Journeys of Curiosity - From Documentary Filmmaking to Fiction Writing - Neil Laird : 147

Neil is a passionate storyteller, a skilled documentary filmmaker turned fiction writer. His travels have taken him from historic libraries in New York to the ancient ruins of the Middle East. Neil's interest in classic films and history books led him to backpack across Egypt and Israel, blending his love for storytelling with travel. He shares the key moments and cultural experiences that have enriched his life and career, emphasizing the exceptional openness and generosity he encountered along the way.

Neil Laird is an LGBTQIA+, multiple Emmy-nominated director of historical films for Discovery, BBC, PBS, History Channel, National Geographic, and many other networks. He has produced over 100 programs around the globe that feature crumbling Egyptian tombs, lost Mayan cities, and mysterious shipwrecks at the bottom of the sea.

Neil talks about the incredible kindness of strangers he met while travelling. He met a Syrian family who gave up their only goat to honour him as a guest. These heartwarming stories challenge common fears and misconceptions, showing empathy that goes beyond cultural differences. Neil also shares a significant moment in his career while filming a restoration project at the Great Sphinx. This experience has influenced his perspective and inspired his transition from documentary filmmaking to fiction writing.
Neil shares his journey of changing careers from a freelance producer to an executive role at the BBC, and then returning to writing. He openly talks about the challenges faced by the television industry and the freedom that comes with pursuing passion projects.

To Connect with Neil: https://www.neillaird.com/

Chapters

• 11:33 Acts of Kindness and Exploration
• 15:10 Crafting Stories Through Filmmaking
• 19:13 Career in Television and Writing Novels
• 28:25 Navigating Homophobia and Acceptance
• 36:33 Exploring Diversity in Fiction Writing

Transcript

Daniela SM: 0:04

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast. Because Everyone has a Story, the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it. Connect and relate, because everyone has a story. Relate because everyone has a story. Welcome. My guest is Neil Laird. He is an LGBTQIA plus passionate storyteller and Emmy nominated filmmaker turned fiction writer. His work has taken him from historic libraries in New York to ancient ruins in the Middle East, producing over a hundred programs for networks like BBC, discovery Channel and National Geographic. While traveling, neil experienced the kindness of strangers, including a Syrian family who gave up their only goat to honour him. These moments, along with the key projects of the Great Sphinx, inspire his shift from documentary to fiction writing. He also shares insights from his career personal stories moving from freelance producer to a BBC executive before returning to his writing roots. I was captivated by Neil's life story. His charm, kindness and open-mindedness are truly fascinating. I hope you find his story as enchanting as I did. Let's enjoy it. Welcome, neil, to the show.

Neil Laird: 1:41

Thank you for having me. It's fun.

Daniela SM: 1:43

Yes, and I am super excited that I met you not long ago and this beautiful smile of yours and this energy, that I'm super, super excited that you're here to share your story. So why do you want to share your story?

Neil Laird: 1:57

Well, first of all you reached out for me and thank you.

Neil Laird: 1:59

You must have saw something in my profile on Podmatch that pricked up your ears and it's wonderful to kind of find somebody who recognizes that enthusiasm. And I think my story I can't say it's unique, but I certainly would say it's my own and I've lived it fully is my absolute love of travel and my fascination particularly with the ancient world and trying to understand how earlier cultures did what they did and how they did it so beautifully, particularly Egypt and Rome. I've always been enamored of those early civilizations, so much so that I've spent the last 25 years as a documentary filmmaker going to these places, making films for National Geographic and BBC and PBS, and it's really been sort of my passion that's driven my life. And then recently I've moved on to writing novels based on my travels, but I'm allowing to get into fiction and time travel and kind of play with the confines of the real and the unreal, something I couldn't do as a documentary filmmaker for the last quarter century. All that, throw that in the blender and you can pick that apart as you like.

Daniela SM: 2:58

Yes, it sounds so fascinating. Of course, I heard about traveling and I love traveling too, but I haven't done it as much as you, so I always like to hear the stories. I feel like when you travel, your mind opens and everything changes. I wish everybody could travel so that they could see the world in a different way. So, neil, when does your story start exactly?

Neil Laird: 3:25

love of travel and my and it actually in a way they both love of travel, love of history kind of happen the same time. The my other great love has always been filmmaking films. I grew up as a nerdy kid in western pennsylvania with not much to do, but I became enamored early on of watching the old classic movies that lawrence arabian and seven samurai and the good, the bad and the ugly all these great epics. Whatever reason, I was drawn to these exotic other worlds, so much so that I went to film school. I went to Temple University in Philadelphia to get my Bachelor of the Arts in filmmaking with narrative films. I got that after four years in the 80s and then I zipped up to New York thinking that I would become a famous filmmaker overnight and that didn't happen.

Neil Laird: 4:02

I was a poor guy making sure no one stole the grip truck at two in the morning while they're making some crappy horror film, and like so many other people, living freelance and paycheck to paycheck, with a lot of free time in between, so having very little to do and little money to do it, I started hanging out the New York Public Library a lot, just because it was free and it was air conditioned. And one day I picked up a book off the shelf about the rise of early civilizations, something that I had never got in my small Catholic school back in Greensburg, pennsylvania, and it was like a penny dropped. I became so fascinated by this unknown world and the rise of civilization I just didn't know. I resolved to teach myself history through the New York Public Library. I read book after book after book and then I got to Egypt and I really became stuck.

Neil Laird: 4:47

I became so fascinated by the ancient Egyptians and the pyramids and the tombs and how they did it and how they did it so early that I just said, screw this, I'm tired of waiting for the phone not to ring. So I scraped up my pennies and I went to the Middle East. And I backpacked to the Middle East for about eight or nine months, went to all those countries in the Middle East, and I backpacked to the Middle East for about eight or nine months, went to all those countries in the Middle East and just came back with my head in the clouds and this was in the early 90s by this point Ninety, ninety one, yeah, ok, and so you have read so much that you could be a historian Could do, though you know, some people have asked me, why aren't you an archaeologist?

