Interview with Meg Keneally, Author of FLED

A first for me—interviewing an author on the other side of the world! Australian author Meg Keneally got up at sparrow fart (5:45am her time) to talk to me about her fabulous novel, Fled. It's totally engrossing and exciting, and in case you thought the name was a bit familiar, her father is Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark, the book on which the movie Schindler's List was based. (We talk about her childhood a bit too, which is fascinating!)

Transcript

Susanne 0:27

My guest today is Meg Conneely and I'm really excited cause this is the first time I've interviewed anyone who is actually at this moment in Sydney, Australia, while I am in the Eastern United States. Meg is the, best-selling in Australia, author of fled, a wonderful novel that I read in, which was the reason I contacted her to come onto this podcast. welcome Meg. Thank you for doing this.

Meg 0:53

Thank you for having me.

Susanne 0:55

It's a pleasure. Now, first of all, talk to me a little bit about before we get to your book, which we'll get to really soon about what's going on there. How life is in Sydney.

Meg 1:06

it's not too bad. in terms of restrictions, we had, I think four cases yesterday. so you know, the measures that are put in place here are working, but it's, so we're not. Lock down or anything, but it's an unusual time to be publishing a book, certainly because there are no library talks, no writers, festivals, no book shop events. our borders closed, no one is coming in and no one is going out, which, is very tragic for a lot of people from a publishing perspective. It means. Yeah. Bookshops, Not available as a, as a way to, to sell books. so it isn't unusual time. I've got a new novel out in Australia, which is not in the U S yet. And all of my events have been on zoom and Skype and so on and so forth. which is very different to when fled came out when I was traveling for three months, but still, we are, I'm grateful to be healthy. I'm grateful to be employed. That puts me in a much better position than a great many people around the world. So we, yeah, we cling on to the positive.

Susanne 2:14

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm so glad to hear that. I have, it's very different from, the way things are here right now, as you know, but, we just have to do our best and hope things will get back to normal, but we are lucky as writers and me, I'm also a book coach that I was working from home anyway. So I have been gainfully employed throughout, which is very fortunate, but

Meg 2:38

yeah. Yeah, likewise. And I think it's easier for us. Who've always worked from home because I know a lot of friends who typically work in an office and when we were locked down, they had a lot of trouble adjusting because I didn't have those hacks that those of us who do work from home have developed over the years, too. Put a demarcation between work and non work.

Susanne 3:01

So what are your hacks for that? I'm just curious.

Meg 3:04

Look, the number one thing I always say to anyone who, who's newly working from home is for God's sake, get dressed for work, and you've been to Harvard. and I have my little routines and rituals that I do, which subconsciously tell me that it's time for work now, or it's time to switch off now. And also, my children are very good at letting me know we're not should stand up from the computer as well.

Susanne 3:29

Yeah. How old are your children?

Meg 3:31

they're 20 and 18. My daughter's doing her final year of high school. and, it's been a rough time for high school. Finally, high school students here. It certainly has. It's not an ideal situation with them at all, but, they're back in class learning. So that's good.

Susanne 3:49

Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah. Yeah. now let's get to the juicy stuff, your book. I really, I had, I loved it, that book so much. the thing is there aren't that many, any that are on the market in the U S that I know of really good historical novels that have to do with Australia. And with that particular part of the history, can you talk a little bit about that and how you came to write. That particular book about the, woman convicts and that one woman, how did that come about?

Meg 4:21

Australia, of course was colonized in 1788 as essentially a prison. you guys got all antsy about taxes and, Lyft, decided not to be a colony anymore. And as a result of that is that, that Britain needed to find somewhere else to store its human rescues as they saw it as they sold. and, Australia was East, and in fact, some of my ancestors came to Australia as convicts, too. On the 26th of January, 1788, firstly arrived in Sydney Cove. there were 1500 people, and, that, that was the day Australia was colonized to the great ditch detriment of first nations people here. Of course, But there was one particular convict, but who has always fascinated me? Her name was Mary Bryant. She was a Cornish woman. She was a highway woman. She was transported for highway robbery. She was lucky not to hang. and she masterminded the most daring escape in Australia's history. she plotted to steal the governance kata. Open boat, which is about six meters long. And I'm sorry, I don't know how many seats that is.

Susanne 5:37

It's probably a little over six yards. So 30, 40 feet probably about, yeah. Yeah.

