Adriana Trigiani – From Big Stone Gap All the Way to Bestselling Author!!

Her Life is Intertwined with So Many Stories of Her Catholic Faith and Her Genuine Italian-American Family

Body of the Email: Learn about a woman who’s still chasing the dreams she had

as a young girl – and whose heart looms large in all she does for so many others.

Her award-winning works as an author, playwright, filmmaker and podcaster

bring joy and hope to millions around the world!

Remember, for all our young Catholic school students and their families, “The Answer is Yes!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Catholic Education Foundation podcast number 52. And what do we have a guest for you today? This podcast will feature Adrian Trjiani, a New York Times bestseller, author, playwright, filmmaker, podcaster, and most importantly, the keynote speaker at the 36th annual Salute to Catholic School Lumber Dinner that's set up for March 10th at Louisville's Gold House Hotel. And as always, Mr. Rich Flickliner, the president of the Catholic Education Foundation. Adri, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Oh my gosh, this is high. I'm not used to this. Professional.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Oh well, yeah, right. You're not used to professional. Okay, so thank you for serving for the keynote of the salute dinner event. Such a big deal for our community. Um Rich, this has to be the first time in our podcast series we get to welcome a New York Times bestseller, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

That's awesome. Thank you so much for being here today and taking time out.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

My honor, my honor.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

And um again, thanks for speaking tonight at the salute. We're gonna have 1,400 people at the salute at sold out. It'll be our biggest event ever, and we are so grateful for you to be there. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

I can't wait. All right, Andrew, before we get into um where you are today, tell us a little bit about the the Trajani family, your beginnings. You're one of seven children? One of seven, I'm in the middle. Rich can tell you all about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, I'm you know, we're kind of like the last of the Mohegans because folks don't have big families like our parents did. Um I read something troubling the other day, though, that very wealthy people are having big families. And of course, that's not really the point, is it's for just the wealthy people to have the kids, but this has become it's become economically difficult, which is why we're here raising money for Catholic education. That's right, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yep, that's right. So you grew up in Appalachia. Um how was your Catholic form? Catholic faith form, I should say.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Well, I would say that I'm still Catholic in many ways. Well, uh you have to credit my parents, I guess, and my grandmothers, oh my gosh. But really what keeps me Catholic were was the inculcation of the Glen Marys. And inculcation's a huge word, but we're on a Catholic podcast, and I can use words. They can handle that. They can take it because they know what it means. Well, uh the Glen Marys were really interesting. Um, you know, I'm talking about the 1970s now, so it was it was very hip, and we were a small little rogue band of less than 1% of the population in Appalachia's Catholic in our in Southwest Virginia. So, you know, we we became close to whoever we went to church with, and they were our good friends, and then you had your school friends who were not Catholic. Um but what I loved about the Glen Marys was their boots on the ground approach to service. It it it didn't matter what religion you were or if you had none, they were going to find a way to take care of you. And then there were these beautiful nuns that ran St. Mary's Hospital and who who that came from Ireland and they couldn't nobody wanted them. And they landed in Norton, Virginia, which is the closest city to Big Stone Gap, and they became a big part of our lives, too. So for me, you know, my Catholic faith is really about action. Yeah, it isn't about um uh being a part of a group for the sake of it, it's what what can we do for the common good? And then your sacraments play into that, of course.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So I I I think that I saw where you and your four sisters all attended St. Mary's College in Southman, Indiana.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Now you should just have a caveat to that. I got in because of my sister Pia. I would not have gotten in. She went in there and Sister Francesca Kennedy, and that she was rough. When I got there, she called me in and she says, Listen, you have to you have to up your game here. She didn't say it like that, but whatever she said scared me. And I was so desperate to go to college that um, you know, I would have done anything to go to college, really, but um my sister, but but not enough, by the way, to study hard beforehand. Yeah, right. Right. That'd been too easy. I was a you know, I was a news reporter at WNVA Radio. I like in my own mind I had a a bright future, but I don't think it was obvious, you know. And then St. Mary's made that happen, and I love St. Mary's.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

What was the allure to college for you?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Show business. Yeah. I wanted to be a theater major.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

That makes sense. So you studied theater at St. Mary's.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

