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PODCAST

The Shift with Sam Baker

The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women"s voices once they pass 40? That"s where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is

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All Episodes

61:23

Charlotte Mendelson – middle-aged women are entitled...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/26

This season is dedicated to helping you pick your summer reads and my guest today is the novelist Charlotte Mendelson whose writing has been compared to “late Shakespeare meets Modern family!” So you know where to turn if you’re looking for a painfully funny, on the nose look at the dynamics of love and marriage.Charlotte worked as a publisher for twenty years before becoming an award winning novelist. She’s written seven bestselling novels, the most recent of which are The Exhibitionist and Wife,

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50:21

Betsy Lerner is on a mission to destigmatise mental...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/19

My guest this week is the novelist Betsy Lerner. Now Betsy is here to talk about her critically acclaimed debut novel, Shred Sisters, which takes us from the 1970s to the 90s and tells us the story of two troubled sisters, Amy and Ollie. No less a legend than Patti Smith described it as “moving like a souped up pick up truck” - and who am I to argue with Patti, it does! I loved it. Betsy only turned to fiction in her early sixties. Before that she had a prolific career in the publishing

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55:48

Nicola Sturgeon on life after leadership

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/12

This week I’m delighted to welcome back to The Shift one of my most listened-to guests, Nicola Sturgeon.When we last spoke, at the start of 2022, Nicola was First Minister of Scotland - the first woman to hold the role, the first woman in 600 years to be the keeper of the seal. And During her tenure, she was widely acknowledged to be one of the most impactful politicians of her generation. During our last conversation, she spoke for the first time about how it felt to experience menopausal

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55:36

Sarah Perry on "becoming a woman who didn't have...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/08/05

My guest today is the award-winning novelist Sarah Perry. Sarah is the internationally bestselling author of four novels, but the one you will almost definitely heard of (and may well have watched) is The Essex Serpent. Published in 2016, it sold over half a million copies, and won both British Book of the Year and Waterstones book of the year before being made into an apple tv+ series starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston (Sarah was an extra!). Sarah has also been nominated for the booker prize,

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61:45

Glynnis MacNicol: everything you've been told about...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/29

What happens when the life you find yourself leading in midlife doesn’t tick all the supposed boxes? That’s the situation today’s guest found herself in. Glynnis MacNicol was 46 - a woman of a so-called certain age who found herself living life without a roadmap when, in august 2021, after almost 18 months spent alone in lockdown, she picked herself up and packed herself off to Paris for a month of living, loving and, well, pleasure. I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is the story of that month - a

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68:24

Steph McGovern on money, menopause & staying out of...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/22

Crime novels might not be the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the name Steph McGovern. Steph is an award-winning broadcaster who is currently co-host of The Rest Is Money podcast with Robert Peston. At the start of her career in journalism, Steph worked for BBC news behind the scenes (despite having been told that “people like you don’t work for the BBC”), before moving in front of the camera as the business reporter on BBC Breakfast. She went on to present her own show, Steph’s

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40:15

Alison Bechdel on tarot, ageing & why men are scared...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/15

The last of our archive episodes this time around is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Spent, Alison's new graphic novel-come-memoir, reminded me of the conversation we had back in 2021. Here it is...---- My guest this week is the cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Probably best known for the Bechdel test - a tongue in cheek method she came up with in the 80s for assessing gender bias in movies. She became a household name when Fun Home, her graphic novel/memoir about coming out and her father’s death,

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42:16

Esther Freud on upending your life in your 50s - THE...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/08

This week we're going way back in The Shift archives, to one of the earliest episodes I recorded with novelist Esther Freud. This summer Esther will be a guest of The Shift bookclub, to talk about her new novel, My Sister and Other Lovers - her long-awaited sort-of-sequel to her smash hit autofiction, Hideous Kinky, about her childhood with her sister Bella Freud (who was on The Shift podcast last autumn - listen here). Here's the chat Esther and I had back in 2021...---- How does it feel to come

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48:53

Helen Garner on divorce, ageing and the erotic gaze -...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/07/01

We're heading back to the archives for the next few weeks and first up here's one of my favourite episodes. With the desperately overdue publication of her brilliant diaries, How To End A Story, in the US and UK, the Australian novelist Helen Garner is finally, finally getting some of the credit she's due up here in the Northern hemisphere. Here's our chat...---- My guest today is the writer Helen Garner. I’m pretty sure that right now you are either going, wow I LOVE her, or looking a bit vague

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47:01

Molly Jong Fast: confessions of a bad daughter

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/06/24

My guest today is the journalist Molly Jong Fast. The author of four books, Molly started writing about politics in 2016. She’s now a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a political analyst for MSNBC News and host of the Fast Politics Podcast.But she is also the daughter of the novelist Erica Jong, who in the 1970s wrote a novel that became synonymous with the sexual revolution. Fear of Flying, featuring Jong’s alter ego Isadora Wing, sold 20 million copies and coined the phrase the zipless

