My First Time...with Kate Leaver

Kate Leaver is a journalist and author who writes articulately and insightfully about everything from women and travel to pop culture for titles including Glamour, Stylist, The Pool and Cosmopolitan. Given her talent it's amazing that she's only just now published her first book, The Friendship Cure. The first of many to come, we feel.

Kate is reading at The Riff Raff on Thursday 10th May and if you haven't got your tickets yet...what are you waiting for?

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Here's the blurb for The Friendship Cure...

'Our best friends, gal-pals, bromances, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, long- distance buddies and WhatsApp threads define us in ways we rarely acknowledge. There is so much about friendship we either don't know or don't articulate: why do some friendships last a lifetime, while others are only temporary? How do you break up with a toxic friend? And maybe the most important question: how can we live in the most interconnected age and still find ourselves stuck in the greatest loneliness epidemic of our time? It's killing us, making us miserable and causing a public health crisis. What if meaningful friendships are the solution, not a distraction. In The Friendship Cure, Kate Leaver's much anticipated manifesto brings to light what modern friendship means, how it can survive, why we need it and what we can do to get the most from it. From behavioural scientists to best mates, Kate finds extraordinary stories and research, drawing on her own experiences to create a fascinating blend of accessible smart thinking , investigative journalism, pop culture and memoir.'

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Describe the exact moment you decided to write your book?

I was sitting in Hyde Park on an unseasonably warm London day when I read an article in The Atlantic that said we lose friends when we get married and have kids. I was alarmed enough to essentially research and write an 83,000 word reply.

What’s the one thing you wish you’d known before starting to write your book?

That you have to give yourself permission to have bad days – days where you do not reach word count, not even close. Days when you stay in your pyjamas and have a tantrum in front of the telly. Setting a weekly word target is sensible for this very reason – to cater for the empty days, the sullen days, the tantrum days.