My Mess Is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety

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Have you watched Succession? Veep? You might still not have heard of Georgia Pritchett. She is the multi-award winning (BAFTAs, Emmys, you name it) writer behind hit shows like these. She is also the author of the poignant yet comical memoir “My Mess is a Bit of Life.” Filled with warmth and humour, insight and honesty, Georgia offers a brilliant and amusing meditation on how to live with worry.

British comedy writer Pritchett debuts with a collection of zippy and poignant anecdotes that describe living at the crossroads of imagination and anxiety...The delivery's delightful and as finely tuned as poetry or a tight stand-up routine. Her torment, as well as her joys, are readers' gain." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) MARTIN: ...Especially as you were coming up. I mean, this was an industry just totally dominated by white men, right?

A natural born worrywart, Georgia’s life has been defined by her quirky anxiety. During childhood, she was agitated about the monsters under her bed (Were they comfy enough?). Going into labor, she fretted about making a fuss (“Sorry to interrupt, but the baby is coming out of my body,” I said politely). Winning a prestigious award, she agonized over receiving free gifts after the ceremony (It was an excruciating experience. Mortifying).

Jenny Lawson meets Nora Ephron in this joyful memoir-in-vignettes on living - and thriving - with anxiety from a multiple Emmy Award-winning comedy writer whose credits include Succession and Veep. MARTIN: It's easy to be self-aware when you're the only woman in a writer's room, I imagine. And that was the case for you... Jenny Lawson meets Nora Ephron in this joyful memoir-in-vignettes on living--and thriving--with anxiety from a multiple Emmy Award-winning comedy writer whose credits include Succession and Veep. PRITCHETT: Yeah. Yeah. When I started, I thought, oh, there are no other women in the room, but you know, that's going to change soon. And then it was 25 years before I was ever in a writers room with another woman. When it finally happened, it was - I kind of didn't know what I'd been missing. I love the men I work with. They're all great. But to suddenly be in a room with people who kind of look a bit like you and have similar frames of reference or life experiences is utterly mind-blowing and so validating and so good for your self-esteem. Using humorous insights from her past and present, multi-award-winning comedy and drama writer Georgia Pritchett reflects on a life lived anxiously.

My Mess Is a Bit of a Life

PRITCHETT: Yeah, it's strange 'cause obviously my whole career writing scripts - has been putting words in other people's mouths. I've suddenly written this very personal, direct thing, and now it's out in the world. And in many ways that's horrifying. And people like you keep asking me to talk about my feelings. My Mess is a bit of a Life adventures in anxiety by Georgia Pritchett is an absolute HOOT!!! The written word hasn’t made me laugh out loud like this for ages – and you all know how funny words can be. A truly funny passage can be read, read again and re-read and one can be guaranteed to throw up a guffaw each time. It really gets the good hormones pulsing.

When (heavily) pressed for her favourite character, she settles on the youngest Roy son, Roman, played by Kieran Culkin. “I’m a big champion of his romance with Gerri,” she says, thrillingly, of his developing, deeply twisted relationship with the company’s steely general counsel. “It’s so funny and so sad.” I loved him so much (when writing about her baby boy) I thought I might pop. I missed him when he was asleep and waited impatiently for him to wake. I kissed him so often I worried he might erodemy toast popped out of the toaster and, simultaneously, a flaming mouse was catapulted out of the other side. It was both spectacular and deeply upsetting She’s now working on a new TV comedy with Louis-Dreyfus that will feature a cast of 19 women. It’s the kind of project, she thinks, that would not get commissioned on British television.