First Cup of Coffee – May 19, 2025

Thoughts on taste, classism, wealth and how some books and authors are elevated by the social elite, deliberately creating an atmosphere of exclusivity. Also on why some books are phenoms and what is art.

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Transcript

00:01.71
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:17.17
Jeffe Kennedy
Excellent and much needed. It was a long weekend. But today is Monday, May 19th, 2025. And um yeah, here I am bright and early Monday morning.

00:31.93
Jeffe Kennedy
this weekend was the Santa Fe International Literary Festival which is helmed ah by my darling friend Megan Mulry, Executive Director and so I went and spent a lot of time volunteering and getting to see some authors and that sort of thing and yeah there's probably a lot to unpack there and This is, I think, the third or fourth year that they've done this. And I haven't gone before because my bestie wasn't investing her entire life of energy into it.

01:12.71
Jeffe Kennedy
um But boy, folks, I sure do hate things that are focused around literary stuff. And so I think today is going to be, unfortunately, a bit of a rant about the attitudes about taste and um, art deciding what's good.

01:35.39
Jeffe Kennedy
ah general catch up on me before I go into this whole thing in case you don't want to hear it. Um, but why would you be listening? Right. Although I know a lot of you like dip in on Instagram and look to see if my bright and shiny face is still bright and shiny and that's perfectly okay too.

01:52.74
Jeffe Kennedy
Thank you for checking on me. Uh, I had a good week last week. I got another 2000 word day on Friday. So I did um almost 9000 words last week on the secret project and just waiting for the edit letter to come in on a rose in the mirror, trying not to freak out that the delay means that they had a whole lot of stuff to say.

02:17.64
Jeffe Kennedy
like, Oh, well, if it was really all in place and there was not much to do they could have just said, great. Here are your line edits, but I'm, I'm trying not to be neurotic about this. so all right, Santa Fe literary festival, Santa Fe international literary festival.

02:40.55
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, it was just, I mean, it was beautifully run. Megan did an amazing job. There were interesting authors there. ah ones that I got to hear speak, uh, uh, no, I'm not be able to think of everybody's names.

03:01.07
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, Because I was volunteer i volunteering, I was mainly minding the doors, so I didn't get to do 100% attention on this. But Roshi Joan Halifax did a wonderful guided meditation and discussion.

03:17.49
Jeffe Kennedy
Then I got to hear Amy Tan talk about her new book, And then there was a great panel which was celebrating the life and legacy of N Scott Momaday.

03:28.58
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Terry Tempest Williams was there. A few of his family members. A guy named Julian Brave NoiseCat who came over from the Bay Area for this.

03:40.69
Jeffe Kennedy
And he was really interesting. I didn't know that Alcatraz had been occupied. ah And so maybe I'm the only person in the world who didn't know this, but It was interesting hearing him talk about that.

03:56.16
Jeffe Kennedy
And then I got to hear Miranda July talk about all fours. The sound was unfortunately bad on that session, so it was difficult to hear her.

04:09.40
Jeffe Kennedy
And yeah, there were things about it that didn't go as well as it could have, I felt. ah But, and who was the other person?

04:21.35
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, Danzi Senna, I heard part of her talk as well. um And I think I'm going to lead in with that, even though it's not chronological.

04:33.45
Jeffe Kennedy
That's what my memoir teachers always taught me, creative nonfiction teachers, you break the gridlock of chronology. Sometimes you want to lead with subject matter, right? We'll pretend that this is an organized and produced podcast widget.

04:47.18
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Who are we kidding? it obviously is not. So, so One thing that Danzy sent us said at the end during the Q&A somebody asked her if ah her publisher had been supportive of her as an author of color, as a native American author.

05:07.76
Jeffe Kennedy
And if she'd encountered resistance like what she was trying to get published and she was clearly being careful of what she said. um But you know, of course we know that she encountered trouble. It's, it's a difficult thing about the industry.

05:24.13
Jeffe Kennedy
But so she kind of said, you know, her publisher has been good to her and supportive. But yes, it was a difficult road. And then she said um how few Native American authors are out there.

05:39.13
Jeffe Kennedy
And she said, actually, you know, how many can you name besides me? I'll tell you, there are two others. And she named them and I didn't catch their names. I probably didn't recognize them.

