EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Gemma Lees is a performance poet, journalist, facilitator and fine art installationist from Bury - and a proud Romani gypsy. In this episode, she talks about growing up in a creative, self-employed Romani family, multiple breakdowns and period of homelessness in her early twenties, being diagnosed as dyslexic and dyspraxic at 21 and autistic at 41, and living with fibromyalgia after years of being dismissed by doctors. We talk about what people get wrong about Romani and Traveller identity, why she turns insults into material rather than shame, and how creativity - protest art, poetry, performance - became both her advocacy and her survival. She wants her work to make people "laugh till they cry, and cry till they act."

SHOW NOTES

Gemma Lees is a performance poet, journalist and installation artist who has spent her career turning her own story - Romani identity, late diagnoses of autism and fibromyalgia, a breakdown and homelessness in her early twenties - into work that dispels myths and refuses to be quiet about it. This conversation moves from an oral storytelling childhood through a difficult chapter at university, to the funeral that brought her back to creativity, to the advocacy and installation work she's building now.

Themes:

• Romani and Traveller identity, and the myths that surround it

• Late diagnosis (autism at 41, fibromyalgia after years of being dismissed)

• Creativity as both advocacy and catharsis

• Rebuilding after a breakdown, one decision at a time

• Turning insults and stereotypes into material, not shame

  
  

Key Takeaways

• You don't have to look like what people expect your identity to be for it to be real.

• Creativity isn't a luxury - for Gemma, it's advocacy, protest, and catharsis all at once.

• A late diagnosis doesn't erase the years before it. It just finally explains them.

• Rejection can become material instead of a verdict - turn the insult into a t-shirt.

• "Not there yet" can mean building something, one decision at a time, with no fixed finish line.

If this episode moved you in some way, please send it to someone who's ever been told they don't "look like" what they are. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow - Notes from the Not There Yet is out every two weeks.

Find Gemma Lees:Website: https://gemmaleesartist.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gemmathepoet/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gemmathepoet83Find the The Not There Yet Project: Website: https://notthereyetproject.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notthereyetproject/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethanydwrightSubstack: https://thenotthereyetproject.substack.com/Not lost, not arrived, just not there yet.