Sian Pattenden

Not everyone has to like it.

Tell us about the reviews because you looked up the reviews a bit at the time.

Yeah.

In my space, how dare she be herself?

Yeah.

Yes, I'm quite affronted by this act of realism.

Yeah.

Or that had earned their due after decades of being a genius writer somewhere.

Exactly.

The democratisation hadn't happened yet, but social media for its ills has also helped in the idea that people's voices and a wide range of people's voices need to be heard and other stories need to be heard.

Very much there are gatekeepers there going,

No, no, you're not one of us, so you can't do this.

You may have gone to Harvard, but you got a scholarship, so get off, povo.

But if you remember that...

When we worked in magazines, we worked in UK magazines where you could just sort of turn up and most people were quite drunk after about one o'clock in the afternoon.

US magazines, you have to turn up, you have to wear the right clothes, you have to know the right sort of people.

It was like going to another sort of university or something.

There were rules.

And so she exists to say very contradictorily in this, this is me, this is who I am, but also trying to work in this space.

In this way that doesn't really want you as you are.