That's what I was a theater major. And at the time it was called the Notre Dame St. Mary's Theater. So we had the boys and girls from Notre Dame, too. I should should I call them young women and young men? I guess I should.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, because Notre Dame just went co-ed during the 70s, right? Well, like 72. Yeah. And so um There were a few women at Notre Dame, not a ton.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Not well, they got them from St. Mary's originally, and then they had their admissions program, and they tried to merge with St. Mary's, and that went south. But what I love about St. Mary's still to this day is the mission of the education. It's very clear what they're trying to do, which is, you know, to educate the full woman in every way. You know, this is where the Catholic woman does her thinking.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Oh, hang on. This just hit me from the movie Rudy. So St. Mary's is the is the college, it's right next to Notre Dame. It's across the street.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yeah, okay. Yeah. It's a beautiful, beautiful college. I mean, it really is. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

I you know, some would argue that it's more beautiful than anything in South Bend. Right. And it kind of is. It's just it was just a great place to go to school.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Is that okay, so uh when did you first have a sense that you wanted to be a writer? And what were some of the people or events that maybe helped sculpt that at the time?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Well, I think every writer that you'll ever meet is a voracious reader. Because that's our that's our craft. Sure. Right? So books enchanted me really from the beginning. And uh, you know, we my mother was a librarian, and I remember when we moved to Big Stone Gap, I was six, and there was a full library in that house that we kept that we have now. Um the family that was there before us was the Goodlow family, and they had a library. They had all these incredible books. And my mother was a member of Book of the Month, I remember, but big on the library. And so the first thing we did was we got our library cards in Big Stone Gap to go to the bookmobile, which was the biggest deal in the world. But oh man, I loved waiting for that bookmobile to come and it was great. And then eventually the town got a library, the C. Baskum Slump Memorial Library. I like to give him credit. And um, and which was around the corner from our house, and I'd started in when when I was in high school, did my homework there every night, you know, that I did homework.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Just so you could be around the books, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

I just like being in libraries, period. I understand. It's the first thing I look for, and in a home, it's the first thing I look forward to.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah. Andrew, let's talk a little bit about your career start. What what was it like?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Well, um, you know, my whole focus was I gotta get to New York. And I think that too came from my upbringing in a certain way because my grandfather was what we call in New York the Schmata business, which is the garment manufacturing business, and my dad got into it. And so part of what they had to do is the same way that I have to go pitch movies in Hollywood or or New York or wherever I happen to go where the people are who have the dough, um, they had to go to New York to the garment district and get gigs. Like they'd say, Well, we can make this for this, and that's how they made a living. So we would go with them sometimes with my dad. And I took to the amount of people on the streets, the smell of I I still talk about coming through that tunnel and that scent of the exhaust. I loved it. And I just love the action.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

From the get-go, you love it.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

From the get-go. I can't, I mean, my hut, poor thing. I love living there. I love it. Now, we've built a life that we're in a that our home is quiet, but I like to step out and be in it. And I think for a writer, it's just a very uh, you know, now listen, you got my friend Barbara Kingsolver, she loves the land. And she lives down in Appalachia. And I get I get what she gets from it too, with her writing. Right. Um, her brilliant writing. Uh, she's in a class of her own. Um, but for me, New York is my stimulus. It's like, and I and and something interesting, just as a theater person, it's like at eight o'clock every night, I'm like, oh, the curtain's going up all over town. See, that's the kind of thing I'm into.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

That's pretty cool. That's awesome. I and so New York was a draw because of the theater scene.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yes, theater and television and film too. But you know, I worked on the Cosby show, I worked on City Kids. Um, I did a lot of shows in New York too, before I got into books.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

So it was mostly TV writing first.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

TV plays, I mean, really plays. And I had to give a shout out to the comedy troupe. I was in a comedy troupe that I started called The Outcasts with these wonderful young women. And we worked the cabaret circuit for about seven years. Wow. And then then I went to Hollywood. It sounds enchanted, but it's all this failure in between. But that business is. We fly over that. Oh, yeah. But that stuff teaches you too. Oh, yeah. It's just as important.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So when you when you get knocked down in that business, it's hard, right? How hard was it to get back up? Well, particularly early.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

That's such a great qu question, Rich. I think you know, it's the camaraderie of your fellow artists. Without them, and in all walks, I mean, I have friends that are dancers, singers, musicians, symphony people, um opera. One of my besties is Mary Testa. She's a Broadway star. I mean, she's I'm gonna see her in uh in something in a couple weeks. I I try to go see as much as I can um and participate in it, you know. Um but it's that community because this is the bottom line, right? That's why we're here with Catholic Education. It's the community. Right. We can't do this alone. There's not somebody coming along to save us. We have to do it together. So in the world of the theater, whether you're the most successful person, you pick up the check when you're the most successful, but you bring everybody along with you, and they bring you along with them. It's like it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Andrew, what was your first big break?

