Mona Siddiqui’s diary: Golfers without conscience

From prospectmagazine.co.uk

A confrontation over a smashed windscreen and a meeting in Alaska got this professor of religion thinking about reconciliation and renewal 

I am about to begin a new post as professor of religion and society at King’s College, London. I see this privileged role as more than a transition from one institution (the University of Edinburgh) to another. It’s a time for renewal and a moment of self-definition. What kind of colleague do I want to be and what kind of impact can I have on an institution which has put its faith in me at this stage of my career? When you’re lucky enough to be doing what you want in life, a job doesn’t feel like a job. It is more like an extension of your personality, and moving to a new one offers a time to pause, reflect and once again appreciate how lucky you are to be paid to inspire younger minds and play a small part in the culture of learning. 

♦♦♦

Sometimes you have to feel a little sorry for journalists who travel far and wide to frankly see not much. When you’re hoping to break some big news and instead have to cover high-level theatrics, it must feel pointless. And so it was when international media gathered at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage for a summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Our 24-hour news cycle can feel repetitive at the best of times, but much of the TV news coverage was relentless speculation about what might happen during the presidents’ meeting to discuss Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The pressure to fill airtime in this way became tedious. And when the waiting game finally came to an end in Alaska, there was little more to comment on other than a display of remarkable performativity. 

The beaming smile on Putin’s face (whose suit looked sharper than Trump’s) and the US president’s look of self-satisfaction that the whole world was once again watching him delivered little of substance for the Ukrainians and their western allies—no deal, no ceasefire and no peace. Putin received all the honours—the red carpet, the ride in the presidential limousine known as “the Beast” and a parade of spectacular bombers and jets. In the diplomatic world, where symbolism matters almost more than substance, he was calling the shots, and no doubt will be joyously spinning this meeting as an ideological victory back in Russia. 

Trump’s subsequent meeting with Zelensky and European leaders seemed relatively cordial. But it is too early to say whether a proposed meeting between Putin and Zelensky is more stalling—or the beginning of the end of this war.

♦♦♦

I live next to a golf course with idyllic surrounding views. Occasionally I find a golf ball in my back garden, but a couple of weeks ago one hit the front of the house, bounced off the wall and struck my car’s windscreen. The glass cracked badly. 

I went out and, seeing the golfer, called out to him. He came over to the dividing fence looking a little sheepish. When I asked him about the incident he apologised and said he would speak to his insurance company to cover the cost of the damage. His friend muttered something in his ear, and they walked away for a few minutes before the golfer returned. He told me, “my wife deals with the insurance stuff in our house, and she has said not to admit anything.” Feeling angry now with him and his wife, I asked him how he could say this, especially when he had already acknowledged responsibility for hitting the car. He apologised again but said he couldn’t do anything more, and walked away. Could I have taken it further? Probably yes, but was it worth the stress for the sake of a windscreen? By law, the golfer was liable, but I didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with someone who displayed neither a backbone nor a conscience.

♦♦♦

I watched the coverage of VJ day and found the service of remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire particularly poignant. Maybe it was because we remembered those who felt they’d been forgotten, overshadowed in history by the earlier victory declared in Europe. Or maybe, with so much death and suffering in Gaza and Ukraine, it’s difficult to imagine how you construct a path to peace now.

I don’t think we should ever glorify war because the price paid by soldiers and civilians is always too high. But even as we remember the brutality and dehumanisation which is intrinsic to all wars in ceremonies like the one at the arboretum, a lone piper’s performance at a Japanese peace garden in west London reminded us of the enduring importance of reconciliation between countries.

Among many moving moments at the national memorial, Captain Yavar Abbas, a 105-year-old veteran, went “briefly off script” to salute King Charles and thank him and the queen for being there despite Charles’s ongoing cancer treatment. There was applause and tears from many, including the king and queen, as Abbas, himself a cancer survivor, read from his diary entry dated 8th February 1945. “Tomorrow, I hope I will live to do better things,” he said. I hope and pray this is a lesson for us all.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/columns/70924/mona-siddiqui-diary-golfers-without-conscience

7,300-year-old 'diary' of ancient inhabitants uncovered at New Stone Age site in E China's Anhui Province

From en.people.cn

The Shuangdun site museum in east China's Anhui Province has recently reopened to the public after an extensive upgrade, offering a rare glimpse into the lives of Neolithic communities from more than 7,000 years ago.

"These symbols etched on the bottoms of these bowls are like a 'diary' of the Shuangdun people's daily lives," said Shao Libo, a staff member of Bengbu's Shuangdun national archaeological site park, pointing to pottery bowls on display in the museum.

Neolithic pottery inscribed with symbols is displayed at the Bengbu's Shuangdun national archaeological site park in east China's Anhui Province. (Photo/Fu Tiancheng)

The markings on everyday objects quietly record the production activities and routines of ancient inhabitants, Shao explained.

Located in Shuangdun village, Huaishang district, Bengbu city, Anhui Province, the Shuangdun national archaeological site park dates back roughly 7,300 years and is hailed as the "light of the Huaihe River civilization."

Since its excavation, the site has yielded a wealth of valuable artifacts made of pottery, stone, shell, bone, and horn, as well as a multitude of inscribed symbols, providing invaluable insights into prehistoric life in the Huaihe River basin and the origins of Chinese characters.

In June 2025, the site was officially designated as a national archaeological site park.

The upgraded Shuangdun site museum, as an important part of the national archaeological site park, now presents a concentrated selection of the park's significant finds, ranging from symbol-inscribed pottery to early farming tools, each offering a tangible link to the distant past.

Among more than 600 symbols unearthed at the site, researchers have identified both pictographs—depicting fish, pigs, deer, and houses—and geometric signs, including crosses, triangles, grids, and markings resembling counting symbols.

"These symbols serve as a window into people's daily life back then," Shao explained. "For example, the 'pig' symbol changes in shape, with a smaller head and larger belly. It suggests that Shuangdun people might have begun domesticating pigs."

Photo shows symbols engraved on the pottery wares unearthed at the Shuangdun archaeological site in Shuangdun village, Huaishang district, Bengbu city, east China's Anhui Province. (Photo courtesy of the Shuangdun national archaeological site park)

Other discoveries, including carbonized rice remains—both wild and cultivated varieties—as well as fish bones, shells, and net sinkers, point to the development of early agriculture and the importance of fishing and hunting in the local economy.

To protect these invaluable traces of civilization, the park's core area is covered by an 8,000-square-meter protective canopy.

"We follow a principle of minimal intervention," Shao said, noting that reversible techniques are used for conservation, with daily monitoring relying mainly on manual inspection and hydrological monitoring.

An interactive experience hall has been established to help visitors better understand the symbols.

Middle school student Pu Zhou found a cross-grid pattern on a pottery bowl, and thought the symbol looks a lot like the Chinese character "井" (well). He then asked a docent with the museum to verify his conjecture, and learned that it may represent a water pit or cave, showing how ancient people recorded aspects of daily life.

"The combinations and sequences of these symbols reveal a certain level of system," Shao noted. "Similar symbols have been found at contemporaneous sites in the Huaihe River basin, such as the Houjiazhai archaeological site, indicating shared recognition and usage across the area."

These common features, together with the similarities in pottery forms to the Neolithic cultures of the country's Peiligang and Dawenkou archaeological sites, outline a cross-regional exchange network dating back 7,000 years.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun)

https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0828/c90000-20358900.html

Late Hiroshima girl's diary behind drive to preserve A-bomb Dome

From mainichi.jp/english

HIROSHIMA -- Words in a diary left by a teenage girl before she died of acute leukemia 15 years after the Hiroshima atomic bombing became a driving force in preserving the Atomic Bomb Dome in this city's Naka Ward.

