March 22, 2025 • 14 mins
Author Jojo Moyes had written seven novels before her 2012 novel Me Before You changed her life.
It sold over 15 million copies and was adapted for a major Hollywood film, with Jojo herself writing the screenplay.
Since then, she's sold over 57 million books and has hit number one in 12 different countries.
She's recently released her 17th book - We All Live Here.
"I did not grow up in a traditional family. Well, I did for a bit, but my family now has kind of grown and blended...and I just wanted to reflect those different shapes."
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Jojo Moyes has written seven novels before her twenty twelve
novel Me Before You Changed Her Life. It's sold over
fifteen million copies and was adapted for a major Hollywood film,
with Jojo herself writing the screenplay. Now Jojo is a
global star. She sold over fifty seven million books and
has a hit number one in twelve different countries. She
(00:34):
recently released her seventeenth book, We All Live Here, and
Jojo Moyes joins me, now, good morning, thank you so
much for your time.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Oh, good morning, lovely to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Our families in their dynamics endlessly fascinating to you.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yes, I always say when I'm giving talks in front
of people, in front of audiences, I could say I
could pluck any single person out of that audience and
get two books out of them, because we all have
you know, the two people who won't speak to each other,
or the great mystery about Auntie to flow up the road,
or you know, there's always tension, secrets, people who don't
(01:11):
get on, people who love each other. It's just got
everything you would want as a novelist.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
The traditional the tread wife might be trending at the moment, Joijo,
but when you look around, the reality of modern families
is that they look different these days, right.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, absolutely, And that was one of the things that
I was thinking about when I came to write this book,
which is I did not grow up in a traditional family,
or I did for a bit, but my family now,
not my personal family, but the family I grew up
in now has kind of grown and blended. And I
have two step brothers, one of whom is in New Zealand.
(01:49):
I have half sisters, I have a half brother, and
we'll get on. We all like each other. And so
I just wanted to reflect those different shaped families that
have evolved, whether they're kind of you know, gay, straight,
mixed race, blobby at the edges just a little bit,
you know, not the shape that we grew up perhaps expecting.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Did that least conventional family dynamic allow you to play
around a lot more with the characters and their relationships
and the strains and the things between them.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
The one I came from or the fictional one.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The fictional one, the one in the book.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, oh, definitely. I mean, I have a great fondness
for the film The Odd Couple, and so I'd always
wanted to do something with two old men because, although
they probably didn't think they were older that at the
point it was made, there's just something really funny about
two old men with a grudge against each other. And
(02:47):
I did try to make those characters women at one
point to see how that dynamic would work. I often
kind of play around and see what works best. But
I'm afraid she says making a sweeping generalization, old men
were just funnier. And so once I was able to
kind of think about that dynamic, these the dad and
the biological dad and the stepdad who couldn't forgive each
(03:08):
other after thirty five years, who couldn't let go of
their grudge, everything else just kind of fell into place
around it, and it just made me laugh writing them.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I wanted to talk to you about forgiveness because it
is such an admirable thing to be able to forgive,
and often you hear people forgiving others of terrible things
that they've done, and I think, wow, that is amazing
and it's what we should all do. But it's actually
really hard. Isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah. I listened to a really interesting interview recently though,
with a woman who had forgiven one of those terrible crimes.
I'd forgotten which it was, but she said, I decided
that if I couldn't forgive this person, it was like
an umbilical cord that held me to them because of
the bitterness I felt and the anger I felt, and
(03:57):
so I wanted to cut that cord, and I wanted
to be free of them. So the forgiveness was a
gift to me and not to them. That was just
incidental for them. But what a brilliant way of looking
at it. But yes, forgiveness, I would say is the
kind of key emotion in this book because it's about
how all families are full of people messing up. I mean,
(04:19):
all our parents mess up. Is because we all go
into parenthood not having a clue, you know, how to
do it. We've never done it before. It doesn't come
with a rule book. And so Lilah, my main character,
when we meet her at the start of the book,
she's so angry with her two dats for various reasons,
but why she realizes halfway through is that she's in
danger of passing that exact same dynamic onto her own children.