Neil Laird: 5:21

And I guess the argument there would be that you know I'm not smart enough to understand the science and the three or four languages behind it, what I am as a storyteller. So yes, so yes, I could very easily be a story and historian. And then when we jump ahead, but you know, when I decided to write my first book, the natural progression would have been to write a nonfiction history of Egypt or Rome or Greece. But I chose fiction because, after a quarter century of telling those kinds of stories, I wanted to play and just kind of mix things up a bit and just have a bit of fun and bring this cinematic sensibility that I put aside for so long back into my life.

Daniela SM: 5:54

So when you were reading in the library, you got stuck in Egypt. And then what happened?

Neil Laird: 5:57

Then I just again, I just backpacked. I convinced a friend, a school teacher at the summer off to go with me. We flew to Egypt and did a cruise and my eyes were just wide open. And then we did Israel together as well, and then he had to fly home and then I backpacked through Turkey, iran, syria, Jordan. I actually came to Jordan. I love that part of the world and the people, the Arab sensibility, the culture, the heat, the desert. All those things speak to me that when I came back I had to find a way to make that my career. How can someone pay me to go back and do it again? Because I can't afford to keep doing this on my own dime.

Daniela SM: 6:34

When you were there, you were seeing the world in a different way that maybe most travelers have, because you read so much. So what were you focusing on?

Neil Laird: 6:39

Certainly the ancient history, but again, I was a 24-year-old kid or something. So what's in a book and what is out there is two totally different things. I knew all about my Ramses the Great versus my 18th dynasty and 19th dynasty, and I could tell you when the Wailing Wall was created and when Herod was destroyed. But what made the trip so absolutely gobsmackingly memorable was the people and the places. Because you can't get that until you go there and, as any first time traveler who's listening knows, you get to see who you are too. When you're traveling, all your uncertainties and strengths and insecurities come out and you have to kind of deal with them and figure out a way to negotiate. And this was back in the early 80s or early 90s, before internet and before anyone kind of helping you. There's no phone calls. So I just had my lonely planet and a fixed budget and I was wandering around these places and I just get on a train and I'd show up in a small town in Turkey that hopefully I could find a hotel that was open, and that sense of freedom ultimately became freedom.

Neil Laird: 7:41

I remember I was wandering around some town, I think it was in the Iranian border. I was working my way to Iran. And I woke up one day and I'd missed the train and I was stuck for a few days in this tiny sort of nothing town on the Turkish Iranian border and I just started giggling and laughing because I realized just no one knows where I am. I'm totally free. The only connection I have to my life back in Chicago was my passport and my ticket home, which wasn't for months and months. So I was anonymous and, rather than being afraid, I embraced it. It was so wonderful. I was floating on air. I was like, oh my God, it's like here I am just exploring the water on my own terms and making up as I go, and I think, like many travelers who have wanderlust, I've been chasing that feeling ever since.

Daniela SM: 8:33

The freedom right. It's funny, I always had that feeling when I'm going to offer my passport to leave. I always felt that, oh my God, I am free, I can go anywhere. So I know that feeling Right.

Neil Laird: 8:43

Suddenly it's a whole new world. You know what's going to happen, right, and it's just you out there doing it, and, yeah, and anyone who hasn't traveled again, I think that'd be the moral certainty of this episode is do it, don't wait, just do it, because you get to see yourself. This is not always easy, but, oh my God, it's like once you dip your toes in that river you want to feel that forever?

Daniela SM: 9:06

Yes, I know, traveling is not for everyone, people like to control or to be safe and you know they don't want to feel uncomfortable or the things that are not familiar.

Neil Laird: 9:14

Yeah, comfortable, yeah, you're absolutely right. And again, if you know, if, if, if a Disney cruise is your liking, or if going to Jamaica, that's all travel. It's all up to you. Certainly, I think once you do it, the more you'll probably want to explore something a little bit off the beaten path, hopefully because you realize the world isn't quite as dangerous and ugly places they tell you it is.

Daniela SM: 9:35

I know, I know.

Neil Laird: 9:36

Certainly the American sensibility. We know that the Arab world too. I think part of the appeal though I didn't realize until later was the Arab world growing up under Reagan and Thatcher and the idea of terrorism was that it was totally verboten, that you did not want to go to a bunch of evil people who just want to, you know, kidnap you or blow you up or something and all these ugly stereotypes. So part of that appeal, which I don't understand what that really was, was all the more eye opening because, of course, the exact opposite, the Arab people in the middle, they're among the friendliest people. I was invited into homes because I got lost or whatever.

Neil Laird: 10:10

And I remember one time I was in Syria and I missed a connecting train because I did it all cheap, by train and the next one wasn't for two or three days and it's like, you know, I had time but I didn't know where I was going and I was kind of down. It's like there really wasn't any place to stay. And then some old woman who was at the market selling watermelons, she saw me and she came up and started talking to me in Arabic and I don't understand a word. She just told me to wait, wait, wait. Then she came back with her son, who spoke just a little bit of English, and what they were saying is the next train is until Thursday. It's Tuesday, come stay with us, come stay with us.

Neil Laird: 10:48

And this woman and her son took me into their house and I remember they had a goat in the backyard which they were showing off with great pride, and that goat disappeared before dinner because they killed it and cooked it for me because I was an honored guest in their house. They were so touched that they were able to do this and help us, that hospitality. This was a big thing for them and it wasn't looking for money, it wasn't looking for anything else. Clearly there was no politics and we could barely speak, but their one singular goat was felled because I missed a train. I need a place to stay. That's how open they were, and I often wonder if that happened in my town of Greensburg, pennsylvania, would they be just as generous to the Arab backpackers?

