Welcome to the Art of Being a mum podcast, where I Alison Newman, a singer songwriter, and Ozzy mum of two enjoys honest and inspiring conversations with artists and creators about the joys and issues they've encountered. While trying to be a mum and continue to create. You'll hear themes like the mental juggle, changes in identity, how their work has been influenced by motherhood, mom guilt, cultural norms, and we also strain to territory such as the patriarchy, feminism, and capitalism. You can find links to my guests and topics we discussed in the shownotes along with a link to the music played, how to get in touch, and a link to join our supportive and lively community on Instagram. I'll always put a trigger warning if we discuss sensitive topics on the podcast. But if at any time you're concerned about your mental health, I urge you to talk to those around you reach out to health professionals, or seek out resources online. I've compiled a list of international resources which can be accessed on the podcast landing page, Alison Newman dotnet slash podcast. The art of being a mom would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and water, which this podcast is recorded on has been the Bondic people in the barren region of South Australia. I'm working on land that was never seen it. Welcome to another episode. It really is so great to have you. Thank you for joining me. It's my great pleasure to welcome Eliza Hall to the podcast this week. Eliza is a musician, a writer, a speaker and a disability advocate and a mum of two from regional Victoria in Australia. Eliza is an award winning musician her music has been described as staring captivating and heartfelt. She's regularly played on radio around Australia and internationally, including on the ABC Radio National the BBC Double J and Triple J. She recently performed her new song running underwater on a BCS q&a TV show and performed at SX SW in Austin, Texas and big sound festival to showcase and present a panel on accessibility. Eliza songs are also featured in ABC Kids TV show, and then something changed ABCs The heights and American TV shows awkward Teen Wolf and saving hope. Recently Eliza was awarded the music Australia amplify award the AHPRA mentorship from women in music, the National Leadership Award from the Australia Council and Art Access Australia and the Women in Music Award. Eliza his debut EP dawn came out in 2012 and showcased her eclectic approach to sound. Later in that same year. Eliza recorded her second EP The ghosts you never catch which is full of the intensity, emotion and storytelling which characterizes Eliza his music. Eliza has a fifth studio record coming out very soon, which will feature here they come and running underwater. Eliza is making change in the music industry. The time is now for greater representation of disabled musicians and Eliza is a huge part of this movement. As an author Eliza has been involved in three books. Come over to my house with Australian author Sally Wilson is a picture book that explores the home lives of children and parents who are deaf or disabled. She's the editor and creator of we've got this stories by Disabled Parents. It features 25 stories from Disabled Parents from around Australia. And the book was developed after a very successful podcast series on ABCs Radio National. One in five Australians has a disability and disability presents itself in many ways. Yet disabled people are still underrepresented in the media and in literature. Eliza was a contributor to growing up disabled in Australia. The book compiled by writer and appearance activist Carly Findlay oh am and in the book more than 40 writers with a disability or chronic illness share their stories in their own words. Eliza is also a panelist and speaker and a spoken at the Human Rights Convention free and equal for the NDIS Brunswick Music Festival, the wheeler Center and the changes Music Conference. Eliza was a panelist on ABCs q&a TV show, and she's also an access consultant for live music venues and organizations. I sincerely hope you'll be inspired by Eliza to make positive changes in your own workspace, community or perhaps even your own mindset. The music you'll hear today is Eliza is owned. And you can find more by going to her website Eliza whole.com Or I've placed a link in the show notes. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and thank you again for tuning in.

Oh EB legs will now move. It's just the way it's gonna be. Maybe I don't feed Why don't you want me to be all these cookie cutter version? not doing me any welcome alive. It is such a pleasure to meet you and to have you on the podcast. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me.

I gotta admit, I've been a fan of your music for quite a while you've got incredible voice it reminds me like of a bit like Janis Joplin with that sort of growly kind of thing you got going on.

Thank you so much. He actually has a big influence in what I'm actually so nice to hear.

So, we're about to you in Victoria.

So I live in regional Victoria in Castlemaine.

Yeah, right. Yep. How many is in Castlemaine? Is that like a big one? No, no,

I don't know the exact figures. And I know that they're constantly changing. We're getting a lot of people coming to Castlemaine from Melbourne, especially during COVID, which we still are in but, you know, a little bit posted, I guess. And we're still getting that real influx of people, especially from the northern suburbs of Melbourne, moving to Castlemaine. It's about an hour and 20 minutes down the freeway and you can get an express train for an hour to Melbourne as well. So it's quite close to Melbourne, but also has the real qualities that a regional town has. So it's really beautiful.

