Auree Admires: Hannah Macinnes

About Hannah...

Hannah MacInnes is a broadcaster, journalist and podcast host. She is host of How to Academy’s live programmes and podcast, presents on Times Radio, interviews on-stage and hosts at major literary events, conferences and summits. Her interviewees include Bill Clinton, Melinda Gates, Dame Jane Goodall, Jacinda Ardern, Louis Theroux and Claudia Winkleman. Hannah also hosts the Nibbies (British Book Awards) Podcast, The Klosters Forum Podcast about environmental issues and has written for the Radio Times, the Evening Standard and TLS. She can be found on Substack writing as The Conversationist. Before going freelance she worked for eight years at BBC Newsnight.

 

How get you get into what you're doing today? Was it always something you wanted to do?

My career has taken many wonderful twists and turns. When I left Edinburgh I went straight to a wonderful work experience placement in the New Comedy Department of the BBC. I loved every second of it and of working in the iconic White City building with the Blue Peter Garden and sneaking every lunch break to watch Jonathan Ross being filmed. I am not sure I have ever lost the giddy sense of excitement about all things related to live culture. It was a trip to Rwanda though to make a film about a charity that started a passion for documentary and story telling. I think from there, via a few more work experience placements, I ended up at City University doing a Post Grad in TV Current Affairs Journalism. One of my placements through that course led to six months back at the BBC (still in its White City home) writing SIX HUNDRED or so constituency profiles for David Dimbleby to use on Election night. When there. I snuck down to the Newsnight offices to see about getting my foot in the door. The Editor at the time made me help him with a tea round - 41 cups procured later he told me there was no chance of any work there at all. I kept that foot wedged in the door though and eventually wiggled my way in.

 

Eight years and some of the most thrilling, wonderful times of my life later including trips to Berlusconi’s Villa in Milan complete with tour of the Bunga Bunga Room with Jeremy Paxman, a bear hug from Mikhail Gorbachev and interviewing Dame Helen Mirren about how she never got to play Juliet … as well as making some of the best friends imaginable, I left. I was determined to ask the questions rather than do all the ground work and then hand them over to the presenter!

Actually it was the wonderful Kirsty Wark (now there is another woman I admire so enormously and am lucky to call a friend) who masterminded my next moves by suggesting a sabbatical and working at Hay.

I had fallen in love with Hay festival and everything about it when I took my mother there for her Christmas present. We went away buzzing with it all and I think we both felt those interviews on stage with the great and the good of the literary world was intoxicating.

I had the most wonderful time making short films ‘Hay in a Day’ there talking to all my heroes. Later I had the chance to do an on stage interview about Jane Austen and not sure I ever looked back.

I haven’t stopped looking forward though either. The absolute dream for me is more Radio and … well lets just say I am currently plotting and scheming and dreaming and something exciting and brilliant is, I dearly hope, on the not too distant horizon!

 

What’s your favourite part of what you do? 

It sounds a little cheesy but I really and truly do love what I do. I love that I get to read and immerse myself in books for a living. Books that take me into the widest possible range of subjects. And also to do that knowing that I will then get to talk to the author and delve into the mind they came from, to have rich and long conversations with them about the content and the process. Perhaps my favourite part of it all is getting to meet such a wonderful lot of people: from the audiences and teams working with me at festivals and events to my interviewees, often my heroes, who I am lucky enough to interview. While I am always relatively wracked with nerves in the build up to any interview, I do love the adrenalin, rush and the thrill of being on stage, where the nerves dissipate completely and I feel very much caught up in the moment and the privilege of it all. I love seeing so many people want to spend their time and money listening to these brilliant and fascinating folk, and the buzz and rush of it all in the moment and in the aftermath makes all the preparation, anticipation and the nerves worthwhile!

 

What book is your most recommended book when people ask, ‘know any good books?’ 

