Uh, can you start by introducing yourself and telling us what your creative, um, interest is, what you do creatively?

Hi, Meg.

It's so lovely to be here chatting with you.

Uh, well, I'm Trish Bolton, a creative writer.

Just had my first novel published about two years ago, Whenever You're Ready.

Um, but I was thinking about this, about writing and how long I've been writing, because it wasn't until I actually had my book published that I even thought to call myself a writer.

I certainly would never have said ...

Mm.

Mm.

Whereas they may not quite, particularly mother and daughter, uh, may not quite understand that about each other.

So I- I...

In fact, I did start off by just having one perspective, and it was Lizzie's perspective, and it was terribly flat on the page.

And, um, I was sort of working my way through.

I can't remember how many chapters I wrote, but I knew it wasn't working.

And then I thought, "Well, I'm writing this story about older women, and older women have lived these...

Yeah

How does that work?

Yeah, I think, I mean, the research is so interesting.

But if we think about it, even just for a moment, we probably all know how good engaging with art and culture is for us.

If we think about music, if we think about going to a library, if we think about dancing, photography, how much enjoyment we get out of those pursuits and all the more so if we're engaging with other people when we're standing perhaps in front of a painting or if we're selecting a book from the library and we're speaking to the librarian.

So I think it happens on so many levels and I My understanding of the research is that engaging with culture and with the arts reduces inflammation and inflammation is one of the things that we sort of want to avoid as we get older because it's very aging in itself.

So doing those things actually, that's how it keeps us young.

But of course there's all those other things that go with it and that's the social interaction, Um, if you're, uh, if you're say dancing, there's that physical, uh, exercise that you're getting, uh, and there are so many sort of values to it.

Are there any studies that support this?