Jennifer Bray

And I found myself automatically doing that in interviews.

If someone says, where did you grow up?

I say, here is where I grew up.

And what about you?

And they're like, no, that's not about me.

That's not the vibe.

No, and it is strange.

It's really, really odd.

But it's lovely as well in some ways because...

you know when I think about it there's been a lot of anxiety for me around going into kind of publication but like if I could show myself five years ago this would that this is what it would look like this would happen I wouldn't believe it so instead of kind of getting mired in anxious thoughts it's kind of like let them flow through and then like enjoy the process and actually it's kind of way easier answering questions about your book than answering questions about like Trump's tariffs or you know like economic recession or something

It's... Well, naturally, I really want the book to do well.

Like, I'm so, like...

Because I'm so determined to make a career out of this, you know, a second career out of it that I really want this to do well because I feel like it will give me a really good platform for the next book and the one after.

So I also want to look back and say I did everything I possibly could.

So no matter what happens, I can stand by how I handled these couple of weeks and the months leading up to it and the years leading up to that.

but the other part of it as well is you're putting yourself out there it's a kind of scary world there's a lot of anger and hate and people are quite divided and it feels like you're putting yourself into that and that's scary you know and because when I go on like radio or whatever to talk about the day job I'm talking about a topic that I will know usually sometimes I'm winging it

But like normally I will know what I'm talking about, but you're talking about a topic.

You know, when you're coming to do interviews about your book, you're kind of, you're talking about yourself.

It's a completely different prospect.

And I think as well, there's this thing for me about being seen.