Meg 5:42

So not a huge boat, not a covered boat. it had a sale, but that was a bit and some oars and that was about it. So she came up with this plan to steal this boat and she loaded her two children into it and her husband and several other convicts and failed it. All the way to West Timor. near Indonesia, which was a Dutch colony at the time. I had, that was a journey of again, I'm sorry, I don't know the Imperial, but, around 5,000 kilometers, quantity

Susanne 6:14

a lot more than 5,000 miles. Let's just put it there. No way. There's less than 5,000 miles. Yeah, it's backwards. Yeah. But it's still in the many thousands of miles, for sure. Yeah.

Meg 6:24

I think it's probably a smidge more than 3000 miles, a long way. and when I arrived in, with Timor, they pass themselves off as. She breaks the fathers, the crew of a Wila to explain Mary's presence there, because it wasn't uncommon for whalers to have their wives and children aboard. and, they, they lived in West Timor as a guest of the Dutch governor for a couple of months before they were betrayed, and read captions. Yeah. And various of, other. Things, the various other it's inches. It's huge from there, including several tragedies.

Susanne 7:01

Yes. we won't give any spoilers because I want lots of people to read your book, but it is so exciting. And just your sense of, I was like, Practically gripping the edges of my chair, reading it because of, because I was like, no. And worried about the kids and worried about all of that stuff. And she's an amazing character, really incredible character. And you follow her right the way through. And it's very satisfying ending, which I'm not going to tell anyone about,

Meg 7:30

thank you.

Susanne 7:32

This isn't the first book you've written though. That's been published, right?

Meg 7:35

no, I, with my father, I've written a series of four Australian colonial murder mysteries who done it, gentlemen, convict detective. and I've got a new book out in Australia. I don't know yet when it's going to be out in the. in the U S a but more historical fiction. And at the moment I'm writing a book, based on a woman whose story I found when I was researching something else. her name was morale to RSA Selman, and she was the last queen of tar Haiti.

Susanne 8:08

Wow.

Meg 8:09

Wow. And she has an extraordinary story and extraordinary life. and when I say, and what's amazing is I come across these stories of all these incredible women in history that are untold. We don't value women's history. as much as we should,

Susanne 8:27

knock out written out of history because the men were writing the history books.

Meg 8:31

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, in many cases like Mary Brian, who was the inspiration for my character, Jenny and said, women were illiterate. There were, there was seem to be no point in really educating women in various parts of society during that time. we don't know what happened to Mary Bryant in the, how she died. She disappeared from history, right? The old age of 29, but there's no evidence that she ever learned to read or write. which to me would be like losing a sense.

Susanne 9:06

Yeah. I can't even imagine existing in a world where I couldn't do that.

Meg 9:12

I know it would be like having a limb, Yeah.

Susanne 9:15

But that is a very Western perspective perhaps, too, which is interesting. we don't even, I don't think we always realize what cultural influences are just seeped into us because of where we live, who we are and all that kind of thing.

Meg 9:29

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. it is a very Western perspective and also a very. Modern perspective. And that's, I find one of the challenges of writing historical fiction is to get out of your own way to leave your modern sensibilities at the door. Because as a well known historian, he says that, and I absolutely agree the people of the past are not us in funny clothes. They're different, and hacking into that sensibility, that mindset, that is something that you absolutely have to do as a historical fiction writer. And it's extraordinarily hard because it means sometimes viewing the world through a lens that you find a Boren.

Susanne 10:09

Yes. Interesting. I've just had a conversation on, or just a Twitter sort of exchange with a writer who was all worried about her historical character using racial slurs. And I said, if that's the way that character would've spoken at the time, People have, it's gotta be historical. you can't have them say referring to them as African Americans in the 19th century, for instance, or I don't know what the slur was. She was talking with slurs where she was talking about, but, and. Here we have this, these sensitivity readers. Have you had that in Australia yet?

Meg 10:45

Officially have them. And I was desperately searching for one with fled, because of, obviously there are indigenous characters in flood and I was keenly aware that I was writing about. A very painful part of history, which is still reverberating today. So yeah, our first nations, people who still have deficits in terms of incarceration, education, et cetera, there's still a shameful gap between outcomes for indigenous Australians and non-indigenous Australians. And that started on the day I wrote about. on the 26th of January, 1788. So I was very worried about that. I was eventually able to find, an Aboriginal elder who read the book for me, but I'm aware of the density rate as you guys have in the state. So I think it's a wonderful thing. I wish we have a here.