Daniela SM: 11:25

I'm sorry, I feel so bad for the goat.

Neil Laird: 11:29

It was a damn good goat, though I got to say.

Daniela SM: 11:33

I work in a sport facility and this kid was dropped by mistake to where I work, so he's supposed to be going to the hospital. He was coming from New Zealand and he got hurt because he failed at the airport and he slept in our home and I told the mom he was 19 years old. That don't worry, we will take care of your son. And for me it was just a natural thing to do. Like I have kids, I would love for my kids to be taken care of like that If I travel. I would love people to do this to me. So for me it's just like the normal thing.

Neil Laird: 12:07

It's such a wonderful thing and I wonder why we are trained not to, why we're trained to fear. Certainly the media, which I'm part of, you know as a thing, but again you did absolutely the natural thing, which is like here's someone in need, you know, you have a house. It's like the person doesn't feel dangerous. Yet I think we are brainwashed in a way to think that anything for and anything outside of us is a threat.

Daniela SM: 12:27

Yeah. So I was telling the story to a friend and they were like we will never do such thing and I had to kind of justify my behavior and I'm like this is just the right thing to do. There was no question about it for me. What?

Neil Laird: 12:41

was their argument. Why did they say it was the wrong thing? Merely because of safety.

Daniela SM: 12:49

Oh yeah, question about it for me. What was their argument? Why did they?

Neil Laird: 12:50

say it was the wrong thing Merely because of safety. Oh yeah, we don't put strangers in our house. Anyway, it was a very interesting evening. Well, I mean, I think it's wise to say I'm glad you said something, because I think people do kind of gently maybe put in their place, because I think it's very easy to stay in those traps of what the rest of the world. They don't even have to be a foreigner. It could be somebody wandering here from Wisconsin or whatever, where you assume anything is a threat and people need to be called out a bit about that stuff, because there's much more good in the world than there is bad.

Daniela SM: 13:12

There is, of course, and traveling, all your experiences. What else? What happened? What happened next?

Neil Laird: 13:18

Well then I was successful enough. I went to grad school and I made a thesis film about the great sphinx of Egypt, which I absolutely adore. That, and a friend of mine's father, luckily, was an antiquities board in Egypt, so he helped me get some permits for free, and things that were very to shoot in Egypt is so expensive. You put your tripods on the sand and it costs you ten thousand pounds or something. It's super crazy so I couldn't afford it otherwise. Crazy so I couldn't afford it otherwise.

Neil Laird: 13:45

But because of my friend's father, a geologist who worked in Cairo, I was able to follow the stonemasons who were restoring the Great Sphinx of Egypt. This was now the mid-90s. The Sphinx had been terribly eroded and they did a botched job. The Italians did a botched job. They hired these Italian engineers to do it and it made the Sphinx worse. And the Sphinx was actually almost like shedding its skin. The blocks they put on it were falling off and it was in a terrible shape.

Neil Laird: 14:06

So the Egyptian government wisely figured well, the only way to save this is to figure out how they did it originally, which of course is hard four and a half thousand years later. But what they did is they hired a bunch of local stone masons who understood the ancient Egyptian craft to come in local Egyptians to shore it up and restore it. And I was able to get there and record this their story. While they did it and I was climbing all the Sphinx with them, going into the secret passageways and the rump of the Sphinx I went home with one of the stone masons got dysentery that knocked me out for a week but it was still worth it and I was able to make that film and then I sold it to Discovery Channel. This is 1997. It was also my thesis film in grad school, so that shot me right into the business. I kind of skipped all the steps and went right into making those kind of films all in one swoop and then since then I've been making films.

Daniela SM: 14:54

I've been to over 70 countries, made over a thousand hours but how do you learn to make films where I was in the, in the well?

Neil Laird: 15:01

you make a lot of mistakes. The first, the first cut, was terrible. Actually, I had another great experience I had that really helped both sell it and helped me shape. It was at the time I was interning and this is Chicago where I went to grad school and I was interning a place called Cartemquin Films, which is still around, and a wonderful outfit of filmmakers independent outfit of filmmakers, who do a lot of social work and stuff, and they're working on a film that maybe you remember the title called hoop dreams, which was a huge documentary that came out in 1994 and no one thought it was going to be a anything and then suddenly became what an oscar and became a seminal film of the 90s. And they were following two black kids in the ghettos of chicago who wanted to become basketball stars, who had hoop dreams, and for seven years they followed these kids. These two filmmakers from University of Illinois just believed in it and when I came on board as an assistant editor they had 250 hours and didn't know what to do with this thing, but they kept shaping it and shaping and shaping it and what appeared? I watched these two filmmakers craft this thing and how to edit in post.

Neil Laird: 16:07

A lot of editing in documentary is not scripted like like a film. You don't have a script or a blueprint. You may have a few things you want when you go in the field, but basically you're winging it and then you have thousands of hours of footage or hundreds of hours of footage, and then you make sense of it in post, in in edit, and that's what they were doing. So I had the best perch to watch a story emerge, you know, like Michelangelo finding the David out of a hunk of granite. In there slowly came out this wonderful film, and it was just this beautiful, beautiful film. And I was also fortunate that I became close with one of the filmmakers, so he lent his name to my film to help me get it sold to Learning Channel, but also there as a mentor. Frederick Marks is his name and he was there every step of the way, giving me guidance and lending his name and doing all the wheeling and dealing for us, but letting me step back and make the film myself, and I certainly made tons of mistakes.

Daniela SM: 17:05

Do you have to have a talent too?

Neil Laird: 17:06

I believe. So I like to think yeah, I mean it's. Look, it's not for everybody.

