Author of the Week on Radio Gorgeous
Interviews with female authors
The Lost Girls by Kate Hamer with Donna Freed
Coming home was just the beginning… Kate Hamer follows up her taut psychological blockbuster The Girl in the Red Coat with an equally engrossing sequel, The Lost Girls. Carmel has been returned home five years after she was abducted by the preacher of a cult. But the trauma of her experience continues to haunt her and and her…
The Chase by AVA GLASS with Donna Freed
Introducing the next female 007, Makepeace, Emma Makepeace! Ava Glass’ hyper-pacy thriller, The Chase follows novice MI6 operative Emma Makepeace as she attempts to escort a man wanted by the Russians across surveillance-filled London without being detected by CCTV. Ava spent over a decade working with British spies at MI5 and MI6, has trained spies…
Death in Heels, by Kitty Murphy with Donna Freed
Kitty Murphy introduces the first book in her Dublin Drag Mystery Series: Death in Heels. When Eve, frenemy to all in Dublin’s drag club Trash, is found dead, Fi McKinnery is forced to turn ‘Hagatha Christie’. No one else, including the police nor her best friend Robyn – who performs as Mae B – believes that…
Sara Cox, founder of the Cheshire Novel Prize with Donna Freed
Sara Cox is a writer, editor and coach. After completing her MA in Creative Writing, Sara set up her own editing business. In 2021, tired of literary prizes that offered no feedback, Sara set up her own and The Cheshire Novel Prize for unrepresented, unpublished or self-published writers was born. In its first year…
You’ll Never Walk Alone – Interview with author Rachel Kelly about the power of poetry
You’ll Never Walk Alone – Poems for life’s up and downs Rachel Kelly is a former Times journalist who is now a mental health campaigner, public speaker, and writer. In her early thirties, Rachel was diagnosed with serious depression and subsequently suffered two major depressive episodes. These two episodes have become the defining events of…
Josephine Pembroke on Museum of Soho show on Soho Radio
The Working Girls of Soho – Saucy Tales of Notorious Women – Songs & Stories A fabulous cabaret celebrating Soho’s glorious past. Featuring the club runners, strippers, whores and thieves with song and stories. Josephine Pembroke of Pussies Galore talks about her sell out show featuring the female club runners, strippers, whores and thieves from…
True Story London founder Michelle Toth with Donna Freed
Michelle Toth is a bit of a polymath, in part because she loves learning and in part because when other people ask why, Michelle tends to ask, why not? She has been an entrepreneur, consultant, executive, novelist and story teller and is now a highly accomplished executive coach. She is passionate about connecting people through…
London’s Lost Department Stores – A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams by Tessa Boase with Josephine Pembroke
Last century central London and the suburbs were awash with ‘Halls of Temptation,’ giant emporiums where you could buy anything from exotic pets to opening your own bank account. Author Tessa Boase tells us about the golden days of shopping, when visiting a store was a magnificent assault on the senses. #RadioGorgeous #SocialHistory #MrSelfridge https://www.tessaboase.com/books
Adam Zmith, author of Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures MAN WEEK ON RADIO GORGEOUS with Donna Freed
It’s MAN WEEK! Donna Freed with Adam Zmith, author of Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures Adam Zmith is a writer, talker, thinker and maker with podcasts, stage and film credits to his name. Deep Sniff is a meditation on the history of poppers and their role in gay culture as well as…
Donna Freed with Wanda Whiteley, author of The Goldhanger Dog
As a commissioning editor at Harper Collins, Wanda Whiteley was in the business of saying no to the majority of authors who came her way. She founded manuscriptdoctor.co.uk so she could put her expertise to work for new authors. Wanda then decided it would only be fair to put herself in their shoes and the result is…
The Improbable Adventures of Emily Soldene, Actress, Writer and Rebel Victorian, by Helen Batten with Josephine Pembroke
Emily Soldene was a true Victorian, born of the wrong side of the tracks, she was illegitimate and her mother was working class, a bonnet maker by trade. Emily reinvented herself at twenty-two, she took singing lessons and willed herself to stardom. Hear her 3rd cousin once removed best selling author Helen Batten tell us…
My Name is Jensen, by Heidi Amsink with Donna Freed
Radio Gorgeous was thrilled to attend – in person – the launch of Heidi Amsinck’s debut novel and first in a new series of crime novels, My Name is Jensen. My Name is Jensen introduces us to journalist turned sleuth Jensen, who has returned to her native Copenhagen after some years working in London. An experience that mirrors…
Diamonds at the Lost & Found by Sarah Aspinall with Josephine Pembroke
What did we expect our mothers to be in the 20th Century? Apron wearing, docile, tactile and never critical. But one day we find out that our mothers are people and they have dreams and expectations. Today I am welcomed onto Radio Gorgeous a woman who is an award winning producer and documentary maker, Sarah…
Women on Nature, edited by Katherine Norbury author of The Fish Ladder with Josephine Pembroke
Acclaimed author Katharine Norbury tells us why it’s time to have a book about nature written solely by women. Naturalists in the past have painstakingly recorded nature naming plants, trees and animals and controlling the environment. It’s time for us to take a more spiritual approach as we face an ecological crisis, it’s time to…
Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne with Donna Freed
Ariadne and her sister Phaedra were pivotal footnotes in the heroic stories of men with the exception of the letters Ovid wrote in their name. It was these passionate but powerless voices that sparked Jennifer Saint’s debut novel Ariadne. Ariadne is a vibrant retelling and imagining of their stories as well as a story of sisters, growing up…
My Journey to Judaism – OSHER by Tetiana Michaels with Josephine Pembroke
Tetiana thinks that her great grandmother was “secretly” Jewish, as being a Jew in Ukraine back then was dangerous. Tetiana tells us why she, an independent modern woman fell in love with an ancient faith and converted. #RadioGorgeous #Judaism #Memoir
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls Mona Eltahawy, Radio Gorgeous meets the world’s number one feminist!
Mona has written a manifesto which starts and ends with abuse by men to women, she wants us all to stand up for ourselves and “Fuck the patriarchy” she tells us why and how to do it. Listen hard. #Feminism #FuckThePatriarchy #RadioGorgeous
Polly Samson, author of A Theatre for Dreamers with Donna Freed
Charmian Clift left London in 1954 with her husband and children to live on the Greek island of Kalymnos. The following year, they moved to Hydra where they were the forerunners of a bohemian artist community. Leonard Cohen stayed with them when he first visited the island. Her vivid memoirs of this time have been…
SCENT by Isabel Costello with Donna Freed, Author of the Week
Scent (Muswell Press) is the second novel from Isabel Costello, author of Paris Mon Amour. Her love and intimate knowledge of France is apparent as is her ability to expose the inner life of a Parisian perfumer, Clémentine, whose marriage is disintegrating at the same time as a her former lover turns up with an unknown agenda. …
PLEASE YOURSELF, How to Stop People-Pleasing and Transform the Way You Live by Emma Reed Turrell
Are you a people pleaser? You may not even know you are one because according to author and therapist Emma Reed Turrell there is more to people pleasing than the sweet, saint like image we all imagine. Cambridge University educated Emma is our guest today on Radio Gorgeous and we are delving into the people…