New Year’s resolutions

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Fiction Prescriptions

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Write in with your dilemmas and our dynamic duo will suggest remedies for the head and heart, drawn from novels, poetry and prose collections.

Contact Isabelle and Ella for a literary check up here:
writersmosaic.org.uk/fiction-prescriptions-dilemmas

Fiction prescribed in this episode:
The World’s Wife (poem: ‘Mrs Beast’) by Carol Ann Duffy
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Still Life by Sarah Winman
The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Archy’s Life of Mehitabel (poem: ‘the lesson of the moth’) by Don Marquis

Isabelle Dupuy (ID): Hi, welcome. My name is Isabelle Dupuy, and this is our new podcast, Fiction Prescriptions. My co-host is Ella Berthoud. Ella, welcome to Fiction Prescriptions.

Ella Berthoud (EB): Thanks, Isabelle. We’re going to be prescribing fiction to cure life’s ailments and looking at different issues every month and giving novels, short stories, and poems which relate to particular themes.

ID: Happy New Year.

EB: Happy New Year.

ID: I know we’re a bit further down 2026, but not that deep into it. Enough, though, to still talk about New Year’s resolutions.

EB: And there’s also going to be how we can help you keep your resolutions if you’re struggling with them a little bit. And we’re going to be discussing what’s in and what’s out in 2026.

ID: Yes. And we already have a feel for it now already, don’t we?

EB: Yeah.

ID: So, what would you say is in, Ella?

EB: So, in is joy. That’s my major attempt for the years. We’re going to have a lot of joy. And we’re going to have a lot of kick-ass women in this year.

ID: Yeah, I agree with that.

EB: And as well as that, happy endings in literature. I just want happy endings. I know a lot of people feel that that’s a bit cheesy and not necessarily what people always want, but right now, I just need happy endings all the time.

ID: I agree. I think happy endings in the world we live in are very, very necessary.

EB: Yeah.

ID: And for me, what is in this year is getting better at rejection, receiving it as a writer, as a woman, as a person, and giving it out as well, because we’re kick-ass women now, and we are also calling our own shots. Another New Year’s, what is in? Social media, out?

EB: Difficult, because I think we all rely on it so much. And personally, for my bibliotherapy business, I really need it. And as an artist, I use it a lot. So, I feel some kind of healthy way of using social media is what we should be striving for.

ID: I think so. I think so.

EB: And balancing it with reading when you’re not interrupted by social media, which is something I’m always telling my bibliotherapy clients, to go and sit in a special place in your house, which is just for reading, turn off your social media, and enjoy that reading time uninterrupted. So, I think healthy use of social media.

ID: I think that’s in for this year. In for this year is focusing without any type of interactive tools. No phone, no laptop, real books.

EB: Yeah.

ID: I think that’s definitely an in for me this year.

EB: So, going back to another thing that’s in, kick-ass women, do you have any particular thoughts on kick-ass women in literature?

ID: Well, kick-ass women come with ramifications because kick-ass women cannot be kick-ass on their own. So, Carol Ann Duffy has this wonderful book called The World’s Wife, which is a collection of poems based on common mythologies and fairy tales. And in it, there is a poem called ‘Mrs Beast’. And it is so awesome that we should all read it as kick-ass women, that part of our ins will also be a Mr Beast, and part of our outs will be a Prince Charming.

EB: Hmm, nice.

ID: And just to give you a little taste of this poem.

‘The Little Mermaid slit
Her shining, silver tail in two, rubbed salt
Into that stinking wound, got up and walked,
In agony, in fishnet tights, stood up and smiled, waltzed,
All for a Prince, a pretty boy, a charming one
Who’d dump her in the end, chuck her, throw her overboard.
I could have told her – look, love, I should know,
They’re bastards when they’re Princes.
What you want to do is find yourself a beast.’

EB: Excellent. Yeah, beasts are in, crap men are out. [Both laugh] Hearing that poem, I just have to mention Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch, which is a fantastic book, which has a kick-ass woman in the form of a mermaid, who’s amazing, and a pretty cool man as well, who’s not a Prince Charming. [ID laughs] He’s a dude. He’s a fisherman.

ID: I haven’t read that book, so I look forward to reading it.

EB: And like a lot of Monique Roffey, it has great sex.

ID: Ah.

EB: Which is something we’re going to come back to later in a future podcast.

ID: Yeah, that should be on our in list, shouldn’t it?

EB: Great sex. I agree.

ID: Yes, I think so. I think so.

EB: One of the things we want to talk about for 2026 is happy endings. Yeah, one of my top books with a happy ending is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which is a fabulous book set in space. It has two women in love with each other in the 1980s, which was not really acceptable, especially if you’re an astronaut. And it has high jeopardy, with one of the women being down in Houston, the other woman being up in a spacecraft, which is about to implode potentially, and she has to bring it back.

ID: It’s quite stressful in the ‘80s to be in space, isn‘t it?

EB: Yeah. And the whole book has this fantastic jeopardy running through it, but it’s all about the relationship.

ID: And love.

EB: And it’s just a fabulous love story, so I love that.

ID: I haven’t read that. I’d love to read that, Ella. Thank you.

EB: Yeah.

ID: That sounds really good.

This is a preview of the show. The full text is available as a PDF here: Fiction Prescriptions: New Year’s resolutions

Next time on Fiction Prescriptions: Is love overrated? Bibliotherapy for the head and heart. Ella and Isabelle reflect on, and provide prescriptions for, love that survives displacement, love that reaches out into the world as opposed to love that isolates, and love that goes beyond death.

(Playful book chat only – not medical advice. If you need serious support, contact samaritans.org)

Ella Berthoud

Ella Berthoud is a bibliotherapist, visual artist and novelist.

Isabelle Dupuy

Isabelle Dupuy is a writer and broadcaster.