Susanne 11:34

Yeah. Yeah, it is good. and and there's a lot of, You were fine because you were really in the mind of a European woman, a woman who had the same heritage as you. And obviously her view of the world was from, with that lens. I think where people get into trouble here is, and it's I'm a sort of two minds. There's this thing, like you called a cultural appropriation.

Meg 11:59

I

Susanne 12:00

like a white person. Shouldn't be writing as a black person or an indigenous person and that, and, and. I agree that those people should have their own stories to tell that we should all have our own stories to tell, but it worries me a little bit and I'm going to be way off base here that we're putting limits on army. Yeah, I know.

Meg 12:22

it's it's a really good. Cool. Yeah, really cool. Because, yeah, it's something I struggle with a lot because if you're writing Australian colonial historical fiction, you are writing about indigenous people as well. And, yeah, it's a funny one. I read recently about it. Why author who pulled her book from publication? Yeah, I have a cultural appropriation consent.

Susanne 12:48

Yeah. I had a black woman writer said something about that what we have to learn to distinguish between is cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation,

Meg 13:00

which I

Susanne 13:01

thought was really astute because, I think there's a way to do it. And for instance, I don't know if you've read monk kid's book, the invention of wings.

Meg 13:09

No, I haven't

Susanne 13:11

wonderful. I actually, she's fabulous. Anyway. but, it's she has two different points of view set in the American South during, in. I'm not gonna remember where maybe Savannah or someplace during the 19th century and the historical that there's a woman, who's the daughter of a plantation yeah. Owner. And she becomes an abolitionist, but the other voice is an enslaved. A girl who she befriends on the thing. but she's really in that voice and they're both, and I thought, I know that she's not a black woman and writing, but it was very convincing to me. I'd love to have, another perspective on it, but she was able to do that and it wouldn't have been the same book if she didn't feel she

Meg 13:57

could. Yeah. Yeah. it's such a tough issue. And I think that's going to continue to grow in importance as an issue. And it's something that I'm struggling with at the moment for this book about the last queen of Tahiti, who was a Polynesian woman. yeah. Yes. I'm very big, very cautious about the way I do it or. whether I should be still asking myself that question. so it's, yeah, it's a tough one because at the same time, I really love telling stories about the forgotten women of history. and some of those women are not going to have the same cultural background as the people who write about them. and it is a question I think absolutely everybody needs to ask themselves. And like I said, when I'm struggling with, at the moment.

Susanne 14:50

Yeah, no, I can fully understand that. so yeah. how did you start get interested in start doing historical fiction?

Meg 14:59

my dad is a writer and, he, dragged me around historical sites when I was a kid, when I would have rather been watching TV, watching cartoons. And, also when I was about eight or nine, we lived in Connecticut and mum and dad took us out of school for six months and we drove around the U S. In event. So I was banned schooled to six months. Yeah, it was great. this is the days long before iPad, and so forth. So parents had to be, very creative on long road trips to stop them murdering one another, in the back seat. and part of the way. Dad did that was by spinning yarns and he's written over 50 books probably he's best. No one there is, she was leased and, it, he would just tell the story after story, to keep us quiet. One of the stories he told me, this is the story of Mary Bryant. It was such an incredible story. I assumed he was just making it up. Cause he'd tell us stories about talking volcanoes and all sorts of things. and when I, when I came back to it as an adult, I was surprised to find it. You hadn't embellished it much at all. It was such an extraordinary yarn, but

Susanne 16:18

isn't that the case often, you go and look at history and stuff happens. aye. Aye. Aye. For whatever reasons I've been looking at, French revolution and all of these various people involved and you get to this little enclave around the Duke, Darlene Duke to shops. And my God, it's like a modern day soap opera. What was going on? If you tried to make it up, you couldn't do it. like he, his ex lover, this is children's governance and he had her name to Don his arm. You know what I mean? It's just.