Neil Laird: 17:09

Filmmaking is tough, not just being in the field. People always think how exotic you're out there, can I carry your bags? And you have to go out there and find the stories Interviewing. You know, for most of my life I've been on your side of things. I've been doing the interviews, listening and trying to find the best performance or best stories within somebody and getting them to feel comfortable. And then going back and finding what the spine of the film is is storytelling. And it's, yes, it's a craft, but it's also, I think, in many ways innate. I think I've seen a lot of filmmakers don't quite get it and other people just take to it like that. For me the hard part was just trying to understand the craft and putting it together. I was a 24, 25 kid in my first film, but certainly over time it becomes better and better and I had a real aptitude for it. I still do. I'm still making films for television. That has been my career since the mid-90s. So absolutely, it's talent as well as repetition.

Daniela SM: 18:03

And so then you made this movie and you sent it to Discovery Channel, and it was a hit.

Neil Laird: 18:07

The film did well enough. I think they didn't know quite what to do with it, because I think I'm happy with what I did. But in a way I focused too much on the Egyptians and not on the archaeologists and the white people, so I think it might have turned some of the viewers off at the time. Some of the reviews saying I would like to know more about, you know, the archaeologists, not the stonemasons. So I'm glad I did that, because these are people that were the story. But what the film did it was a gateway to allow me to keep doing it again. Then I did one on Stonehenge and spent time with druids, and then in one of the Knights Templar and I was up in Scotland and then I became a shipwreck guy and I went to Malta and the Middle East again and then went on Ankerwatt and Burma. I just became that guy Because Saving the Sphinx did well enough and it was a unique story.

Neil Laird: 18:52

No one had told a story about the restoration before. So the access helped too and, like you said, understanding the history helps me sell it and write the story and develop it and pitch it. So I knew the craft of storytelling and I knew the history and how to bind the two.

Daniela SM: 19:05

So Discovery Channel gave you the opportunity to make movies. They were supporting you.

Neil Laird: 19:10

Correct. They funded the film. Okay, the way it works is at least. Back then I was a Discovery Channel executive, you know, full circle for 12 years. I just left that job last summer, came back to that world, but at that point I was a producer who had a pitch tape. I went and I shot 15 minutes of it. And then my friend at Cartumquin he went to the network and pitched it and says if you give us I forget how much, it was $400,000, we will give you an hour documentary based on this concept and then Discovery funds it and they own it and then they send you off and then you know, you make it, you give it to the network and they help you shape it and then they air it. So it's a Discovery project that I was hired for, but I did all the creative work in the field.

Daniela SM: 19:52

Wow Interesting, and so you worked with them until now.

Neil Laird: 19:56

That was the 90s. I mean I was a freelance producer on the production side for 10 years working for BBC. I eventually got hired as an executive producer for the network. So I became the guy, not who made it, but the guy who was giving me notes. Back in the 90s I now became that guy that you would come to me with a project and pitch it. We would give you the money. Then I would be your contact, your boss at the network. I would look at your scripts, your treatments, and that's what I did for the last 15 years. I was an EP on the network. Oh wow, 15 years.

Daniela SM: 20:29

I was an EP on the network. Oh wow, and how was the switch? Because you.

Neil Laird: 20:35

I'm not creating anymore. It's a very good question. It's a very astute question because it's a different kind of creation, because I started to go in there and look at the script and see what was working and why it wasn't working. I would take their rough cut and offer notes. You can't just simply say it's bad, make it better. There's some EPs have certainly done that. You have to know what you're doing and you have to understand how to make it work.

Neil Laird: 20:52

A lot of the stuff thing about documentary, as we talked earlier, is since there is no script, sometimes the opening bite is in the wrong place, or your thesis is the wrong place, or your lead is buried in the third act and not the first. So it's really hard to tell when you're in the weeds making it. But as an exec who made hundreds and hundreds of hours by the end of it I could look at a script or a cut and I can tell you in one viewing oh, move this here, move that there. This bite is here, create that character. It just becomes an intuitive, intuitive thing after over all the years. But you're right, the creativity is far less.

Neil Laird: 21:25

I have my fingerprints on thousands of hours of shows, but they're not mine, they're the people.

Neil Laird: 21:30

When I made them, I made my 30 or 40 hours or whatever in the field and then I oversaw entire series so I'd be looking at 100 hours in any given month or whatever. I did Shark Week which is a big thing on Discovery for like seven years or something, where I would have eight or nine shows I was watching just that week and then giving notes. So you can't make them their own, you have to create them, get them ready for network and then send them back out. And why that was rewarding? Because it highly tuned my writing skills. It's exactly why I started getting itchy feet about being creative again, which is why I started writing novels in my spare time, because I wanted to own something again was in my spare time, because I wanted to own something again. I wanted to get back in there, get my hands dirty and create something from scratch and be the one who's vitally making something important from the get-go, which you really can't do with the network because you come in too late, it's already somebody else's baby.

Daniela SM: 22:23

Uh-huh, you say, in your spare time, was it such a thing?

Neil Laird: 22:26

It's funny, you know it's a good question, because an EPA network works their butt off, I know, and sometimes weekends and stuff. But what's amazing is when you become passionate or obsessed, I would say, about something, you find the time. I would set my alarm for 5 am and I would make two pots of coffee and I would write every day until 9.30, 10 am when the notes started coming in from Discovery, and then every Saturday I would give up my Saturday morning much to my husband to sugar in sometimes and I'd write till one or two in the afternoon and I just became totally focused on the writing and it was time. I thought I didn't have. It was there. You just have to give up. You got to sleep a little less, you got to go to bed a little earlier. The time is there. If you want something, you can always find the time is there. If you want something, you can always find the time.

