Don’t worry if you missed Paris Lees interviewed by Alexandra Heminsley, you can now get unlimited access with Salon On Demand! Now you can pause mid-thought to put the kettle on or fix yourself another cocktail. For just £5 you can watch anywhere, anytime and as many times as you like.
Paris has been promising a book for a decade but has been kind of busy changing the world and finding her own voice. She flirted with fiction before settling on a ‘memoir with fictional bits’ as the way to tell her story. What It Feels Like For A Girl is a story like no other. It stars fabulous teenager Byron, determined to escape a dreary Notts town and the dreary people in it.
What It Feels Like For A Girl is packed with inventive language and a powerful story! Thirteen-year-old Byron needs to get away and doesn't care how. Sick of being beaten up by lads for "talkin' like a poof". Sick of weightlifting, womanising Dad, and Mam, who pissed off to Turkey a la Shirley Valentine. Sick of all the living dead residents of Hucknall, who go on about kitchens they're too skint to do up and marriages they're too scared to leave.
The new millennium dawns, Madonna's Music tops the charts and Byron's happy to beg, steal and skank to be part of it. Life explodes like a rush of ecstasy when Byron escapes into Nottingham's kinetic underworld and discovers East Midlands' premier podium-dancer and hellraiser, the captivating Lady Die. But there’s always a comedown and when this one hits, Byron’s life will change forever.
Paris Lees is a Contributing Editor at British Vogue and has written for VICE, The Guardian and the Telegraph. She’s received multiple awards, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Brighton, for her journalism and work as an anti-bullying campaigner. She was the first openly trans woman to present on BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4 and also the first to appear on Question Time. This is her first book.
Paris was interviewed by bestselling writer and sought-after broadcaster Alexandra Heminsley, author of acclaimed memoir Some Body To Love.
Alexandra is a bestselling writer, journalist and broadcaster. Her books include the memoirs Some Body To Love, Leap In and Running Like a Girl. She’s appeared on the BBC Radio 2 Arts Show as well as the Today Programme and Woman’s Hour. She was the Books Editor of Grazia and Elle and her interviewees include Courtney Love, Jilly Cooper and Jack Monroe.
We were so honoured to talk with Paris on the launch of her debut. Paris and Alexandra enthralled our live audience and we hope you'll enjoy watching the evening back as much we all enjoyed it!
This event is produced and presented by Damian Barr’s Literary Salon.