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Well, my first big break was at St. Mary's in 1981, is I was uh I wrote and directed uh production on the main stage at Notre Dame. And I knew that was a big deal because they would use profess professors or professional people would come in and direct those spots, and they gave me. And that was Reg Bain and Julie Jensen, my professors like got together, Fred Seaberg, and they said she can do it. And I pitched them the idea, and it was called Notes from the Nile, and it was the retelling of Cleopatra, of the story of Cleopatra in modern times. It was full of anachronisms, it was crazy. It was kind of a little, I don't know, like I was very influenced by Mel Brooks. That'll describe her. Okay. And um and it was an incredible success for for me to know I could do it. And I cast people that have never been in plays, some had a lot of experience, it just depended. And um, and that was really my first, you know, and then you had to publish the play so people could study it in class. And I don't know, I just went, I could do this, this I could do.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

So you're 21, 22 years old, you published your first.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Well, I started writing that play because I had other plays produced there, but I started when I was 18. Wow. That's awesome. It's a prodigy. And I had done it in high school, so I was kind of like, I was into it. I I can't even when I walk in a theater, it's church to me. Yeah, it's sacred. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

All right. Well, speaking of church, um, do you think your Catholic faith and and your heritage and your your upbringing gave you a unique advantage of the storyteller, storyteller?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

I think that's very true. Um I think what Catholic faith does really well is provide a narrative for salvation. And I think that's not an easy thing. Um it comes through the stories, obviously, of the New Testament with Jesus, of course, of course. But it's also the story of the people around Jesus that I always felt were like the choir. And um and if you and if you read them, you know, something's always being illuminated by Jesus Christ. He's good, he he's he's in it as a human being as much as we are. So I always found that really fascinating. But it gives you a framework um for the way to tell a story, I think, in a classical sense. Um, and also I just think what you know, you have to know what you're about as a writer. That's right. You know? You kind of have to know what you're doing. What what are you trying to say? Okay, so we're trying to say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Big Stone Gap was your debut novel. That wouldn't r I guess really put you on the map from an author's standpoint. Right. Um, what was your inspiration for that book? Obviously, where you grew up.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

I went home on break from St. Mary's, and there was a girl named Kim Williams. She was so beautiful. She was in my high school class, she was like on a homecoming court. She was one of those, but not not like a s not one of those pretty girls that knows it. Okay. She had no idea she was beautiful. And she was quiet, very, very quiet. Okay. And I came home, and I went down as one will to the mutual pharmacy. You would have a chili dog and hang with your friends, and then lunch and that part, and then you would then you would shop. Okay. So when I got there, I I down to the mutuals, I think it was a sophomore year, and I I went October break or something, and there's my friend Kim. And she's behind the counter at the mutual pharmacy. I said, Kim, I thought you went to UV, well, at the time it was called C C V C Clinch Valley College, but then it became the University of Virginia. Wise, I thought you went you went to Clinch Valley College, and she said, No, I came home, my mom got sick. Now, Wise Virginia is not that far, but it's it's it's it's a it's a galaxy away from Big Stone Gap when you're going to college. Yeah, yeah. We used to go up there and see plays. That also informed my education, by the way, going to the local colleges and seeing the productions. But this Kim Williams was she came home to take care of her mom and she never left, really. And I was able to see her in 2013 when I was producing the Big Stone Gap movie and directing it. And she came and I saw her like on the periphery, and I went over to her and I said, You know, this whole thing's about you.

unknown 16:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

And she said, No, and then I started talking about it more, but I didn't want to like invade her privacy. Sure. Because everybody thinks it's me.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

But it's not me, it's her.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

And she got sick and passed away. Oh wow. Yeah, it's a terrible, yeah. And I but I I connected with her daughter and stuff. And I I did it, you know part of being a writer too is to be aware of the stories that are happening around you. Yeah. Now I just wanted just for everybody listening, that was my sophomore year of college, and I didn't write Big Stone Gap until 1998, 99. So that was a career work there. Well, they all are. Yeah, they all are. Like coma, all of them. Okay, so they're in you for decades.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