(04:43):
But most of us kind of we're so busy muddling
through that we don't look at the patterns that we're repeating.
I mean, I'm fascinated by all the psychotherapy and I
love it. It just I love watching why we fall into
the traps that we do, and how we sabotage our
own happiness. And I think forgiveness is an absolutely key emotion,
(05:03):
as you say, if you can manage it.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Because it's interesting you said that because Lila, you know,
she is trying to make sure that she doesn't fall
into the traps of her parents. You know, she doesn't
drink because her father drink and things like that. But
as you say, it's still very easy. You know, the
way we're nurtured has an impact, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Lingers Yeah, And she just goes on to make a
whole bunch of mistakes of her own, completely fresh ones.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I also really enjoyed this book because it kind of
explores that Sandward generation, that stage where you've got your kids,
you've got a busy work life, and your parents are
elderly and they need you to Why did you want
to write about that? Sort of period.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I'm sure we write about the things that preoccupy us
as writers, and of course, being that age, I am
preoccupied by a lot of those issues. But also I
feel quite strongly that women of that age get kind
of a raw deal in fiction, because most middle aged
women in fiction, I mean, you know, from fairy Tales onwards,
(06:06):
we were either witches crones, or we were good mothers
who were killed off at the beginning of the book.
And then you know, when you look at things like
Jane Austen, you've got the missus Bennett's and kind of
terrible mothers or the meddling kind of duchesses from the
neighboring village. But they're just very rarely funny, they're very
rarely sexy, they're very rarely good friends with each other.
(06:29):
And as I've got older, my female friends have been
such a support to me. And they're funny, and they're goofy,
and they do stupid things. And just because we're in
our fifties doesn't mean I mean we don't kind of
act like idiots sometimes. But they're also really strong, really capable,
and you know, I did an interview recently where I
(06:50):
said that all these women, they're holding up the sky.
They're holding down all these things that you just mentioned,
the jobs and looking after the elderly families and managing
the bet appointments and you know, making sure everybody's got
uniform and it's just all I remarked upon labor generally,
so I wanted to celebrate it, but do it in
(07:11):
a way that didn't make women look like martyrs.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's that mental load, isn't it. And we do have
to be careful not to be like Mars. You know,
it's haven't we all. I had a hilarious conversation with
my partner recently, our oldest child left to go to university,
and he turned it, look at me and goes, that's
going to make your mental load better? And I was thinking, no, no, no,
(07:35):
I didn't need to get rid of a child to
reduce the mental load. You just needed to step up
and help more. I just thought that was wonderful. Yeah,
it's a wonderfully warm book. You've got these honest, complex characters.
As you say, they're dealing with a lot of you know,
issues and adversity and pain, but you've balanced their stories
so nicely with humor and grace. Is that something you
(07:58):
like doing moving your readers but also making us laugh.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Definitely. I didn't do it for the first seven books.
I mean, there might have been the odd slight smile
in there, but I didn't use humor until I got
to Me Before You. And the reason I did it
then was the subject matter was potentially so bleak. I thought,
I have to leaven this with some laughs, and although
that might sound a bit unlikely, you know, a story
(08:24):
about a man who wants to end his life being
leavened with laughs. I thought about the fact that we
had had two people in my close vicinity who we
had cared for who required twenty four hour care, and
I realized that it's always the emergency services who have
the best jokes, and it's people who you know who
are dealing with the darkest things that often have the
(08:47):
best sense of humor, because that's how we cope as
human beings, or perhaps that's just how the people I
know cope. And so maybe for You suddenly took off
in a way that obviously none of my other books
had even come close to, and I realized I love
making people feel stuff. It's not just.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Making people cryet Although I'm to say. I do love
making people cry, but I really love making them laugh.
You know, if someone reads a passage and they start sniggering.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And what made you laugh? What made you laugh? Because
when I read a book, I love being made to
feel something. If someone can make me laugh in a book,
I will buy that author again and again and again. Like,
if you can make me feel something, I'm coming back
to buy that book every time. So yeah, I love
doing it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
When you sit down to write, do you have the
whole story planned out? You mentioned before that you did
play around with a couple of the characters, but there
are a lot of characters and a lot of moving
parts here. Do you do you have sort of a
basic structure in mind?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Yeah. I mean there's a running joke that writers are
either plotters or panthers, and I am a plotter. I
have a vague idea where I want everything to go.
