Shaparak Khorsandi with Isy Suttie live from Latitude Festival
Ask Penguin
Penguin Books UK
4.1 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2023
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on the Penguin Podcast, we bring you a special episode: Shaparak Khorsandi in conversation with Isy Suttie live from Lattitude Festival.
Shaparak joined us to discuss her latest book, Scatter Brain: How I finally got off the ADHD rollercoaster and became the owner of a very tidy sock drawer.
The two also discuss the subtle distinctions between shame and embarrassment, memories of climbing a pear tree, the life-changing power of an ADHD diagnosis, and how being on I’m A Celebrity gave her a spiritual experience.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Brought to you by Penguin. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello and welcome to the Penguin podcast where we talk to writers about writing. |
| 0:20.0 | I'm Izzy Souti and today we're recording live at |
| 0:23.4 | the Latitude Festival. And I'm going to be talking to brilliant comedian and author |
| 0:31.7 | Shaperac, of course Sandy. Her latest book, Scatterbrain, has been described as hilarious, |
| 0:47.4 | unflinching and wise. And it's a look back on her life through the lens of her ADHD diagnosis, allowing her to finally make sense of the chaos. |
| 0:49.9 | Shapparach, welcome to the Penguin podcast. |
| 0:52.0 | Thank you for having me. |
| 0:56.2 | It's so nice to be that latitude and in a tent and talking books. |
| 0:58.9 | And Shappie's done her gig, so after this. |
| 1:00.4 | Yes, so I'm relaxed now. |
| 1:01.1 | Yeah, brilliant. |
| 1:04.2 | So I would recommend your book to absolutely everyone. |
| 1:07.9 | People who've got ADHD, people who don't have it, people who think they might. |
| 1:09.3 | It's so funny. |
| 1:11.5 | It's so warm and it's so informative about ADHD. I just honestly, it is hilarious. And also playing Pac-Man is how I got through |
| 1:19.4 | writing both of my books. So, yeah. I got a Pac-Man addiction. Yeah, like 45 minutes of Pac-Man, |
| 1:26.1 | 15 minutes of writing. Yeah. Yeah. So you look back on your |
| 1:30.5 | childhood, you look back on school, you look back on your relationships armed with what you now know. |
| 1:36.3 | And by the end, it really feels like you've made peace with some of the chaos that the undiagnosed ADHD has caused you in the past. Did you have a full sense of that piece before you started writing the book? |
| 1:48.0 | No. It was quite cathartic but also quite painful to revisit. |
| 1:53.0 | There was so much of going back over certain incidences which makes so much more sense now that I understand better |
... |
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