Daniela SM: 23:14

So I did all that by juggling a full-time job, wow Okay, holidays. And so what happened then? When did you decide? Okay, it's enough now of juggling. I want to focus on one thing.

Neil Laird: 23:22

Well, I mean, I was. I'm still in the business and the only reason I'm not at Discovery is because of the business, not because of me. Just network television in the US and the UK and Europe as well is going through a sea change. It's constricting dramatically and so many of all the streaming services. Two years ago, warner Brothers and Discovery Channel merged in a $44 billion merge, so it's the biggest merger ever. So entire networks, including my network, science Channel, went away and me and several other I think 800 of us were let go last summer. They just let go another 800 last week Discovery Channel. So the business is getting smaller. They're making less hours and therefore they need less creative people and less people in the network to watch the shows. So I was let go because there simply was no money. They were trying to save money. So I'm back in the freelance world.

Neil Laird: 24:10

The first thing I did when I got my severance is well, I'm going to write another book.

Neil Laird: 24:16

I rented a villa in Sorrento for about a month because I've always wanted to write a book about Pompeii. So I wrote the sequel to the book that's already out Primetime Pompeii and I just sat, got a little villa and it was just two train stops away from Pompeii, one of my favorite places Get up in the morning and I would write, and then I would get on the train and go look around Pompeii and take notes and come back and write some more and then go for a swim and go to bed. So that's the luxury of the writer. Now that I'm a freelancer again, I'm going to Turkey to write primetime Troy, but now I'm off the clock, so you kind of have lots of time, but what you miss is obviously the cash coming in from the networks. So I have to balance that out by making more shows. So when I come back I have a project set up for History Channel which I'll jump on for six months and then go back and forth and try to find that balance.

Daniela SM: 24:59

Is no retirement for you, so you still want to work or you have to work.

Neil Laird: 25:03

Both, I suppose I mean theoretically. I guess I could go off and live modestly somewhere. But no, I still enjoy television and, I think, also books. My first book, primetime Travelers, is out now. It's on Amazon and it's a small independent press and I'll be lucky to make the money back. I'm not going to become Stephen King overnight.

Neil Laird: 25:23

There's not a lot of cash in being a novelist. It's probably the second most ridiculous career choice after being a TV producer in terms of monetary gain. So you got to stick to your day job. If I was able to just write full time, absolutely If I could write my novels I got so many ideas of novels, I got the series going. I'm on my third one. I had three other novels that I couldn't get an agent for sitting in a drawer, so they're ready to go. I'm a very quick, passionate writer and if I could do that full time, if I could buy a place in the eastern Mediterranean overlooking the Bay of Naples or whatever, and just write my novels, that would be my first choice. But I'm not sure that lifestyle is within reach right now.

Daniela SM: 26:03

Oh, wow, Wow. But so you're so creative. It's incredible. What else in your life is creative for you, Like you know the film, the writing. What else in your life is creative for you, Like you know, the film, the writing.

Neil Laird: 26:13

Is there an extra hobby that you have? The writing certainly was the hobby To your question where did you find the time? My hobby was writing novels, you know at 8, you know at night, on a Saturday or whatever. I mean. Travel still impels me, pushes me forward, and one of the things that I've been doing like the characters in the primetime books, because I can create my own characters One thing I've always wanted to do, and something that I saw so much when I traveled both to the Middle East but also reading about ancient history is being a gay man and understanding how the LGBTQ life was so different back in the day where, in many ways, ancient worlds like Egypt, greece and Rome, they were more free.

Neil Laird: 26:48

It was easier to be gay and queer because there was no label for it. So a lot of that happened with the rise of Christianity and the question of you know us versus them. Not only are my characters gay. When they go back, like in the second book, the camera woman is a lesbian. She falls in love with someone in Pompeii. In the first book, my lead character falls in love with a Nubian guard in Egypt. I want to make very positive stories about gay life then and now. So another hobby tied in with my book is I do a series of TikTok and Instagram videos on gay history Me talking about Emperor Hadrian or Julius Caesar or mythology, or the first transsexuals in history which were Mesopotamian priests in ancient Iraq and I just kind of tell these little stories and try to edify and educate people in a kind of a fun, simple way, because I think that's something that as a historian, as a gay man who's traveled the world, I have that perspective that many other people don't.

Daniela SM: 27:38

When you mentioned that before, I was concerned. Like when you go to other countries where it's illegal to be gay. How do you handle that?

Neil Laird: 27:45

I mean, it's a very good question because you have to mind your P's and Q's and obviously any kind of of. Even in very conservative countries I think of iran, or I think of syria, egypt in many regards, once you've got the touristy bits, even straight couples need to sort of like, be careful. Acts of kissing or whatever, regardless of gender, are frowned upon, but certainly, being gay, I've never had any incidents of violent homophobia or or anything that was strong. Partially, partially because I think there's a double standard in many of those places where if you're a tourist, they leave you alone. They know you're leaving in a fortnight, you're just coming through. They want your money in a way, and also it's a different culture. Most of the Egyptians and the Syrians or whatever, they respect that.

Neil Laird: 28:25

I don't usually share that information because you don't know how people are going to respond. You know, I was in West Africa in many ways it's even more homophobic and I was there with a friend of a friend and he picked me up at the airport. I was going to stay with him. He started railing against gay marriage, which just passed, and how disgusting it was and how Obama, who had passed it, was going to rot in hell. It's like, oh wow, okay, you don't. So I just shut my mouth and didn't talk about that, because I'm in their culture, I am in their country, I'm not going to change an entire people or change, you know, entire religion. So sometimes you have to walk lightly.

Neil Laird: 28:58

What I do find, more than any kind of oppression against me, is repression from them, particularly when I travel alone, which is a lot. I get hit on all the time by guys in the park in a very sort of just levacious or almost you know, sort of like. They don't know what they're doing. They're doing it very badly too, but I think it's because of the sexual repression of being gay there.

