Rachael Maddux on Self-Publishing a Book You Can't Let Go Artwork

Pen Pals

Join writers and parents Krisserin Canary and Kelton Wright as they navigate the journey of publishing their first novels. From California to Colorado, these friends share their experiences with first drafts, revisions, query letters, and the rollercoaster of rejection. Each episode offers an honest look at balancing creative ambitions with daily life, featuring candid conversations about writing craft, time management, and staying motivated. Whether you're a fellow writer or just love a good behind-the-scenes story, Pen Pals proves that every creative journey is better with a friend.

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Pen Pals

Rachael Maddux on Self-Publishing a Book You Can't Let Go

April 27, 2026 • Krisserin Canary and Kelton Wright • Season 2 • Episode 29

0:00 | 1:21:50

Krisserin and Kelton sit down with writer Rachael Maddux (Life Expectancy: A Memoir, The Void, Third Person) to talk about what happens when a book you’ve spent 14 years writing never sells through traditional channels — and how you decide to make it exist anyway. Rachael walks us through her journey from first draft to cold querying agents to three years on submission to ultimately self-publishing through Ingram Spark. They get into the real mechanics: ISBNs, the difference between fulfillment and distribution, what your agent can still do for you after a book doesn’t sell, and why self-publishing still carries a weird “stank” in literary circles.

Plus: writing groups as lifelines, reading as a writer, mortality as a muse, and the moment you realize your friends actually showed up. Also featuring a very special cameo from Krisserin’s mom, Kennette.

Find Rachael Maddux
Website: rachaelmaddux.com
Instagram: @rachaelmaddux
Life Expectancy: A Memoir — Bookshop.org | Amazon

Books Mentioned in this Episode
Mary Magdalene Once Upon a Time by Kennette Canary — Amazon
Book of Claire by Kennette Canary — