This episode is all about how to put together a live solo one-hour show and other comedy things as comedian, director and teacher Alex Farrow joins me on the podcast.  Teaching is a performance and lot of former teachers find their way into comedy. Alex had to figure out how both teaching and comedy work over Zoom during lockdown, as he continued to work in both capacities. Alex's links Twitter - @Alex_Farrow  Insta - @alexfarrowcomedy alexfarrow.com jerichocomedy.com

PR, comedian, comedy promoter and podcaster Vix Leyton is the guest on this episode.  She's got brilliant advice from her own experience of working on two careers, PR by day and comedy by night.  Vix also hosts the Comedy Arcade podcast, which probably features your favourite comedian one at least one episode, taking part in the hilarious anecdote competition across three rounds. 

Journalist, poet and publisher / writer of media criticism newsletter Conquest of the Useless, Mic Wright guests on this episode. This is the last one of the current second season. Don't worry though, I'll be back with more great guests later in the year!  Mic both works within the media, and makes a living critiquing it, through his newsletter and Twitter feed. On this episode, he tells me how he does it, how it impacts upon him and what advice he'd give to a new journalist. 

Lauren Razavi joins me on this episode to talk about the future of work, how writers can use influencer tools to benefit their careers and what the digital nomad lifestyle might look like post-COVID-19. At a tricky moment when we're gingerly leaving lockdown and wondering how our offices are going to work, it's helpful to speak to Lauren, who's spent a lot of her career writing and speaking about what work could look like in the years to come.

In 2011, two years after American radio producer and reporter Kim Fox had moved to Cairo to take up a teaching role at The American University of Cairo, the Egyptian Revolution happened, in response to increasing police brutality on what would turn out to be the dying days of President Hosni Mubarak's presidency.  Kim spent time at the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, which involved up to 2 million people.

Alex Bertulis-Fernandes is a comedian and writer. She's been doing stand-up for the past year, and she is writing a memoir while being mentored on the Penguin WriteNow mentoring scheme*. We met at the late, much-loved Clean Prose writers' space a few months ago, at a memoir-writing workshop taught by writer Cathy Rentzenbrink. Alex was actually the person who broke some comedy news to me last week - that I was a nominee for the Funny Women Stage Awards 2020.

Freelance writer and author Flora Baker has combined memoir and a self-help guide in her first book, The Adult Orphan Club. Flora lost her mother at 20, and her father at 30, just a few years ago. We 'met' via the Young Orphans Whatsapp group, although thanks to lockdown we have not yet met in person.  After her mother's death, Flora went travelling for five years, and detailed her adventures on her blog, Flora the Explorer. Travelling allowed her to postpone doing the work of grieving.

MEL Magazine's deputy editor Alana Levinson joins me on this episode to talk about how necessary editing is for good writing - but it's been devalued in a digital world where any of us can press publish whenever we like.  And yes, she also delves into the origins of The Great Solicited Dick Pic Experiment by MEL writer Miles Klee, and what the piece revealed about the difference between male and female experiences of the internet.

When I saw Marie Foulston's tweet about the lockdown houseparty that she threw in a spreadsheet, I knew that I had to invite her onto the podcast to hear all about it! Marie is now a freelance creative producer and playful curator, and was most recently Curator of Videogames at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Marie tells me about the anxiety of organising the spreadsheet party and waiting for her friends to arrive - just like hosting an IRL soirée!

Joining The Writers' Hour every morning for one week early on in lockdown helped me break through the cobwebs and write the outline of the book that I've been working on for the past year, in fits and starts. I used the hour to write longhand, which always helps unlock my creativity.  The Writer's Hour is a simple idea: every weekday morning between 8 and 9am BST, the founders of The London Writers' Salon, Parul Bavishi and Matt Trinetti, hold a Zoom meeting where writers turn up and... write.

We're tackling some big subjects on this episode of Freelance Pod: imposter syndrome, how social media leads to 'compare and despair' and how living under a pandemic lockdown affects our sense of self. Joining me for this episode is Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin, author and licensed psychologist in the state of New York. He's particularly interested in how freelancers and creatives can build strategies to combat imposter syndrome.

This is the live show from November 2019, when author Gemma Milne joined me onstage at the beautiful Boulevard Theatre in Soho, London.  Gemma's book Smoke & Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It is available for pre-order now, and is out on 23rd April. It comes in audio form too, narrated by Gemma herself.  It's the perfect book for the Age of Covid-19. 