Neil Laird: 29:17

They figure they can hit on some Westerner, some decadent Westerner coming through for a week because they can't do it at the mosque or they can't do it at home. There's no real residue. If you do it with somebody who's gone, they can still hopefully get through. And I find that so deeply sad because you know these people are living a double life and these people are so desperate for that kind of affection and you know what they would get from a stranger in the park is not what they really need. You know they need love and tenderness and all that kind of stuff that goes with true love. The society won't allow them to do that, so there's just many repressed gay guys living in this part of the world that will never come out, because they're the ones who are in more danger than me. I fly back to Manhattan. They stay, yeah.

Daniela SM: 29:55

You learned about the freedom that they had in the past? You know, because you say there were no labels, just by reading it or just assuming, or how Well, don't you see?

Neil Laird: 30:05

it. You see it? I mean certainly I talked to archaeologists and Egyptologists or whoever and they're the history On my very first trip, and I've told this in a couple other podcasts who ask about gay life. But I think it always bears repeating is, even though at that point I was, if I was out I don't know if I was out or not, I think it was just coming out but certainly I was trying to understand my place in the world and homosexuality's place in the world and it went to Saqqara, which is one of my favorite archaeological sites south of Cairo the Great Step Pyramid.

Neil Laird: 30:33

If you ever see the Step Pyramid, it's the oldest pyramid, four and a half thousand years old, and there's a very elite graveyard there that was made for the richest of the rich, of the pharaoh, so long ago, four millennia ago. So anyone who could be buried there already was sanctioned by the pharaoh and by the government. They were the best of the best, and there's a tomb there called the Tomb of the Brothers, which is a ridiculous title I'll talk about in a minute, but when you go in there it's so very clear that it's a same-sex couple, two men that were buried side by side and they have sarcophagi next to each other and the place is just a delight of frescoes of these two men holding hands, touching nose to nose, which is the Egyptian form of kissing, fishing, dancing, spending time together. It clearly was a queer couple that the government thought it was okay for them to be buried together and they were out and proud. Now they didn't say that. You know, at no point did he say marriage, because back then those kind of things there was no name for it. So whether it was saying, oh, that's our gay friends, or whether you said these two guys are in love, but here is a celebration of this life of these two rich, elite men four and a half thousand years ago. Clearly, at the time it was accepted. It's called Tomb of the Brothers because when it was found in 1964 by archaeologists, the homophobia was so ripe it couldn't possibly be two gay guys. It had to have been two brothers.

Neil Laird: 31:50

There was one theory, even more crackpot, that said well, it may not be brothers, perhaps they were Siamese twins, and that's why they're so close together. That's why they're nose to nose, because physically they can't move away from it. That's how far people bend over in their homophobia to dismiss the fact that this was a natural love between two men who just decided to go off into the do-what the field of, between two men who just decided to go off into the Duat, the Fjord of Reeds, together for eternity. It's a wonderful story and yet it's buried. So you have to look deep so you know.

Neil Laird: 32:17

When you start looking around, you go to Rome, which is in Pompeii, and you see a lot of gay icons there and in the Roman world. They all had a different. There was no real name for it because, again, it was something that was very, very common. There were certain roles. Later on, the Romans started saying the man who was the active partner, you know, in sex was a man, but the one who was a passive partner was not, you know. So that kind of stuff started creeping in in terms of masculinity and femininity. But beyond that, you could love whoever you want, have sex whoever you wanted with, and those are the stories that you see time and time again in these early cultures, where it wasn't until later, where it was decided by priests or imams or whoever else, that, oh, you're going straight to hell for this kind of thinking. That is a modern interpretation of same-sex love.

Daniela SM: 33:05

And I don't really think it's going to change very time soon.

Neil Laird: 33:08

No, no, I mean certainly. I mean we won't talk about current politics here, but yeah, I think the pendulum is swinging back. But, conversely, here I am married to my husband, which I didn't expect to happen. We were legally married and have been since 2011, when it became legal. So things do march forward.

Neil Laird: 33:23

What people say when they can hide and what they say when they're in front of you. You know, I've been to the South, which you assume is much more homophobic and certainly is, I think, because it's much more Christian. With my husband no, we don't go out of our way, but we're clearly two men. He's Black as well, so it's a Black and white guy coming together and we walk into a small town in Tennessee and the waitress knows pretty quickly we're a couple. They usually smile and they say I've never felt that kind of thing. So I think what people see when they see you face to face is very different. What they say when they can hide.

Neil Laird: 33:59

I made the mistake a fascinating eye opening. I won't say it's a mistake, but it certainly was eye opener. When I started advertising my first book, primetime Travelers, a friend said oh well, you're doing ads on Facebook, you should boost it, which means you just get it out there and anybody can see it, so it's not just your friends or your family or people in your groups. It goes out. I'm not sure how the algorithm works, but it goes out.

Neil Laird: 34:15

So all these gay videos I did one on transgenders in Mesopotamia, which I mentioned, and I think one on maybe Emperor Hadrian who had a beautiful lover, young lover it went out and it went all these people who were just full of homophobia and hate, and I got the ugliest, most insulting, hateful, personal responses about me in the videos and it was just this down and dirty nastiness, always from anonymous people or some guy that could be anybody that's hiding. It's easy to throw stones when you can hide behind the parapet afterwards. It's a double standard. I think a lot of what's happening with homophobia and with politics everything else is an anonymity where you can hide among the crowd. But again, face to face. I want to test that everywhere. I really haven't had any of that kind of stuff either in the States or in the Middle East or Asia or whatever. It's pretty clear that we are a gay couple, but in most cases they still serve our dinner with a smile.