05:50.76
Jeffe Kennedy
And she said, and I know those because they just published books. She says, and that's it. And so me back by the doors at the back of the auditorium where I'm letting people in and out so that the doors won't bang. I wanted to yell out, who what about Rebecca Roanhorse? What about Darci Little Badger?

06:06.78
Jeffe Kennedy
ah What about Stephen Graham Jones? You know, where, but those authors don't exist in her universe because they are outside of literary fiction.

06:21.42
Jeffe Kennedy
And, That was how this entire weekend felt. um If it was not literary fiction, it did not exist. And it's an interesting thing for me being at this point in my career where, and I think it'll probably always be this way because writers are not people who get recognized. I mean, occasionally I get get recognized and I think it's because of the distinctive hat, but unless I'm in my specific milieu,

06:53.04
Jeffe Kennedy
um I am not. And so like a couple of contrasting stories when I went to Apollycon and that was the first conference I'd been to in quite a while.

07:03.78
Jeffe Kennedy
I was riding up in the elevator with a bunch of other people. um And we were, I had my bags, we were checking in. And so, you know, like we're doing the whole bag wrestle thing and what floor do you need? And all of that kind of thing. And everybody's happy to be getting to the conference. So we're laughing, you know, and joking around.

07:21.18
Jeffe Kennedy
And I get off on my floor, dragging my two, incredibly heavy suitcases because they were mostly full of books not clothes I want to add that caveat you know so I'm charging down and I hear um this one woman in the elevator go well that was freaky and the others are like what why she goes that was Jeffy Kennedy and they're yeah and and I was laughing right you know because First of all, she could have said hi to me in the elevator. She recognized me, but I've had people tell me at various times, come to my signing table and say, you know, I wrote in an elevator with you once.

07:57.33
Jeffe Kennedy
It's like, say hello, geez, but I get it. I actually do.

08:02.90
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, so like in those kinds of cases, it's startling to me to be recognized. Right. and i don't think I had my hat on even, I'm pretty sure I did not.

08:15.90
Jeffe Kennedy
So, That was good recognizing on her part. and And I wish schleppy from traveling, you know, flying all day anyway, at this where I'm volunteering. ah and I just have my name tag, you know, Jeffe Kennedy.

08:30.24
Jeffe Kennedy
nobody knows who I am, right? I am just some volunteer, uh, fresh meat and absolutely no one at all. And everybody is focused on these celebrity authors.

08:45.49
Jeffe Kennedy
And I mean, it was incredibly well attended. It was a fantastically successful event. And in the food truck line, I was standing by some people who had flown in from the Bay area to visit, you know, and,

08:56.95
Jeffe Kennedy
ah And this was part of it is there was a lot of wealth on display and I don't normally have a problem with that. You know, I have been around very wealthy people all of my life, you know, like I've been to Phyllis Coors house for fundraisers and that kind of thing. it was mostly super envious of their gardens. You would not believe the help. Like it was incredible.

09:24.76
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, You know, and I've had friends who are multimillionaires. I do have friends who are multimillionaires, ah you know, and everybody's slightly different that way. But this was this was just like, yeah.

09:44.01
Jeffe Kennedy
i maybe I'm not going to be able to articulate this well. It was just kind of a celebration of exclusivity. Let me put it that way. So like everything about this was, you know, choosing these authors who have been elevated, you know, like Miranda July with her book, All Fours, which I've talked about on this podcast and I found very interesting, but she's just like broken out.

10:09.87
Jeffe Kennedy
No, she's just, you know hugely, hugely, um Popular for this book about perimenopause, it hit the right note at the right time, right? Which is so much of what commercial success is about.

10:22.37
Jeffe Kennedy
ah You know, when we talk about there's many wonderful books that just for whatever reason never hit. And then there's other books that just like click. They're right thing at the right time and boom, it's a phenom.

10:34.28
Jeffe Kennedy
And I've talked about phenoms on here a lot. And one thing, you know, is there are people who spend their lives, agents, Donald Maas, ah ah who try to dissect how to create a phenom.

10:47.13
Jeffe Kennedy
But you can't because there's this this other quality to it of the mass mind and serendipity. And if people are getting the thing that they want to hear at the right moment.