Sometimes the characters run away with you a bit, and
sometimes things don't go one hundred percent the way they
meant to. But I know basically how I want the
reader to feel at the end of the book, and
(10:08):
what are the things that I want to have really
fallen into place? And then it's just a matter of
how I get there.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I read a piece you wrote after the first round
of publicity. There are parallels in this book to your
own life. But this book is not about you. It's just,
you know, it's another book from your imagination. However, a
lot of questions directed it. You were very personal with
the assumption made that this was a personal story turned
into fiction. Did you find that frustrating?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It did? Well? Yeah, I was a bit naive, I
think because I'd written sixteen books before this, and nobody
had ever assumed it was anything to do with me,
just because I wrote a book about a middle aged
divorced mother who writes books, although she writes nonfiction. Then suddenly,
you know, I did this German interview and the first
thing the guy said was, so you got excuse my
(11:00):
terrible aks. And by the way, you got divorced up
to twenty two years. How come you didn't know the
guy was wrong for you? After ten and I thought
this was going to be about writing, and I literally
I think my jaw must have just hit the floor.
And I can't even remember what I said. I think
I just budged it and said, well, people change or
something really weak. But I slightly wish i'd just poked
(11:23):
him in the eye and gone, wait, that's just none
of your business. And also I get on really well
with my ex not but that's any of anybody's business either.
But I just, yeah, it's not me, None of it's me.
I will never write a book about a middle aged
woman writer again. I've learned my lesson.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I mean, as it had balancing the public figure and
keeping your private life private.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Only when the publicity mill comes around. Because I lead
a very quiet life, you know. I go to very
few seliby events. I'm mostly trudging around with my dogs
in the local park or hanging out with my friends
who I've had since I was very young. Yeah, I've
done the odd red carpet, but sure there's always a
(12:09):
point to it. Not very good. I had a little
taste of it with the fame stuff, with the me
before you thing, and it turns out I'm rubbish and
I just I look like a rabbit in headlights. I'm
just an introvert who likes to be behind my desk. Basically,
I'm too old to be interesting anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I don't think that's the case, Jojo. I'd love to
talk to you about AI because it's an ever increasing
threat to ants and creative industries. And you said in
an interview recently that you knew that your work had
been scraped by AI, and that probably every successful author's
work had been scraped. Does that just drive you wild?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
It drives me completely mad, because it's theft. It is
theft that you know you're taking something that I put blood,
sweat and tears into to train your technological devices. And
I also think it's a disaster for the climate. You know,
my own kids have schooled me on the amount of
water it takes to use AI, and it's shocking a
huge amount, and at a time when you know the
(13:10):
planet can really not afford it. I just think, just
use your brains. People. They're really good as a rule,
and you can train them to do all sorts of
amazing things without cost to anybody except you know, you
grow a few but more brain cells. I would love
it if we could be slightly less entrill to the
take bros.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
We've spoken a little bit in this interview about me
before you the twenty twelve book, which was huge. How
much did they change your life? To Joe?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
It changed everything, It changed everything. I went from being
a kind of a writer who pretty much couldn't get arrested,
I couldn't get another book contract, and that book suddenly
propelled me to a place where the most important thing
was I just had readers. And that's the one thing
(14:01):
that you dream of when you've been writing as long
as I had. You just want people to read your book.
But you know, it gave me financial security. It gave
me access to really amazing other creative people. So I've
got to meet a lot of my heroes and hang
out with them, and I've got to travel to places
I would never have been. I sometimes think my fourteen
(14:25):
year old self would not have believed how my life
turned out, and it's all thanks to that book.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
If you could, what would you go back and tell
your fourteen year old self?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Now you have no idea how good this is going
to be. I was quite doomy as a kid, so
I think I would have probably gone, I don't believe
you and stuck my head under the doubt.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Jo Jo boys, it's been an absolute fleasure to talk
to you. Thank you so much for your time, Thank
you so much, and feeing of you. Keen to get
your hands on JoJo's new book, We All Live Here.