Daniela SM: 35:07

I feel like when they see you, they see the human. Then people, when they're not watching or looking at the human, they just have an opinion.

Neil Laird: 35:15

Precisely, precisely, because it's no longer looking at the individual. It's now just a polemic rather than the person.

Daniela SM: 35:21

One story is like we were in the car and my kids were small and one of the best friends of my son is Asian and one of the other friends says these Chinese people? And he said I don't know what. And then he turns to her friend and said but you're okay, cause you're a friend.

Neil Laird: 35:36

Precisely, there is hypocrisy right there right.

Daniela SM: 35:43

Yeah, yeah.

Neil Laird: 35:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Daniela SM: 35:44

Because that's what we, we always.

Neil Laird: 35:46

You put it in generalized, you say things and I'm like, oh, but you know you're okay, cause you're my friend, Right, people always like to, you know. Perhaps if they say something you know anti-black, you know in front of my husband, or anti-gay, in front of both of us, but some of my best friends are black, some of my best friends are gay, so but they're okay, it's just the rest of the culture that I don't like, you know. So it's like it's a very strange thing. I think it's fear and I think it's following the crowd. And until once, once again, to bring it back to travel and the positive.

Neil Laird: 36:10

You cannot backpack to the middle east. You cannot see the world and come back, be the same person about these places. You, you know, you've been in inner cambodia and someone's helped you out in a rainstorm, or you're in a poor village in india and they take you and they give you a bed. You will not think about indians and cambodians the same way because you looked them in the eye yes, exactly, but at the end we're just humans, really foolish.

Daniela SM: 36:33

You know, my grandmother was from venezuela, but she had some indigenous, some black maybe according to my dna, we don't know, you know, and when she came to vancouver, people sometimes thought that she was asian because she was short, and so we talked to her in chinese, and then I will see pictures of indigenous from Mexico and indigenous here, and I'm like they are so similar.

Neil Laird: 36:57

We are so similar that there is, you know, just change on physicality we all are and I don't understand why we some to think it's an us versus them everywhere you go, or like they're just strange and how they do college. That's what I love about travel again is the culture. It's like you've been to a Nubian wedding. You say it's so different than my own, but how wonderful it is. They have their own culture and learn from it, rather than saying, oh, when I would do this, I wouldn't do that. Yes, who cares? Who cares? You still do. People getting married.

Daniela SM: 37:32

For me it's important how you behave. I mean you tend to generalize.

Neil Laird: 37:33

I grew up in a Latin country and when somebody's late, you're like a typical Latin. Of course, we all do that. We all do that, and there's some truth to stereotypes, clearly you know. But again, your story about taking that kid in, it's like that's exactly what you should do. It's just somebody in need and that kid could have been black, white, asian, gay, it didn't matter, right, it was just somebody who just needed a place to stay. There could be more of that in the world. I don't know. There certainly is ugliness out there, but I do think that the best way to face it is to literally face it person to person and you say, oh yeah, they're just like me.

Daniela SM: 38:00

So, neil, how many books in total have you written so far?

Neil Laird: 38:03

I've published one, primetime Travelers, and then Primetime Pompeii. The second one comes out in the fall, when I get back from Turkey. I'll release that. And then Prime Time Troy, which I start writing, hopefully will come out next year. Then I have two or three others in a shelf which I'll figure out how to publish them when the time comes.

Daniela SM: 38:21

And at the meantime, you're doing TikTok videos even though people are sending hate messages.

Neil Laird: 38:28

Well, I stopped doing that. Most of the people are very embracing and I found a wonderful community on Facebook. There's a thing called MM Male to Male Adventure and Romance. I didn't even know MM stood for anything until I started getting into publishing and these people just absolutely adore anything that has strong male characters that are gay, and they have been wonderful. They gave me great reviews on Amazon. They've shared it with people and that's a key thing. If anybody here is listening, is interested and read the book, you know you can get on amazon but also leave a review on amazon or goodreads, because the algorithm is very much about the more reviews you get. The higher you go up there, the more noticeability you get, and it's always great to get reviews from all walks of life, not just the gay space or the fantasy space or whatever else, just to get people from across different, different uh walks of life, because that helps the visibility rise.

Daniela SM: 39:15

Are you talking only about gay men, or men in general as well?

Neil Laird: 39:18

Oh, no, no. The premise of the book I should probably say all the books. The series is a film crew, much like what I work with, a TV film crew that discovers a portal to ancient Egypt and two of them are gay and two of them are not. There's a host, an Indiana Jones-like host, which is a parody. The lead director, his camera woman they're gay. And then Ali, the sound guy from Cairo, he's straight and they meet different people. So it's not a gay book. It's a book that somebody has gay characters in it. At the end of the day, it's an adventure. It's a time travel Indiana Jones adventure that just happened to have gay characters in it. Indiana Jones adventure that just happened to have gay characters in it. So it was on some hot and heavy, spicy romance kind of thing. You know, it definitely is for a general audience, but it's very pro LGBTQ.

Daniela SM: 39:58

What I want to get out is like you are also your male characters. Women have been talking a lot about women's stuff, and so men have lost a little bit of their spot in the world, and so I was wondering if you are helping with that in a way that I don't know.

Neil Laird: 40:14

It's certainly started looking for an agent and started publishing. That you know being a white male is. You know our days are numbered. You know we had a good run and now it's like a chance for the women and other minorities who, rightly, can think so being a white male was, was, you know, not not the thing of the moment. My being gay helped me kind of have a different perspective and that's what became more interesting. This is just a different way to kind of tell the Indiana Jones story. The new twist more interesting. This is just a different way to kind of tell the Indiana Jones story with a new twist.