11:01.12
Jeffe Kennedy
And it was interesting because Amy Tan ah was there talking about her newest book, which is like this backyard bird catalog where she, ah you know, like during pandemic observed the birds in her backyard and got the hummingbirds to feed from her hand and learned how to draw the birds. And she did a beautiful job. I mean, it's really neat. And I've been reading Amy Tan, probably like all of you, like since the Joy Luck Club back in the day, you know, so she has firmly established her reputation, but you know, like just for grins, I went and looked up this new book of hers, which has been out for a little while. Um, like maybe a year. Yeah. It's a little over a year that it's been out April 24th. And,

11:46.39
Jeffe Kennedy
and and And let me just say, it was great to listen to her talk. She was very smart, very engaging. She was very good at the public speaking in a way that Miranda July was not. And I'm sure that's a function of practice. Amy Tan's, you what got decades long career and...

12:08.23
Jeffe Kennedy
you know, Miranda July, even though she does performance art kinds of things, she, I don't think she's used to being, uh, interviewed as an author, especially in a huge auditorium with lots of people like that.

12:18.90
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, she seemed like she was, you know, nervous and you know, who can blame her. Amy Tan was amazing how she spoke, but like this book of hers that's been out for over a year 818 ratings Amazon. Um,

12:33.01
Jeffe Kennedy
ratings on amazon which is not a resounding commercial success, right? But she has already been enshrined an amazing author and someone to be celebrated and so forth.

12:48.12
Jeffe Kennedy
And so, and that's kind of how everything is in this particular perspective, you know, like that there are these um authors that are given almost a divine status, right? You know, that they are the artists and and they live in this world where genre writers simply do not exist.

13:10.47
Jeffe Kennedy
They are not even worth acknowledging. And it's it's just really kind of funky. And the whole thing is set up so that, you know, like the authors would come up on this big stage and be interviewed and so forth.

13:26.97
Jeffe Kennedy
But they didn't interact with anybody. They didn't come to the receptions. They were they were swept away. And literally so. Like after the N. Scott Momaday panel, I went up front and lingered because I wanted to say hello to Terry Tempest-Williams.

13:44.51
Jeffe Kennedy
ah And if you haven't read her, you know, she's she's a wonderful writer. And she was great on the panels, too. I mean, she's super wise and interesting and composed.

13:56.43
Jeffe Kennedy
But I took a class with Terry 30 years ago, probably. She taught a week-long class at University of Wyoming when I was a baby writer. And she gave me a blurb for my very first book, for my essay collection.

14:12.60
Jeffe Kennedy
And I hadn't been in touch with her since. And so, i mean, because like what, I'm going to tug at her sleeve. But I wanted to say hello, right? And there's like,

14:25.31
Jeffe Kennedy
any other writing or publishing conference that I would go to, this would be a very simple thing for me to, to go say hello to one of my teachers, one of my fellow writers, right?

14:39.46
Jeffe Kennedy
So I was waiting and this one woman was kind of monopolizing her. And then I was waiting to say hello and, you know, had planned out as one does what I was going to say, you know, that I was sure she would not remember me, but you know, I wanted to thank her.

14:52.92
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, You know, because here I am making my living as an author, if not a semi-divine celebrated one, still doing okay for myself. um More ratings and reviews than Amy Tan.

15:06.47
Jeffe Kennedy
I know that's not fair because it's just that one book. I'm sure if we looked up Joy Luck Club or one of the others, it would be stratospheric. But still, you know, these marks of how we judge success, I've talked about that a lot on here. You know, that's why you have to go back to your own internal calibration, your own, uh, metrics of what you're trying to accomplish and why, right? Cause these are wildly different, um, metrics of success, right?

15:36.31
Jeffe Kennedy
If I went to a literary festival, well well, when I go to these kinds of things, I want to interact with people. um No, I did not get to say hello to Terry because one of her minors came in and like put an arm around her and turned her away and whisked her off.

15:54.77
Jeffe Kennedy
And this was the the whole thing that they wanted to, you know, protect the authors from from the readers, from the people that were there to see them. And, yeah, you've got to keep a person from being mobbed.

16:08.90
Jeffe Kennedy
But, um yeah, ah it was it was interesting. And there were just all sorts of ways that this... um kind of exclusionary attitude manifested in ways that I found very disturbing. And it was odd for me to be at something that should have been my happy place, right? You know, where everybody's there talking about books and reading and authors, and there's a bookstore I did buy a book.