21 books, both fiction and nonfiction. Rich is Rich likes to talk about this fact because he uh he's told a lot of people when we've been talking about you being our keynote, 38 different languages around the world. That's pretty cool. Um did you ever dream that this would happen? The success that you've had.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

I mean, it's an incredible question. No, because you you just are constantly girding your loins for failure. I mean, I don't think I think like that. I I don't think I do. I think it's like the process. You know, this is the thing. If you want to be an actor, you better love rehearsal. Like when an actor says to me, I love rehearsal. As a director, I love rehearsal. As a writer, I love the writing. Now I have a lot of dear friends who are brilliant writers and they hate it.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

And hate the writing piece.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

They hate it. I don't like the sitting. The sitting I hate. But that's why I live in New York. I get up and go for a walk. Yeah. You know, you can move and you're you're better already. But um you better love the process. Oh, yeah. Better love the process.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Can you write for hours on end or do you just do the spurts?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

And I can do something where um my my my best man friend is Michael Patrick King, and um he's a beautiful Irish Catholic boy out of Scranton. And we laughed, we were sick one day because he called me and he said, I can't move my foot. Because when we're writing, we contort and twist, and his foot was just, he said, I've hobbled myself, I couldn't stand up. We're laughing because you're out of your body. Yeah, you're in your head and you're in the words, and you just you're there, and it could go for hours, Rich. I'm not kidding. I mean hours.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

That doesn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah, like it could be six or seven hours, and you're and you don't move. You're just in it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

So you often refer to Hollywood icons in your stories. Did the classic films help you in your writing?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

I think they did a great deal. And I would recommend everyone within the sound of our voices to watch the song of Bernadette during Lent. I think it's the greatest screenplay. Um I just love the story. I love Saint stories. They're gonna get popular again. People are gonna start making them. Um but that's a particular beautiful impoverished French family and the girl that tells everybody she sees the Blessed Mother, I mean, and they turn it on her and oh, it's so great. And the evil nun in it. It's a beautiful screenplay. Um but yes, I'm very influenced by it. Okay, that makes sense. Very influenced. And in fact, I compare when I go to see a movie now, I compare that acting to the acting of the golden age of Hollywood, which by the way, there were some clinkers in there, but there's a lot of great ones. There's a lot of great ones.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

And when you compare that, what do you come up with? What's better?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Well, I don't think it's better. I think it's different. Okay. I think that um actors now are much more intent upon portraying a uh a normal life than uh the ones that of course I run with um and also insist on it. And I think back then you it became part of a community again. Yeah. And you know, but there's so much this is it's so different now, everybody. I mean, back then the the movies were could be very profitable, yes, and people made good livings. And I'm talking from the scene painters to the costume crew to every they made a good living. Um there's a wonderful I met a friend through books, really, Michael McSweeney. His father was an award-winning uh editor uh in Hollywood. He did the second Mutiny on the Bounty, but he did a lot of great films. And when I wrote the Loretta Young book, it brought people out of the woodwork to talk to me about her because uh Michael's family went to mass with Loretta Young's family uh in Beverly Hills when he was a kid. So their Catholic community out there was pretty strong. Okay. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty great. St. Monica's different and then there was one called. Called Our Lady of the Pocket book, that was Beverly Hills. Um for sure. But you know, see, the my my love of it could comes back to me. Kids of these folks get a hold of me and talk to me about stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Well you talk about how it's different. I mean, you can make a movie on your iPhone now. I mean, so the the technology is so much different. And anybody can make a movie now.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah, anybody can make a movie now, but the same thing goes for, you know, everybody can roast a chicken, but it's not going to come out like Jacques Papin made it. You know what I'm saying? Not everybody agree with that. I totally agree with that. The tools are exciting, and I would have loved to have had those tools because when I was a little kid, the film was really expensive. Oh, yeah. So you didn't take a zillion pictures. But uh we we we will see now now what I'm noticing, because I vote with the Directors Guild of America for the awards and the Writers Guild of America. So I watch, I try to watch everything. And what I noticed this year was really interesting. There was a lot of hearkening back to, for example, um uh the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. That's what I call it, because it can never be one another battle, new day, another battle. I can't forgive me. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. Somebody'll write in and I'll uh I'll get out of here. Yeah, tell us.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

