let's start with kate moss. you knew her in the early days. remember she walked in and she literally charmed the whole room. the energy as well as the beauty. she's uniquely herself. and naomi's always been the same. she was always outspoken. naomi always thought she was going to be a star from when she was a baby — and she is a star — but, you know, they really are who they are — authentic. you also were defining your own sexuality and being open about it. you had a girlfriend who was another model and then, simon foxton took you to more gay bars, like heaven. you describe this in the book — very beautifully, if i may say — where you talk about how, "just as i had found myself in fashion, which is what i "wanted to do in the world, "now i was discovering more intimate terrain. "i felt free and scared and excited." but how did coming from a ghanaian family complicate coming out? my friends said apparently, when i was a teenager, we had this conversation — i didn't even remember. and i was, like, you know, i hear it's a european thing. and he w

of her work. joining us now is the author and founder—director of the women's prize for fiction, kate mossend advertising, because she was an advertising _ and advertising, because she was an advertising person as well and she wrote _ advertising person as well and she wrote about ordinary lives, with all of their— wrote about ordinary lives, with all of their complexity and she was radical— of their complexity and she was radical in — of their complexity and she was radical in another way which was she was funny. _ radical in another way which was she was funny, mischievous, witty and sometimes — was funny, mischievous, witty and sometimes that went against her because — sometimes that went against her because literature has always been a rather _ because literature has always been a rather snobby about anybody, male or female, that writes funny books but she was so. — female, that writes funny books but she was so, so clever but she was kind _ she was so, so clever but she was kind and _ she was so, so clever but she was kind and elegant and had an enormous zest for— kind and elegant and