Today on the podcast I’m speaking to Belinda Mountain.

Belinda studied a business Science degree but found that her love of words led her straight into working in the world of book publishing as a graduate, and then she spent around eight years working in publishing in both the UK and South Africa.

In 2010, Belinda had a daughter, in the same year that her mother died from a brain tumour - and soon after those life changing events, she quit her job and started her own content agency with her business partner Catherine Black, called Black Mountain (which they still run today).

The story she submitted to 'Living While Feminist' was her first piece of writing published in a book but she has been published extensively in print and online in publications such as Sunday Times Neighbourhood, Fast Company and Entrepreneur magazine. In 2020 her short story was shortlisted in the Arts24/Corona Fiction competition, which has renewed her interest in writing short stories. The lockdown has reinspired her poetry too.

Belinda’s piece in Living While Feminist is called The Most Beautiful Boy the World Has Ever Seen. In it Belinda says

“My short hair becomes a message to the world. I feel people’s judgment, men and women’s in small barbs thrown my way. They are smooth things with a jagged edge, said out of their own discomfort.”

Her piece focuses on a short haircut, misgendering, and motherhood and these are just some of the things we touch on in the interview.