Yeah, that's nice. I just came back from a week in Ballarat. Which I don't think you're further north. I think that's right. Yes, awesome signs actually. And we have this like in South Australia, we say Castle, we don't say castle, but my mum's Victorian. So she often just reminded me straightaway when I saw this a lot. That's quite funny.

So as I said, You're a singer, but you're also an author, and you're a disability advocate having disability yourself, and you do speaking. So what sort of came first for you to was it the writing or the music that that you sort of got into first.

So the music came first. It was kind of the deal with my parents. So I wouldn't be able to leave the home my hometown of Albury Wodonga unless I had a uni degree to go to. And so I enrolled into a Bachelor of Communication in journalism, which I'm really glad I did. Because in the end, I've really used those skills anyhow. But I kept just deferring the course and just joining various bands and playing lots of shows, because that was really what was calling me was singing and music. I really wanted to just be a singer. And so yeah, really from the age of 18. That's what I've done. And I've done lots of various projects as a singer and performer. But now, I've gotten into more of the writing space. So I started by putting out a parenting anthology called we've got this, which is about Disabled Parenting. And I shared my own story and interviewed various other parents. And they also wrote their own stories. And then I've just completed an international version of that so with British and American and Canadian writers and interviewed those people over there, which will come out in February of this year. And then yeah, I've worked worked on a children's book, as well with Sally Ripon, who is a good friend of mine, and also lives in Castlemaine. And it was just my idea to create a book that represented various families with disability in a way that was authentic and fun and lively. And she was really on board with the idea and it was very collaborative working with Sally. I think people often question how can you co write a book with somebody but it really is a co write with Sally, because we sit around a table, we share our ideas, we go back and forth. You know, she writes a bit then I write a bit then we go, you know, so it was very collaborative and such an enjoyable process that we're working on our second book now.

Oh, great. I actually had Sally on my podcast last year, and she was talking about your book, come over to my house and I thought it was great because I work in Early childhood education, and there's not very many books, I wouldn't say there's hardly any if there, if any, that use the language and make people aware of, of all the different ways families can exist and homes can exist, and to also make, to make parents aware of Yeah, of that language so that then they can educate their children, and they can be educated themselves on appropriate ways to talk about different families, which I thought was fantastic. And it's good, you know, for educators to to have the right tools to be able to communicate with children. So just find the kids kid to know everything, and they're so clever. And then then adults get their get their views into the kids heads, and they all change and it's terrible. It's so true. Can you tell us what the next book is about? Or is it a bit of a sacred at this stage?

It's about the social model of disability really. So the social the social model is that the world is disabling. So that really was like a real aha moment for me when I learned the social model. So it made me think about what how is the world disabling. For instance, when I arrive at a building, and because I have a physical disability, it means if there's stairs up into that building, that's a building I can't get into. Whereas if there was a ramp up into a building, I would feel less disabled by my environment. And that really was like, Oh, wow, like, it's not up to me to change and that I don't need to be fixed. And you know, I don't have a problem and a deficit, it's actually what if we change the world to be more accessible, change the world to be more inclusive. And, you know, that can be lots of different reasons, reasons, ways. For instance, having an Auslan interpreter for people that are deaf, or having image descriptions for people that are blind, that's all the way that we can change the world to be more inclusive. So the children's book is really in a way a explainer of how we can change the world. And it's has two characters, a disabled child and a non disabled child. And it happens due to the disabled child inviting, so rather than non disabled child inviting the disabled child over for a play, and realizing that their house isn't accessible, and so feeling really bad about that, and not talking to the child for lunchtime, because they feel so embarrassed and bad about it. And then they then go to the playground, they decide that that's the best way to meet after school and the playgrounds inaccessible as well for this wheelchair, wheelchair user. And so that's when they decide that they're going to build an accessible world together. And they do that in a really beautiful way. And I guess, yeah, just to show how we can just change the world and we don't need to change the person.

Hmm, that's a that's a really powerful message. That social model of disability that I had, I'd never heard it described that way. And when I've, I think it was Carly Finley that I first heard it said three and I just thought, ah, like, it's obvious, it makes so much sense. But why is our world reluctant to do this? Like, why do we have to only cater for particular people? How about okay, you know, that's fantastic. You're doing that. Because like I said, like the kids that are amazing, and get the kids keep to keep doing what they want to do, the world will change

and Exactly, exactly, be fantastic. Yeah. And I think you know, the kids are the future so that I feel like it's so important that that's where we start really with changing the way the world sees disability.

