S1E5: Kate Camp

In our second guest interview episode for Bad Diaries Podcast, Tracy talks with poet, essayist, reviewer and five-time Bad Diaries Salon reader Kate Camp about diaries, the slipperiness of memory, and noticing what you notice.

Kate and Tracy dig down into the experience of reading at, and returning to, Bad Diaries Salon – what that means, what it brings, and what it feels like. Kate very generously talks about and reads from the treasure that is the little red diary she kept every day in 1986, the year she turned 14, “the best possible year of your life”.

Kate Camp is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s finest and most loved poets, with awards and plaudits and seven collections of poetry to her name, from her 1998 debut Unfamiliar Legends of the Stars to 2020’s How to Be Happy Though Human: New and Selected Poems.

Last year saw the publication of Kate’s sharp-edged and quietly magnificent memoir, a collection of disarming true stories titled You Probably Think This Song Is About You. The pieces in the memoir are familiar but unsettling, disturbing but also somehow joyful – qualities shared with Kate’s readings at five Bad Diaries Salons at Wellington’s Verb Festival since 2018.

Content warning: this episode includes brief mention of sexual assault and drug use, abortion, and negative self-talk.

Find full show notes for this episode on the Bad Diaries Salon website baddiariessalon.com, or get in touch via Instagram or Facebook – we're @baddiariessalon everywhere.

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Bad Diaries Podcast is recorded and produced in Naarm Melbourne, Australia, on the lands of the Kulin Nation; and in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, on the iwi lands of Taranaki Whānui, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. We pay our respects to Mana Whenua, and to Elders past, present and emerging, of these lands.