While the dome, which withstood the intense heat rays and blast from the bombing, has passed down the devastation to the present day, some locals once called for tearing it down due to the ruins reminding them of horrific memories. The diary written by the girl before she passed away at age 16 pushed the movement forward toward the dome's preservation.

The girl was Hiroko Kajiyama (1944-1960). She was 1 year old when she was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb at her home in Hiroshima's Hiratsukacho district, now part of the city's Naka Ward, about 1.2 kilometers from the bomb's hypocenter. Unscathed, she grew up healthily, until she developed acute leukemia at age 16 and subsequently died. On Aug. 6, 1959, around eight months before her passing, she wrote in her diary:

"Will that painful Industrial Promotion Hall (present-day A-bomb Dome) alone forever remind the world of the dreadful atomic bomb?"

Ichiro Kawamoto, who attended the memorial service on the seventh day after her death, was handed her diary from her mother, and this passage caught his eye.

Hiroko Kajiyama is seen in this photo provided by the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, located in Hiroshima's Naka Ward

Kawamoto, who was exposed to radiation upon entering Hiroshima after the bombing, was calling for donations from people across the country to erect a statue commemorating Sadako Sasaki, who died of leukemia at age 12 in 1955, 10 years after being exposed to the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The statue, called "Children's Peace Monument," now stands at Peace Memorial Park in the city. Kawamoto also later served as a facilitator for the "Hiroshima Orizuru no Kai," a group of elementary, junior high and high school students in Hiroshima.

Back in those days, there was deep-seated sentiment among residents of Hiroshima, such as, "I feel pained every time I see the dome, which reminds me of 'that day.'" The Hiroshima Municipal Government was also unenthusiastic about preserving the ruins.

Kawamoto, together with children of the Orizuru no Kai, launched a signature and donation drive to keep the dome alive.

Eiko Mikami, 78, who joined the campaign as a high school student at her friend's invitation, stood on the streets to raise donations after school and on weekends alongside Orizuru no Kai members. She often faced criticism, such as, "Why are you preserving the dome, which evokes that horrific memory?"

Mikami nevertheless continued her campaign with a sense of urgency, thinking, "If the A-bomb Dome is gone, the memory of the war will be forgotten." She recalls that Kawamoto said, "Out of sight, out of mind." Kawamoto died in 2001 at age 72.

Their steady efforts eventually began to move society. In 1965, then Hiroshima Mayor Shinzo Hamai suggested his intentions to preserve the dome, followed by a Hiroshima Municipal Assembly decision in 1966 to permanently keep it. Mikami, now a resident of Hiroshima's Minami Ward, recalls thinking at the time, "The wishes of Kajiyama have come true." After preservation and anti-seismic work, the A-bomb Dome was registered as a World Heritage site in 1996.

Masahiro Terada, a junior high school classmate of Hiroko Kajiyama, is seen in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima's Naka Ward on Aug. 20, 2025. (Mainichi/Deockwoo An)

While Kajiyama's words significantly impacted the drive to preserve the dome, she is not very well known even in Hiroshima, her hometown, compared to Sadako Sasaki, famous both at home and abroad for paper cranes she folded to pray for her recovery.

In 2019, a group of three junior high school classmates of Kajiyama published a book about her at their own expense out of their wishes to let her be known globally for serving as a catalyst for the dome's preservation. The classmates spent around six years interviewing those who had interacted with Kajiyama, gathering newspaper articles of the time, and compiling their findings into the book, whose title roughly translates to "The A-bomb Dome and Hiroko Kajiyama -- Hiroko's diary and the preservation of the A-bomb Dome."

Masahiro Terada, 82, one of the three classmates who edited the book, recalls that Kajiyama was "full of energy" in their junior high school days, being on good terms with everyone and having a vibrant personality. Terada says he was unaware Kajiyama had been exposed to the atomic bomb.

