Today in the Confessional, host Sandy Lowres chats with inspiring journalist and author, Jenny Valentish about writing, addictive behaviours and pushing yourself to your limits.
Starting her Journalism career in London, her career in Australia began when she edited national music magazine Jmag (for the radio station Triple J) before taking the helm of Time Out Melbourne, sister mag to Time Out London.
Now a freelance writer for publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Guardian, the ABC, The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, Jenny also teaches courses on memoir writing.
Jenny is the author of Walkley-nominated research-memoir,Woman of Substances, which investigates the female experience of drugs and alcohol. Woman of Substances is considered to be a valuable resource by drug and alcohol professionals. After its publication Jenny was appointed as a board director of SMART Recovery Australia, a consultant for the University of NSW’s National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), and an ambassador for BrainPark, a project of Monash University’s Brain and Mental Health Laboratory.
Her fourth book, Everything Harder Than Everyone Else: Why Some of Us Push Our Bodies to Extremes, was published in 2021. It’s become a global hit with podcasts devoted to endurance and sport, and the audiobook version has excerpts from my interviews with the people profiled in each chapter.
If that’s not impressive enough, Jenny has also been an amateur Muay Thai fighter and has now started body building!
