Jodi Picoult

The best selling author Jodi Picoult has some 14 million copies of her books in print worldwide. She joins Jenni to talk about her twentieth novel, The Storyteller, a sometimes harrowing look at guilt, redemption and forgiveness.

The Storyteller is published by Hodder and Stoughton.

The Department of Education has outlined a new system in which schools will draw up their own curriculum covering personal, social and economic education. The move has attracted criticism from the charity Brook. THey believe that PSHE could be dropped or not taught properly if not compulsory. So what will it mean for sex and relationship education in schools? Simon Blake the Chief Executive of Brook voices his concerns.

A new programme has just been launched by Doula UK to provide vulnerable women in refuges who have no family or friends at their sides, free access to a doula. We hear from Fiona who had escaped domestic abuse and from her doula. Jenni speaks to Amity Reed, who provides practical and emotional support to women and their families during their pregnancy, birth and first few weeks with a new baby, and to Lyndsey Dearlove from the refuge charity Hestia.

Hestia

In 1975, performance artist Carolee Schneemann stood naked and slowly pulled a paper scroll from her vagina while reading from it. Next week at London’s Barbican Theatre, current star of the live art scene Lauren Barri Holstein mixes pop culture with performance art in a show that includes nudity, bodily fluids, roller skates, power ballads, story-telling and tomato juice. Debbie Kilbride reports from Splat! which kicks off the 2013 SPILL Festival of Performance. 

 Lauren Barri Holstein will be performing Splat at The Barbican in London on the 3rd and 4th of April. 

A new book of essays is published today which asks ‘Has the Sisterhood Forgotten Older Women?’ It’s the idea of the International Longevity Centre which is a think tank that researches issues of age and demographic changes. The book examines the contribution older women make to society, highlighting how often they are side lined and it asks why today’s young feminists aren’t more active in campaigning for the UK’s aging population. Sally Greengross, Chief Executive of the International Longevity Centre, and Laurie Penny, New Statesman contributing editor and feminist author join Jenni to discuss.

Publication: Has the Sisterhood forgotten older women?