An entry in her diary dated Aug. 6, 1959, states, "They say people exposed to the atomic bomb would die early. Whenever I hear things like that, I feel I might die tomorrow, or even today."

It was years later that Terada, now a resident of Hiroshima's Asaminami Ward, got to know Kajiyama's feelings despite being healthy at the time. "It is as if she were foreseeing her own death. She was insightful," Terada thought.

The book records her upbringing and how she was exposed to the atomic bomb, as well as how her diary led to the preservation of the A-bomb Dome. The three classmates initially planned to print 100 copies to distribute to fellow classmates, but after orders flooded in from researchers, libraries and others, they have printed a total of 400 copies by now.

"Had there not been that diary, the A-bomb Dome would have been demolished. It is precisely because the dome exists that the tragedy of the atomic bombing can be passed down to future generations," Terada believes.

(Japanese original by Deockwoo An, Hiroshima Bureau)

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250827/p2a/00m/0na/009000c 

Diary of a Gen Z Student: Leaving Cert results aren’t the be-all and end-all

From irishexaminer.com

By Jane Cowan

It’s normal for results day not to pan out the way you might have envisioned it 

The day before my Leaving Cert results were due to come out, I chopped about 8in off my hair. A bob seemed like a suitable distraction. Because I needed to feel something other than the total nausea that I had thinking about those Leaving Cert results.

It worked for a good hour, while I freaked out about making such a drastic, life-altering decision. Then I quickly returned to my previous state of panic at the thought of receiving grades that I thought would determine the rest of my life.

I had always been a diligent student. I worked hard, never missed a homework assignment, and studied for every class test. In sixth year, I would watch the news in German, just to keep on top of my vocab.

As someone who had always performed well in school, it was expected that I would also achieve highly in the Leaving Cert. It was a pressure I felt from my peers, my teachers, my family, and myself.

Throughout most of my schooling, academic achievement never felt like I had achieved anything. It felt like some sort of minimum requirement. Being able to get good grades had become inextricably wound up in my identity.

Other things that made up my identity seemed less important: being one of four children, having a love for books and films, playing the piano, swimming, having great friends, and cooking for my family. None of those things were as crucial to how I viewed myself as the ability to achieve academically. So it felt like a lot more was riding on my results than getting into college.

That pressure was something I couldn’t really admit to, because admitting to it seemed like saying that I had never been that clever to begin with. For most of sixth year, I didn’t sleep more than five or so hours on any given night. My skin broke out with the stress. I sacrificed my hobbies, in favour of academics. I found it really difficult.

But I was convinced that getting the grades I needed to get into my college course would be this moment of total elation. I thought it would somehow prove that I could live up to the expectations that people had of me. I hoped academic achievement from the Leaving Cert would really count for something.

Still, on the morning I opened my results and realised I would get into the university course I wanted, I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t happy about it. I had checked all the boxes that I was supposed to. I was looking forward to going to college but I didn’t feel like I had accomplished anything. I was just vaguely relieved that it was all over — but not proud of myself.

Jane Cowan: 'Throughout most of my schooling, academic achievement never felt like I had achieved anything.' Picture: Moya Nolan

Fast-forward to today, and I’m about to enter my final year of college. I’ve reflected a lot on Leaving Cert results day over the years. I’ve learnt a lot about academic validation since then. It’s probably something that happens when you leave school, that you can see life as a lot bigger than academics or any one exam result.

My priorities have shifted. Of course, I still want to do well in college. You’ll often find me spending late nights and early mornings in the library. But I also want to enjoy my life around college as well. I’m no longer waiting for an exam result to tell me how I should feel about myself, something I couldn’t conceptualise for myself on the day of the Leaving Cert results. I didn’t realise that academics being just one area of my life was an option.