It's in bookstores now.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
For more from a Sunday session with Francesca Rudgn, listen
live to news talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Jojo Moyes has written seven novels before her twenty twelve
novel Me Before You Changed Her Life. It's sold over
fifteen million copies and was adapted for a major Hollywood film,
with Jojo herself writing the screenplay. Now Jojo is a
global star. She sold over fifty seven million books and
has a hit number one in twelve different countries. She
(00:34):
recently released her seventeenth book, We All Live Here, and
Jojo Moyes joins me, now, good morning, thank you so
much for your time.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Oh, good morning, lovely to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Our families in their dynamics endlessly fascinating to you.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yes, I always say when I'm giving talks in front
of people, in front of audiences, I could say I
could pluck any single person out of that audience and
get two books out of them, because we all have
you know, the two people who won't speak to each other,
or the great mystery about Auntie to flow up the road,
or you know, there's always tension, secrets, people who don't
(01:11):
get on, people who love each other. It's just got
everything you would want as a novelist.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
The traditional the tread wife might be trending at the moment, Joijo,
but when you look around, the reality of modern families
is that they look different these days, right.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, absolutely, And that was one of the things that
I was thinking about when I came to write this book,
which is I did not grow up in a traditional family,
or I did for a bit, but my family now,
not my personal family, but the family I grew up
in now has kind of grown and blended. And I
have two step brothers, one of whom is in New Zealand.
(01:49):
I have half sisters, I have a half brother, and
we'll get on. We all like each other. And so
I just wanted to reflect those different shaped families that
have evolved, whether they're kind of you know, gay, straight,
mixed race, blobby at the edges just a little bit,
you know, not the shape that we grew up perhaps expecting.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Did that least conventional family dynamic allow you to play
around a lot more with the characters and their relationships
and the strains and the things between them.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
The one I came from or the fictional one.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The fictional one, the one in the book.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, oh, definitely. I mean, I have a great fondness
for the film The Odd Couple, and so I'd always
wanted to do something with two old men because, although
they probably didn't think they were older that at the
point it was made, there's just something really funny about
two old men with a grudge against each other. And
(02:47):
I did try to make those characters women at one
point to see how that dynamic would work. I often
kind of play around and see what works best. But
I'm afraid she says making a sweeping generalization, old men
were just funnier. And so once I was able to
kind of think about that dynamic, these the dad and
the biological dad and the stepdad who couldn't forgive each
(03:08):
other after thirty five years, who couldn't let go of
their grudge, everything else just kind of fell into place
around it, and it just made me laugh writing them.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I wanted to talk to you about forgiveness because it
is such an admirable thing to be able to forgive,
and often you hear people forgiving others of terrible things
that they've done, and I think, wow, that is amazing
and it's what we should all do. But it's actually
really hard. Isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah. I listened to a really interesting interview recently though,
with a woman who had forgiven one of those terrible crimes.
I'd forgotten which it was, but she said, I decided
that if I couldn't forgive this person, it was like
an umbilical cord that held me to them because of
the bitterness I felt and the anger I felt, and
(03:57):
so I wanted to cut that cord, and I wanted
to be free of them. So the forgiveness was a
gift to me and not to them. That was just
incidental for them. But what a brilliant way of looking
at it. But yes, forgiveness, I would say is the
kind of key emotion in this book because it's about
how all families are full of people messing up. I mean,
(04:19):
all our parents mess up. Is because we all go
into parenthood not having a clue, you know, how to
do it. We've never done it before. It doesn't come
with a rule book. And so Lilah, my main character,
when we meet her at the start of the book,
she's so angry with her two dats for various reasons,
but why she realizes halfway through is that she's in
danger of passing that exact same dynamic onto her own children.
(04:43):
But most of us kind of we're so busy muddling
through that we don't look at the patterns that we're repeating.
