LIVE at The Strand in New York with Natasha Hodgson (+Skipshock audiobook!)

Summary

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Sentimental Garbage: LIVE at The Strand in New York with Natasha Hodgson (+Skipshock audiobook!)

Podcast: Sentimental Garbage
Host: Caroline O’Donoghue (joined by Natasha Hodgson)
Episode Date: September 18, 2025
Description: A live episode recorded at The Strand Bookstore in NYC, where Caroline is interviewed by her longtime friend Natasha Hodgson about her latest novel Skipshock, followed by a reading from the audiobook.

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Overview

This special live episode celebrates the release of Skipshock’s audiobook, read by Natasha Hodgson (also known for her work in Operation Mincemeat). The conversation spans their personal and creative history, the inspiration and world-building behind Skipshock, the pressures of genre and creative freedom, writing about teenagers, and the role of women’s adventure fiction. The discussion is intimate, energetic, and packed with both literary insight and genuine friendship.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power of Creative Friendship

(02:32 - 07:33)

• Caroline and Natasha’s Origin:
  • Caroline recalls emigrating to the UK nearly 14 years prior after connecting via a Gumtree ad for film writers. Natasha was running a “now defunct” film site, and both reminisce humorously about illegal internships and the collapse of early-2010s online media.
  • Memorable Moment: “It was like the Hunger Games of online media.” (Caroline, 04:53)
• Creative Group Chats:
  • Natasha highlights the significance of having friends who impress and inspire you creatively. Creative group chats foster both the feeling of genius and mutual support.

From The Rachel Incident to Skipshock: Why The Genre Shift?

(07:33 - 13:18)

• Creative Leaps:
  • Natasha asks why Caroline moved from a realistic “slice of life” Irish novel (The Rachel Incident) to a sweeping, genre-bending fantasy aimed at “16 and up” (Skipshock).
  • Caroline admits it’s “commercially a terrible idea,” remarking, “My agent’s asking the same question!” (09:38)
• “Two Wolves” Inside The Writer:
  • Caroline discusses her early novels’ mixture of realistic and fantastical elements, revealing her ongoing struggle (and joy) in refusing to reconcile her love for both.
  • Quote: “I refuse to reconcile these two parts of my character. I love both things equally.” (12:12)

World-Building and the ‘Magical Admin’ of Skipshock

(13:18 - 27:40)

• Origins of the “Traveling Salesman” Motif:
  • Inspired partly by her own work travel, where solo experiences produce unique and often odd, unshared adventures.
  • Notable Story: Caroline was sent on assignment to Tahiti, observing mother whales while simultaneously hearing another journalist rant about Tim Rice. (18:58)
  • Insight: Travelling salesmen in Skipshock mirror the transient, often lonely, competitive life of writers at festivals or on press trips.
• Cinematic and Literary Influences:
  • The book’s imagery is influenced by cinema as much as literature: Spirited Away, Hey Arnold!, even Monsters, Inc., are cited.
  • Funny Moment: “We were all waiting for Hey Arnold to get a look in.” (20:12, Natasha)
• Designing the World:
  • Caroline explains her graphic, X-Y axis-based approach, where ‘temperature’ and ‘time’ determine regions’ properties, affecting everything from economics to culture.
  • Quote: “It is a magical book about visa issues…we love magical admin.” (24:36, Caroline)
• Philosophy of “Items, Stamps, and Admin”:
  • Both praise the joys of “magical admin” over “dragon porn,” favoring the creativity found in bureaucracy and logistics.

The Working-Class Approach to Storytelling

(26:44 - 28:04)

• Living and surviving in creative industries—juggling multiple jobs, hustling for opportunities—drives both the work ethic and the worlds Caroline builds.
• Natasha: “All your books, and particularly this book, work so hard and with such eagerness and heart.”

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Audience Q&A

1. How Do You Know an Idea Is the One?

(29:36 - 32:51)

• Caroline:
  • Ideas may sit in her notes app for years. The right one “nudges forward” when enough of her subconscious aligns. Example: The Rachel Incident became “the best financial decision,” but only after two years.
  • Themes like lost time post-pandemic compelled her to make Skipshock a time-bending fantasy.
  • Quote: “I think a lot of it was wanting to find a way of explaining my own life back to myself.” (31:18)
• Natasha:
  • She trusts what is fun to write. There’s good hard and bad hard—she follows the former, pursuing whatever brings genuine joy, not what’s expected or industry-driven.

2. Structural Decisions: Dual POV in Skipshock

(33:57 - 37:12)

• Skipshock features Margot’s POV in third person, Moon’s in first person.
• Caroline uses the protagonist’s emotional distance to avoid the “boringness of surprise”—a lesson from an English teacher: “Surprise is the least contagious emotion.” (35:28)
  • The structure also situates Margot within a tradition (e.g., Alice in Wonderland)—she grows from “girl” to “grown person.”

3. Keeping Creativity Unfiltered by Genre Conventions

(37:17 - 42:54)

• Caroline’s podcast Sentimental Garbage (focused on shame and undervalued culture) proactively rewired her creative mind to ignore genre snobbery:
  • Quote: “I have performed light brain surgery on myself... telling the world and myself for years that their genre conventions don’t matter.” (39:30)
• Both lament that plot/adventure is often “coded male,” while “feelings” are supposedly feminine—a binary they reject:
  • Natasha: “Sometimes adventure feels like it belongs to men… but there is so much more room for women with huge fucking stories and characters and magical admin.” (41:40)

4. Writing Teenagers with Dignity and Complexity

(43:37 - 48:55)

• Caroline’s favorite demographic is teenagers—she sees youth as the moment “where their inexperience meets the world,” forming identity.
• Quote: “It’s almost like a penny… They oxidize and develop a kind of greenish patina, and that patina will stay on them for the rest of their life.” (44:14)
• Literary influences are playfully referenced: Hey Arnold! and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as models for meaningful coming-of-age.
• Natasha: Caroline’s “intensity of love” for things is what makes her teenage characters resonate; she brings “the love of the thing” into every book.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Writing Friendships:

  • “To be impressed by your friend is one of life’s true joys… Every group chat thinks they’re geniuses—you surround yourself with people who make you want to share funny things.”
    — Natasha Hodgson (05:15)

• On Unexpected Creative Shifts:

  • “Oh my God, my agent’s asking the exact same question. We could have done the Michelle Incident. So many common 90s names that we could have had an incident around...”
    — Caroline O'Donoghue (09:38)

• On Audiobooks:

  • “I never really understand the book I wrote until I hear it in audio.”
    — Caroline O’Donoghue (00:33)

• On Genre Freedom:

  • “I have performed light brain surgery on myself... telling the world and myself for years that their genre conventions don’t matter.”
    — Caroline O'Donoghue (39:30)

• On Coming of Age:

  • “I’m obsessed with what we ask kids to do, and then we ask them to go back to being kids… After you’ve saved the world, you just go sit on a log again.”
    — Caroline O’Donoghue (46:32, via Ocarina of Time analogy)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |:--------------|:---------------------------------------------| | 02:32 | Caroline & Natasha’s friendship origin | | 07:33 | Transition from The Rachel Incident to Skipshock | | 13:18 | World-building & inspiration for Skipshock | | 18:58 | The Tahiti trip & traveling salesman motif | | 20:12 | Cinema influences—Hey Arnold! & more | | 24:36 | The “magical admin” of Skipshock’s world | | 29:36 | Audience Q&A segment begins | | 31:18 | Caroline on choosing ideas to pursue | | 35:28 | POV choices & “the boredom of surprise” | | 39:30 | Genre conventions and shame | | 43:37 | Writing teenagers with nuance | | 46:32 | Coming of Age/Legend of Zelda analogy |

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Audiobook Excerpt

(49:06–59:10)
Natasha Hodgson reads the opening of Skipshock, introducing protagonist Margot, her fraught relationship with her mother, the aftermath of her father’s death, and the surreal shift as her train morphs into a portal to another world. The reading is atmospheric, detailed, and immediately draws listeners into the book’s emotional core and speculative premise.

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Conclusion

This episode is a joyous celebration of both friendship and creative risk-taking. Caroline and Natasha, in their characteristic mix of humor and candor, explore the joys and trials of making art as women, the value of genre-bending storytelling, and the complexity of growing up (whether as teenagers or artists). Listeners leave with deeper context for Skipshock, its world, and its themes—plus a taste of the audiobook, read with infectious charm.

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If you love stories that blend heart, invention, and thoughtful world-building—with a dose of inside jokes and literary reflection—this live episode is an essential listen.

Transcript

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[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Hello everyone. First of all, apologies for the break in episodes. Over the last few weeks I've been on tour in the US and I thought I would have the energy to record and produce podcasts at the exact same time. And that was a folly. We're back here again though with one of my events from my book tour, which is actually with long term friend of the pod and friend of me, Natasha Hodgson, the writer and one of the stars of Operation Mincemeat, and also the audiobook narrator for my novel Skipshock. Now I know I spoke about Skipshock a little while ago at the beginning of the summer when it first came out, but it's now been out for a little while. The audiobook is finally coming out and never in my entire career have I been so proud and so psyched for an audiobook to come out. I think I mentioned this in the podcast you're about to hear, but for me, I only ever really understand the book that I wrote once it comes out in audio because it's the first time I can see it as a whole and not as just like broken up paragraphs on my computer. And like for me this is just like to have one of my best friends in the world record this audiobook has been such a special experience and to have her interview me about it at the Strand in New York, just this incredibly prestigious cool bookshop. It was really a career high, so I wanted to share that here at the end of the podcast. There's also an extract from Skipshock read by Tash that I hope you'll enjoy as well and that if you have an audio credit left in your bank account, we all do. Somehow everyone joined Audible like three years ago and then forgot to cancel it. Now we all have like 16 audible credits or whatever. I would love if you spent one on Skipshark because I really do think this is among the best ways to consume this book. Okay, have a great week and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next Week and I'll see you then.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Hello. Oh, my God. I see all the most beautiful people in New York turned out tonight. Thank you so much. Oh, my God, this is such an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, guys, for coming to this discussion with my dear, dear friend Karen o' Donoghue about her newest book, Skipshock. All of which I'm sure you are already obsessed with, because I absolutely am. Welcome. Hi.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Welcome to New York.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Hi. How is being in New York treating you?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Being in New York is lovely. Being in New York is always lovely. Being sat here on this stage with.

[Natasha Hodgson]

You right now, pretty weird.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Almost 14 years to the day since I emigrated to the UK because Tash phoned me.

[Natasha Hodgson]

That's the power you have to have. You have to be willing to leave the country.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There was a Gumtree advertisement for wannabe film writers. Tash was the editor of a film website, now defunct. Don't go look for it.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Now defunct.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like both of our careers, sort of. Everything has the suffix of now defunct.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yeah. Like every media job, it's like, yeah, this no, no longer exists, unfortunately.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But I read your review of Horrible Bosses and I said, this is the.

[Natasha Hodgson]

The funniest, if you can find it, that and Battleship starring Rihanna to really.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Situate you in the time and place.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I remember reading it thinking, this is the funniest thing I've ever read. This is like David Cesaris found rotting.

[Natasha Hodgson]

And well, similarly, it's so weird to just be doing something like this with literally just your very, very dearest friend. And like, you know, and when you first came into my life, I was running the now defunct film website. And the way that those websites existed in like the early 20s, whatever it was being like, yeah, this website exists and for some reason 17 people are employed here. It never makes any money. How could this possibly work? This bubble will burst. And indeed it did. And for some reason I was twitt 22 or 23 and somehow running an internship of four people, because it was back in the day when, I mean, maybe it still happens, but it was like, you know, when internships were really the thing that everyone was doing in a way that was completely illegal, but somehow was sort of fine. I had done an internship for three months at this website company, now defunct, and I was one of four interns and the prize was one of us at the end of this three month internship would get a job. And everyone was like, thank you, thank you.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It was like the Hunger Games of online media.

[Natasha Hodgson]

And so I got the job. Sorry, those Other guys, but. And there it was. And immediately was like, now the cycle must reset. You now hire your interns. And on the Gumtree ad. Yeah. Caroline o' Donoghue applied, and we had. And I think you. I can't remember what you applied, but something short and stupid, probably. And we had this.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Short and very stupid.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Very stupid. And we had a phone conversation where I couldn't really hear you because you were in Ireland.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Sorry, Ireland. But apparently that's not your strength. That's fine. It's not our strength. So many strengths, though.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You realize that we're dressed like the Irish flag tonight. Somehow we didn't plan this for Ireland.

[Natasha Hodgson]

We did it. And we had a phone conversation where you. I think part of the. All I remember was part of the intro was me being like, now you have to pitch some article ideas. And as I recall of them, all of them would now be canceled in 2025. But I loved each and every one of them. And then we got you. Got you over and sort of it started then. So, like. But I was always so, like, impressed by you. And I think what's. What's so important about, like, our friendship? But I think, like, all creative friendships and, like, we're going to get into this as we go. Like, to be impressed by your friend is, like, one of life's true joys. And I always feel like, you know, every group chat thinks that they are geniuses. You know what every group chat is, right? Because, like, you surround yourselves with the people that you think, like, oh, my God, this is so funny. I have to tell this person. And, like, you were one of the first ever people for me that, like, I was just like, I gotta tell. I gotta tell Carolyn this funny thing. And I think, like, that has so much, like, brought up our way of, like, both writing media and consuming media. And it's just been very important to me. And so, like. Yeah. And for those who don't know. So Skip Shop is the book we're gonna be discussing. And it is my eternal and complete honor that Caroline sort of first came to me with this book. Like, little tiny nuggets of this book, like, sort of flashes of, like, images or ideas that were very, like, very tender and very, like, nerdy and, like. And, like, so nerdy and just like. But I think that's the thing is, like, you. You can bring these things to your friend before you can bring them to scary people and go kind of like, what if horses did this?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Type of business.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There used to be so much more Horses.