I know that today there are students probably feeling how I felt on Leaving Cert results day. Like the achievement you worked towards was underwhelming more than anything. Or maybe you didn’t achieve what you were hoping you would; that can feel like a rupture in your identity. I’ve been there. But over the years, I’ve learned to hold those things with a little more levity. I’ve been rejected for a scholarship in college. I’ve gotten disappointing grades in exams. But once you start to see things that don’t work out as being part of the process, and an inevitable part of everyone’s life, you can gain some perspective. It’s normal for results day not to pan out the way you might have envisioned it.

And despite how it can feel on results day, your whole life hasn’t just been decided. Points aren’t supposed to tell you how you should feel about yourself. In a few years, those grades probably won’t seem all that important.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/people/arid-41690790.html

The Artist’s Guide To Keeping a Diary

From anothermag.com

Coco Capitán, Ed Templeton, Vinca Petersen, Lina Scheynius and Clem MacLeod talk about the practice of journalling – plus their best advice for anyone wanting to start

                                                                      Coco Capitán Diary, 2018Courtesy of Coco Capitán

Whether you’ve been writing a diary since you were six or ignoring the empty Moleskine you bought last year, there’s much to learn from the way artists keep their journals. Julia Cameron explores this in her cult 1992 book The Artist’s Way, which has seen a quiet resurgence among young creatives in recent years. Written at the height of the self-help boom, some of its inner-child and spiritual rhetoric may feel a little prosaic today, but its foundational practice of ‘morning pages’ – writing three handwritten pages of stream-of-consciousness text upon waking – is what the book is most famous for. 

You don’t have to have read The Artist’s Way to know that diary-keeping has long served as a companion to the creative life, fortifying and informing the work of countless artists. Sophie Calle turned her diary pages into artworks of intimacy and control; Tracey Emin’s caustic scrawlings have been transformed into neon sculptures; and David Wojnarowicz filled over 30 journals during his short life, several of which became seminal works of queer literature. Whether writing for love, politics or radical self-definition, each artist has seemingly shared a compulsion to put pen to paper to make sense of life. Literary figures from Joan Didion to Susan Sontag have written much on the power of the practice, with the latter stating, “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.”

Here, five creatives – Coco Capitán, Ed Templeton, Vinca Petersen, Lina Scheynius and Clem MacLeod – share how journaling has informed their work and guided them through important moments in life, as well as their best advice for anyone wanting to start.

Coco Capitán, Artist

What’s the best time of day to write?

I don’t always follow the rule, but the rule is to wake up in the morning, have breakfast and write before anything else. 

Does the medium matter – digital or pen to paper? 

I am very picky. It sounds posh, but I mostly use Smythson notebooks. I did a collab with them some time ago and they paid me in notebooks. I hate notebooks that have lines or squares; it really disturbs me. I need a blank page – don’t tell me where to write! 

How has writing helped you through important moments in your life?

I don’t think of it as therapeutic, even though many people talk about it in such terms. It’s just an integral part of who I am. When I was a teenager and I was the most insecure, writing was so important because I wasn’t able to use my voice to say how I really felt. I felt like people couldn’t really reach the real me if it wasn’t through writing – and not just through a diary, but writing letters and sending long emails. The more secure I became, the less I needed it. I was finally able to vocalise what I was thinking.

What’s your best advice for someone wanting to start using a diary?

Commitment, more than anything. A diary is just for you, so who the hell cares if your writing is good or not? At least in theory, no one else is going to read it.

“Wake up in the morning, have breakfast and write before anything else” – Coco Capitán 

Ed Templeton, Artist and Photographer

                                                                 Wires Crossed by Ed TempletonCourtesy of the artist and Aperture

When and why did you first start writing a diary?

My grandmother kept a daily journal, which always fascinated me. Her cursive writing was like hieroglyphics to me. I have a diary from 1990 with really bare bones explanations of what I was doing on certain days. It might be a single sentence like, “Tuesday, January 9, skateboarded at HB High School, Deanna has the Bronco because her new car is in the shop.” Then I wouldn’t write another entry for a month. This has been my relationship to diaries ever since. Once in a while, I feel compelled to write down what is happening on certain days. It’s not profound at all, or my deepest inner thoughts. 

