5 Questions with Rosie Waterland

Rosie Waterland is an author, comedian, podcaster and public speaker, but mostly calls herself a writer. Her first two books, The Anti Cool Girl and Every Lie I’ve Ever Told, were critically acclaimed, national bestsellers. With more than 20 million combined downloads, her podcasts Mum Says My Memoir is a Lie and Just the Gist earned her an Australian Commercial Radio Award and Australian Podcast Award. She has written for various TV projects and nationally toured three one-woman shows. Having spent much of her adult life dealing with the debilitating effects of childhood trauma, Rosie has just released Broken Brains, a personal book co-written with Jamila Rizvi about physical and mental brain health.

Q1. What has been your best career move?

Submitting an article to Mamamia when I was 26. I had degrees in performing arts and creative writing, which meant I’d been studying for six years and was essentially qualified to work in a call centre, which is what I was doing. I knew I wanted to write, but I felt overwhelmed because I had no idea how to approach an editor or submit a pitch. To be honest, I didn’t specifically want to submit something to Mamamia, but I went to all the Australian websites and Mamamia was the only one that had a clear place to send it. I didn’t have a huge sense of what worked for an audience yet, but I did see that on Mamamia there was a lot of personal opinion with quite a clickbait-y hook. I admit I hammed it up a little bit because I wanted them to publish it, but I wrote an opinion piece about how if and when I have a baby, I will definitely have an elective C-section, because not taking advantage of modern medicine is stupid. Am I that hardline about it? Not really. But I knew that they would probably like it, and they did. Jamila [Rizvi, Mamamia’s managing editor at the time] got back to me within about two minutes and said, “We want to publish it.” She asked if I had anything else, and I then asked her if I could maybe intern. I interned for a few days before they offered me a job. So even though I felt scared, I just dived in anyway. I had no idea what I was doing, and it really did change the course of my life.

Q2. Given your time over, what would you do differently?

I had over 20 million downloads across my two podcasts – they both won major, prestigious podcasting awards – but when it came time to renegotiate my contract, and I didn’t feel like I was being offered what I deserved, it was difficult for me to go elsewhere, because I didn’t realise I had signed a contract in which I didn’t own my master recordings. I own my IP but not my master recordings. So it’s a bit of a Taylor Swift situation. I got an agent not long after my first book came out, and I tend to be quite deferential to people who I think have a skillset that I lack, so I was very happy to just sign whatever if my agent said, “This is good to go.” I wouldn’t put in the attention to make sure all the T’s were crossed and I’s were dotted. It’s been tricky legally, and incredibly frustrating to not fully own my own creative work. The broader lesson for me has been, I need to take a lot more control and personal responsibility when it comes to the contracts I’m signing.

Q3. What do you consider your proudest achievement?

My proudest achievement would be working hard at my mental health over the years, because I have struggled with complex trauma and PTSD from a very difficult childhood. That has caused quite a few setbacks in my career that I’ve found quite heartbreaking and disappointing, but I’ve always worked really hard to keep my treatment moving forward, and to continue trying to be well. I’ve not always done it perfectly, but I think the fact that I’m still here is something that I’m very proud of. Mental health-wise, it’s hard being a freelancer and having to hustle, particularly when your career is so dependent on the creative output of your brain. That can feel like immense pressure when your brain isn’t doing so well. When you’re a freelancer, you’re never not thinking about what work you could be doing.

Q4. Do you have a professional hero?

David Sedaris, the writer. The way he’s set up his career is essentially my dream. He spends his time writing his incredible books, he travels the world, and essentially performs by reading from his book. I went to drama school, so there’s a performer in me. I love being on stage. I also love writing. He gets to do the solitary writing part, but also what I consider one of the creative and fun and important parts of the storytelling I do, which is performing the stories. He has set up the perfect career template.

Q5. What is the best advice you have been given?

This one’s a no-brainer. When I started working at Mamamia, back in 2012, it was a massive time for women’s website writing and it was easy to get lost in the sea of all these other up-and-coming online writers. I felt a bit intimidated and wasn’t quite sure of my place because I had not studied journalism. Jamila said to me, “Rosie, wherever you work, you just need to create a you-shaped hole that nobody else can fill, and then you will be indispensable.” I really took that to heart because they tried me on news and I was terrible. I had no idea what I was doing. I thought, what I am good at is writing in a particularly unique voice that is unmistakably Rosie Waterland, so I leaned into that, and that was when I started writing The Bachelor recaps, which nobody thought would work. I knew instinctually that I could make them work. I thought, this is a way that I can create a Rosie-shaped hole that no one else can fill. When younger women ask me, “How do I write like you? How do I follow your career trajectory?” I say, “Well, first of all, don’t write like me. Figure out what your voice is, or what your skill is – what you can bring to the table that no one else can, and that will make you indispensable.” I’ve been thinking a lot more about that recently, with the rise of AI. When I think about what I did as an editorial assistant in my first six months at Mamamia, that would all easily be done by AI now. It’s a very scary time to be a writer if you don’t have a unique voice. Creating a you-shaped hole that no one else can fill, including artificial intelligence, is probably more important than ever.

Interview by Susan Horsburgh