is also a massive fan of Wintering - so much so her new book contains an entire chapter devoted to it. Caitlin joins Katherine for a conversation that was never going to be anything but brilliantly bonkers. They discuss her plan to rid the world of evil billionaires that basically involves being a madam, why she would pay a thousand pounds to hear the sound of a blackbird from Wolverhampton in the 1980s and ask; grottos - the Temu of caves? Her unique vision of splendour for her escape to the Clearing, involving ‘the greatest building that humans have ever come up with’, provokes a particularly visceral reaction from Katherine. Just to warn you, this being Caitlin, the episode contains a spot of swearing. Links from the episode:Caitlin’s new book How to Be Hopeful Outsiding Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/outsiding/id6782845808 Caitlin’s InstagramVisit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus episodes, our ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreat.Katherine’s new book, Tending: How Care Binds the World is out in March and you can pre-order it here https://katherine-may.co.uk/tendingBuy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice LloydMusic - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

Step forward our first OBE on the show; former Children’s Laureate, winner of the Carnegie Medal for Writing, poet and prolific children’s author, Joseph Coelho.  Having both grown up on housing estates where you definitely weren’t pre-conditioned for a life in the creative arts, Joseph and Katherine marvel at the way teachers can shape children’s futures, wonder at the power of brutalist public art and relish the joy of watching people rummage through abandoned homes in post-apocalyptic films. A wonderful, and deeply thoughtful, conversation with one of the UK’s most inspiring literary figures. Links from the episode: Joseph’s website https://www.thepoetryofjosephcoelho.com/Joseph’s InstagramMunya Chawawa’s Black Boys Theatre Club Joseph’s estate he grew up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Estate Lynn Chadwick’s The Watchers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watchers_(sculpture)Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus episodes, our ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreat.Katherine’s new book, Tending: How Care Binds the World is out in March and you can pre-order it here Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice LloydMusic - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

Katherine kicks off Season Three of The Clearing in wild style by chatting to former magazine editor, podcast host and US author Elise Loehnen. Menopausal Love Island, lumberjack witches, the potential joy of losing female reproductive organs and animal totems are just some tiny tasters of a brilliant, hilarious, radical conversation that plays with the boundaries of possibility for women everywhere. Despite it being her first podcast interview since discovering she had ‘dumb and slow cancer’ (the good kind) and undergoing a double mastectomy, Elise brings unfathomable, infinite amounts of energy and laughter, plus just the right amount of woo, to a joyous episode. Links from the episode: Elise’s website and podcast Pulling the Thread https://www.eliseloehnen.com/Elise’s InstagramMark Rothko, artist page https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/mark-rothko-1875Anne Truitt, sculptor https://www.annetruitt.org/Hilma af Klint, artist page https://hilmaafklint.se/Ithell Colquhoun, artist page https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ithell-colquhoun-931 Fulgur press https://www.fulgur.co.uk/Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus episodes, our ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreat.Katherine’s new book, Tending: How Care Binds the World is out in March and you can pre-order it here Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice LloydMusic - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

We’re excited to announce Season Three of The Clearing coming very soon. Katherine has curated a spectacular line-up of guests and we can’t wait for you to hear some of the brilliantly creative fantasies of rest they have dreamt up. Plus don’t forget our subscribers also get bonus episodes in the form of our ‘Mini-Breaks’. They’re stuffed with listener chat, one small, achievable idea to rest and restore from Katherine and a lucky subscriber gets their perfect vision of getting away from it all selected for the episode. If yours is picked you’ll receive a highly coveted Clearing mug! Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus and ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreat.Katherine’s new book, Tending: How Care Binds the World is out in March and you can pre-order it here Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice Lloyd

Not too warm, not too cool, the kind of evening where you’re still in shorts but have pulled on a sweater, is where we find ourselves this week with the wonderful writer and papercut artist Anna Brones. It’s the Pacific North-West but imbued with Anna’s Swedish heritage as she brings comfort and nostalgia - cold water swimming, her grandmother’s woollen blanket - to a cosy spot on a blustery shore.Together, Katherine and Anna explore ideas of home, desire for the place you are not, ‘the curse of the creatives’ and share fascinating insights into both of their creative processes. Links from the episode:  Anna’s book Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break Anna’s newsletter Creative FuelAnna’s website https://www.annabrones.com/Anna’s Instagram Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus episodes, our ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreat.Buy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice LloydMusic - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

‘Revel’ is the recurring theme of this episode as writer Alice Vincent brings visceral, carnival-esque Glastonbury vibes to The Clearing this week. A self-confessed extrovert, her dream retreat includes bundling up all the sounds and experiences of the people and places she loves; the chaotic joy of a house party, the blissful comfort of chatty gatherings with friends and family, the daily buzz of a busy household.But after the noise comes the calm. That liminal space of watching the sun rise after being up all night with friends at a house party, morning dew on the grass, where your body glows with the memory of the night before and you savour the quiet stillness.  A lovely, messy, joyful gathering of sound, happiness and the coming together of humans. Links from episode:Alice’s website where you can find her books including Hark https://www.alicevincent.co.uk/ Alice’s Substack https://savour.substack.com/ Alice’s InstagramVisit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus episodes, our ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreatBuy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice LloydMusic - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary

Trees as ancestors, blurring the boundary between our bodies and the living world and constructing your sense of ‘self’ through art; these are just some of the beautiful areas of discussion between our guest Joycelyn Longdon and Katherine this week. Joycelyn is a researcher and writer, currently finishing her PhD at the University of Cambridge, who bridges the worlds of ecology, technology and environmental justice. Resisting the urge to pick a far-flung place, she goes extremely local for her small idyll, choosing a tiny patch of woodland by the river near her home, under her favourite willow tree, connecting to culture and mother earth.Wonderfully dreamy and deeply grounding.Links from the episode:Richard Powers The Overstory Explore Adinkra Symbols https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/#gsc.tab=0 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale HurstonJeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser All Flowers Bend Towards the Sun Visit The Clearing website www.theclearingpod.com for a full transcript, to discover how to enjoy our bonus episodes, our ad free episodes and if you subscribe, how to submit your own idea for a dream retreatBuy Katherine’s books: Enchantment | Wintering | The Electricity of Every Living Thing: UK / USFollow Katherine on InstagramVisit Katherine’s WebsiteProduction CreditsGuest Booker and Admin Support - Meghan HutchinsSubstack Manager - Rebecca ArmstrongProducer - Alice LloydMusic - The Leaf Library @theleaflibrary