Author Rachel Vorona Cote joins Suchandrika Chakrabarti on Freelance Pod's first birthday episode, to talk about grieving in a digital age. We first spoke after I read Rachel's Longreads piece, The Fraught Culture of Online Mourning, earlier this year. Rachel had lost her mother 18 months before writing the essay. As someone who lost their parents in an analogue age, I'm fascinated by how the internet has enabled greater visibility for the bereaved.

It's a Standard Issue x Freelance Pod crossover episode! I met up with Jen Offord, Mickey Noonan and Hannah Dunleavy at the Boulevard Theatre, Soho, to talk about our upcoming live shows there, how the internet has changed journalism, feminism and what their live recording has in store for the audience. You'll also hear a little bit from writer Gemma Milne, who's guesting on Freelance Pod's live show at the Boulevard on Sunday 17th November.

This very special episode of Freelance Pod was recorded in front of a live audience at the London Podcast Festival in September 2019!  Pod fave Abdulwahab Tahhan returns for this 90-minute episode, in conversation on-stage at Kings Place with host Suchandrika Chakrabarti. Syrian refugee, stand-up comedian, journalist, lecturer, a person who's now clear on what the word 'loo' means... Abdul takes us on a journey from his childhood in Aleppo, half a world away, to London. Is he British yet?

Beth Ashton, The Telegraph's head of social media, kindly invited me over to their offices to tell me about how they do... social media. Traditionally, The Tele's newspaper readers have been amongst the oldest in the UK, which should present a challenge to converting them into online readers. They've also got a metered paywall and Premium content that stops quick and easy reads or sharing. Nevertheless, as Beth tells us, The Tele is one of the few news websites to make Snapchat work.

BBC Radio 4 Extra's Podcast Radio Happy Hour has become another way to discover great podcasts, as well as an opportunity for some lucky podcasters to get heard on the radio. Host and producer Amanda Litherland came up with the idea a few years ago, and found herself thrown in front of the microphone. Luckily, her comedy background has helped her presenting. Amanda loves podcast recommendations, so do give her tweet @amandalitherland.

Here it is, the Freelance Pod guide to the London Podcast Festival 2019, with programmer Zoë Jeyes!  Zoë is Deputy MD and Comedy Programmer at Kings Place, and has been working there since it opened 11 years ago. A longtime podcast fan, she first floated the idea of a festival in 2014, with the first one going ahead in 2016. Freelance Pod's live show is at 2pm on Saturday 7th September. Tweet me @freelance_pod, or message me at @freelancepod on Insta to let me know if you're going to the...

"I loved being a journalist," writes Jackie Annesley in a frank essay about losing her last job in journalism, as editor of The Sunday Times Style supplement. While there, she commissioned the PanDolly podcast; it's now better known by its second name, The High Low, with Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton. Jackie's exit is accompanied with euphemisms about 'commercial decisions'. In the months that followed, she began to realise that this sudden change in circumstances could, in fact, work for...

Matt Cooke is Head of Partnerships & Training, Google News Lab, part of the Google News Initiative. Google News has been a major factor in completely changing how news is indexed, distributed, discovered and consumed. That's because the internet has changed news distribution to include you, the reader, the audience, yes you, you control what you want to see, when you want to see it. Alongside sharing and self-publishing on social media, Google indexing news has completely changed the...

Did you know that there's a Freelance Pod live event at the London Podcast Festival in September? Yup, alongside big hitters like The Guilty Feminist, Have You Heard George's Podcast and The Allusionist, Freelance Pod is going to have its first live event, and you can be part of the audience! For more information, and to buy tickets for under a tenner, google Freelance Pod and Kings Place.

Journalist, author and founder of the soon-to-be-launched Freelance Feels, Jenny Stallard joins me on the podcast to talk about her career moving from print to digital, her freelancing journey and why freelancers need to more vigilant about our mental wellbeing than the more traditionally employed.

Deez Links is "a dailyish link to cool s**t happening in & around the media industry." Each day, Delia Cai - also Growth & Trends Editor at Buzzfeed - sends out one link. Just one link. She really sells it, in the way you'd want a particularly well-informed and fun friend to sell it to you. It's working out for her - Deez Links turned three in February, and was recently voted fourth most popular media newsletter, after Nieman Lab, Axios and American Press Institute. 

We're about to get a new season of Black Mirror on Netflix, so here are Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones to talk us through it, take the piss out of each other and generally be ridiculously fun.  Don't worry, there aren't any spoilers, so you're safe to listen before watching the season.  Season 5 episodes discussed: Striking Vipers; Smithereens; Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too.