A few out-takes from the Mind Media Awards :-)

 

Latest column: Mind Media Awards, celebrities and champagne - and why life is a gift.

"Even now that anorexia is behind me, I don’t take normality for granted. I hope I never will. Recovery was such a painful process that I feel protective of my new-found health. I’ll continue to talk about it and write about it—and to hell with those who call me a narcissist— because I know what it’s like to be trapped and terrified, dropping below 6 stone, unable to eat, unable to save yourself, your mind falling apart. When you’re at rock-bottom, it helps to know that others have been there too..."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/11/25/at-the-mind-media-awards-remembering-what-matters.html

Should I Stay or Should I Go? London: Love It or Leave It? My latest column for The Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/11/11/the-view-from-london-london-love-it-or-leave-it.html

"I stare at the November rain, the grimy London streets, and the look of sheer stress on the face of every passer-by. Is this what we mean by ‘quality of life’? I know I’d miss all this if I left it behind: I’d miss cycling along the Thames, running in Hyde Park; I’d miss seeing the Dome of St Paul’s on the cluttered skyline. But increasingly I long for space to think, air to breathe..."
 

Watch out, there's a Woolf in leopard-print about! A Halloween selfie, although I'm not going trick or treating, or any Halloween parties. Check out the dodgy hair though, that should scare off the ghouls and ghosties :-)

 

Today's column... the on-going obsession with women's appearance!

 

Why does any interview with a high-profile woman focus on the superficialities: how she’s ageing, what she’s wearing, what she eats, what shape she’s in. No matter what their personal achievements, musical, sporting, political or scientific, we’re given the intimate details of their domestic set-up, whether they have children—and if not, WHY not—and who they’re married to or divorced from, ‘blissfully happy’ or ‘unlucky in love’. We don’t do this with famous men. When a male writer gives an interview, it’s about the new book, not their body or what they order for breakfast.

Of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with human interest—I’m curious about the routines of well-known writers too—but with women, it eclipses their work. And it’s not just writers: in every area of modern life, women are judged by their appearance rather than their attainments.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/10/28/emma-woolf-on-the-view-from-london-the-double-standard-for-female-writers.html

Bangkok Days, Island Nights... my latest column from Thailand!

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/10/14/emma-woolf-on-the-view-from-thailand.html

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing," he went on dreamily, "messing-about-in-boats…" So says Ratty in Kenneth Grahame’s classic story, The Wind in the Willows, a staple of any English childhood.

Everything improved when we started messing about in boats—long-boats, to be precise. My arrival in Thailand had coincided with the rainy season, and after two interminable days watching the downpour from our veranda, we were fed up. But on the third day the clouds lifted and the sun came out, as did the Factor 30 and our snorkelling gear. I began to see why my boyfriend always talked about this island as a magical place...

 

filming the new series of Supersize vs Superskinny! too manic to write so here's a gallery of our crazy northern road-trip so far

 

...with the beautiful Sarah Jones Nash in Southampton

 

 

...with a bevy of wonderful readers at Sheffield's Off The Shelf Literary Festival, signing books and causing a commotion

 

 

 

 

 

check it out, my readers are STRONG & SASSY :-)

 



 

...with some inspiring dancers in Manchester - yes I danced too, and yes I was rubbish, both in a wheelchair and on my own two feet!