What’s the best time of day to write?

Usually the end of day, frantically, before going to bed. 

Does the medium matter? 

I use a dipping pen and ink, which is super archaic and a hassle to travel with, but the way the ink sits on the paper is something I’m addicted to, so the delivery is worth the load. I got these special sketchbooks in the UK that don’t bleed through to the other page. I also keep a smaller Moleskine with me, where I use ballpoint, pen, pencil or whatever is available for quick sketches and ideas. 

How has diary-keeping helped you through important moments in your life?

They have not helped me through important moments, but rather documented them, which has allowed me to reflect back on some of those moments and realise what an idiot I was. That has helped me to reduce that idiocy in the future.

What’s your best advice for someone wanting to start writing?

Just do it every day, unlike me. The writers I know force themselves to write every day, no matter what mood they’re in. They all swear by it. I might not write every day, but I do draw something almost every day. 

Vinca Petersen, Artist

When and why did you first start writing a diary? 

My diaries tended to be something I did when I was up to something really exciting. I kept diaries when I drove across Africa, for example, and I wrote ten exercise books. Then the other times that I keep diaries are when I’m not in a relationship, interestingly. I thought about why that might be, and I remember someone saying something once that really struck a chord – it was the idea that the core thing in a relationship is that you have a witness to your life. Maybe a diary is a passive witness. 

How does writing inform your creativity? 

I’ve got the worst memory. There’s a theory in psychology that sometimes memories can be built. My memories are all based around photos and things I’ve written, pictures I’ve thumbed through and thoughts I’ve re-read in old diaries. 

What’s your best advice for someone wanting to start using a diary?

When I talk to art students about photography, I say, “Create objects.” We don’t create objects very much anymore. Print your prints, put them in boxes under your bed. Write your diaries. If you have notes on your phone or in your laptop, print them out at some point and stick them in a book.

                                                                                               Diaries 1989-2013© Vinca Petersen

Lina Scheynius, Photographer

How has diary-keeping helped you through important moments in your life?

I just released Diary of an Ending, my first prose book. The foundation of this book is my diary that I wrote in the six months after a break-up while processing a destabilising relationship. Writing is crucial for me – to be able to get the chaos out and down on paper, and to be able to try out the words you are not sure you have the courage to say out loud yet. 

Do you work digitally or by hand? 

I do them all, but the only one I use with consistency is a Moleskine notebook that I can carry around. I like to be able to flick through it. There is something exhilarating about carrying your most private thoughts around with you. 

What’s your best advice for someone wanting to start a diary?

Work out how to keep it hidden. If this is on a computer with a password or under the floorboards, it doesn’t really matter. Only when you feel safe that your words are yours only will you be able to write freely. 

Clem MacLeod, Writer and Founder of Worms

When and why did you first start writing a diary? 

I bought my first Moleskine when I was 14 and having a bit of a meltdown. I had read Joan Didion’s essay On Keeping a Notebook, and in it she says, “Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant re-arrangers of things.” I know it’s the ultimate cliché to quote Joan Didion, but I do think that line set the wheels in motion for my diary writing. In that essay, she also talks about her disdain for the kind of diary that recounts events from the day. What she says is important, is getting down how it felt. This is something I really agree with. 

How does writing inform your creativity? 

I have to be calm to be creative. Writing my morning pages every day is the brain dump that I need. It really does clear out the cobwebs and puts a lot of the noise to bed. I also think that keeping a diary really fosters attention. It’s definitely the space that I desire the least amount of control over. 

What’s your best advice for someone wanting to start a diary?