[Natasha Hodgson]

There was a lot of horses. Less horses than advertised.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There is now a restrained one chapter about horses in this. But it used to be eight or nine.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I was cross when the horses got cut. But you know what? I understand now when I get it. But anyway, it's all to that, yeah, Skipshock. I'm very delighted that, yeah, Skipshock is not only dedicated to me and your mum. Fine, I can share it with Noel, don't worry. But also that I got the. Like, I was the privilege of doing the audiobook for you.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And when does that happen? When does that. The first time in history of the written word, perhaps. Maybe we'll find out tonight that the person who's performing it is the person who's dedicated to, who's also a Broadway actress.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Everyone.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

This is her fourth performance of the day. Yes. You got up at night to sing in like Central park or something, right?

[Natasha Hodgson]

It was Times Square, but all New York, London, it's all the same each other. It's fine. So, yeah, I want to get into, like. I want to get into the book itself, how you came about to write it, like, what all of this means to us as like, both people who make stuff and who like, love making stuff. And also kind of where this book sits in your sort of author biography. Because, like, one thing that I love about you is that you write so many different types of book. You are not, like, you're not one type of author, which I think is probably, like, weird for you, and people trying to pin you down as the type of author that you are. But we're getting to that. But all this to say we're going to do some questions at the end. So if you have any burning questions about particularly, I think, like, friendship and making stuff or like anything to do with Caroline, particularly this book, but like, anything that Caroline's read or like, yeah, how we.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Everything Caroline's read, read.

[Natasha Hodgson]

She's only read four books. She's written more than she's read. So I guess my first question for you on this book is that it's part of the classic question, which is like, where does this book come from? But I think particularly it's potent for me because off the back of the previous book that you had written, the Rachel Incident, an incredible book, very much.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Concerned with unpaid internships, very much the.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Same with unpaid interns. And it was kind of like this completely like, very exciting, but very sort of slice of life, very realistic and like, you know, Irish story by an Irish writer. And like, you know, I was your Friend at the time. It was crazy how great it did. It was so good. It was like. And now you're making a TV show out of it. Like, it literally could not have gone better, guys. It was crazy. And like, to me, the fact that you had done that and then you were like, now a sweeping time travel.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Fantasy, sci fi aimed at 16 and up.

[Natasha Hodgson]

16 and up. Like, why?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God, my agent's asking the exact same question. We could have done the Michelle incident. We could have done the Danielle incident. So many incidents, so many common 90s names that we could have had an incident around. Yeah, I know, I know. It's like commercially a terrible idea. Especially once, like, you spend so long trying to.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I say it with, like, with awe. I mean, I'm not in a kind of. What are you doing? But like, how did you get your brain from the Rachel world into starting to write Skipshock?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Why did you think to yourself, this is the book that I need to write next?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Well, it's so strange because, like, this is my seventh book overall. I've been in the industry for like almost 10 years now.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Still 19.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Time travel, baby. And the first two books all of you will find very difficult to find because they're not available in the us. They were never picked up here. And I think, although I'm very proud of them for good reasons, because there was like, even though they did well in the UK and they did well in Ireland and some whatever, they had a kind of confusion about them fundamentally because there was like all this kind of funny slice of life, girls in offices and sort of. What about filmmakers that I really love? And. And there was all kind of like real adults having real problems. And then there would suddenly be this flash of special effects that came from nowhere. So, like promising young women. My first novel begins just like, kind of like almost like a Bridget Jones diary. Just like a girl in a dead end office job. And then it turns out that the.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Do you remember the original title of that book?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No. Do you?

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yes. Jolly Politely regrets her screen name. That was the first title for it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Notice the no reaction. By the way, how bad a title that is.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Look, justice for Jolly Politely regrets her screen name.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's all I'm saying. But that, like, it starts with this sort of like, you know, office place affair and then it becomes like a vampire novel. And understandably that doesn't work for everyone, especially not critics. And similarly, like, the second book was like a small story about these two female filmmakers on a road trip. And then it became this Detective thriller where somebody gets waterboarded for no reason. And there was always just like this kind of inside you there are two wolves. And in me there is one that's like, I want to just observe real adults, real situations. And another part of me that just wants special effects. One thing I. For every audiobook I've ever had of my books, that is always the moment. I know there's other authors in the house tonight, but I never read my own books back. When you're editing a book, you're looking at it in chunks at a time. You're editing chapters or you're following specific characters or whatever. You never read the whole thing. When I listen back to the audiobook, that's only the moment where I realize, oh, that's what I was up to. You know, that's what I was. That's what and why I was doing. And I realized as well, like, I was listening to you say a line of dialogue in this book, and it's like the most cliche piece of like, genre dialogue. But it gave me so much thrill to type it. And then to hear you say was the line, you better hope your man's a surgeon with that pistol. And I was like, that felt great. That felt like a triple orgasm to type. And it's like, there's just like, I will. I refuse to reconcile these two parts of my character. You know, I love both things equally. And so I have found. So I am. I started my young adult series, All Our Hidden Gifts, and then I was so kind of spent on special effects because it's all about witches and magic and small town mysteries and stuff.

[Natasha Hodgson]

And it's so good. Such a good.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And on sale here tonight, guys.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Wonderful.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And yeah, thanks. Thank you. And then after I was finished that I was like, no, I'm just going to write a small Irish story about four people, five people. And that is. I think that's how I'm always going to work forever. And so Rachel was so in this very practical, pragmatic world that this became the next thing. And really. But it comes from a very pragmatic place. So like I mentioned that it's about traveling salesmen. They just happen to travel through time and space. But it really speaks to a part of my life and career where I was suddenly, after a long time of like, moving to London at 21 to work for you and like living on a mattress in Elephant and Castle for a year. And then like, slowly, God bless internships and slowly working my way. But I really didn't travel at all in my 20s. I don't think you did much either. No. And then something like the most depressing.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Like, realization with that was like, I remember being my 20s and like, not traveling. And then like in. When I was like my 30th year or something, a friend of mine had a. Had a wedding in Malaysia and I was like, oh, my God, this is so exciting. And literally it was getting on the plane and being like, gosh, the technology's got up in this place. You know, you can watch loads of films now. Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's not just three or four.

