Author Ember and Where The Light is Hottest. ✍️ Words in Sunday Times, Telegraph, i Paper, Stylist, Writers and Artists, Metro.

Joined February 2009
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Here is my 2025 writing rundown. What a year! A huge thanks to all of the editors and writers I worked with. I’m doing this in chronological order. First up was this piece in @writers_artists Thanks to Clare Povey writersandartists.co.uk/advi… On finally writing fiction.

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There’s signs that people know me too well…..
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
I’m currently compiling a guide to great family activities for the summer. This could include books, podcasts, museum exhibitions, family days out such as theme parks. This is for The Times! I’m on Syeda.hussain@news.co.uk #journorequest #JournoRequest
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In the summertime the living is easy. #cats
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She’s 30.
deus realmente tem seus preferidos né kkk a dua lipa passou o último mês inteiro bebendo comendo e fumando e o corpo dela continua assim:
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Ouch.
I know it's a way for writers to make a living in a world that no longer rewards them like it used to, but your Substack subscription really isn't any kind of value for money.
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
-Squatters took over his mom's house -Didn't know how to get them out and discovered how difficult the legal process can be for homeowners -Found a legal workaround where he could move into the house himself and essentially become the squatter's new roommate -Realized this was a much bigger problem than most people knew -Started making videos helping homeowners get their properties back -Went viral -Now has a reality TV show where he travels the country out-squatting squatters
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
I spend a lot of my life asking authors questions, so it was rather nice to be on the other side for a change. Thank you to @thenerdaily for talking to me about Capital Crime, Goldsboro Books, discovering new writers, and why readers deserve festivals built with them in mind. Have a read if you'd like to know what keeps me awake at night (other than unread books). ⬇️ thenerddaily.com/david-headl… "Where readers and writers come together through unforgettable stories."
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
Listen, lovely would-be writers. Too much talk of the benefit of AI and not enough discussion about what you’ll lose. Is it easier? Yes. Finish quicker? Yes. But satisfying? No. The failures ARE the process. The rewriting is the writing. The editing is discovery. The pain of writing will be the final pleasure. Don’t cheat yourself. Experience what it means to write. It’s suppose to hurt. You’re supposed to make mistakes. You’ll find yourself, your voice, buried at the bottom of that pile of balled up drafts on the floor. That’s how writers are born. To fail is to feel. To push through is to succeed.
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Happy publication day 🥂🥂
It’s here! Launch day! And I’m so excited to share this with you. I hope you like it
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
Somehow, it’s always an English teacher in school who sees your potential before anyone else and inspires you to become your best self.
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
I got married at 25 but had friends who got married and had kids in their late 30s. I was happy for them bc I'm not an asshole.
Elder Millennial weddings be like "come celebrate the start of their life together". You're both 38, it's not starting, it's already over.
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The lunch of a writer on deadline. #lunchofchampions
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
You don't miss the 90's. You miss a time when your entire existence wasn't dictated by being online. You don't miss the 90's. You miss a world without algorithms telling you what to like. You don't miss the 90's. You miss hanging out with your friends without spending money.
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
Colman Domingo appeared on the 'Good Hang with Amy Poehler' program and talked about how he met his husband, Raúl, over 20 years ago "It's a weird thing because I lived in San Francisco for 10 years, then moved to New York. I went back to San Francisco to do a show at Berkeley Rep. I was in Berkeley, California, crossing paths going into a Walgreens, when I saw the most beautiful person I think I've ever seen. Not just beautiful aesthetically, but energetically. We never speak. Three days later, I was trying to buy a used computer on Craigslist. I couldn't stop thinking about him, so I thought about posting one of those Missed Connections ads. I used to read them like crazy. I got to the second page, and the third one down — I remember exactly the placement — it said: "Saw you outside of Walgreens, Berkeley." He had posted it just an hour before I looked. So we were looking for each other. And then we met. I'm so uncool: we met three days later, had our first date, and I literally said, "I think I love you, and you're going to change my life." That's how uncool I am, though."
