Sarah Le Marquand

Hello and welcome to Something to Talk About, the Stella podcast.

I'm Sarah Lamarquand, your host, and every week I sit down with some of the biggest names in the country, because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something to Talk About.

For nearly three decades, Frances Whiting's Sunday Mail column has been a weekly ritual for her readers.

Next year, she'll become Australia's longest-running continuous columnist, after 30 years of a career built on telling other people's stories.

Yet the most defining chapters of Frances's own life arrived later than expected.

She had her first child at 40, her second at 45, and published her first novel at 46.

Now, at 61, her fifth book, The Nocturnals, has become another bestseller.

On today's episode of The Stella Podcast, Fran reflects on the pressure women place on themselves to reach life's milestones by a certain age.

and why it's never too late to start the thing you think you've missed your chance to do.

We also chat about the most surprising feedback she's received over the years and the surreal encounter where she once had coffee with John F. Kennedy Jr.

in Paris.

Frances Whiting, welcome to the Stellar podcast.

You are Australia's longest running Sunday columnist.

Next year will be 30 years since you've been writing your column for Queensland Sunday Mail.

What are your recollections about those early years writing a column as opposed to now where it's obviously living in print and digital and now there's social?

Has the process of putting a column together changed for you as much as the way that it's distributed has over those 30 years?

What about the nature of the feedback from your readers over that time, Fran?

Do you still get letters and things in the mail?

I guess people are now sliding into your DMs, as they say.

How does that responsibility sit with you?