The Rooster #31

The Rooster is my newsletter. Behind the paywall this time… a musing on women’s pain, an excellent new podcast, my latest perfect jean, gospel music and my holiday reading pile. If you would like to upgrade you can do so here.

So my third novel is done. It is called The Fox and it’s in the hands of the publishers. It’s a strange feeling finishing a novel; relief, emptiness, a sense of precarity hovering around all my thoughts of the book. It publishes early next year. I have so much time to figure out how I feel about the book and to properly learn how to talk about it. I feel like I need that time. I look forward to writing about it on here. In the meantime here is the announcement.

Another big conclusion this last week has been finishing my reading for my role as judge for Women’s Prize 2026. The Women’s Prize long list was announced a few weeks ago. It’s an excellent list. Such variations of books in terms of style and type.

It was a real trip absorbing that amount of writing in such a dense period of time. Brushing my teeth listening to audiobooks, turning around two sometimes three books in a week. I reintroduced a habit I had stopped, of reading on park benches. I arrived early for meetings to read my book. I took myself on big walks just to listen to audio books. I joked, especially towards the end of the reading period, that I couldn’t wait to devour every mindless TV show in the world! But I miss the reading. What with the novel handed in and the reading finished, my brain is sort of floundering. It feels a little like when you run a marathon and your legs are still moving at the end.

On Sunday morning after a weekend of gigs, I sat in the garden. It was the first day of the year I have been able to do this. The garden is coming alive. Geoms. Euphorbia. Lemon yellow primroses. The dark nubbed beginnings of the lilac. The tulips are on the brink! I am truly excited to watch them blossom. They’re like natures gift wrapped presents. This is … life? joy? Definitely gratitude.

I absolutely LOVED the Gia Tolentino profile on Robyn in The New Yorker. I thought I knew everything but I learnt so much more about her. She’s forty six now and a single Mom and my god she’s cool. My general impression after reading it is of her as smart, self possessed, integrous, a true artist.

David Byrne is quoted in the piece, talking about Robyn’s song ‘Dancing On My Own.’

“What’s interesting is the insistent pulse that says - You’ll be alright, the music will lift you, keep going.’ Triumph over adversity. Songs can do that - immerse in the problem and its solution at the same time.”

I love this quote so much. Robyn has always been queen of the sad banger, crying on the dance floor, stilettos and broken bottles, her song Dancing On My Own is a visceral account of a heart breaking in real time in the club. The agony of the feeling, the ecstasy of the sound. This quote sums it all up so beautifully.

I always like to ask the question of artists, why were we created as a species with the ability to sing? to create music? to respond to music in the way that we do? Why did God give us music? What primal functions or tools of survival does it provide to us? The first time I asked this, to Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, on Sidetracked, Grimmy bawked, told me to leave it for the stone circle at 6am. She loved it though. She said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that you can’t lie when you sing. You can only tell the truth.

Music is a language of course. A way to speak to each other through sounds and the different ways in which you choose to sequence them. Or to communicate through movement in dance. Songs act as portals for memories, with the uncanny ability to transport us to a vivid place in our past on hearing just the first few chords. Songs also allow us to feel things that are beyond articulation. Songs break down barriers in our minds. Songs pull at the tendrils of our deepest consciousness. The right songs can show us all the joy and pain of living. They show us that nothing is simple but feeling is the answer to everything. They allow your feelings to flow up and out of you. The more we listen, the more attuned we become to those feelings. And there, like the magnetism of a blooming tulip, once again, is life.

Robyn’s ninth album Sexistential drops today. Go read Gia Tolentino profile of her in The New Yorker here.

I met with a colleague this week. We shared our respective experiences of being diagnosed with Adenomyosis, a condition where endometrial-like tissue grows into the muscular wall of the uterus, causing heavy, painful periods. I had never heard of it before. It mostly affects women over thirty. We compared our pain. I described my recent bout of it as ‘breathtaking.’ We discussed the Mirena Coil. My colleague described how she spoke to someone post menopause, who said she still experienced cramping and period like pain but just didn’t bleed. Can this happen?!?! I asked. Incredulous. Apparently so, my colleague replied. I told her then of an experience I had…