I find this close to impossible to answer! There are SO many books I want to press into people’s hands, both fiction and non fiction and across all the genres I get to delve into. One book that always comes to mind for me is Human Kind by Rutger Bregman. It is easy to feel anxious and sad about the world when you hear and watch the news or spend time on social media. We are subject to so much that shows violence and polarisation, xenophobia and intolerance. And it’s easy to imagine from this that there has been this great loss of connection and community in the digital world. And of course in some ways there has been. But this book shows, and it’s something I very much agree with and see almost every time I leave the house, that “most people, deep down, are pretty decent” … more than that, they are innately kind. The book uses fascinating examples from throughout history and up to the present day back this up.

And the novel I rave about is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Just beautiful. But, there are so many! 

 

Your favourite weekend retreat would be.... 

Any weekend retreat is a pretty heavenly prospect but my favourite would absolutely involve a cold clear mountain lake to swim in. Perhaps a log cabin or shepherds hut style accommodation too, with big beautiful views and a log fire. I have never been to Norway but it is top of the dream list. As is anywhere in Scandinavian fjord or Archipelago really!

 

Who do you admire most and why? 

Apart from my uniquely wonderful parents (obviously), I admire so many people and the list just seems to get longer. To make it easier perhaps I will keep it to people I have interviewed? And on that basis I would have to say Dame Jane Goodhall. A hero in every way. And to still keep going with such energy. To interview her, albeit on zoom, was the privilege of a lifetime.

Also high on the list are the women who are making history, or rescuing forgotten women and those on the sidelines from history: The BBC’s truly brilliant Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet, Kate Mosse (author and founder of Women’s Prize), my friend*, author and podcaster, Kavita Puri, and Art Historian and author Katy Hessel … to name a very few! *Though I would venture to call them all friends.

 

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given? 

How do people whittle these things down to just one?! My job working for How To Academy means I am very often given the wisest of advice from interviewees but one that always has stood out is from the author Elizabeth Gilbert. She warns against perfectionism (“fear dressed up in a mink coat and heels” she calls it). In her book Big Magic (another book I HIGHLY, highly recommend) she talks about the importance of not being perfectionist when it comes to work. She advises for example that when writing an email pitch or proposal you avoid the temptation to write and re-write and read and re read but instead just press send and let it go. Even with some serious perfectionist tendencies (!) I really was able to take that on board and I have found it hugely useful.

Having said that I always send everything to my Mum first for her to cast an eye over and approve! 

 

What are you most proud of? 

Though I have a lot of doubts and moments of significant confidence crisis, I do feel a pride when it comes my work. Specifically the range of conversations I have had with some rather extraordinary people across some fascinating and complex subjects, whether for live events or podcasts. Other than that I think maybe the most proud I have ever been of myself was when I ran the London Marathon in 3 hours and 2 minutes. People often ask whether I was cross about those two minutes?. NO! I was just very very very happy and shocked. It made me the 27th fastest non elite woman, or it could have been 23rd(!) …, either way, I like to remind myself of that sometimes! 

 

Where would we find you at the weekend? 

A morning run (a cold swim if I can find one) and then spending hours drinking coffee. Either at home, which is currently my lovely cottage on the river, or in a cafe. I love everything about the perfect coffee moment and I love independent cafes, which quickly become like second homes (you know who you are!). I often will be working at weekends because, well freelance life doesn’t distinguish those!

 

How did you get into wild swimming and where is the best place you have been?

“Wild Swimming” as a concept has become so popular lately but I have adored it, or rather I have adored swimming in cold water, for a very long time. I was allowed to make a film about it at Newsnight more than ten years ago (in August when the news was very quiet!). The best place, gosh that’s hard. I think it has to be this crystal clear mountain lake in Switzerland surrounded by pine trees and snowy peaks that I have swum in in both the summer and then winter when covered in snow and ice with a little corner melted at the side. But the idyllic memorable swim list would be as long as the people I admire or the books I want to recommend! 

 

What Auree piece would be on your Birthday list?

I adore them ALL but it would have to be the stars. Necklace and earrings. Absolutely LOVE love love these.