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
Men & dogs are best friends. But a woman with cats is 'crazy'. Cats are more independent than dogs and that unsubmission ties the history of cats and women together. Because women were also perceived as beings to be tamed and kept under control. theguardian.com/lifeandstyle…
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
The 2026 lit mag rankings are now available from my website! They include an overall ranking, as well as separate rankings for fiction, flash fiction, non-fiction and poetry. If you find these helpful, please show your support by liking & sharing 🙏
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
Yesterday, the government published its ‘AI Adoption Plan’ for the creative industries. Somewhat incredibly, it says we should be pushing AI adoption before the government resolves the issues around copyright. This would be great for the AI industry, and terrible for creatives. Important for people to know what the government is pushing here. Short thread on its contents ⬇️ 1/n
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Catherine Balavage Yardley retweeted
It’s out this Friday - just 3 days time!! Yes, I am unbelievably excited! The house was free. Surviving it might cost them everything Preorders are open
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For years, medicine called these "atypical" symptoms. They are not atypical. They are female-typical. Half of humanity is not a variant.
I'm a cardiologist. A 42-year-old mother of two came to my office complaining of jaw pain and crushing fatigue. She ran half-marathons. Her EKG was normal. Another doctor had sent her home with anxiety medication. When I got her into the cath lab, I found severe microvascular disease — plaque choking the tiniest vessels of her heart, the ones standard angiograms routinely miss. Her heart had been starving in silence while everyone told her she was stressed. She is alive today. Too many women like her are not. Heart disease kills more women than every cancer combined. And medicine is still diagnosing it through a male lens. 84% of cardiologists report having patients in the past year whose heart disease was misdiagnosed by another physician. Women with a STEMI heart attack have a 59% greater chance of being misdiagnosed compared to men. Women with an NSTEMI — 41% greater chance. The reason is structural. For decades, we screened, tested, and treated women using a template built for men. Men's heart attacks announce themselves — the crushing chest pain, the clutched fist, the Hollywood collapse. Women's hearts whisper. Crushing fatigue that feels like wearing a lead vest. Jaw pain written off as TMJ. Nausea blamed on a stomach bug. An ache between the shoulder blades blamed on a long week. Shortness of breath blamed on being out of shape. For years, medicine called these "atypical" symptoms. They are not atypical. They are female-typical. Half of humanity is not a variant. And the biology runs deeper than symptoms. Women have smaller hearts and narrower coronary arteries. Plaque doesn't only clog the big highway vessels — it hides in the microvasculature, the tiny branches feeding the heart muscle itself. A woman can have a heart attack with a completely "clean" standard angiogram. SCAD — spontaneous coronary artery dissection — occurs 90% of the time in women. Often young, fit women with zero traditional risk factors. It's the leading cause of heart attack in women under 50, accounting for roughly one quarter of all cases in that age group. Most doctors have never diagnosed one. And some of the most dangerous cardiac risk factors are hidden in women's medical histories where no one thinks to look: Preeclampsia or gestational hypertension doubles to quadruples lifetime heart disease and stroke risk. Pregnancy is the body's first cardiac stress test — and these complications are early warning sirens, not closed chapters. Autoimmune disease — lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis — far more common in women, turbocharges inflammation and plaque formation at any age. Cardiovascular disease in women aged 20-44 is projected to surge nearly 50% by 2050. The youngest patients in my practice keep getting younger. What every woman should ask her doctor — and what every doctor should be asking: "Given my pregnancy history, autoimmune status, and family history — what is my full cardiovascular risk?" If they don't ask about preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, volunteer it. "Should I have an Lp(a) test and a coronary calcium score?" Standard cholesterol panels miss too much. Lp(a) is genetic, one-time, and most women have never been tested. "My tests came back normal but my symptoms haven't stopped — what's next?" Normal stress tests and angiograms can miss microvascular disease, spasm, and SCAD. Persistent symptoms warrant coronary CT angiography or cardiac MRI. And if something feels wrong — say these exact words to your doctor: "I am concerned this could be my heart." That single sentence changes the workup. Do not soften it. Do not apologize for it. 80% of heart disease is preventable. But the playbook has to be built for female biology. Two decades ago, I wrote one of the first books warning that heart disease was the number one killer of women and that medicine was diagnosing it through a male lens. It was recognized by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House during the early years of the national conversation about women's heart health. I'm haunted by how much of that book I could republish today unchanged. The science has advanced. The awareness has grown. But the gap between what we know and what happens in the exam room is still costing women their lives. Share this with every woman you love — and every doctor who treats them. READ MORE: open.substack.com/pub/afshin…
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