S2 #E21 Dr Stella Duffy, OBE: What is it like to be postmenopausal?

Stella Duffy has written seventeen novels. Her last novel, Lullaby Beach was published by Virago in February 2021.She has also written and devised fourteen plays and written over seventy short stories, including several for BBC Radio 4. Her collected stories are published by Salt in Everything is Moving, Everything is Joined. She has won many awards. She wrote and presented the BBC4 documentary How to Write a Mills and Boon. In addition to her writing work, she worked in theatre for over thirty five years. Stella is a regular speaker and campaigner around LGBTQ+, women’s and arts equality and inclusion issues. She was awarded the OBE for Services to the Arts in 2016. She is a qualified yoga teacher, running workshops in yoga for writing, and this year was awarded a doctorate in existential psychotherapy. Her research was in the embodied experience of postmenopause.

Instagram: @stellduffy and @stelladuffytherapy
Twitter: @stellduffy

Stella has experienced a lot. She has been a comedian, actor, writer, speaker, campaigner, yoga teacher and is now a therapist. Also framing her life has been numerous health problems, many more than most of us will ever go through. She went through cancer in her 30s, which lead her into early menopause, is childless by circumstance, had another round of cancer when she was 50, had a mastectomy, a ruptured brain aneurysm, brain haemorrhage, two lots of brain surgery, a hip replacement, and a knee replacement. She had a seriously shit perimenopause. But she is a woman who is truly embracing age, so much so that she has just finished her PhD in existential psychotherapy – which we talk about in the podcast. She wants to change the negative narrative around life post menopause. Menopause is not the end, and Stella is excited how we can live post menopause as the best years of our lives. It is our time to make life choices. And she loves cold water swimming and Saturday night pizza!

Date of episode recording: 2024-10-04T00:00:00Z
Duration: 01.13.10
Language of episode: English
Presenter:Professor Joyce Harper
Guests: Dr Stella Duffy, OBE
Producer: Joyce Harper