6.2 Katherine May: Creating Enchantment
Welcome to series 6, episode 2 of the Prompted by Nature. I’m Helen and I hope this finds you well. Lots going on on this side of things but I’m going to jump straight into today’s episode.
If you enjoy non-fiction at the moment today you may have heard of today’s guest, Katherine May.
Katherine is an internationally bestselling author and podcaster living in Whitstable, UK. Her most recent book, Enchantment became an instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Her internationally bestselling hybrid memoir Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times was adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and was shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. The Electricity of Every Living Thing, her memoir of a midlife autism diagnosis, was adapted as an audio drama by Audible. Other titles include novels such as The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club, and The Best, Most Awful Job, an anthology of essays about motherhood which she edited. Her journalism and essays have appeared in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Observer and Aeon.
Katherine’s podcast, How We Live Now, ranks in the top 1% worldwide, and she has been a guest presenter for On Being’s The Future of Hope series. Her next book, Enchantment, will be published in 2023. Katherine lives with her husband, son, two cats and a dog. She loves walking, sea-swimming and pickling slightly unappealing things.
In this conversation we discuss:
The weather!
The importance of hope and magic
The process of writing Enchantment
Creativity as resistance
AI and creativity in education
Forms & lineages of creativity
Mutation over survival of the fittest
The process of ‘unknowing’ in her work
Researching Enchantment
The advice she’d give to her 15-year old self
What she’s looking forward to
You can find Kathrine’s Substack newsletter and podcast over at https://katherinemay.substack.com/ - I highly recommend subscribing to this as it’s completely wonderful. You can find all of her books at your local bookshop or library (and if they don’t have the one you’re after, ask them order it in) and I’ve also popped Enchantment in the ‘Discussed on the Podcast’ section of my bookshop over at www.bookshop.org
Epsiodes that I think would go well with this one are:
1.10a Finding Magic in the Landscape, Jini Reddy
2.6a Art as Play, Beba Beeby
4.12a Soraya Abdel-Hadi, Finding my Creative Voice through Nature
5.11a Creating a Folklore of Place with Elin Manon
As always, you can find me on the website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can find prompts, the pod and information about my upcoming woodland day retreat here in Sussex. I’m also on Substack https://promptedbynature.substack.com or you can find me on Instagram @prompted.by.nature or Facebook and Twitter by searching Prompted by Nature. Please do share, rate and review the podcast wherever you’re listening as this means the WORLD to me!! And do tag me on social media if you’ve enjoyed this or any other episode.
I’ll be back in a few days with the writing prompt that accompanies this episode but in the meantime I’ll send you lots of love. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you soon!