[Natasha Hodgson]

It's amazing. Yeah. How long has it been?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And it'd been on a long plane. Yeah. Right, right.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Just a pedaling guy in the front.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It was.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yeah, No, I get it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We were porn on. We were so poor, but we had each other and the poor. But perfect. Yeah. And so then kind of circa 2018, 2019, when I became a published novelist and also a working journalist, I was traveling a lot for work. And the thing of traveling for work that I find so kind of special and strange, and I'm not doing it right now, is that thing of when you travel alone, everything that happens to you happens only to you. You don't have that thing of like, having your buddy with you or your partner with you, being like, oh, get a load of that guy, or whatever, or like, these customs are strange. And so. And so when you're on your own and you're being like, shot across the world to do something to an assignment or whatever, you have all the. You, You. You go through spaces alone. And therefore people respond to you differently. Like, you're more likely to have very bizarre conversations or sort of adventures just that lead somewhere and. And that. And then you have no one to discuss them with. So the experiences live and die with you. You know, you're. Because it's, like, very boring, like, talking about the group chat to just say in the group chat all day, look at this crazy thing that just happened to me, guys. Everyone's like, very nice, but we're all. We're all living our real lives. And so, you know, and like. So the kind of first germ came to me when in 2019, where I was sent on assignment to Tahiti for Lonely Planet, which is like, God, I.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Forgot that that was so meant to happen to you. Lucky bitch. That hasn't happened in musicals. I probably promise you that they're not.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Putting on Operation Minceme.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yeah. The Tahiti edition.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Although you could become a cruise ship actor.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Thank you, mate. Thanks. You and my mum both were.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You could see the world. We have great respect for cruise ship actors. I'm very sorry, that was in jest only. But the customs are strange. Customs are strange. And so I've been saying to Didi and literally having this experience because it's in the other side of the world where the sun is at the highest point of the day at different times. So 10am is the hottest part of the day, which kind of fucks with your brain. Right. That's a little odd. And then going out and what would happen if anyone's ever been on a press trip before, they basically, they pick you up at your hotel in a van at like 6am they drive you two hours on bad roads and you're just in this sort of jostling vehicle with like seven other journalists slash bloggers slash sort of travel influencers or whatever. None of you have anything in common except that you're on this trip and often you don't even like them. And I remember the word often there. And often.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Not sometimes. Often. Often you hate them.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because people who are on these kinds of trips, they live a traveling salesman life. Like this is, you know, in an early chapter in this. There's a. All these traveling salesmen in this book, they aren't allowed to have permanent locations. They live life on the road. They kind of have temporary homes in these boarding houses that I really kind of like modeled on the sort of spirited away bathhouse kind of thing. I wanted that atmosphere. But there's this big kind of scene where all these salesmen, they sit down and they kind of open their briefcases and they show what they have and they sort of brag and they pontificate and they sort of, kind of lightly hate each other, but they respect each other's game. And like, that is the green room at any literary festival. It's like. So it's such a great strange life. And like, I remember being on this, this Tahitian press strip and I was like, you know, in the middle of the ocean watching a mother whale signal to her calf using just her fins. And you could see that she was communicating with him using splashes. And you could tell that, like, as he moved too far from her, she would start splashing and he would come back and it was like the most moving, nonverbal thing, like, spectacular. And then in my ear, I had this Daily Mail journalist yapping to me about, like. Like Tim Rice.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Sure.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And how he.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Why wouldn't it be Tim Rice and.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

His personal grudge with Tim Rice. It's like you have a personal grudge against the guy who made Hakuna Matata.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Why? I feel like I want to, like, jump in just because, like. Because you mentioned Spirited Away and I feel like not to just, like, for this whole time just blowing up your top because. But, like, I think, you know, there's obviously a lot of, like, literary references, but I feel like cinema, like, it's a very cinematic book to read. And, like, do you feel like you had as many, like, cinematic references as you did, like, literary references? I really. I really felt that. I feel like there's the imagery in this book. I feel like, like, when you get to, like, sci fi fantasy, I feel like in the canon mentioning your names, but, like, the. The Tavern and the Mead and the Cheese are doing a lot of heavy lifting for a lot of writers. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of mead, there's a lot of cheese, and, like, we love the meat and we love the cheese. But, like, with your book, I feel like I was you. I see so many, like, images and situations and like, inter. That, like, exploded my brain because I was like, oh, I feel like I've never seen this before. And I feel like you have come to it with the visuals in mind, not just the kind of story in mind.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, like, totally. Very much that. Like, so much of that boarding house. Yes. It was based on Spirited Away, but also very much based on hey Arnold.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I think we were all waiting for hey Arnold to get a look. We're all relieved he's come up. Let's say more about hey Arnold.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I could really go on a tangent about hey Arnold because I've been.

[Natasha Hodgson]

How can we tell?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We can put on hey Arnold because I've actually been quite obsessed with hey Arnold recently because I do think Pataky.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Heroine of all times, because it was.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The first noir made for children. It was like, oh, my God, did.

[Natasha Hodgson]

You have any idea this would be said tonight in this room?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And it was like I was listening to an interview with the creator, Craig Bartlett, and he said I would get in such trouble with Nickelodeon because every week my plot summary would be Arnold gets in another adventure with a very old man. And for real. It was always that, wasn't it? Now that you say that, I'm revisiting that in my head.

[Natasha Hodgson]

And you're right.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. I don't know why I have to talk about Arnold, but I do. But, yeah, it's super vigil. And, like, again, that is that thing of, like, if you spend a year and A half or two years on a novel where you're just like. For the Rachel incident. There's like two locations in that book. It's like their terrible flat and the bookshop they work in and sometimes the nice house the professor lives in. It's not even that nice in my head. You don't know.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Channel 4 will decide.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, Channel 4 will decide how nice it is. And then the breathtaking scope of just writing like a city that runs on clockwork. So basically the whole city is a moving sort of clock, sort of cog system where they kind of all join up at different times. And then writing the underside of that city and then writing another world. And like you could have just thought.

[Natasha Hodgson]

That is like a book like that. Like, There you go, 700 pages. The clockworks, Eddie. And you're like, eh, it's one chapter. See ya. It's so like imaginative and like, it kind of makes me want like. Do you feel like as you go through the world you kind of like collect? Do they occur to you in your day to day? Or is it like I'm gonna sit down and imagine a fucking town? It's those two things.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Is it?

[Natasha Hodgson]

Or is it a mixture?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Sit down, imagine a fucking town.

[Natasha Hodgson]

No calls an imagining a town.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I'm so glad you asked this. So when I do got to get off a Arnold.

[Natasha Hodgson]

We just gotta.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We've gotta get off Craig Bartlett and a Arnold. But he does give some really interesting interviews I think you should all look into. So the hardback of this starts with a map. And it's kind of a map that is sort of like if you all look in your pamphlets, there will be.