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54:37

Jo Hamilton: The Post Office scandal stole 20 years...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/06/17

This is a really special episode and one I’m honoured to be trusted with.Because my guest today is Jo Hamilton, one of more than 700 British sub postmasters who was prosecuted between 2000 and 2014 by the Post Office. Falsely accused of stealing £36,000 Jo was ordered to put right a wrong she hadn’t committed, forced to remortgage her house and borrow from anyone she could in order to repay money that she had never taken. But it wasn’t just money. Jo lost so much more. Her confidence, her trust,

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62:58

Olia Hercules: my periods vanished when the war started

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/06/10

My guest today is the Ukrainian chef, food writer and activist Olia Hercules.Olia was born in the South of Ukraine and has lived in the UK since her late teens. After working in journalism she decided to follow her heart, her stomach and arguably her heritage, and become a chef. She trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, worked in kitchens, including as chef de partie for Yotam Ottolenghi and as a recipe developer. But her mission is to make people rethink their attitude to eastern

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53:37

Melissa Febos on what she learnt from a year of celibacy

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/06/03

My guest today is the author and essayist, Melissa Febos.Melissa has written four award winning books - Whip Smart, Abandon Me, Girlhood (which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the states) and Body Work. She’s won too many prizes to mention here and her writing has appeared all over the place! In her mid thirties, after, let’s just say a pretty horrific two year relationship, Melissa decided to step away not just from sex, but love, relationships, intimacy in general. At first for

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54:34

Reeta Chakrabarti on growing older & bolder

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/05/27

My guest this week is the journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti.After two decades producing and reporting for the BBC, Reeta became a news presenter at the age of 49. She was the main BBC presenter in Lviv in Western Ukraine and is now one of the chief presenters of BBC news at 6 and BBC news at 10. Brought up in Birmingham, as a teenager Reeta went to school in Calcutta before returning to the UK to go to university. She joined the BBC in 1992 where she started on Radio One Newsbeat and

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57:36

Jeanine Cummins on confidence, identity and surviving...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/05/20

My guest today is the bestselling novelist Jeanine Cummins. You might think you haven’t heard of her, but I’ll be pretty surprised if you haven’t heard of the book that catapulted her into the public eye, American Dirt. A story about a Mexican mother and son escaping to America after their entire family is massacred by a drug cartel, which Oprah said, “humanised the migration process in a way nothing else I’d ever felt or seen had,” Jeanine was in her mid-40s, with two novels and a memoir under

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56:11

Jennifer Weiner on Ozempic, ageing and growing some...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/05/13

My guest today is the bestselling American novelist Jennifer Weiner.I first encountered Jen When her debut novel, Good In Bed, was thrust into my hands by someone I worked with on Company magazine. It was the first time I’d ever read a mainstream novel whose lead character was a fat woman who didn’t need fixing. Good In Bed was a smash hit on both sides of the atlantic but for some reason it has taken until now to make its way to the big screen. It’s being adapted for HBO and starring Mindy

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63:01

Naga munchetty on her 30 year battle to get her...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/05/06

To launch season 17 (season 17! I know!) I have a very special guest.Back in 2023, British journalist and BBC breakfast and radio 5 live presenter Naga Munchetty hit the headlines when she spoke out about having been diagnosed with a gynaecological condition called adenomyosis. When I heard the clip I did a double-take because I too have adenomyosis, and, like Naga, it took me well over two decades to get diagnosed. But also I hadn’t heard of it before I was diagnosed and had never heard of

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56:32

Clover Stroud on grief, love, sex & sisterhood - THE...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/04/29

Last of my trips back into The Shift archives is this conversation with Clover Stroud. Since this conversation, Clover has written another memoir, The Giant on the Skyline about our relationship with home (borne in part out of moving her family from her home in Oxfordshire to Washington DC where her partner's job is based). Since then A LOT has changed. She has also launched an excellent substack, On The Way Life Feels.The original show notes: It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the

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44:17

Tracey Thorn on being a woman in a bloke's world,...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/04/22

This conversation with legendary musician Tracey Thorn from one of The Shift's very early seasons is one of my very favourites. Back then covid was still a thing and these chats on zoom with incredible women were my life rafts. Anyway, we're revisiting Tracey because by the time you listen to this episode, Everything But The Girl will have very tentatively put their toe back on the stage at a couple of very small gigs in London. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (as I know Tracey doesn't loooove

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43:39

Maggie O'Farrell on Hamnet, imposter syndrome and why...

The Shift with Sam Baker ·

2025/04/15

Back in the mists of time, Maggie O'Farrell was one of my very first guests on The Shift. So, as she celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of her very first novel, After You'd Gone and we wait with bated breath for the movie of her smash hit bestseller Hamnet (starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, directed by Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, and co-written by Maggie and Chloe), I thought now was a good time to revisit our conversation from back in 2020. Since then

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