I mean, I'm fascinated by all the psychotherapy and I
love it. It just I love watching why we fall into
the traps that we do, and how we sabotage our
own happiness. And I think forgiveness is an absolutely key emotion,
(05:03):
as you say, if you can manage it.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Because it's interesting you said that because Lila, you know,
she is trying to make sure that she doesn't fall
into the traps of her parents. You know, she doesn't
drink because her father drink and things like that. But
as you say, it's still very easy. You know, the
way we're nurtured has an impact, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Lingers Yeah, And she just goes on to make a
whole bunch of mistakes of her own, completely fresh ones.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I also really enjoyed this book because it kind of
explores that Sandward generation, that stage where you've got your kids,
you've got a busy work life, and your parents are
elderly and they need you to Why did you want
to write about that? Sort of period.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I'm sure we write about the things that preoccupy us
as writers, and of course, being that age, I am
preoccupied by a lot of those issues. But also I
feel quite strongly that women of that age get kind
of a raw deal in fiction, because most middle aged
women in fiction, I mean, you know, from fairy Tales onwards,
(06:06):
we were either witches crones, or we were good mothers
who were killed off at the beginning of the book.
And then you know, when you look at things like
Jane Austen, you've got the missus Bennett's and kind of
terrible mothers or the meddling kind of duchesses from the
neighboring village. But they're just very rarely funny, they're very
rarely sexy, they're very rarely good friends with each other.
(06:29):
And as I've got older, my female friends have been
such a support to me. And they're funny, and they're goofy,
and they do stupid things. And just because we're in
our fifties doesn't mean I mean we don't kind of
act like idiots sometimes. But they're also really strong, really capable,
and you know, I did an interview recently where I
(06:50):
said that all these women, they're holding up the sky.
They're holding down all these things that you just mentioned,
the jobs and looking after the elderly families and managing
the bet appointments and you know, making sure everybody's got
uniform and it's just all I remarked upon labor generally,
so I wanted to celebrate it, but do it in
(07:11):
a way that didn't make women look like martyrs.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's that mental load, isn't it. And we do have
to be careful not to be like Mars. You know,
it's haven't we all. I had a hilarious conversation with
my partner recently, our oldest child left to go to university,
and he turned it, look at me and goes, that's
going to make your mental load better? And I was thinking, no, no, no,
(07:35):
I didn't need to get rid of a child to
reduce the mental load. You just needed to step up
and help more. I just thought that was wonderful. Yeah,
it's a wonderfully warm book. You've got these honest, complex characters.
As you say, they're dealing with a lot of you know,
issues and adversity and pain, but you've balanced their stories
so nicely with humor and grace. Is that something you
(07:58):
like doing moving your readers but also making us laugh.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Definitely. I didn't do it for the first seven books.
I mean, there might have been the odd slight smile
in there, but I didn't use humor until I got
to Me Before You. And the reason I did it
then was the subject matter was potentially so bleak. I thought,
I have to leaven this with some laughs, and although
that might sound a bit unlikely, you know, a story
(08:24):
about a man who wants to end his life being
leavened with laughs. I thought about the fact that we
had had two people in my close vicinity who we
had cared for who required twenty four hour care, and
I realized that it's always the emergency services who have
the best jokes, and it's people who you know who
are dealing with the darkest things that often have the
(08:47):
best sense of humor, because that's how we cope as
human beings, or perhaps that's just how the people I
know cope. And so maybe for You suddenly took off
in a way that obviously none of my other books
had even come close to, and I realized I love
making people feel stuff. It's not just.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Making people cryet Although I'm to say. I do love
making people cry, but I really love making them laugh.
You know, if someone reads a passage and they start sniggering.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And what made you laugh? What made you laugh? Because
when I read a book, I love being made to
feel something. If someone can make me laugh in a book,
I will buy that author again and again and again. Like,
if you can make me feel something, I'm coming back
to buy that book every time. So yeah, I love
doing it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
When you sit down to write, do you have the
whole story planned out? You mentioned before that you did
play around with a couple of the characters, but there
are a lot of characters and a lot of moving
parts here. Do you do you have sort of a
basic structure in mind?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Yeah. I mean there's a running joke that writers are
either plotters or panthers, and I am a plotter. I
have a vague idea where I want everything to go.
