When Sue Met Donna
People often say you should never meet your real-life heroes. If you’ve ever had the good fortune to meet Donna Ashworth though, you’ll know it isn’t true. Here this best-selling author who’s been called the face of modern poetry, tells Sue Pritchard all about her writing life and the important role spirituality plays in it.
A small poetry book, hastily abandoned on my doorstep by a delivery driver in 2020, had a big impact on my life. Like many people during the covid pandemic, I almost retreated inwards when faced with such an unprecedented, world-shattering event. In doing so though, I rediscovered the joyous healing properties of the written word. And it was all thanks to a Scottish poet.
It was her poems from the pandemic that graced the pages of this poetry book - the first I’d bought for many years. I hadn’t read any at all since discarding a collection of Philip Larkin’s poetic words on my bookshelf, back in the last century. But now as I flicked through Donna Ashworth’s debut book, called History Will Remember When The World Stopped, recollection stirred within me. Her words not only comforted me, they were inspiring too. They gave me hope for the future. They encouraged me to keep looking forwards to the day when the world would spin its way back to normality.
As well as rekindling a love for poetry, something I’d abandoned with my ‘A’ level English books over 30 years ago, Donna showed me there’s a more positive side to social media. She practically rewrote the manual about how to make it a more caring and supportive space. Indeed, it was her inspiring words that whispered encouragingly in my ears, daring me to believe in myself, as I started to pen my own thoughts and hope I could share them with the outside world one day too.
Inspiring
In November 2022 I messaged Donna on Facebook for the first time. After another author had encouraged her readers to let creative people know when their work is admired, I plucked up the courage to thank Donna for inspiring me through the pandemic, as well as excitedly jabbering on about the book I was beginning to write myself.
‘How wonderful,’ she replied only a few minutes after receiving my message. ‘How can I help?’
Giving advice about self-publishing and explaining this was how she’d started out, Donna said she’d be there for me when my book finally finds its way into the real world. And although I’ve come to realise this may take a while yet, I kept her kind words in mind earlier this year.
Only weeks after appearing across the pages of Hello Magazine, and knowing full well I was small fry in comparison, I bravely asked Donna for an interview - unable to hide my joy when she agreed to fit me into her busy schedule.
As an aspiring author seeking publication of my first book, constantly struggling for visibility across social media, I have a tiny percentage of Donna’s 1.8 million followers. Yet this famous best-selling author still took the time to share her words of wisdom with me.
Happy Place
It was a similar joyful moment when meeting Donna for the first time at Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Festival last year. Donna not only remembered who I was from our online communication, but greeted me in such a genuinely warm-hearted way it felt as if we were already friends.
“Oh Sue,” she beamed, embracing me in the biggest of bear hugs, something I’ve come to realise is her signature welcoming note. “It’s lovely to finally meet you. I was so pleased to learn you were coming today,” this famous, best-selling author said to me.
With people turning around to see who Donna was talking to, my daughter’s amazed face mirrored my own as we both wondered what on earth was happening. All I know is this was one of life’s fulfilling moments, learning that the warmth in Donna’s writing is only amplified when translated into real life.
Spiritual Path
Described as being the face of modern poetry and having sold more than 300,000 copies of her books to date, Donna’s words have helped, inspired, and comforted millions of people worldwide. So I was intrigued to find out if writing them helps her too.
“Writing is like pulling the messy threads out of my brain and stitching them into a beautiful picture, or at least a coherent one that I can understand,” she laughs. “For me it’s a wonderful way of taking all these jumbled up thoughts and feelings, and everything else that’s going around, and putting them into some sort of order. Writing helps me in the way breathing helps me,” Donna admitted.
Over the years various authors’ words have helped me find my way through life. Back in 1993 I was quite a shy 21-year-old. Thanks to Susan Jeffers’ book though – aptly called Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway - I found the courage to ask out the nice young man I’d just met. The same man who has since been my husband of many years now.
After telling me it was a gifted copy of a Louise Hay book that changed her life, almost saving her when she was younger, I wondered how Donna must feel knowing her books are having a similar positive impact on people too?
