Charlotte Wood

I know what you mean about that, that those crowds of women at writers' festivals, at events like this, there's a kind of, I think there's a great solidarity amongst women.

And I feel that, I don't know about you, but as I get older, that sort of feels celebratory to me.

Well, that's interesting.

My theory is that women kind of toughen up as they get older and a lot of men soften.

And I'm seeing men who I know who, when they were younger, were more sort of shut down in their 50s and 60s becoming much more sort of openly

loving towards each other, their friends, and also talking about their feelings in a way that they would never have done when they were 30 or something.

Thank you.

So I had the grief of my parents dying when I was 19 and I was 29 when that happened.

But while I was writing this book, my friend Georgia Blaine died, who's a writer who many of you will know and have loved.

And that grief was really shocking to me, the intensity of it and the kind of

childishness of it, the kind of... I gave out all to these women, especially to Jude.

The childish bit I really gave to Jude.

There's a bit in the beginning where Jude... I mean, I haven't actually done this, but Jude talks about every now and again going into a church, which she despises because why would any fool go to church?

But she just happens to have done it a couple of times.

And lighting a candle for Sylvie and finding that there were other candles there, but she blew those out.

because Sylvie was the only one, you know.

So she feels, and she knows that's kind of appalling.

And I had a discussion actually with another friend of Georgia's, just I think after Georgia died, and we kind of confessed to each other our terrible, selfish,

greed for Georgia that we had at that time, that we were sort of jealous of other people seeing her or their grief.

I mean, it was kind of so messy and murky and kind of shameful.