Don’t overthink it. You will be completely astounded by the things that come up when you allow your brain to take over your hand, without resistance.

https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/16539/how-to-keep-a-diary-journal-artist-writing-ed-templeton-coco-capitan

A new start after 60: I read out my old diaries online – and my youthful secrets went viral

From theguardian.com

When Betsy Lerner began her unfiltered readings, she found an unexpected following and a new sense of connection 

Betsy Lerner doesn’t see herself as a TikTok star – though the New York Times described her as one – or an influencer. That means payment and swag – all she’s had is a free pen. “I really do it for myself,” she says, “and for the people who follow me”.

Lerner, 64, has for 20 years worked as a literary agent for writers including Patti Smith and Temple Grandin. She’s an author of nonfiction and now of a debut novel, Shred Sisters – “a love letter to loneliness”. But the “doing” she’s talking about is on TikTok, where she has amassed 1.5m likes for videos in which she reads from the diaries she wrote in her turbulent 20s.

“You don’t know who you’ll love, who will love you, what you will do for work, what is your purpose,” she says in one post. “This morning I found one line in my diary that just sums [your 20s] up: ‘I feel as if I don’t know who I am, today.’”

Lerner posts in her dressing gown, without makeup. Initially she explored BookTok to support her authors. But with her own novel forthcoming, she started posting, camera off, and got no followers. “A friend told me, you need to be on camera and think of it as your own TV channel … I thought, ‘Well, maybe I will read from my old diaries.’”

She’d kept one from the age of 11, after reading Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. “I wrote my first poems in there. I vented. I tried to analyse myself …” Her journals from the ages of 12 to 18 were lost when her car was stolen, but those from her 20s – about 30 volumes – were stowed in a crawl space in her attic.

“My diaries are very sad. They’re all about being lonely, looking for love, looking for friendship, trying to figure out who I was,” she says.

Lerner describes herself as “a late bloomer”. She was accepted on to Columbia’s MFA poetry programme at 26, entering publishing in her late 20s when most editorial assistants were fresh from college. “I didn’t fall in love till I was 30. I’d never had any significant relationships … I lost a lot of my teenage years and most of my 20s struggling with depression.”

‘It’s all about trying to connect and communicate’ … Betsy Lerner, photographed in New Haven, Connecticut. Photograph: Nicole Frappier/The Guardian

When she was 15, her parents had taken her to a psychiatrist, and she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. “I didn’t want to accept that I had this illness. I fought it a lot,” she says. Her 2003 memoir, Food and Loathing, documents her relationship with her weight, food, depression and more, and at one point in her late 20s describes her straddling a ledge on a bridge above the Hudson River.

The turning point came at 30. She found a psychopharmacologist – who “figured out” the right lithium dosage (they’ve worked together for 35 years) – and she got married.

Her diaries stopped. She had written them alone in bed at night. But now, “I just didn’t feel that sad and lonely any more”, she says.

For years, Lerner says, “I gravitated toward a lot of intensity.” Now, “I prioritise stability over everything.”

She had never thought she’d write a novel. But in 2019 she came through “four very tragic deaths”. She lost her mother, then her teenage niece and nephew, Ruby and Hart Campbell, who were killed by a drunk driver, and her best friend, the writer George Hodgman, who died by suicide. “I still don’t know who I’m grieving for at any given time,” she says.

In the aftermath of these deaths she started to write Shred Sisters, partly inspired by the online workouts – shredding – she and her two sisters did during Covid to take care of each other, and as “a way of working through all of that grief”. She is already writing another novel, and for as long as there is material in the diaries, and there is TikTok, she will continue to share them. “It’s all about trying to connect and communicate,” she says.

“There’s a constant stream of comments from kids in their 20s who identify with my struggles. That’s really what keeps me going. I feel this connection to these kids … I try to say, I felt the same. Hang in. Some heart emojis. Just a little something to say, ‘You’re recognised.’”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/aug/18/a-new-start-after-60-i-read-out-my-old-diaries-online-and-my-youthful-secrets-went-viral