“To have my name linked in any capacity with Louise Hay is like a dream come true. She saved my life quite frankly, and without her guidance in those early years I would have been so lost,” Donna says. “She put me on a pathway of such love and self-worth, full of kindness and proper positivity. Not toxic positivity, but the kind of positivity that only comes from facing your darkness and your fears, and then mixing them with hope and love.
“It brings me a huge amount of pleasure to think some of my books might do something similar for other people,” she continued. “It’s my reason and it’s my why and it is hugely fulfilling.”
Asking how Louise Hay had helped her, Donna told me she’d got herself into “quite a physical, mental, and emotional pickle with an eating disorder” when only 17 years old.
“And there are two ways you can go when faced with something that can actually take you down,” Donna admitted, her voice cracking with emotion. “I was very much in the throes of it before my mum and I looked at it very seriously. Back then there wasn’t much we could do on the medical front, and the GP was clueless about how he could help. So we decided we’d look at spirituality and turned to Louise Hay, reiki, and many other teachings and learnings.
“We had to try and figure out why human beings get into these situations. Why had I, somebody so young, lost that fighting spirit of survival?” Donna asks. “Why do some people basically lose the will to stay alive?”
So embracing a more spiritual way of life in a fight to save her own, Donna began to realise how valuable spirituality could be for her well-being. Although she started her healing journey 33 years ago, she admits over the decades she’s often wandered from this path, but in recent years has been back on it again.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Donna says. “It constantly reminds me there’s always more and I’m never alone.”
And I understand because, after all, I believe my dad kept me company with his heavenly presence as I was writing my own book. It was the grief of losing him which eventually prompted my own spiritual journey, leading me onto a magical path of self-discovery.
Book Magic
With hindsight it’s obvious Donna has always believed in something greater than this life on earth. On social media she’s frequently spoken about the wonders of what she calls ‘book magic’, where she chooses random pages from her books for those in need. It’s almost like pulling an oracle card to give a reading from her numerous poems.
I also know how much bravery it takes when admitting you believe in something out of the ordinary, because as a former muggle, I’m now trying to publish the book I’ve written with a helping hand from beyond the grave. Baring your heart and soul by writing a book when plagued by self-doubt is hard enough. But believe me, trying to explain your dead dad is the co-author is even harder.
“Call a taxi for Sue,” I feared my friends and family would shout. “She’s finally lost the plot!”
So when Donna spoke publicly for the first time about her own spiritual beliefs last year, I felt in good company.
Writing on social media that although she hadn’t kept it from her followers, she hadn’t spoken openly about it before, Donna said it was now the right time to do so.
“I have always been able to read the energy of people near me (and not so near me in fact). I have always been able to feel the presence of those who have passed on, and I have always very much been in touch with the unknown and the truth we can’t yet see,” Donna admitted.
Describing it as being complicated and hugely dimensional, she said she just wanted to be more authentic. Realising such an admission may scare some people away, Donna said if it did, it had been lovely having their company and would gladly answer the questions anyone had.
In recent years I’ve not only struggled to publicly admit I am a spiritual person, I’ve struggled to define what it actually means to me too. I used to think it involved seeing dead people everywhere - just like that little boy in The Sixth Sense film - or going to church or wearing flowers in your hair at Glastonbury. But I don’t do any of those things.
I’ve now come to realise there is so much more to a spiritual way of life than this, and it’s unique for us all. Having since come up with my own interpretation, I was intrigued to know what spirituality means for Donna.
“For me spirituality is connectivity. It’s the belief we are not individual. We’re never individual, but yet,” she laughs, “we are so individual. It’s easy to forget we are all part of something so much bigger. Every move we make has an effect in a much bigger capacity for everyone else.”
“Spirituality is really important to me. Without it I feel lost, I feel bereft, and I feel small,” Donna continued. “And I don’t mean small in the way of thinking about the universe and how the collective consciousness makes me feel, but small in a very lonely way,” she added.
Yoga and Meditation
Knowing spirituality often goes hand in hand with practices such as yoga, and as a huge fan of yoga myself, I wondered if Donna incorporated such practices into her life too.