That brings me to a song that you performed on q&a. I'm not sure when that was actually when was that?

A good question. So it's like, what year is it? It was the end of 2021.

Yeah, right. And I actually watched that again this morning, because I remember when I first saw it for the first time, and it was just had me in tears, and had me in tears again this morning. But that's, that's literally, that's the description of how it feels to try and fit into a world that doesn't include you. And that sounds a horrible thing to say, but it's true, isn't it?

Yeah, I feel like that that analogy of running underwater was just a way to say how heavy it can feel at times when you feel really good. A friend. But not only different when you feel like you don't belong really, and you don't feel included in a world and you feel discriminated against. And yeah, that's when it becomes really hard. I think that when I did the parenting book, we've got this it really showed that the greatest obstacles parents with disability face, it's not what happens inside the home. It's actually what happens outside the home where you face medical discrimination or people staring or inaccessible, inaccessible spaces. And yeah, so I think that it's really up to society to start in a recognizing that we are 20% of the population and that we deserve to include and be included in the world.

Absolutely, yes.

from you I remember when I was five, they told me the podcasts that you did, we've got this did that come after the book was that before?

So it was always an idea, my idea that it should be a book, first and foremost, that was because really, it was just that I wanted a book like this to exist when I was deciding to become a parent. And I couldn't find anything out there, there was absolutely nothing. And so luckily, at that time, I saw that the ABC was offering scholarships for regional people with disability. And so I applied with the idea to make a series on parenting with disability and got chosen, which was great. And that then became, we've got this after the audio series went so well. I then pitched the idea as a book, but it was always my idea that it would be a book. So that was great. That happened.

That's wonderful. Now Good on you. So you mentioned about being a parent, How many children do you have?

So I've got two children. One is seven, and one is to

Oh, awesome.

In the midst of full on parenting, young children, yeah.

Oh, that's awesome. I love that that age gap. I've got seven years between my two. Fun fun times, I've got seven and almost 15. And it's just you just feel like, I don't know, you read two worlds at once. You feel like that time is absolutely on learner and a seven year old Yeah.

Have you found then that the children have fit into your career, I guess doing your music and doing your writing? Did that sort of take a break at all when you had two kids? Or was that something that you used to sort of keep going, I suppose and keep your identity while you became a mom?

Yeah, I haven't. I haven't really stopped to think the first pregnancy and birth. So that was my daughter, Isabel. I think I took a bit more time off, I gave myself that break, after giving birth, I might have had nine or 10 months. I mean, there's not even that much. I've just doing absolutely nothing. But then started to make more music and released my album at that time. So that was already recorded. So record the last song when I found out I was pregnant. So I kind of felt like I needed to get that out anyway. And then with Archie who's you know, two and a half now. I took maybe six months off, and then just kept going. And I guess the way it's fitted in my life is that because I don't really worked for a person. I'm kind of freelancing with my music and my speaking engagements. And my writing. It just kind of fits around them. And that's really worked really well. So for instance, when he naps for the two hours in the day, I just get a lot done. And I think having that constraint of time has actually been really beneficial for me because it's like, Okay, two hours go. And then I took 10 I also work the other two hours of the night in the night. But yeah, sometimes it can be challenging, and we haven't used any childcare up until this point, but that's because I've got such an incredible mother in law. So at any time, I'll be able to say can you come stay we've got a really great luckily When we bought our house is a guest house at the back of the house. So she, she gets to be in her own space and come and stay. And she'll do that anytime I go away. Yeah,

that's awesome having that support massive, isn't it?

I wouldn't be able to do what I do without her. Yeah, yeah,

I can definitely relate to that. I mean, my family here. I was thinking about that the other day, like, the times when you've got gigs on at night and or at rehearsals or anything, like, just how would you do it? If you didn't have help? Like, you just couldn't? Exactly just take for granted sometimes I think that I don't know, it's pretty important.

Something I like to talk to all my guests about is this concept of mum guilt. And I put that in air quotes, because I think it's a I don't like the word, because I hate the word guilt. But have you got any thoughts about that?