I know exactly what you're talking about. I watched half of it the other night.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Paul Thomas Anderson shot it in VistaVision. Okay, those are special cameras that gave you that wide. Okay, and then when I was watching Marty Supreme, I I saw actual shots that came right out of Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah. And I said, Oh, oh, I see what's happening in our art form. People are pulling threads from the past, but modernizing it. Very exciting stuff.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

One battle after another is a movie or two.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

One battle after another. Uh that I what I the titles now, you gotta give me Gunga Din. That I can remember. Um but uh Hamnet is a triumph. I hope you see it. It's a beautiful story of a family. I mean, really beautiful. So how do I do I think they compare to? Well, I don't see a Spencer Tracy out there. Yeah. I'm always looking for the new Spencer Tracy, but there's some great actors out there, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Sure. The the part that that fascinates me is you adopted two books, uh Big Stone Gap and Very Valentine, into films. Um what did you learn in doing that? Did you produce? Did you direct those films?

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I directed You directed and wrote Big Stone Gap, and let's just say, just to put a fine point on it, I learned a lot.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Um I had made a documentary and um I insisted that I would direct it, uh Big Stone Gap, because I wanted to film it in my hometown. And what they do now is they just go, we're going to Canada. And I I I love Canada and I love the Canadian people, but that's not telling my story in Appalachia, it just isn't.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

So I really fought for that, and um and some people came on board uh to help me do it. Uh it took a long time.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

A lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Uh it was a pretty low budget. Was it very yeah. I mean, Patrick Wilson had ties to Big Stone Gap. I adore him, and I his wife was cast as Elizabeth Taylor. Everybody took a part. His kids were in it. Uh Ashley Judd was a triumph, I feel.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Um When you say low budget though, what what is low budget for you in that world?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Low budget is under three million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

See, right.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Which well, a lot of people hear that like when you have 48 speaking parts and you're on location, it's just not enough.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

That adds up so quick.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Well, you know, that's without wasting any money, too. I mean, look, when you're talking about big budget Hollywood movies, they send glam squads to the producers to get double up for a premiere. Right. The money is flows. Right. Okay. And I I'm skipping the part about making the film. I'm just telling you the waste.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Um, but that's the people do whatever they want with their money. Yeah. We hope they're gonna give it to Catholic education.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Well, we're gonna let's work on it. Rich is working on that hard. So what what's the message? You know, obviously you're the keynote speaker. Um, and and I'm curious, I'm assuming the message is gonna have something to do with how Catholic education and your Catholic faith has impacted your career and your life. Is that the message with your keynote speech?

SPEAKER_00 26:44

No, not really.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

My message is um, I'm gonna have everybody in that room look at each other and say, we're the solution, is community. That's really what it is. I can come in here, make you laugh, and hopefully lift your spirits a little bit, but and you'll be laughing. But when you leave here, I want you to make a commitment to yourself, to make a commitment to your community. And the the fun part of this is most people already have. Yeah. I don't have to do anything. Yeah, they they know it.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Um especially this room that you're gonna be speaking to.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, I mean, they're there, these are people that care about it. And um, and if you if you commit to education, there is nothing more important than that.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah, nothing.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Really nothing. You can't get anywhere without it. I mean it and by getting anywhere, I'm not talking about making money. I'm talking about making a life. A life where where it's interesting to you from beginning to end.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

You know, what you offer your children as a parent.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah, when you share.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

That's right. When you give.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Rich, you guys picked a really good one to speak of the salute.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

We did indeed. And uh again, I want to I want to really want to thank Adri for doing this. Uh two of her sisters are gonna be here tonight. Fine. Yeah, that's gonna be great. And uh again, she's a very busy woman, as you know, and uh for her to take the time to be with us is is a it's a godsend.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