Meg 16:48

How much in history that you couldn't make up. If he tried, I've tried to make up Mary Brian's story. I'll probably be accused of being a fantasist. And there's another story that I'll want to write soon, about Australia's first female pirates. Who have never been here who haven't been much written about as well. These two women, were being shipped from Sydney to van Diemen's land, which is now Tasmania. and they were on a ship called the Venus, which was ironic because the captain was a sexual status who had a different convict woman flogged every night for his own today. and, so these two women, plotted and, with the help of the first mate and, another convict, plotted and, carried out a mutiny, seize the ship, sailed it to New Zealand and became the first two European women in New Zealand. And that all happens. It's

Susanne 17:43

amazing. Yeah. I'm trying to think a couple of other books. Have you, did you read the luminaries by Eleanor Catton? No,

Meg 17:51

I haven't. I have it on my teetering TBR pile though.

Susanne 17:55

Yeah. it's a really wonderful book, but that I think might be the only other one aside from, of course the mysteries by NIO Marsh. everybody's read those, but, the other thing that's really interesting and I read your book first and loved it. Have, did you know about Christina Baker? Klein's the exiles.

Meg 18:14

no, I didn't. Okay.

Susanne 18:16

This is also about women convicts going to van Diemen's land, but in the 1840 and it's based on it. Yeah, I know. It's so I would like, what is there out in the universe that has made two amazing writers write about the same, not the same, but a similar story. it's very different in a lot of ways. and I actually interviewed her for my podcast. So you can hear all about it. If you go and do it. But yeah, no, it's just, and I think I'm encouraged by that really, because I think that, That opening up those kinds of subjects is can be nothing but good in terms of getting us away from our rut of the kinds of historical fiction that you know, where there's the, they get hold of one period or one thing. And they just, like the tutors or something here, it's world war two at the moment.

Meg 19:06

It's just funny how it goes through trends. We had a French revolution trend a couple of years ago. Yeah, but it's funny, you mentioned that the tutors and British medieval history, because, my first, the first historical fiction book for grownups that I read when I was about, I think 14 or 15 was the sun in splendor by Sharon Penman, which is about the Wars of the roses. And she's still one of my favorites. Historical fiction writers, but I came to, she's obviously writing for me the perspective of, the protagonists who are Kings and Queens or wanting to be Kings and Queens. I actually came to the conclusion that I personally find stories, more interested. Interesting. When they're told by people who are not the Lords and ladies who are not the rulers who are not the masters of the universe, but the people who are on the periphery a little bit, because you get a different perspective there you get more nuanced. one example is, At Robert Harris's books on Cicero, which had told from the perspective of his slave T road, which are really wonderful books. And of course, Hilary Mantel's books will fall and bring up the bodies and the murals a lot. Yeah. And Thomas Cromwell, we learn more about Henry the eighth through Cromwell than we ever could. True in reading yet. yeah,

Susanne 20:31

yeah, absolutely. and those, peripheral people. As you say are so interesting. And I always find that more interesting as well though. I have actually read plenty of King and queen books, so to speak, but King and queen books, what could I say?

Meg 20:50

I think people like Sharon Penman and Philippa Gregory are amazing,

Susanne 20:53

Yeah. and my friend, Andy Easter Smith, have you read any of hers? yeah. She, I interviewed her. Yeah.

Meg 21:00

Excellent. Excellent. I'll have Alisa.

Susanne 21:02

Yeah. Yeah, no, she's a lovely person. And, um, it? Was your education in history or did you have a different kind of, when you went to university or whatever.

Meg 21:13

Well, you know, how, the children of, people in the professions often rebel by going into the arts, sometimes the children of people in the hats for park. So I did, I did Laura, and w if history is a minor, and I didn't end up, Congratulating Laura. I left, to take up a job, in communications and in journalism because I decided that I actually didn't want to be a lawyer observable. but I think I had my time again, I would do a history degree. Definitely.

Susanne 21:52

Although history is something that you can study on your own.

Meg 21:55

Yes. That's true. You can be an autodidact. Yeah. Yeah. which is lucky for me.

Susanne 22:04

So you're working on this other book. do you have any other sort of projects that you're. Thinking about doing in the near future or are you one book at a time kind of woman?

Meg 22:14

I'm really, juggling a couple of different ideas and going down various research, rabbit holes, and I love going down research rabbit holes. You often find some extraordinary things at the bottom of them. I. But at the moment I'm, I'm really focusing on getting this, book, written, the last queen it's going to be called, and learning French because I have to for research purposes. Yeah,

Susanne 22:43

I, yeah, I did. No, I did no literature at all. Except I, the only literature I did in college was French. And for some reason I just decided, so I'm fortunate in that I can read French almost as quickly as I can read English. But, which has helped a lot because so much of my, books take place in Paris and Vienna at night when I went to graduate school, I had to do reading exams or in, German, French and Italian.