16:39.06
Jeffe Kennedy
I should show you the book I bought. Hold on.

16:44.75
Jeffe Kennedy
Bookworks was the official bookseller for the festival. And I got this book tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. And I started reading it during my lunch break. I sat out in the courtyard in the sun and that was that was like the best part was when I got to sit and read in the sun.

17:03.45
Jeffe Kennedy
And I also got from BookWorks this great sticker. If you're not on video, it's a Zia, the New Mexico symbol with some glitter in it and a yellow eyed black cat peering out from the edge. And it's super cute. And I'm going to put it on my laptop.

17:20.33
Jeffe Kennedy
Although I'm worried that I'm going to to start replacing my laptop soon and then I'm going to lose all my stickers. I'll have to start over. New collection. oh So what is your point, Jeffe? Do I have a point?

17:34.11
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't know. um I was glad I went. Megan was glad to have me there. But yeah, I don't like this idea of setting up. Oh, there's like this whole thing that I haven't unpacked yet.

17:49.24
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah. Well, I'll try to do it fast and we can talk. i'll I'll undoubtedly revisit the topic. But I think I mentioned last week that I've been talking to this friend of mine who is like an art history professor and talking about the ideas of taste and art and so forth.

18:07.42
Jeffe Kennedy
And they were able to kind of validate some of the ideas that I've had for a long time and that long time listeners will have heard me rant about any number of times. But it's this idea of,

18:22.26
Jeffe Kennedy
of taste of something being declared art or being declared good, um belonging to a classist system that the people with wealth and running at these high social circles, reinforced to each other that this is worthy of elevation. This is what we are going to crown as being semi divine. And we are going to hold these people up as being religious,

18:50.33
Jeffe Kennedy
the The thing that this is, this is good, you know, that like what Miranda July writes is art and good, but Molly Roden Winter's More, which I actually think is a much better book, um that does not get elevated in the same way.

19:08.44
Jeffe Kennedy
um Which is more of a memoir, so I don't know. I probably, as usual, crossing my genres and streams. But um ah and I'm amazed that and I probably shouldn't call out this particular author because it's probably not her fault. It's the circle she swims in, but how you can sit in Santa Fe where Rebecca Roanhorse, a Nebula Award winning author of science fiction, um Darcy, you know that she, like, you don't even know she exists.

19:40.23
Jeffe Kennedy
and And she lives right here in the town that you're visiting. Darcy Little Badger is a Nebula Award winner, or at least a nominee. And there are so many others, um you know, and it's like, how can you just like not know that these authors exist?

19:55.81
Jeffe Kennedy
oh But, you know, again, it comes back around to my friend is just giving me some really interesting insights onto that because um it is always seemed somewhat arbitrary to me, oh which things get declared as, you know, oh, well, this is a celebrated author. And one thing that does happen is once you get enshrined,

20:18.71
Jeffe Kennedy
In some ways, you know, like you do get to rest on your laurels. ah You don't have to keep delivering. And, you know, I have a friend who talks about it as being sprinkled with fairy dust, you know, that you get these authors and And I'm not calling out Sarah J. Moss in particular because I think Sarah it's you know, really hit something and really delivers to her fans and so forth.

20:45.96
Jeffe Kennedy
But there is a phenomenon where if your book is a phenomenon, then you you can almost write anything at all and people still buy your books.

20:58.23
Jeffe Kennedy
Laurel K. Hamilton. I mean, I loved, loved, loved her books. she went off the rails. She still does and amazingly well. And you could argue that her books are incoherent.

21:12.85
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, I haven't read one a long time. Maybe there were a few there that were incoherent, but maybe, maybe they got better. I don't normally slam other authors. And so I'm sorry to do that. Hopefully Laurel will never know. Don't tell her.

21:26.72
Jeffe Kennedy
Okay. Um, all right. On that note, um, I'm going to sign off. I hope that you all have an amazing week, an inclusive week.

21:38.75
Jeffe Kennedy
ah If you're a regular commenter or want to post on social media, ah let's start sharing some names of Native American authors. How's that? Or indigenous authors, Canadian, what have you.

21:54.89
Jeffe Kennedy
ah Let's pretend that there are more than three. And I will talk to you all on Friday. You all take care. Bye-bye.