All right, let's switch gears here for a second. Yeah, um let's talk about something very near and dear to your heart.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Oh, it's gonna be a two-part.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Uh well, I mean, we're doing okay on time here. Like a two-part or something. The origin project that you co-founded in 2014. Tell our audience why this is so important to you and the thousands of young students that are inspired by it.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Now, my friend Nancy Bullmeyer Fisher worked at I was an office temp at Merrill Lynch, and she was like this. She was in her late 20s at the time. I was a kid, you know, she maybe she was in her 30s, I don't know. But anyway, she was just a powerhouse. And to see a woman, you know, and I would I was in charge of her travel. That's all I was. I was a$6 an hour temp in charge of her travel. And we became friends, and she fell in love with a wonderful man who worked in a different department, and they got married and they had a boy, a son, a beautiful son, who's now a professor. I'm telling you this long-winded story because she was Catholic and she she was a small town girl from out west um from Wyoming. And uh got to Merrill Lynch in New York and her dream started coming true. It was incredible. And by the age of 40 or so, she and her husband became basically philanthropists. They left the he he still works in it as a consultant, but she and they raised their boy, who's a wonderful young man. Anyway, her name's Nancy Ballmeyer Fisher. And I I called her when I was filming the movie in 2013, and I said, Nancy, she said, I'll fly in, I'll come in. She lives in San Francisco. So she got there and she's tooling around town, she's looking at it, and she's going, What exactly do you want to do? I said, I want to do an in-school writing program for these kids because they don't have access, because at the time my daughter was little, and you you know, in New York, people come through, the big authors come through, and the kids go see them, and they they have access and they have the public library and all this stuff. And we have our libraries, but you know, not the level of the programming. So Nancy came up with an idea, and I came up with my idea. I said, I just want to be the thing I love about writing is it's a pencil and paper, it's not expensive. And I said, I do not want to be in the fundraising business. But as you know, if anything matters, you got to raise money. That's right. You just do. It's just, you know, I grew up really fast. Michelle Baldacci taught me that. She's gonna need money. I'm like, why? Expensive paper. So we started it. Nancy was the executive director. I worked with the kids, she worked with the kids, she had a degree, and I didn't even know this in music education. She so that was her purview. I had mine, and so now here we are all these years later, and we're still doing it. And we published the the kids work in an anthology every year.

SPEAKER_04 31:26

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

So the children that participate, the students, K through 12, when we started it, we said nine to twelve, too late, over. So we started it in kindergarten. And and it's a fantastic program. And actually, next week I'm going down to we go to different colleges and universities, and we go to and we bring the kids in so the kids can see what college looks like. Like a lot of our kids. I worked on this show called A Different World. This is a sidebar. And everywhere I go, if that somebody knows I worked on that show, she goes, this woman will say to me, or the young man, I went to college because of a different world.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

So we're getting that now. I'm gonna write because of the origin project, and it makes me very happy. So they write one story a year in a school year. We bring in, we give them a journal, we teach them how to journal, then from those journals emerges a story. The story they hone with their teachers. It's submitted by like February of the spring year, and then we were published by the Gupta Foundation, and it comes out right before the end of the school year. Awesome. Just distribute the books. And we have Katie Camillo coming and this beautiful Appalachian cookbook author. Um, I just said whose name escapes me right now, forgive me. And then uh we have all the professors from Emery and Henry coming in. It's just it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

What a cool project. Yeah, it's it's all about and then it's uh how many thousands of kids have been impacted by this?

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Like 25,000, I read, or something like that. Yeah, it's upwards, yeah, it's over that now. It's across all these schools.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Um thousands of kids participate in this thing. It's it's big time stuff. And to her point, it's an inspiration for these kids to reach higher later, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:16

You know, I do want to say this because we read these pieces that come in, and uh this year is the year we initiated the Nancy Beaumaier Fisher Scholarship. So, and we we we had such a hard time with it. We gave a runner-up and a second runner-up and third, because we just felt like there's just we wish we could do it for all the kids, you know. Uh, but the winner uh is a is a young woman out of Lee County, which is very poor, uh, in Lee High School. And it was actually the setting, it's the same high school that Barbara Kingsolver set Demon Copperhead in. Wow. It's interesting. Wow. So we're particularly thrilled about that.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Yeah. That's awesome. All right, Andrew. If if you haven't done enough, um you host the renowned podcast series You Are What You Read. I dove into it last night. I was fascinated by the guests that you've had on that. Talk how did how did that get started?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Well, during the pandemic, doesn't every story start with the pandemic? Isn't that the truth? Okay, during the pandemic, uh my fellow authors were calling me and going, What are we gonna do? We can't tour. And I was working on a book and I said, Well, I could go, I I had started on Facebook before the pandemic doing these Facebook Lives because I was part of a program there and uh at Meta at the time. And um, so anyway, so so I kind of knew the terrain, and I said, Well, I could I I'll have you on my you I'll have you on my podcast or my thing. And what we I didn't wasn't even calling it that then. We would call it Facebook Live. I'll have you on Facebook Live and we'll start doing it. Well, then we started getting people like Matthew McConaughey. Right. And Matthew McConaughey kind of blew us up in the millions.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

And then he came back on to raise money for the Arizona Kidney Foundation.