Well, yeah, man, it's a huge thing. For me. I think for me, it was, it's one of my way I feel it the most. So I really don't like the feeling when I'm at an airport or in a different city. And I see a mother with a child. It just like, Yeah, I'm just like, why am I not that mother? Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Like it? Just yeah, it feeds into that guilt can be really a horrible feeling. And then you kind of realize that, who knows what that mother's feeling in that moment? And maybe, No, tomorrow, she'll be going on a trip or, you know, I guess it just for some reason, you always think that you are doing the wrong thing. And I guess what I've realized is when I'm at home, I'm sometimes feeling like, Oh, I really want to do some work. And then when I'm working, I really want to be at home. I think that ultimately, being a mother makes you really feel very divided. Yeah, so it's just a constant. And I went to America in March last year, that was a big thing to go for. I went for 11 days without the kids and yeah, that was really very tricky. And only because it was such an incredible opportunity and that I had got the funding to go did I go? But they were actually fine. It was me that struggled the most. Always away. Yeah, so I'm off to the UK in May this year for a tour for the month of May and I've decided we're all going to they're gonna go as a family this time. Just make a trip of it and really enjoy it.

No good on Yeah, yeah. I that it's very common thing. People talk about this. This when you when you're doing your work, or doing your art or creativity, you feel bad, because you're not with the kids. But then when you're with the kids, you think Oh geez, I really want to be guided to do that. Constantly constant battle in your head isn't absolutely yeah, thanks even half and then I say is it there's no answer to it. You just got to say different air we deal with it say call me a silver

timer. Wrong. pill has becoming a meme changed? Or has it changed the way that you write your music? Approaching music? Yeah,

I think that is kind of what I was saying before. The fact that when you have time constraints, you generally you cannot you can either go two ways for somebody, it could be that, that in the end is like you know, you can't be creative because you feel like you're under the pressure. But for me, it's worked really as an advantage. Because it's given me that kind of like, okay, you can't just sit here and the piano for a day anymore. And you know, maybe think of a verse, you really got to like, get it out. And so I think that that's what's helped me the most. I've also just wanted to do it really right this time. So for this next record that I'm about to put out, which has running running underwater on it, that I did on q&a, I just made sure that it was really well executed and like I looked into every lyric I can just I guess it was a bit more want to do if I'm going to be away from my kids, I'm going to leave the house and spend all that time and spend all that financial money into into my music, that I really should be putting everything into it and doing it really? Right. So I guess that's what has led to that. Whereas, perhaps before children, I just would have been like, that's fine. Like, you know, let's just experiment. Whereas now, it's very, yeah, I don't know, I guess what the word is just. It's, it's has to be a bit more professional, probably. Ultimately.

I was thinking the other day, when I make my music, I always think it might be the last guy that I get to do something. Because now that I have two children, and I'm getting older, you know, so I feel like that, that I take, I have that sort of mentality, because I feel like I might not get another 10 If you know what I mean, it's good to do this, because I've always wanted to do this. I've always wanted to put this into songs I've got to do at this time, because I'll never do which sort of makes you feel old. Me I'm saying?

No, I really relate to that. Absolutely.

Waking up with a natural, dry yo.

Promise one day do you find that you need your music and your creativity to keep you going as mum to have that outlet? is really important for you?

Yeah, yeah, I think it. I mean, I feel like mothering is creative, though, as well. I think being you know, doing craft activities, or even just the way that they look at the world is really creative. And then we spent almost half the day looking at the clouds making images from the clouds the other day, and I was like, wow, we really are, they really can't be present vervain in the moment. And so I find mother mothering creative just like I find cooking creative. But I think you know, that outlet of singing for me is just something that I just always wanted to do and have always really done since I was little. And it's just an outlet. It's like a you know, if you're like, feeling like emotional or if you're feeling heightened, or you just it just expressing that enables me to feel like I'm getting it out.

So what inspires you when you write your lyrics and write your songs, your obviously your, your, your disability and your place in the world do you do kids come through as well in your writing?

Not Yeah, no, not really. And actually, that's a lie. The record that I released last, how we disappeared was really about moving away from Melbourne away from the city and there was one song on there that's called Valentine. And that was because my daughter was born on Valentine's Day. It actually kind of seems like a bit of a love song that you could think it was about a relationship but yeah, it's about her. So yeah, I haven't read a song about my son yet but maybe one day this particular record that's about to come out Yeah, it doesn't touch on the kids at all it's about Yeah, like unraveling my you know my true self being authentic identity my disability Yeah, just kind of things from the past as well.