“I’ve always loved yoga for many reasons and there is nothing more wonderful than a good stretch. I look at my cats when they stretch and think, gosh, that’s one of the pleasures in life,” Donna replied. “It’s such a wonderful way to connect with your breathing and your body, remembering all the many parts of you there are in this vessel we inhabit. You can literally shake hands with them all in yoga. It’s a wonderful way of balancing it all out.”
And as someone with “a very, very busy brain”, Donna says that meditation is really important for her too.
“The harder you find it the more valuable it is to you,” she admits. “I’ve always dipped in and out but have recently got into meditation in quite an impactful and intentional way. I find when I feel discombobulated and don’t feel right in my own skin, and when my thoughts are incoherent and everything feels out of sync, the only way to combat this is to sit in it. I have to allow it all to come in and fight around until it finds synchronicity again. It can be really uncomfortable,” she almost sighs, “but it is hugely helpful.”
Manifesting
When talking about all things spiritual, I also had to cover the magical wonders of manifestation which has become more of a buzz word in recent times, and even named as Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2024. So, I wanted to know, has Donna manifested many things in her life?
“I have manifested a life in which I get to breathe, and I get to rest,” she replied. “I get to play and to love and be around. And I get to have time that’s not always filled with something. I have created that. I know I have because I did that intentionally. It’s what I wanted. I didn’t want to be stressed out and running around so that in 20 years the kids would say to me, you were always busy.”
And right on cue, Donna had to excuse herself and pause our conversation. One of her children was seeking her attention because she was kindly giving me some of her time throughout the school holidays.
“So I have manifested a life with enough space and grace to slow and grow,” Donna said upon her return, speaking like a true poet. “I manifested my books. I had that dream for a very long time. I think many of us do,” she commented, as I nodded my head knowingly in agreement. “And I went for it and decided that manifesting is all very well and good, but you also have to be in the business of doing. As well as dreaming and imagining and thinking it all up, you have to put one wonky wheel into motion. So yes,” Donna concluded, “I think I manifested my books and the ability to write as a career.”
Successful
Donna has certainly perfected the skill of manifesting the life of a successful author rather well. She’s been named as the Sunday Times’ second bestselling female, non-fiction author for 2025, and is the number one British female non-fiction author too.
Looking back, Donna says, writing has always been there. Over the years she’s worked on magazines, turned her hand to song writing, and even discovered books of the poems she’d written when younger. Perhaps held back by that dreaded imposter syndrome which prevents many of us reaching for our dreams, Donna’s writing didn’t really take off until her mid-40s, when she began to think there could be something in it for her.
My journey has been quite similar – apart from the fame and best-selling bits! I didn’t start writing my book until my 50th year – and wouldn’t have been brave enough to do so without prompting from a psychic who told me my dad would help. I’ve also worked for many years as a journalist in the waterpower industry and after discovering my old notebooks and diaries from childhood, have used them to help inspire my book writing journey.
Unfortunately, that imposter syndrome has kept me company for far too many years as well. It almost prevented me from asking Donna for this interview, but luckily I didn’t miss out on such a joyful opportunity.
Joy and Hope
With our conversation drawing to an end, and with her latest book called Joy Chose You, I asked Donna what brings her joy in life.
“Lots of things bring me joy,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve manifested a temperament in which I’m very easily pleased in this life now. I certainly wasn’t before. I was the kind of person who could have everything but still be wanting for something that wasn’t in the room. Or I’d still be feeling empty. So I have very much worked hard in becoming fascinated and overjoyed and completely thrilled by the minutiae.”
Admitting that other people’s laughter and some of life’s funny little moments are the things that bring her joy, Donna marvels at how laughter can quickly change the energy in a room, encouraging people to bond.
“Even just watching a funny video on the internet, knowing thousands of other people are laughing at the same video, brings me a lot of joy,” she added. “Laughter is our soul food. It really is so important.”
And with one of her best-selling books entitled Wild Hope, my final question for Donna had to be about this.
“Nothing gives me greater hope than the fact human beings are mostly good, mostly full of love, and mostly wanting the best for others,” she says. “It gives me hope knowing people will always keep striving for better connection, better love, and more kindness.”
Donna Ashworth can be found on Facebook and Instagram. For more information see https://donnaashworth.com/