SPEAKER_05 35:09

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

He's one of my favorite people as a Hollywood person. He reminds me of those I don't even know who. He's his own class of person. He's very devoted husband and father, it's very obvious. And he really, really cares about the planet and the people on it. He just does. And I call him a man of faith in his way, you know. Um He's a decent actor.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

I I I talk I love talking to him about his acting. I do love talk, I have to tell you, there's a sidebar. I mean, we talked like an hour, but you know, we had Rob Reiner on in October, and Rob and I talked for about two and a half hours, and and you got an hour, but we talked for another hour and whatever it was, hour and a half, sure, about politics. Oh wow. He's very he was very informed. That's a heartbreaker. Yeah. But I'm so glad I had the opportunity to talk to you. Wow. Yeah, yeah, what a gift. What a gift. Barbara Kingsolver, another great one. I mean, Maggie O'Farrell, who wrote Hamnet, which is the movie.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

And what are you learning from your podcast guests?

SPEAKER_00 36:18

That everybody's different. I mean, I I guess I'm amazed by, you know, like you can't do a you could do a postage stamp of a supermodel, if that's your career. You could do a postage stamp of a politician. You could. If you had to, a type. Not true with writers. I mean, Bonnie Garmas is her first book came out and she was 66.

unknown 36:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

She got another one coming out soon. Great. Um, and then there's the the the the Vunderkins that are in their 20s that that that write a book of the beautiful Emily Henry. She's in her 30s writing these rom-coms that are fantastic. I mean, it just depends.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

It just it really and you can't pick them out of a lineup. You wouldn't pick out the writer. So, Adrian, I'm curious. Which tells you something.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

I have a um uh my sister-in-law is an aspiring writer. What would what kind of advice would you give to someone that's trying to break into the temperature?

SPEAKER_00 37:17

My first question is would she writing a novel?

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Well, a little bit everything. She actually went to college to do television screenwrite. Um, and she went to a uh prestigious college and got a degree in it and really hadn't broken into it. But do you have to go move to one of these cities? Do you have to be in it?

SPEAKER_00 37:34

No. Where does she live? Here?

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Yeah, Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Okay. That's already a cachet. That she lives in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. That's already a gift to literature. Okay. Um the first thing to say, have her get a hold of me, and I'll talk to her. I think um one of the most exciting things that's happening in the world of books is that when I started doing this 26 years ago, um there might have been I don't know, a couple thousand self-published books. I want you, gentlemen, to guess how many were self-published last year in the United States of America. Hundreds of thousands. What would you say? That's a good answer. The same. Three point eight million.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Yeah, I knew it was a lot.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

So we are four million self-published books. Yes. Okay, but we're in a and and the pub the traditional publishers publish uh under a million. Yeah. Okay. So so here's here's what I'm saying to your sister-in-law and to anybody. First thing is I think everybody should write their life story down. It's precious. Just tell me what happened to you.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

It's unique.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Yeah, and there's no two alike. And instead of worrying about who's getting the dishes and the silver and the pearls, leave your story. Because your story will be the most precious document your family will possess. I wish I had my grandfather's stories on paper. I wish I did. My grandmother, I I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, so I wrote everything down. My grandmother, Viola, my sister gave her, you know, grandma remembers that book. There was nothing in it. My grandmother never wrote in it. But she did write on a Ben Franklin pad and a page and a half, her life story, and it's very precious to me. A bad. Yeah. And her perfect penmanship, Palmer penmanship. But this this is writing is not for a group of people. Believe me, as many people went to Harvard call me about how to get on that list as people that didn't.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah, I guarantee it. No, that that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Maybe it'll open some doors to go to fancy schools. I don't know. But I don't think it matters. I think what matters is can you tell me a story? Yeah. That I want to hear. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_02 39:57

So uh Matthew McConaughey, Rob Reiner, you name it. You talked about how you you know, your friends are actors, uh all these well-known celebrities, authors. How do you stay humble in that crowd?