[Natasha Hodgson]

A test at the end. So please do pay attention.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And it's sort of what I love about it is that it's sort of decorated in a obscured with sort of like travel visas that are actually scans of World War II visas that we. My illustrator found. And so I'm a very visual writer. I begin every single book I ever write with some kind of graph. And when I was first beginning, that was the Hero's Journey, where it's a big circle and it's the.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Everyone in here knows what the Hero's Journey is.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

If you're in the Strand, you know what the fucking Hero's Journey is.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Asking that the door before you let you in.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Have you. Have you heard of the Hero's Journey? Have you denied the quest from the Elder? As I've matured in this profession that has sort of gotten a bit more complicated and I found different schemes for planning out different novels. But for this one specifically, it began with two lines, An X axis and a y axis. And the X axis represented temperature. And so it's like, it's very, very warm over here. It's very, very cold over here. And that Y axis represented time. So the further up you go for the north, you go up this axis, the faster time gets. So a day could have 12 hours or 10 hours or 8 hours, 60, whatever, and then the further south you get, the longer it goes. And, like, you don't have to have read, like, you know, any dystopian YA fiction to know that, like, all the power is going to be generated in one area, which is the place where the days are 60 hours long. So, like, people are living and dying very quickly in the north. They're hanging on to wealth and power for a long, long time in the south. And that has created this kind of power dynamic, which is what the main character, Moon, is speaking to in that opening chapter. He is a traveling salesman. They don't want people traveling. They want northerners traveling to southern places. They want it to be all very rigid. So he has these kind of visa issues. And, like, it is a magical book about visa issues, like, very.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I mean, we love magical admin, right?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We love magical.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Magical admin.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The best genre of, like, the sort of paperwork office.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I really appreciate the magical admin in your book. I feel like you're a girl who understands that, like, all the little. The little bits, the items, the kind of the stamps, that's the good shit. That's what we want.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's the good shit. I have great respect for the dragon porn that is currently gripping our nation. And when I say, and I. Great respect, I truly do mean great respect. But I would just. I would. My sort of more thing would be like a novel in the permits factory.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Of, like, how do you Dragon permits?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

How do you ensure a dragon. You know, how do you ensure your dragon.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yay. We did it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We did it.

[Natasha Hodgson]

And that's the group chat, ladies and gentlemen.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And so when I. When you sit down to make up a town, when you know that all of these worlds are going to be plotted along this kind of extra XY axis, you sort of. You do the thinking from there. So if you think like, okay, this is a world that's very hot and there's two hours in every day, which is existentially terrifying for anybody who lives there because they're not living very long, but also because time is moving really quickly, it means natural resources are developing really quickly. So stuff that we would know, like coal and oil or whatever, but also, like, other kinds of material. So, like, they might have, like, you know, for example, a thriving underground drug scene because, like, cocaine comes from plants, so they might have their own kind of thing going on. Cool.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Imagine that.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Cool.

[Narrator]

There's drugs.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And. And I, you know, I thought a lot about things like, in other. Basically, I kept thinking, like, what would the things that you. How would you run a society if you had just far less time in it than anybody else? And sort of, like, I thought a lot about stuff like sex work as well, because I thought, like, wow, like, if these are traveling salesmen, they have. They're men and they have needs. And so, like, finally somebody said it. Finally someone said it. Men, guys, they have needs. And so, like, how would that work? And, like, also, you couldn't just have a brothel. The brothel would have to be something else. Like, every business would have to be three businesses, because you can't go to that many businesses in one day.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I think also that speaks. That speaks to many things, but I think, like, we both come from that. From that young adulthood of being like, we don't just have one job. You've got your job, and then you've got your money job, and then you've got this. And, like, I think in all your work, I think. And I think what's really nice is, like, I can feel. And I think to speak boldly in my work, too, which is like, this has to be doing so many things at the same time super quick, because I've got the privilege of this person's attention that I'm talking to or whatever for maybe this snap of time. And I need them to be. To see this or read this or look at this and go, this is worth whatever I'm paying for it right now, because we.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Girl. Operation Mincemeat.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Come on. Jesus Christ. But I think that is. I think that speaks well, certainly from my opinion of your writing in that all your books, and particularly this book, work so hard and with such eagerness and heart because you're not someone who grew up and then at age 20, was like, I'm never gonna have a job. I'll write a book.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Natasha Hodgson]

And I think there probably is a bit of a chip on my shoulder, but I feel like I'm always so amazed by just how much you can cram into your books. But particularly this book is so huge and, like, the fact they all came from your brain is just so weird and staggeringly good. I'm just. I'm very. I'm very. I'm very proud of you.

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[Caroline O'Donoghue]

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[Caroline O'Donoghue]

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[Natasha Hodgson]

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[Natasha Hodgson]

Is it time for questions? We would love for you guys to talk to us and ask anything. Please buy this. It's my favorite book in the world. I hope that's come across fairly clearly. If not, just go home and watch. Hey, Arnold.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's all on YouTube.

[Natasha Hodgson]

It's all on YouTube. Any questions about the other person, the book or anything? I see lots of hands. Raise your hands for us. We're bringing you a microphone. We're going to do right here in the front first. Hi.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Hello. Hi. I'm a huge fan of both of you. I've seen Operation Minceme six times. Really quick. And I'll be there next week. I just wanted to know, as creatives.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I'm sure you get tons of ideas in your mind. How do you know and pinpoint?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like, oh, this is the one. I'm gonna go full on. I'm gonna like really dive into and expand on. Is that like something you send to the group chat and like ask your friends or you just decide on your own? This is a fascinating question to me because I think the bad version of that question, which you get a lot on like bad panels, is like, like, why do you write? And it's like. But the interesting question is why did you write this? It's like, you're right. It's like, yeah, every writer, every creator has a notes app that's filled with one line, ideas and like I remember with Rachel, Instant was a one line idea that sat in my drafts for like two years. And like, for some reason, one day, enough things in my subconscious nudged it forward that it was the time. And then that became the best financial decision of my life. And for this one, I think seizing upon this idea, I think a lot of it was wanting to find a way of explaining my own life back to myself. The idea of the traveling salesman was so romantic to me and I wanted to get into that. But there was also this thing of, you know, I hate to say it, guys, but there was a pandemic a few years ago and we all stayed inside and it was. And so. But there was this moment where after the dust had settled, after that moment and we had done the grieving that we'd all had to do, there was this separate kind of grieving that had to happen, which is the grieving of lost time. I think about this a lot with particularly my single friends who went from being sort of like 29 to 32, and they were like, whoa, I was sort of single and like, you know, on hinge or whatever. And now suddenly I have to think very seriously about the time I lost and what that took for me in terms of, like, courtship and like, who I'm gonna meet and have a kid with one day. And that, to me, makes me so angry. And like, the, you know, the thing that we always talk about and what all artists talked about after Covid was that, like, nobody wants to read a Covid book, nobody wants to hear about it in the movies, nobody wants anything to do with it. Which I find so interesting because, like, we love talking about shared trauma. Like, that's one of the best things you can do to a society, is to have a shared trauma that we can all obsess over. So why this trauma do we do not want to talk about at all? Because it's existentially so confronting for us to really think about the time that we lost. It's why there's no more powerful two word combination in the English language than life sentence. Like the idea that someone's having their life taken from them and that's the biggest punishment that we can think of in our whole society is fascinating and scary. And like I in this book, like Margot, she starts it on the cusp of 17, but, like, emotionally and physically, because of the way time is moving in these books, she kind of ends about 20 because, like, she's moving between time speeds. It's doing weird things to her body. And like, I kind of wanted it had to be this because I had to reflect that somewhere. And it felt like fantasy was the best place to do it, to not bum everyone out.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I think for me, I think it's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's if.

