🎙️🛁 It’s Troy Cabida (Neon Manila) day!
Troy Cabida is a London-based Filipino poet. He is a former member of the Barbican Young Poets and the Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Join Molly and Troy for a conversation about collaboration. We talk about the highs, the lows, and the things we need to have in place to make it work. We discuss collaboration as making something that ends up being more than the sum its parts (if all goes well), and about collaboration as being in community with other artists. We unpack how we might approach navigating and sharing that creative space.
Troy’s debut collection Neon Manila is available now!
You can also listen to the audio version on @troycabida ’s Bandcamp page.
This is the penultimate episode of season 3. Next week, we’ll be doing a special Q & A episode. If you have a question you’d like us to discuss, please send it via Instagram direct message, or email it here.
A lovely new review 😌. And a lovely mention of the theme tune in the review in slide two - I don’t give enough credit to the incredible @gracepetriemusic for writing it for me, after I gave her some frankly unhinged (and extremely vague) creative direction. All the music you hear on Making Trouble is composed by her. She’s so casually talented it makes me want to divorce her and find someone more mediocre who I can outshine.
🛁🎙️ This week we welcome the wonderful Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, A Spot of Bother, The Porpoise) to the podcast for a chat about people-pleasing. Find out where Mark’s people-pleasing tendencies come from, what people-pleasing gives us versus what it takes away, and why artists might be particularly prone to it.
We also chat about the impact of having a keen sense of smell on dating, how to write for yourself as well as other people, and why the word ‘playwright’ is spelled like that. Mark talks about his struggle with long covid, and we discuss how he learned to breathe properly. You’ll also find out who @mark__haddon thinks is the best person on Instagram*.
His new book LEAVING HOME is an illustrated memoir that I gobbled up in under 24 hours. Highly recommend. Loved this chat. Thanks Mark!
*it’s @sarah_grace_perry
Really loved doing this podcast with @molly.naylor . It’s called @makingtroublepod and it’s about all the different areas that artists struggle in. Do listen to the back catalogue including really brilliant episodes with @jhesmondhalgh and @mlferg .
I loved chatting about The Trouble With Flow….
Search for Making Trouble With Molly Naylor where you get your podcasts for a listen. Molly is wonderful and I had a great time with her in my shed.
🛁🎙️ A treat for the ears! It’s Anna Jordan (Yen, Lost Atoms, Succession, Killing Eve)!
Anna made her name as a scriptwriter, but has now published her debut poetry collection DECADE (@brokensleepbooks )
Join Anna and Molly for a conversation about CREATIVE FLOW. Find out what the optimum conditions are to find it and help us figure out how to maintain it. Hear Anna’s theory on ‘us’ writers versus ‘them’ writers.
We also discuss alcohol, painting, approaches to planning and how to have a hobby over the age of 40.
Lovely stuff! Enjoy! And buy Decade this week - it’s brilliant.
🎙️🛁 It’s Harry Baker day! @harrybakerpoet is a poet with a background in MATHS. His poems have been watched by millions of people online, and his new collection TENDER was an instant Sunday Times Best Seller.
Join Harry and Molly for a chat about self belief. We need it as artists, even when we don’t know where to get it or how to sustain it. What do we do when we’re the only ones who believe in our work during those early days of being a maker? What do we do when others believe our work should be different to how it is in order to be more ‘successful’? How do we sustain self belief in a light, easy way? All this and lots more.
🛁🎙️It’s Benedict Lombe (Shifters! Lava!) day!
Bene is an award-winning Congolese British playwright and screenwriter. Her work includes the hit play Shifters, which transferred to the West End in Summer 2024 and went on to have another sell-out run at the Duke of York’s Theatre.
Join Bene and Molly for a chat about isolation. How we balance the time we need to spend alone as makers with not going stir-crazy or alienating ourselves from friends, family and community. We talk about how to bounce back from rejection, the impact (and responsibility) of getting to be in the room where it happens, white chocolate and much more.
Molly also reveals her biggest kink. Listen! Share! And as always, please rate/review if you haven’t already. It REALLY HELPS.
🎙️🛁 Lizzy Stewart! Illustrator and writer! Molly’s past collaborator!
Maybe you’ve seen @lizzy_stewart ’s pictures in there’s a Tiger in the Garden, or Lights, Planets, People! Or perhaps you’ve read her illustrated book Alison?
Her new book, The Wreck, is out NOW. It’s a glorious genre-defying illustrated novel about the messy tangle of love, envy and desire that underpins our most precious relationships, and the difficult paths we must take to discover our true selves.
Join Lizzy and Molly for a chat about STRUCTURE. Mainly as it refers to the notion of building a fulfilling, successful, functioning life as a maker, but we also touch on structure and planning in relation to specific projects.
Learn about the magical joys of something called WEEKEND CLUB. Learn why Lizzy and Molly are terrified of group trips.
Is living a creative life just about running full pelt up hills, or can they learn to ride the worms? All this and more.
🛁🎙️ It’s Jessie Burton! @jessieburton is the multi-million best-selling author of four novels: The Miniaturist, The Muse, The Confession and The House of Fortune – all instant Sunday Times bestsellers. Her novels have been published in 40 languages.
The Miniaturist was adapted as a BBC One miniseries, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Romola Garai.
Her new book for children, Hidden Treasure, is out this week in paperback.
Join us for a chat about PERFECTIONISM. Where it comes from, what it does, how it helps and hinders our process and our lives. We also chat about ageing, mortality, Sylvanian Families and how writers after master manipulators (in a good way?).
Jessie recommends The Maps We Carry by Rose Cartwright.
🛁🎙️Today we welcome the scriptwriter, comedian and journalist Athena Kugblenu (@athenakugblenu ) for a chat about getting older. Which is good, because Molly needed to hear all this.
We also talk about procrastination, the impact of day jobs as we build our careers, rudeness and resilience and how to tell the stories you want to tell, even when it feels like the industry isn’t interested in them.
Buy Athena’s latest EXCELLENT children’s history book History’s Most Epic Fails - it’s a great read for young people AND people who are ‘getting older’. Which is all of us. Yikes.