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Well, um I don't know if being humble has to do with the crowd as much as the person. Um I apart you you know, how am I gonna say this? I just really enjoy people.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

So it doesn't really matter to me what they do. So when I'm with an actor, people act differently around people that are famous. I do not because I want to know them. Sure. And if they end up to be a jerk, uh so what? There are people that in all walks of life that can be a little bit like that. But I would say I look at at folks where they live, and I want to know about them. Like I was far more interested when I was talking to Matthew about his mom moved in with them. And at one point in our conversation, I said, Matthew, you gave your children the greatest gift you could ever give them was to bring your mother to live with you. And he had not thought about that in that way. Interesting. And then I got to talk to his wife who'm crazy about Camilla Alba. She's just she's a creative force, writes books, does everything. And I asked her that. And she she was very matter-of-fact about it. What you do when you're in a family, you know? What you do. So see, so that's what's interesting to me. And I will say this that any lifestyle where you have to have bodyguards, I don't want to be in that profession. That's when I pity them. Yeah. Because I can walk around and talk to anybody, sure, enjoy my life. They can't.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

And I don't think there's anything, you know, at the end of the day, you know, they're just sitting on the couch with their phone. Right. You know, with a bodyguard outside.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah, I wouldn't want that.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

All right, Adrian, a couple more. You've been so generous with your time here. Um what are some of the accomplishments in your life that you're most proud of?

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Well, what I'm most proud of. Well, maybe just that I'm still I'm still standing, I'm still in New York City. Still kicking. Like I think that's it. Yeah, and I just I'm still at it, and I think that's good. Um and also that um I don't know, I think of my parents. I I I do think of my parents. And I had the great privilege of being with both of them before they passed, and uh when they passed. My brothers and sisters with my dad, everybody was there, my mom and my dad passed. And when my mother passed, it was my daughter and me. Um, my sister who was down there at the time had gone to work, and then they were her caregivers. I I I don't know if that's something to be proud of. That's not really what it is, but I those are my profound memories. They're my profound well help me live a better life. Yeah, let your rock. Let your rock. Somebody go, yeah, you go, well, maybe I don't feel so good today, but I'm gonna go give it my best, you know. You know. Yeah, understood.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Yeah. What's next for Adrian?

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Well, I'm about to um I'm I'm gonna write a uh a novel uh that's um that is a partnership novel. I don't know that sounds a little like I'm being vague. But I I I guess I could tell you. When does this air?

SPEAKER_01 44:03

In April.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Oh, in April? Okay, then we're good. Okay, so I'm gonna tell you what it is. I am writing the sequel to The Godfather. What? The Mario Puzo estate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoa. Are you really? I am. I'm writing. It's like my favorite movie of all time. I'm telling you, I'm writing Connie's story. Wow. All that happened, but I met the family. I'm crazy about them. And the I have all of the ephemera, all of the work of Mario that I can use. I know. It's exciting.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

I mean, wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

All the that you love.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

It's a little bit what they did, you know, when they did sequels. Um that kind of spirit, but it's different because what's missing for me were the women. And so I want to write the women.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

Do you feel any pressure?

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Wow. Do I feel pressure? Okay, that's a big one. I think it's exciting. Okay, I'm with you on that. I I'm built like that too. I I've met some I like to be scared a little bit. Um, you know, I I was at an event the other night uh for my friend Bro Persky and uh Josh Saipan was there and he ran AMC and he put breaking bad on the air. He said, I I I've met very few geniuses. He's a genius, Josh Sapan. And by the way, what a mensch. Anyway, so he said, What are you gonna do? I said, I can't really tell you. I'm gonna tell you. You just tell me what you think. I told him what I just told you, and he said, Oh my god. When we were at AMC, he said when we had a hole in the programming and we needed a lift, we'd say run the Godfather. I bet and the numbers would go crazy. They'd go crazy. Yeah, so that's what my next book project is. But I'm also gonna write and direct that into a film after I'm done with the novel.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

The view from Lake Como.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

And then this nobody knows this either, but we're doing I'm writing the pilot. There'll be other people run the show of a series of Big Stone Gap, which takes place now.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

Wow, cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

It's the same characters brought into they're in the present. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

God, so cool.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

I I don't a lot level. That'll fill our time for about six months. It'll be coming.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

No, that's gonna probably get me to death's door. It might take a while. It might take a while. It's gonna get me to the end of things.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Adrian, how honored we are that that you take this time to be with us and share your amazing story. Um, and on behalf of everyone at the foundation, thank you for your great works and the joy that you bring to others around the world. Um, and Rich, as every Catholic school family in need now knows at the Catholic Education Foundation.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

The answer is yes. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.