Sometimes the characters run away with you a bit, and
sometimes things don't go one hundred percent the way they
meant to. But I know basically how I want the
reader to feel at the end of the book, and
(10:08):
what are the things that I want to have really
fallen into place? And then it's just a matter of
how I get there.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I read a piece you wrote after the first round
of publicity. There are parallels in this book to your
own life. But this book is not about you. It's just,
you know, it's another book from your imagination. However, a
lot of questions directed it. You were very personal with
the assumption made that this was a personal story turned
into fiction. Did you find that frustrating?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It did? Well? Yeah, I was a bit naive, I
think because I'd written sixteen books before this, and nobody
had ever assumed it was anything to do with me,
just because I wrote a book about a middle aged
divorced mother who writes books, although she writes nonfiction. Then suddenly,
you know, I did this German interview and the first
thing the guy said was, so you got excuse my
(11:00):
terrible aks. And by the way, you got divorced up
to twenty two years. How come you didn't know the
guy was wrong for you? After ten and I thought
this was going to be about writing, and I literally
I think my jaw must have just hit the floor.
And I can't even remember what I said. I think
I just budged it and said, well, people change or
something really weak. But I slightly wish i'd just poked
(11:23):
him in the eye and gone, wait, that's just none
of your business. And also I get on really well
with my ex not but that's any of anybody's business either.
But I just, yeah, it's not me, None of it's me.
I will never write a book about a middle aged
woman writer again. I've learned my lesson.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I mean, as it had balancing the public figure and
keeping your private life private.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Only when the publicity mill comes around. Because I lead
a very quiet life, you know. I go to very
few seliby events. I'm mostly trudging around with my dogs
in the local park or hanging out with my friends
who I've had since I was very young. Yeah, I've
done the odd red carpet, but sure there's always a
(12:09):
point to it. Not very good. I had a little
taste of it with the fame stuff, with the me
before you thing, and it turns out I'm rubbish and
I just I look like a rabbit in headlights. I'm
just an introvert who likes to be behind my desk. Basically,
I'm too old to be interesting anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I don't think that's the case, Jojo. I'd love to
talk to you about AI because it's an ever increasing
threat to ants and creative industries. And you said in
an interview recently that you knew that your work had
been scraped by AI, and that probably every successful author's
work had been scraped. Does that just drive you wild?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
It drives me completely mad, because it's theft. It is
theft that you know you're taking something that I put blood,
sweat and tears into to train your technological devices. And
I also think it's a disaster for the climate. You know,
my own kids have schooled me on the amount of
water it takes to use AI, and it's shocking a
huge amount, and at a time when you know the
(13:10):
planet can really not afford it. I just think, just
use your brains. People. They're really good as a rule,
and you can train them to do all sorts of
amazing things without cost to anybody except you know, you
grow a few but more brain cells. I would love
it if we could be slightly less entrill to the
take bros.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
We've spoken a little bit in this interview about me
before you the twenty twelve book, which was huge. How
much did they change your life? To Joe?
Speaker 3 (13:40):
It changed everything, It changed everything. I went from being
a kind of a writer who pretty much couldn't get arrested,
I couldn't get another book contract, and that book suddenly
propelled me to a place where the most important thing
was I just had readers. And that's the one thing
(14:01):
that you dream of when you've been writing as long
as I had. You just want people to read your book.
But you know, it gave me financial security. It gave
me access to really amazing other creative people. So I've
got to meet a lot of my heroes and hang
out with them, and I've got to travel to places
I would never have been. I sometimes think my fourteen
(14:25):
year old self would not have believed how my life
turned out, and it's all thanks to that book.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
If you could, what would you go back and tell
your fourteen year old self?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Now you have no idea how good this is going
to be. I was quite doomy as a kid, so
I think I would have probably gone, I don't believe
you and stuck my head under the doubt.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Jo Jo boys, it's been an absolute fleasure to talk
to you. Thank you so much for your time, Thank
you so much, and feeing of you. Keen to get
your hands on JoJo's new book, We All Live Here.
It's in bookstores now.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
For more from a Sunday session with Francesca Rudgn, listen
live to news talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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