Meg 23:11

wow.

Susanne 23:12

It's really stands me in good stead. It really does. Cause I can tackle some sources that a lot of people can't,

Meg 23:18

Yeah. Yeah. and this is what I'm wrestling with at the moment. I can read French, but it's a slow process, but I'm getting there. what helps most is I find I've found some, people online, language exchange buddies. So I've met a couple of really nice French women who are at the same level in English as I am in French. And we talk on Skype once a week and I speak French and they speak English and we correct each other.

Susanne 23:49

What a fabulous idea. Yeah,

Meg 23:51

really useful. you learn so much more by speaking than you do by traditional methods of learning.

Susanne 23:59

Yeah. and, my speaking goes right. Downhill. If I haven't been there for a long time too, I get up there to go buy the book to communicate.

Meg 24:09

Yeah. I know. I always sound so much better in my head.

Susanne 24:13

Yes, of course

Meg 24:15

I sound wonderful in my head. And then I opened my mouth and it would straggle out like drunk.

Susanne 24:23

No, I know the most upsetting thing to me was, and my French was pretty decent. I knew a lot. It just, whatever is to talk to someone in Paris and French and have them answer me in English.

Meg 24:35

A lot of people, a lot of language learners talk about being English. People. I know who visit France. I saw a site with, I have a friend who was so thrilled the first time she went to France and she wasn't English. She called that as a. As an indication that she'd made. Yeah.

Susanne 24:54

Yeah. It also depends on where you are, in the South of France, it's where we were in. The more rural parts didn't happen as much, yeah,

Meg 25:02

yeah, no, it's, it's the grammar is diabolical. Diabolically complicated. I find,

Susanne 25:09

I don't know, English grammar is pretty hard. English grammar is really hard and German grammar too.

Meg 25:15

yeah,

Susanne 25:16

but, yeah. So talking about research, which is one of my favorite things to talk about, because, you have to love research to be a historical level. You can't like not like doing it. what kind of resources have you had, do you have obviously have archival things. Do you have a national library with. Documents and things that you went to look at?

Meg 25:35

Yeah. the state library of new South Wales and the national library of Australia, hold a lot of information. I was really grateful to a man called dr. Tim causer from university college, London, because he is a Jeremy Bentham scholar and he found in Bentham's papers. the only surviving journal from one of the escapees on that boat. Which is like gold dust and he interpreted it and he wrote a little book about it and he put it online for free. And anyway, it's called, pardon me? Anyone who's interested can go to the university college, London website and download the memorandums of James Martin. It's called. He was one of the, one of the convicts in the boat. And without that whole. 69 days between the escapades leaving Sydney and arriving in West Timor, it would be a black hole. We wouldn't know anything about it. thanks to that. We know that for example, the party. Got blown off course by this tremendous ferocious store, which lasted for three weeks. And can you imagine being in a small boat with your children tied to a bench going through a three weeks storm with waves that are eight meters high in some instances it's just. It big as belief when that storm cleared the land was gone and they had no idea where they were. And then they came in across these little islands and they put a shore on one and found turtles. and, that means that they were the first Europeans to discover the islands of the great barrier reef.

Susanne 27:12

Wow. I thought that's what it was when I got to that, I thought, I wonder if that's the great barrier reef, but yeah. Wow.

Meg 27:18

Yeah. The Island where they put a shore and find the turtles is called lady Elliot Island. and they, They stopped at various other points along the way as well. We have a town, a little to the North of Sydney called Newcastle, which is a mining town. and when the escapades put in there to get water. they mentioned that they found these black rocks, which burned very well. So they discovered coal castle, and

Susanne 27:48

Newcastle. Right?

Meg 27:49

Exactly. They didn't have to.

Susanne 27:54

I love it.

Meg 27:56

Interesting that we have, that our mining town is named in, but

Susanne 28:02

yeah, there you go.