Neil Laird: 40:43

So I don't think I have a mission in terms of saying it's any kind of one character trying to boost the masculinity, because you know the lead character, jared, he's gay but he's also the leader to become stronger by the second book, pompeii is very much a leader. So you know it's just people, like you said talking about earlier. They're just people who, of the crew, there's one straight white guy, then there's a black woman who's lesbian from the bronx, there's ali the sound guy, a conservative muslim, and then there's jared from kansas who's gay and comes out. So it's a mix of people and then they go back in time and they meet centurions and and gladiators or whatever else. So I try to bring all those people together and try to make them all come to life as real people wow, but the imagination is incredible and also the psychology in there, because you're putting so many complications in each personality yes, yeah, but a lot.

Neil Laird: 41:32

But you need complications because it allows you to dig deeper into the character. So, like ali, the sound person in the second book, he in his second, first book, he kind of the second. He's, you know, the local egyptian guy who's oh, let's get the arab guy who, like he, thinks he knows everything you know because he'll save us money. But in the second book, when they go to pompeii, he's an outsider too. So it's him trying to grab him with his own point of history. So he becomes hell-bent on saving the artifacts from pompeii, the manuscripts, because he recognizes, recognizes, being Egyptian, how important it is to have these relics and how important it is to save these things for posterity. So his mission through all the books now will be to help preserve stuff that has lost to history, and that is his through line. So Ali has that, and then each one of them has a different story that hopefully follows throughout. So you need those complexities because that's where the tension comes from and that's where the character growth comes from.

Daniela SM: 42:23

But you have to have this enormous capability of going from one character to another. So how is that?

Neil Laird: 42:30

And you have to know them. And it's something again I learned it's interesting when I started writing my first book, which all took place in ancient Egypt. The plot points came easy the cause and effect, the cliffhangers, all the stuff that I brought from television with six acts and commercials, you know, keeping a story moving. What was hard for me was that internal life, because as a documentary filmmaker, I'm doing what you're doing right now. You're interviewing people and you're getting the emotion from somebody else. Then you cut it in later and so they give that to you. When you're a novelist, it's just me. So I have to know who Jared is and I have to know who Kara and Ali the sound guy is and understand them. And that took me a long time to scratch away the surface and figure out who they were. It took me many, many drafts.

Neil Laird: 43:12

The plot came very easily for me, all the drama and the cliffhanger stuff. I have a strong gift for that. What I had to learn is almost like a second language was that internal life and who they are. And until you figure that out, a book doesn't work. People don't read a book just because of the adventure. They read it because they care about those characters and they worry about those characters and they want to spend time with those characters and one of them dies. You want them to shout out because that means you're invested not just in the fact that you're stealing a mummy horde from Egypt, but it's a bunch of people that you want to be with that are stealing a mummy horde from.

Daniela SM: 43:49

Egypt. Yeah, that's why sometimes I have issues reading, because I get into the character and then I forget they're my realities. Yeah.

Neil Laird: 43:56

Isn't it great. It's a wonderful gift.

Daniela SM: 43:57

Yeah, but I'm not even a writer, so I just wonder how it could be for you to have all these characters and then who are you?

Neil Laird: 44:06

at the end you're well, I do style, I do look at that. That's why you're asking me questions about me. It's like I'm not nearly as interesting as the characters I create. I'm just a guy that just opens my mouth and I put my fingers down and then suddenly they do all the work in my head yeah, but but all of this is in your head. It is in my head. Yeah, exactly.

Daniela SM: 44:22

You are the artist. That's amazing. Yeah, wow, that's fantastic, and so you're leaving soon to Turkey.

Neil Laird: 44:29

Yeah, I fly Friday night to south of Turkey along the Aegean, a small town called Busburn, which have a tiny villa and again, it's overlooking some Greek ruins and it's near the shore and a great sunset. I'm going to go there and just spend a month and wander the ruins and swim and then ride every day and wander around Troy and other ruin sites and just kind of be inspired there and hopefully I'll come back with a very sloppy, rudimentary first draft. That's the goal.

Daniela SM: 44:56

Wonderful, great. Thank you so much, neil, for sharing your story and for letting me be in your world. It was fascinating.

Neil Laird: 45:03

It was my pleasure. Thank you for reaching out. It was fantastic. I'm glad you want to spend time in my crazy head.

Daniela SM: 45:08

Yes, wonderful, have a wonderful trip. And it's very successful for the books as well, thank you, and we will put everything in the show notes, of course, for people to reach out and buy your book and get to know more about Neil.

Neil Laird: 45:21

Yeah, I mean and obviously you know, since it's a series, as I tell anyone who reads the book, this is ongoing characters. If you do read it and go to the website and reach out and tell me what you like about them, what you don't like them, where you want to see them go next, because hearing from the readers is so important when you're creating characters that keep coming back. I'd love to know exactly who they like and who they don't like and where they want to go next, because that helps inspire me as I move forward. Give it a good review and, you know, reach out on neolaircom and, you know, get on the mailing list or reach out and just say hey, you know I love Jared. I'd love to see Jared go to the Renaissance next, or how come Jared did this? I really want to see that. Whatever it is, it's all open. Yes, great, just, you know, reach out because you know it's an ongoing adventure.

Neil Laird: 46:09

Yes, and I would like everybody to follow you on the social media, right? So what is your social media? Yeah, I mean so you can go to Neolaird Author on Facebook or you can go to TikTok and see the gay videos, which also has other videos it's gay underscore history. And one thing I'll be doing from Turkey is I'll be posting regular videos every day about writing my book in Turkey and showing it around and kind of showing that world around too, so you can kind of follow me in sort of real time writing the next book.

Daniela SM: 46:29

Okay, perfect, all right. Thank you so much All right?

Neil Laird: 46:32

Thanks so much for having me Cheers.

Daniela SM: 46:35

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you are listening to, because Everyone has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This will allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening. Hasta pronto.