[Natasha Hodgson]

If you're having fun doing it, like, I'm. That's maybe rarely basic question, but, like, I have lots of ideas and I kind of go, right, I'm gonna write the big important fucking. Oh, God. And then actually, you know, you get three scenes into something, you're like, I could write this all day. And like, that's the idea for me that I'm always gonna go with. Like, I feel like if you're. If you're. There's. There's like, good hard and bad hard and good hard is like, I can feel like this. I wanna. This is difficult, but I'm excited to get there and, you know, talk to the group, like, and get into it. And this bad hub, which is like, I know I should. This feels like the thing I should be writing because I. Because I had this experience or because I'm from this place or because I'm this gender or whatever. And I think trying to release yourself from, like, this is my only shiny penny. And it's not the thing that I care about. Like, for me, it's. It's really important to be like, just following your actual joy and not the kind of trying to second guess what would be the thing that the fucking industry or the people will want to have from me. Because life's just too short. So, yeah, follow, follow. What's fun. Very well said. Yeah. Hey, Wise, we're take one on that side with Christy. Hello.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Really, really love the book. So it's dual pov, but only one character is a told in first person. So you get to learn the world through Margot, but you get to see.

[Narrator]

The story through moon's eyes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

What made you make that choice exactly for that reason? Yeah, you've totally hit on it. Like, I feel like again, I've been doing this job, like, what feels the longest I've ever had any job. And I feel like only in the last couple of years have I realized the power of things that I ignored for so long. Like, tense. So the moon is told, first person present. And he's very much surging through the narrative. And he's got, like, quite a distinctive voice and he's really fun to write. And then. And that was so much about, like, again, landing us in a perspective of somebody who. This is very boring to. And that, I think is the. That's the magic of magical admin is like presenting you with, like, crazy concepts, like having a train that bursts through different worlds or whatever, but somebody who's just worrying about their paperwork and is kind of tired and pissed off.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Monsters, Inc. Monsters, Inc. Does that look if you're gonna bring your head onto the table.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Monsters, Inc. Monsters, Inc. Magic happen if Monsters, Inc. Come on. I mean, this is good.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Such a good shout.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Thank you. Sorry.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It is the magical admin story.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Anyway. Please continue.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Wow. Yeah. And the. God, that's really.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Sorry, I shouldn't have.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

My hi, Arnold phase is over. My Monsters, Inc. Phase has just begun. But the. And then. So that was, you know, it felt necessary. And then Margot, who is really coming at it from our shared perspective, what it would feel like for any of us if we were to be on a train from Cork to Dublin and then suddenly be in an interdimensional situation. And it's really difficult. The best writing advice I ever got was from my English teacher when I was 14. And we had a list of creative writing prompts that we had to write take home for the weekend. And one of those prompts was called the Time Machine. And she said, and for the love of God, if any of you picks the Time machine, I don't want half a page on how surprised you are to find a time machine. Because she said, surprise is the most boring emotion. It's the least contagious emotion. I'm obsessed with the idea of contagious and uncontagious emotions. Embarrassment, very contagious emotion. Whimsy, the least contagious emotion of all. If someone's, like, you know, wearing a hat and, like, proud of themselves, you're like, yuck.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Wearing a hat and proud of themselves. You've described Operation Mischief. Convince me once again. But that's fine.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I love that surprise is the least interesting emotion.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So if we have, like, a third person told in almost like a Alice in Wonderland style of, like, this is a classical story of a girl who falls through the world. We're not going to get right inside her brain because it's boring to hear her be surprised by every last thing. And it also. I like the idea of it placing her within, like, a tradition of storytelling because she is. Does start the story as a girl and kind of becomes like, a grown person by the end. But thank you for that question.

[Natasha Hodgson]

We're gonna take another one down the back here. Hi. Hey.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

My name is Caroline, too. Oh, I wanted to. I don't know why I wanted to say My name, but that's your right.

[Natasha Hodgson]

As you should.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's a good one, though, right? Have you been enjoying it? Yeah, yeah, it's okay. I really like it. I wanted to give a compliment. And that segues into a question. So I do enjoy a lot of books, but I'm not often surprised. And between listening to the Rachel Incident audiobook, devouring it in, like, two days while I cleaned my apartment, and then devouring this book, I just feel like you're one of the most surprising authors. Like, you just. I just expect things, and then you just. Yeah, surprise in a good way. That I'm like, my brain is just alight so often. And I guess I'm wondering, especially with this book, my brain was alight so often. How do you. I'm guessing a lot of other authors, like, we fall into these paradigms, like, stereotypical societal, expected paradigms, and. And maybe that's how the interesting creative ideas often get filtered out. How do you kind of, like, prevent that from happening? Because. Or maybe your brain is just more interesting than huge insight. By the way, like, a couple of people in this row just turned around when you said that, being, like, absolutely huge insight. Like, yeah, you're right. But. No, you're totally right. So, like, I have a podcast as well called Sentimental Garbage, and you've been on it. Taffy's been on it. Taffy breaths her acne, everybody. And I have been doing that podcast since 2018, almost as long as I have been a novelist. And what that podcast is about is shame, because I'm from Ireland and play as a Catholic. And, you know, it all started from this. It's kind of. It's taken a lot of circuitous roots in the many years I've been doing it. But, like, the main nugget of it is like. Like, things that people love that is met with either critical silence or critical sort of derision, really. And that happens a lot with things that women like. And I'm fascinated by that. I could go on about that forever, but I think if you spend hundreds of hours of both saying this stuff on mic every week. I've been doing this more or less for years, and then I edit it myself, right? And so I've been telling the world and myself for years that their genre conventions don't matter. Snobbery doesn't matter. What's literary or not doesn't matter. Like, it is the story. It is the thing that gets your heart racing, as you said. And, like, I do think I have performed light brain surgery on myself. By doing that. Because, like, I'm not gonna lie, like, I do get a lot of funny sort of treatment. Funny looks about, like, people who aren't that psyched about fantasy. People who are like, why, when everybody wants to have a commercial literary hit, have you just done this other thing that no one's asked for except for the publisher who signed it? So. But like, you know. But the like. Yeah, and that can be actually, like, quite confronting sometimes of being like, maybe I have made some bad commercial choices, or maybe I could be doing something in this sort of other trouser leg of time that is more whatever, more literary, more this, more that. But I just. You got to do what you're interested in.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Yeah, but I think that's like. That's why you're so. You're so strong. We talked about this before, but, like, you know, earlier, I think, you know, with fantasy and adventure, like, your. Your books are so exciting and they've got so much plot, and I think, you know, I. I don't know about you guys, but, like, it feels like sometimes it feels like to me, like, plot can belong to men and feelings can belong to women. And, like, you can't have. Like. And I feel like it's. It's very. Like, you don't get. I mean. I mean, possibly it's just my own circuit, but, like, for adventure, sometimes it feels like it belongs to men. And, like, and I think what's so brave? And like. And I don't even maybe think about it, but, like, the fact that your stories, all of them, and include Rachel instant, like, they are adventures and they're not, you know, a slim, feminine tome. No, shade to the slim, feminine tome. I love the slim, feminine tone. But, like, I do think there is so much more room than we even realize for women with huge fucking stories and characters and magical admin and, like. Except that one. One we don't want to talk about her. But, like, you know, there's so much room for. There's so much room for adventure in women's literature. And I do think that, like, you. You are such a great kind of like, shining light of that in that, like, you just. There is. There is. It seems to be like there's nothing in your brain that's like, well, I shouldn't do that because of, like, fucking bullshit nonsense society reasons. Like, you don't have that shame. You have a different shame, I'm sure. Yeah, but, like, you don't have that shame. And I think, like, mostly around my.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Body, and who can blame you?