How old were you when you started writing?

I got given a piano luckily, well, unlucky unlucky and that somebody passed away, but lucky and that they left it for me. When they did in there. They wanted somebody that was wanting to be a musician to take it. And that was I think when I was about 14, and so when the day that arrived, I sat on it and wrote my first song. It just kind of poured out of me. Yeah, and I look back at that time because I'm like, wow, the chords for that song not really quite advanced, to be honest. Maybe not so much theoretically. But it was just like, you know, angsty song that I wrote About heartbreak.

Hmm, we've very close to the sinuses getting person you can you can tell me if this is appropriate, the person that passed away to have the PR, did you have a connection with them at all?

No, not at all. So that's why I didn't I might have felt a bit disconnected by that. But um, it was actually just my father owned a business screen printing business and his graphic designer. That was his mother. Okay, so it was really just like a Yeah, connection to the family. And is he's a piano because your daughter is a musician.

Oh, that's nice. That got got passed down. And

yeah, it's still my piano. Yes. I've still got it. In the studio outside. And yeah, it's great. I still play. Well,

that's nice. Do your kids play music at all really? Interested in it? Yeah.

So my daughter's learning piano and we just got her a keyboard for Christmas this year. And yeah, she's absolutely loves it. So that wasn't something I pushed. Or it was like, you know, she does karate she does piano she does. So because it was like, these are this is on offer. What would you like to do? And we always check in and say, so want to go there? Because we can stop that. But not absolutely loves them. But I don't want to be one of I guess I didn't want to be the one that pushes her to do to be to do what I do.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can relate to that. I tried for many years to get my son to I put didn't push him. I just say, Oh, do you want me to show you something on the piano? Or do you want me to teach your song or any my husband plays? Guitar? Do you wanna play dad's guitar? No. And then he picked up the recorder, which turned into the bagpipes. Oh, wow, there you go. And I have a feeling that he might deliberately pick something that neither myself or my husband knew anything about. So we couldn't do it. It's not like, I think as a as a you know, a musical parent you like you want your kid to experience it. Because you know how great it is, you know, you know how much you love it and how much it gives you. And you know, it's not about being good at something. I think you just want them to experience how amazing it can be. Yeah, so I was very pleased when he decided to play something. Even though it's actually, in monastery, it's one of those instruments, you just when he plays it, sometimes you will take it out in public, and people just love it. Like they just people love hearing it. You know, when it's played? Well, it's

listening to the art of being a mom, with my mum, Alison Newman.

So with your, with your music and your writing, do you sort of want your kids to see what you're doing? As a Liza, sort of, in addition to what they see as mum, like, is that important to you? That they they see that you? You do things other than mother?

Yeah, I think so. I think that. Yeah, I think it kind of comes as a surprise in a way when they finally realize that you are an individual. I think that my son is two and a half he has no idea that I've had any individual hope for him at the moment. But yeah, it's about my daughter. I feel like she's starting to really get it. And it's yeah, it's really beautiful to for her just to witness my you know, songwriting process and the shows to come to the shows and see what I do and

yeah, and in regards to your advocacy, is that important that the kids see that that you're really trying to create a world for everybody, but it's inclusive space. Yeah,

I'd almost say that's more important actually. Yeah, I think that disability is is really ingrained in this home the word what it means how we treat people. So I feel really hopeful that both my kids Archie and Isabel will be just really inclusive children and I've already shown me that Yeah, I think they just like they care really ultimately about me and yeah, they just see disability as something that would have to be celebrated and not feared and yeah, I can really see that already playing.

Now that's awesome. So

won't do that.

And

I wanted to ask you do because I learned this with Sally, I must admit, I'm very naive when it comes to the world of inclusivity. And how to how to engage with people on how they like to be referred to do you like to say you have a disability or you're a person with a disability? Yeah,

