Mamamia Out Loud
A Spectacular Writers' Festival Collapse & The Jennifer Lawrence Dog Drama
14 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What happened at the Adelaide Writers' Week?
You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast. hello and welcome to mama mia out loud it's what women are actually talking about on wednesday the 14th of january i'm holly wainwright and i am officially the person who yesterday many people in the world did this em's already laughing at me oh god i clicked on a harry styles related some excitement about harry styles may be about to release an album
I saw that. I didn't understand what had happened. It sends you to a site. You press this button on a site and immediately a pop-up comes up and wants all of your details, like your birth date, your shoe size, your email address.
Where you live.
Where you live. And I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Just have it all. Like, have it all. I'm sure Harry wants it for something important. And then I pressed send and then... All your money disappeared because you'd given them your BSB and account.
It was like...
Great.
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Chapter 2: Why is the controversy surrounding Jennifer Lawrence significant?
Why would Harry need your home address, Holly?
I was like, shit, I think I'm a boomer. It was like, yep, thank you. I think this is a complicated Harry Styles related scam. And you still haven't got anything out of it. I assumed that when I woke up this morning I'd have some messages from Harry, but nothing yet. Are we getting a new, I saw something pop up yesterday. Apparently Harry is about to drop. News. Like a photo of himself.
I don't know.
So you don't know as much as we know. We've been waiting. Holly will know first. Those of us who care, Harry Styles hasn't released an album for three years.
Chapter 3: What does a new commitment ladder for relationships look like?
It's time. And apparently he's about to. By the time people listen to this, they might know, especially if they, like me, got scammed this week in a Harry Styles-related incident. I'm sorry. Check your bank account. There might be a detail in there about it. Oh, dear. I'm Jessie Stephens. And I'm Em Burnham. And here's what's on our agenda for today.
Australia's longest running riders festival has collapsed under the weight of controversy. And if you're thinking, since when were cosy chats about books taking up quite so many headlines, we're here to discuss.
Plus, Timothee Chalamet has been winning a lot of awards lately, you would have seen. He's been using a very specific word in his acceptance speeches and we are going to dissect it.
And Jennifer Lawrence made an offhanded remark about her pet dog and now she is the devil.
Chapter 4: How do writers' festivals impact authors and their careers?
We need to talk about dog people. We'll get to today's show in a minute, but if you haven't listened to yesterday's subscriber episode yet, stop what you're doing and do it. Actually, no, listen to this first and then stop what you're doing and do it. Because there's a link in the show notes, so that will help. Yeah, because Mia Friedman is back.
Mia Friedman is back and we had Sarchake. candid and vulnerable discussion that I think she would have only felt comfortable having in the context of a subscriber episode. It's very juicy. Yeah, yeah, about why she left, why she has chosen to come back, what's been going on behind the scenes. It was really emotional and interesting.
I found it really emotional and I thought about it a lot afterwards and I was like... We talked about a lot of things we would never ordinarily talk about on Mike. It was really special. So there is a link to that in our show notes and a reminder that Mia is going to be on subscriber episodes going forward. Every Tuesday.
Chapter 5: What is the significance of the new endometriosis blood test?
Every Tuesday, every Thursday. You're going to get more and more of Mia.
But first on today's show, Jessie Stephens.
In case you missed it, Australian researchers have developed a blood test to diagnose endometriosis. What? As we know, endometriosis is a chronic disease that affects at least one in nine women. That data is really hard to determine because of how difficult it is to diagnose. And it comes with a number of really debilitating symptoms for women.
So you could get really bad period pain, pain with urination or bowel movements, bloating, fatigue, pain during sex, issues with fertility, the list goes on. It is also notoriously time-consuming and invasive to diagnose. So it's diagnosed through a procedure called a laparoscopy, which is invasive. It's surgery. It's about as invasive as kind of a diagnosis gets, right?
And that's why the news that GPs could diagnose endometriosis with a simple blood test is so exciting. And to be clear, you can't go and get your test tomorrow.
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Chapter 6: How can job choices reflect different life stages?
I obviously looked that up. The research, though, is incredibly promising and it's a significant step forward in diagnosing what is known to be one of the most common chronic illnesses that women suffer from. So fingers crossed, this is around the corner.
I didn't realise how serious endo was. I'm also one of those people who I'm like every time I feel like something's wrong with me, I'm like could I have endo? Because there are just so many symptoms. And I think it's also because a lot of my friends who have been diagnosed with endo treated so casually because their medical professionals have been treating it so casually.
I had a friend who had a C-section and she told me that when she got stitched up, the doctor told her, oh, we also noticed you had some endo in there so we cleaned that all up for you. And she was like, oh. Thanks. And I had this other friend in the office and I was like, what are you doing this weekend? And she's like, oh, I'm going to get my endo removed third time. I'm like, what?
And it's surgery. It's a surgery.
Chapter 7: What are the implications of discussing pet ownership after having children?
Like it's really serious. I've been down this path a few times and I think that I'm like a lot of women going, maybe I have it. But I haven't taken that step because it feels so drastic. And so daunting. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that for other women, I have a friend who has like, you know, stage four or whatever.
And the issues that can cause the fertility down the track, the level of pain, like it's awful. So I think that we know there's more and more research money being put towards this, more money than ever before. So, you know, with more diagnosis as well, you would hope more treatment, more treatment options. Thank God.
It has been a terrible week for publishing in Australia. Australian author Craig Silvey, who wrote Jasper Jones and Runt and Honeybee, has been charged with possessing and distributing child exploitation material. Obviously, that's subject to legal proceedings, so we won't be speculating about that, but it is news that has really shocked a lot of people.
And also, Riders' Festivals don't usually gobble up lots and lots of headlines, but it would have been difficult to avoid stories this week about the Adelaide Riders' Week, which yesterday was cancelled.
Chapter 8: How do societal expectations shape our views on relationships?
Now, if you've listened to yesterday's subscriber ep, you would have heard me and Jessie talking with Mia about controversial and difficult topics that we choose to
whether to weigh in on or not because we don't want to add to the noise and distress that are often around these and often because we don't feel like we have anything to add because we're not necessarily experts or have lots of experience in them. But Jessie and I are both authors and we do go to a lot of writers' festivals.
And I think that we can offer, this is one of those times where we can offer a bit of context behind all the headlines you've been seeing. And if you're thinking, like, what? Like, why is the Writers' Festival such a big deal and what even are Writers' Festivals and what goes on at them?
We can definitely help with that because I think there's a bigger picture discussion here about what even Writers' Festivals are and why they have such significance in, you know, creative Australia.
Yeah.
So here's a top line about what happened for Adelaide. I want to say straight away that we are not discussing whether the decisions made were right or wrong. You can find opinions about that all over the internet if you want to. But what we can agree on is that it was disastrously handled. And the outcome is that we've lost the longest running literary festival in Australia, at least for now.
So on January the 8th, the Adelaide Writers Week website posted a statement saying that in the wake of the Bondi terrorist attacks, they had uninvited Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from the festival. These are the words in their statement. While we do not suggest in any way that Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, it
Given her past statements, we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.
Within hours of that statement, but certainly where we are now, within six days of issuing that statement, 180 of the authors scheduled to appear at the festival had pulled out in protest, saying that this was censorship and cancel culture in action and they didn't want to be part of a festival that silenced writers, alleging racism in the singling out of Fatah and basically declaring it was antithetical to the spirit of a writers' festival, which should be an exchange of ideas and viewpoints.
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