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When was the last time that reading the news made you feel good?
Come and join Ruby for an hour of optimism - including a guided meditation, run by Ruby, especially for WOW. In conversation with writer and broadcaster Fearne Cotton.
This event will have BSL interpretation and digital captioning.
In her own words:
Dear Reader,
I know what you’re thinking, is it some kind of macabre joke? Has she been in a coma? How can Ruby Wax write a book about good news when the world is facing the worst disaster since the Plague? Let me explain. I began writing in 2018, back when the world’s worries were somewhat different. Climate change, greedy bankers, exam results, crap politicians, mental health: these are still HUGE ISSUES, but even the ancient soothsayers reading pig entrails couldn’t have predicted this.
This is my new mission: to share the green shoots of hope peeping through the soil of civilization. Literacy is at an all-time high, world-hunger is likely to be eradicated this century, technological improvements are saving lives – just to scratch the surface. I’ve talked to everyone from leaders to scientists to tech geniuses. I’ve done the research and practiced what I preach. And my conclusion? Behind the clouds, the sun still shines.
So here’s to the shoots – may they become a blueprint for how the world can shift for the good. Hopefully we’ll learn from them.
Love, Ruby
If you'd like to submit any questions for Ruby, please email them to hello@thewowfoundation.com with the event title in the subject line.
This event features a performance by a WOW Sounds artist. Don't miss an incredible performance by the non-binary filipinx multi-disciplinary Kimmortal from the unceded unsurrendered traditional territories of the Coastal Salish.
This event is part of WOW UK Festival 2021, our three week digital programme of groundbreaking In Conversations and interactive workshops. For this year’s festival, we are offering audiences the chance to pay what they can for tickets from £1 upwards. If you’re able to pay a higher ticket price, your contribution will include a donation to help WOW continue its work fighting for gender equality all year-round.
If you want to book to watch all the In Conversations, you can book a WOW UK 2021 Festival Talks Pass for just £25 (or £100 if you'd like to support WOW's work year-round). And don't forget, you have seven days to watch all events on demand.
About the speakers
Ruby Wax is a successful comedian, TV writer and performer of over 25 years. Ruby additionally holds a Masters’ degree in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford University and was awarded an OBE in 2015 for her services to mental health. She is the author of books Sane New World and A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled and has toured all over the world with the accompanying one-woman shows. Both books have reached the number one spot on the Sunday Times bestsellers list and a third book, How to Be Human: The Manual was also a major bestseller. In March 2017 she launched Frazzled café in partnership with Marks & Spencer and has been running daily sessions online at Frazzled.org during the coronavirus lockdown. Her memoir, How do You Want Me? was published with a new introduction in April 2020. To date, Ruby has sold over one million copies of her books worldwide.
Fearne Cotton is one of the best known and most popular broadcasters in the UK and is most recently known as the Founder of the wellbeing brand, Happy Place. The brand was created from her first book released in 2017, Happy, which was a Sunday Times Bestseller and a silver Nielsen Bestseller. This was the first in a series of books talking about her own, and some of the not so positive, experiences with happiness. This was also the premise for her podcast launched in 2018, Happy Place, and has featured an array of guest such as Ellie Golding, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Jada Pinkett Smith, Russell Brand, Gary Barlow, Alicia Keys, and Elizabeth Gilbert amongst others. To date, the podcast has nearly 40 million downloads and continues to top the charts. 2019 saw a further extension of the brand into the live space, with over 10,000 people attending two Happy Place Festivals, one in the north and one in the south of England. The Festival went virtual in 2020, running over a month featuring around 150 pieces of content. Her third children’s book Your Mood Journal was published in the autumn last year, and her most recent book Speak Your Truth, published on 7th January. Fearne is a mother of two, and step-Mother of two, and closely supports a range of charities - most notably mental health charity Mind, The Prince’s Trust and Coppafeel!, the latter of which she curates the charity’s music festival, Festifeel.