I mean, any, any of those. Generally say I'm a disabled person or person with disability, disabled. So that's like identity first language. So, basically, you know, for a long time, so for instance, 80s, there was a lot of words that we use instead of disability, for instance. differently, you know, I guess even just differently abled, or handicapped. There are a lot of worse terminology and some disability slurs that were used. And so people within the disability advocacy space, were fighting for people first language to remind people that disabled people were people, because we were being called so many other things. But now we're moving into a space where we don't feel we need to remind people that we're people, you don't need to say, people with disabilities just to say disabled person is that, you know, I'm proud of my disability, I'm proud of the identity. And I don't have to remind you that I'm a person. And if by, you know, saying that I'm disabled, you can see the barriers that we need to change as well. So yeah, I feel like that's, you know, it took a little while for me to say disabled person, because I just realized that I was actually holding on to a lot of ableism, around disability, I was thinking that disability was a bad word or a negative word, or that it meant that you were less than that it was something that I had really had to work through and realize that that was just because that's what I'd been shown time again, in media, or I've been taught at school, and just by people's attitudes, so it's always you know, what's wrong with you? Instead of, you know, like, can you tell me about your disability, it's always like, that kind of perceived as, as a negative, people will often say how sorry they are and how bad they feel that I, you know, I'm disabled, whereas I just feel like that actually, in the end makes me just feel worse about myself. Like, I think it's more like, I feel terrible that you live in an inclusive sorry, rather, that you live in an inaccessible world. Like I think that that's what our we need to phrase it. Like, when we really look at the world, I mean, diversity in all its forms is really what makes the world I think, a great place to live in. We wouldn't want everyone to be the same.

Yeah, it's interesting that and, and this is so true in so many sectors like schooling and military, anything that I can think of right now, but everywhere in, in sort of white male culture is things have got to be the same because that's easy and you can control it, I suppose. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. It's very yeah

my into deep, biggest Abadi projections, I'm all about sponsors, reactions and feelings this. So when you're growing up, like you said, your dad had the screen printing business, were you sort of inspired by that, to think that you could, if you want to sing, you could see, you know, people can have their own plumbing business, but you know, you don't have to work someone else or anything like that. Like was that? Um,

yeah, I think maybe like seeing that. I also my mom was a drama teacher at school. So I think, you know, having her be so creative, and I was actually her student at it in year 11. So I think you're being in her classroom and seeing the way that she made art and drama, really fun and enjoyable, and you can get paid to do that. Yeah, so I think I got those kinds of skills from her. But I think they ultimately, they were being realistic as well in the way that they sort of singing for me. They saw it as something that really we're proud of It may and but but ultimately maybe something that would have to be a hobby, and I think I'll probably surprise them that as to how much I've just a kept the determination and the need going but also just how well it's done in many ways.

Yeah, good on you. Because that is something that a lot of people I have on the show, they set out, like as you know, teenager, high school, they're going to make art their career. And then their parents might say, oh, you know, you know, might not pay the bills, you know, get a real job, that sort of mentality. And then in their sort of midlife of maybe after they've had kids, they go back to that creativity. And it's like, I don't care so much, you know, I mean, obviously, money is important. But, you know, enjoying yourself in your life is pretty important as well,

exactly, I think, you know, you realize that as time goes on, like, how, you know, let's just be happy, instead of feeling like we have to do certain things. And I think I went to a, it was actually by a publisher, and they were looking ahead at the future generations. And I think more and more from what they're predicting, we will see young people choosing what they love instead of what they think they need to do. And it'll be workplaces that are based on what your talents are, instead of, again, what you think you need to do, or you think you should do.

I love that. It gives you hope for the future, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. People. Yeah, because that's all I know, my son, yours a little bit younger, but my son's at the point where he's got to start choosing subjects for year 11 and 12, for what he wants to do when he leaves school. And I was like, might just pick stuff that you enjoy, like, know what they want to do like it until I was 40. Something to find a career that I really love. So, thankfully,

I feel like we do better at the subjects that we love freely.

Yeah, that's it, isn't it? You got to be passionate about things. And yeah, I think that's why I didn't do very well at maps, because my brain doesn't work that way. But I just had no interest in it. That's my friend at all. Oh, god. Yeah, it's funny.

Dr. B, lives one.

When you go over overseas in May, is that for the international version of the book? Or is that further? Yeah,

I think that's like tying that in, as well as doing a tour. So I'm doing shows. Yeah. All through much. About not much. May. Yeah. All around the UK. Yeah. So lots of different theaters and also at The Great Escape festival. Yeah, cool. But yeah, that'd be incredible. Well, I'll

put some links in the show notes, because I do have international listeners. So if anyone in the neck of the woods Yeah, I'd highly recommend. Like, just say, thank you. You're pretty awesome. Is there anything else you wanted to share before I let you go?

No, I think we touched on everything. Yeah. Thank you so much.

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