Meg 28:03

Yeah. so without that, those sorts of primary sources, primary sources, my absolute favorite, because it does let you get a sense of the attitudes of the time and importantly, the language as well. At the time, the way people spoke, which is so important to, creating an authentic, narrative, I was fortunate as well in that. The voyage to new South Wales was fascinating to people in England at the time as a voyage to Mars would be now. And it was like going to Mars, nobody knew what w what life was going to be like. it was, A journey of the better part of a year. and once they got there, there was, they was so cut off from everything I don't, it's possible to overstate how isolating that was, how. Bereft, they must have felt when they arrived there, knowing how far they were, from, from home. And many of the people in the first week, many of the convicts had never traveled more than a couple of miles from their own village, had never seen the ocean. so you've got these people from a very society who are all of a sudden catapulted to the other side of the world. and as a result of the fascination. With the whole enterprise. A lot of the offices of the first fleet had publishing deals. So they wrote memoirs. So I have, I couldn't, I contend to my bookshelf now. And from here, I can see. Six, no seven memoirs of people who are on the first fleet. So that was really important. But of course you're only getting one perspective from those, the

Susanne 29:45

women, the women.

Meg 29:47

no. I did find some letters written by women, female convicts, back to, back to England at the time. but, there's no that the female record is very spice. And particularly as people like Mary Bryant, where, we're at leisure. but when you can find a primary source, it's really exciting and are really vital. Yeah.

Susanne 30:10

And I, what actually has been an incredible boon, especially when we're, limited in, when we can travel is how much, how many primary sources you can actually find digitized on the web.

Meg 30:21

Yeah, absolutely. There's a fantastic, if anyone's ever doing any research into Australian history, the national library of Australia has a website called trove, which has basically digitized every newspaper, the article ever written in Australia's history. Which is, I've found tremendously useful, not so much for a surgery on the first fleet, but, a lot of the stuff that I've written that said a little bit later in the 1820s, I've relied very heavily on newspaper articles of the time, because not only do they tell you what happened, but they give you an insight into the attitudes that people held and it's the language that they use. so that's an incredibly. Useful resource as well. And there's a site, called, Gutenberg.

Susanne 31:05

Oh, yeah,

Meg 31:06

yeah. So

Susanne 31:07

a lot of stuff there. Yeah.

Meg 31:10

I found on Gutenberg, I found a book called settlers and convicts, which was written in 1847, which is essentially a lonely planet guide to colonial Sydney.

Susanne 31:24

I love that. That's so

Meg 31:26

cool. So thrilled because at the time in one of these murder mysteries, I was looking for CD, dive by, for one of my characters to meet her contacting. And I read about this. Should have been this illegal drinking house, near the Harbor and the, yeah, this book said that he went in there and he described the greasy tables and the benches jumping out and the glasses and pops on the table and the dice games going on. And the fact that. there was one Constable outside, but nobody was too worried because the rest of the warrants are drinking when they should have probably been arresting the publican and they had a barbershop pole outside so that they could say, Oh officer, no, we're not an illegal drinking den. As you can see where a barber shop. but they didn't, they didn't really, you have to do that because as I said, most of the constables were inside. The illegal rum.

Susanne 32:21

No, I love it. I love it. I don't want to keep you too long, but this has been an absolutely fantastic conversation. I'm really, really really happy that you agreed to come on here. is there anything I've not asked you that you would like to say or talk about your books or your writing or anything?

Meg 32:39

Not that I can. Not that I can think of. Yeah.

Susanne 32:46

Anyway. Anyway, Meg, thank you so much for talking to me. This has been really wonderful.

Meg 32:51

Yeah, it's been lovely to talk to you.

Susanne 32:53

Yeah. when things, whatever, when things, people can travel again, if you ever come to the States, you ha you have to, we have to get together,

Meg 33:01

we'll have do that.

Susanne 33:02

But if I go to Australia, which is less likely, I'm afraid, but still,

Meg 33:07

but yes. you know where I am, I was actually on a panel last year at the Brisbane writers festival with an American writer called, and why Scarba

Susanne 33:15

Oh yeah, I know. I know her. Yeah.

Meg 33:18

She's lovely. We've had some email correspondence and I love the glove maker. I can say it on my shelf right now. Actually I bought a copy and got it. Assign it because I'm a bit of a fan go when it comes to riders. So whenever I'm on a panel with someone, I never miss the opportunity to get a signed copy

Susanne 33:38

value. My signed copies, I mean that's like my little treasure chest of things, but listen, I really, we could just talk for hours. I can tell and we will talk again. We will talk again. Yes. When you, when your next book is available in the States and after I've read it, then I'll reach out to you again. And we'll do this again about that book. yeah. That sounds great. So wonderful to talk to you and you as well. Hi from Friday afternoon anyway. Okay.