#35 Heather Havrilesky (Columnist "Ask Polly") - On Writing, Giving Advice & Not Being A “Guru”

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emma gannon

Authors, Wellbeing, Arts, Books, Social Media, Creativity

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2016

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

She is the sweary big sister of the Internet who gives brilliant and thought-provoking weekly advice via her column “Ask Polly” for New York Magazines “The Cut”. She answers all sorts of questions from “How do I dump my crappy best friend?” to “I’m broke and I hate my job” to “My sister has cancer and I can’t go on.” It’s my favourite weekly column and every week I’m excited to read it. I always learn something important. She has a book that’s just come out called “How To Be a Person In The World” which has a whole load of #AskPolly columns in there, both new and old ones and has had amazing reviews including the New Yorker. She is also the author of the memoir DISASTER PREPAREDNESS (published by Riverhead, 2011) and she was Salon.com's TV critic for 7 years. We talk about writing, standing out from the crowd, writing a column, what advice we take and why being "guru" doesn't appeal.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and today's
0:02.0	I'm
0:05.0	today's guest is a very exciting one.
0:06.6	It's Heather Havrelesky.
0:08.4	And if you don't already read her column, Ask Polly,
0:10.9	then you are missing out. She is like the swary big sister of the internet
0:15.2	who gives weekly advice which she writes for the New York magazines The Cut. She answers
0:19.8	questions such as how do I dump my crappy best friend to I'm broke and I hate my job
0:25.1	to more serious things like my sister has cancer and I can't go on. It's been my
0:30.4	favorite column to read online for a long long time so I'm so happy to have Heather on.
0:35.3	Sorry about my voice I've got a bit of a cold but I didn't have a cold when I interviewed Heather so the rest of the
0:40.8	podcast shouldn't sound so croaky.
0:43.0	She has a book that's just come out called How to be a person in the World,
0:46.0	which is full of loads of Ask Poly columns, both new and old,
0:50.0	and it's already had amazing reviews including the amazing New Yorker.
0:55.0	She's also the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness, published in 2011 by Riverhead,
1:01.0	and she was the salon dot com's TV critic for seven years before
1:05.4	writing the Ask Polly column I can't believe I had the privilege to ask Polly
1:09.5	questions so I hope you enjoy this episode and please do tweet us both if you enjoyed it and thanks again for subscribing. Here it is. I'm glad I've got you I'm so excited to have you on I'm a huge fan of your column and your book.
1:32.0	Thank you.
1:33.0	I think the columns really help people.
1:36.0	You're changing how people are feeling and I know that I look forward to receiving the new alerts of like your new columns and do you think that's one of the
	...

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