[Natasha Hodgson]

And. And, yeah, I just think. I just think. Yeah, it's really inspirational for me as well, because I think you throw yourself so wholeheartedly and even your soul into genres that aren't necessarily sort of meant for a woman in your position. Which is a stupid thing to say, obviously, but, like, I find it very inspiring. It makes me kind of want to, like, go, well, there are no genres that are off limits. And also, there is no genre to tell one type of story. And I think we can find ourselves made smaller and smaller and slimmer. Slimmer, Slimmer female. Tome over and over. Because we feel like we have to tell a piece of our story or a specific feminine part of our story, or, like, what is it like to be a woman in X situation? And it's just boring and bullshit and we just write dragon porn all the time.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yay. You're sorry. I never really thought about that before, but the other day, me and Gav were on the couch and we were both reading, and he was reading this Cormac McCarthy book that is about a boy who befriends a wolf, and they travel across the country together. It sounded great. And he was crying because the wolf was dead. And he loved to cry over wolves. Yeah, it was. And he was so moved. And he was like, what's happening in yours? I was like, well, she's waiting on the letter.

[Natasha Hodgson]

That's the two types of book. Crying over a wolf, waiting on a letter. We have time for just one more.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Question, and it's going to be over there. This is like another hour longer. I'm having the best time, guys. This is so fun. Hi. Hi.

[Natasha Hodgson]

I'm really excited because I love sentimental.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Garbage and all of your work. And I was thinking about how in Skipshock and the Gifts Too, you write.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Teenagers with a lot of nuance and dignity.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And I feel like sometimes culturally, we.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Don'T give that to them. You know, like, there's a lot of dismissing of teenagers as just this one thing or that one thing. And it comes through in your books how much you really see them as.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Whole, complicated human beings, you know, while still writing them, quite truthfully, as teenagers.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Why was that?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I don't know.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Why is that something that's been on your mind?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Why is that audience important to you? And what would you want people to know about writing teenagers that maybe they don't always think about? Thank you so much for that. I really do appreciate that because they are, like, I think they're my favorite demographic. I think, like, I've got teenagers in My life. I've got my. My niece and nephew, and they're incredible and unexpected, and I love them. And. But I think I realized this the other day as well. Like, I've never really written a character over 30. Like, they're, as in, like, a main character. They do tend to be quite young. And I think what I find fascinating about that is that the moment of a young person's life where their inexperience meets the world, and then it's almost like. It's like a penny. They have to oxidize or something, and they develop a kind of a greenish patina, and then that patina will stay on them for the rest of their life. Like, one of my favorite moments of, like, coming of age that has ever been portrayed in anything is at the very end of hey, Arnold. Not far. Actually, not far. But at the very end of the Legend of Ocarina of Time, if anyone's familiar with that work.

[Natasha Hodgson]

You know, all the books in here are weeping at our conversation. I know.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There is a copy of Ulysses that's signed by James Joyce and Henry Matisse. I know. And we're talking about hey, Arnold and the Legend of Zelda, but I will have a literary reference somewhere. But, no, but there's a. So if anyone remembers that video game, the whole thing is that you play as Link, and you start as a little boy, and then you're sent forward in time so you could be strong enough to save the world. And then you go through all your trials and you beat Ganondorf or whatever, and then you're sent back in time, and the credits of that video game are everybody in the video game who you've met and who you've helped, and you've saved their chickens and you've. Whatever. You've done all these things for these people, and they're all celebrating, but they don't know what you did. And you're a child again. You're Link, a child again, sitting on a log, staring into space. And that's how that video game ends. God bless the Japanese. It's so. And it's like you've done this, like, you know, many, many, many hours of playing. And then it's like, I'm obsessed with what we ask kids to do, and then we ask them to go back to being kids and like, ooh, she.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Can do it all, guys. It's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Hey, Arnold.

[Natasha Hodgson]

It's this.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And. And. And that. And also, I think. I know I have to wrap it up, but, like, I. I actually never read young adult literature When I was a teenager, I started reading adult literature when I was 22, 23, when I was living on a mattress in Elphin Castle.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Under my command.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Under your command. For context, I only worked for Tash for six weeks. But in a way, somebody did it ever in I never know.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Get me a cup of tea.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Kinda. But. And so there was this year and a half where it was just so difficult. Everything was difficult. I couldn't get arrested in London. I used to just show up at the office and see if there was anything going. I remember getting. And it was right in that moment of the Hunger Games going huge. And I got so bang into the Hunger Games. And I remember really feeling like nobody has it worse than me except Katniss Everdeen and I. And I think you remember that time.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Also. I think on the teenager thing, like, I feel like. But you, like, I. I feel like you write amazing teenagers there because, like, I feel like you have like such a national, a natural like passion for stuff like sentimental garbage. The reason it is so successful in Britain is because that you like bring like the love of the thing that you're talking about every single episode in a way that like, I feel like as grownups we can sometimes be like. I don't know if I want to say how much I love stuff. It seems weird for me to do that. And I think what all of your books do and I think maybe not to analyze you, but like for me anyway, like, it's. It's like you're so good at loving stuff in a way that like can feel like we leave it behind when we become adults. Like, we feel like we have to stop something because, you know, because your world gets so much bigger when you're a grown up. Whereas when you're a teenager and a kid, the thing that you love is like 60% of your time and like 100% of your. Of your attention. And then suddenly the thing gets smaller and smaller and smaller because your horizons expand. But I think you are incredibly good at for however amount of time creating that thing to be like 100% again. And I think that's like just a really good skill that you have. Thanks. That'd be really nice. Hi, thank you all for coming.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh my God, you both for being here. Thank you. Walker as well. This has been incredible, guys.

[Natasha Hodgson]

Thank you so much, guys. It's been so lovely to talk to you all. Thank you.

[Narrator]

Part 1 New Darvia 1 Margot the school pushed for a therapist. Donna Ann agreed to it. Not because she believed in therapy. But because she wanted to impress upon Margo how serious the matter had become. She had, after all, sold the watch. And not just any watch, Richard's watch. Donna Ann said it as though Margot had stolen from her mother directly, as if she had purposefully severed her mother's last remaining tie, and only out of spite. But Donna Ann had many things, including their house to remember Richard by. Margot had only the watch. It was, technically speaking, hers to sell. The therapist suggested that Margot had depression. The therapist implied that it was something that was always cooking inside of Margot, even before the crash, that death had stirred up a nature that was naturally morose. Old school reports were summoned and then reviewed. Much was made of comments over her primary school years. Margot is content in her own company, read one. Margot often seems a little lost during group projects came another, and this one felt slightly cruel. On review, Margot has not left much of an impression on the other girls. He suggested that there was a link between this early Margot and the Margot who, aged 16, sold her dead father's watch, dyed her hair metallic red and attempted to run away from home. He thought it was deeper than simply having a dead dad. He said that somewhere down the line and after more meetings, drugs might be helpful for the moment. He said he could recommend breathing exercises. Donna Ann took her daughter and left the therapist's office. There was nothing, Donna Ann said actually wrong with Margot. If anyone was to blame, it was Donna Ann herself for allowing the leash to get too long. She had left her daughter to her own devices and it had led to the blossoming of a criminal. The whole thing had gone beyond her mother's capabilities. It was time for a change. It was time for boarding school. They got the watch back, of course. The pawn shop owner, a Cash for Gold that took silver too, had called Donna Ann after he realised that the third hand only worked when you pushed the timer. The inscription Richard Madden III made the owner easy to track down. Small towns don't forget plane crashes in a hurry, much less their victims. And this is how we find Margot in the moments before she fell through worlds. A 16 year old failed runaway with a watch and unsuitable clothing. Six days off her next birthday and on a train from Cork to Dublin. Thirsty. So, so thirsty. The summer had arrived late in Ireland, as it almost always does, with hot weather such a rarity that no one knew how to protect against it. She did not bring sunglasses for the immense glare of light through the window. She had not brought her water bottle. Her only snack was a sweating ham sandwich, gluey with heat. She picked at the Sandwich and got thirstier by the minute. The train screeched to a halt inside a blackened tunnel. She waited a moment. A voice came over the loudspeakers, a fuzz of static obscuring the driver's words. Something was broken. He repeated himself and Margot listened closely. She understood nothing. Then silence. When she had boarded in Cork, there had been a smattering of other travellers in the train car with her, but they had all gotten off in Mallow and now she was en route to Dublin alone. She became uneasy. It felt like being strapped into a broken roller coaster, wondering whether her terror was normal or simply part of the ticketed experience. The open windows, which had been the train car's only air conditioning, let in nothing but dead heat and a dank, earthy smell. There was a faint whiff of piss, and she wondered whether people sheltered in these tunnels at night. As the darkness pushed in on the train and the loudspeakers continued to express garbled, apologetic sentiments, Margot felt her throat grind with anxiety. There was nothing really scary at all happening, she told herself. She was just dehydrated. This was why she had a headache. This was why she was panicking. There was a shop somewhere on board. There had to be. She needed water. She got out of her chair, keeping her hands on the seat headrests in case the train suddenly started moving again. As Margot moved through one empty car after another, there was a mounting sense that she was in a problem that a Coke Zero could not solve. Eventually she came to a shuttered counter that usually sold snacks and drinks. Through the shutters she could see cans winking at her. Margot threaded her fingers mournfully through the gaps, like a mother visiting her son in prison. She looked down at her silver watch slung low over her palm and reasoned that she would sell it all over again for a single can. She was alone on a broken train. A wild sadness rushed through her, not for the situation itself, but because of how much this moment felt like all the ones that had led to it. She had been a clean and well running thing for so much of her life. She was an only child and not the kind who had lots of cousins and neighbours to compensate. Their family was a strange and quiet one. Love was gained through achievement and maintained through behaving pleasantly. She had been a good student and she had some friends, despite what those early school reports had implied. Then her father died. Her habitual insomnia and moody periods became her permanent companions. She was sleep starved and in shock. She stopped talking to everyone, stopped going to school, and eventually her friends stopped calling. Life was too hard to put up with for a moment longer, so she decided to run away. She didn't get far. Boarding school was meant to be the compromise, a fresh start. Yet here she was, stuck, clouded with menace and alone. No fresh start and no bad dye job could change that. She was silly for thinking it could. The train started moving again. There was a sharp screeching noise that sounded like metal on metal, and she knew the train was fighting hard against the darkness. Before she even had time to apply this metaphor to herself, the compartment shook and Margot was thrown by the momentum. She steadied herself, one arm clutching furiously to the wall. As the train moved faster and faster. She inched her way to the rubbery airlock between train car doors. In the airlock she started to feel sick. It suddenly felt as though all her internal organs were crowding together and looking to escape through her neck. Would she vomit here on Erin Road? Erin property? Margot closed her eyes and remembered Cork, where everyone got the bus. Everywhere. She could no longer keep her balance by holding onto the wall and instead curled into a ball on the floor, her eye sockets resting on both knees as the airlock rocked and screeched. Margot wondered if this was what it felt like to die. She pushed the timer on her father's watch, a thin hand that only ticked for 60 seconds and stopped again. She practiced the breathing lessons that the therapist had taught her, timing her breaths in 10 second intervals, watching the third hand strike two, then four, then six. Breathing in, breathing out. And when she opened her eyes again, the train had changed completely. Everything was wooden. The industrial plastics had been replaced by dull mahogany. The sticky, pissed, soaked air had thinned. It was suddenly cool, like a window was open and letting in a chilly winter. Margot rubbed at her arms in her thin denim jacket, her cheap summer dress soaked with sweat. She stumbled back to her seat, the car still empty, although not, she suspected, because passengers had changed for Mallowe. The itchy seat coverings that her legs had prickled against just moments before were now a deep red velvet torn in places and showing stuffing. Her legs wobbled as she walked. But one other thing she realised had changed. She wasn't alone anymore. A figure, a man, was asleep with his head against the window. His suit jacket was draped over him like a blanket, and his shoes. A pair of dark, battered brogues were on the seat in front of him. Her seat. She could sit somewhere else. There was, after all, no one else on board. But to sacrifice 57B at this point was to let go of reality. She needed to talk to someone. Anyone. A grown up. She watched him, her gaze packed with need, wondering if that alone was enough to wake him up. His grey eyes opened quickly and fell from her hair to her feet, taking detailed mental notes on each part of her. Margot could do nothing but stare back. He was not, as it turned out, a grown up. What age he was exactly, she couldn't tell. Every element of his appearance both proved and contradicted the idea of maturity. His mess of thick brown hair said boy. The grey streaks in it said man. His quick, mischievous smile was definitely boy. His dark suit was absolutely man. The one thing about him that didn't figure into the algebra of how old he was was the tattoo that started at his temple and arched around his left eye. The tattoo. The tattoo was the thinnest sliver of a crescent moon. Hello, he said at last.

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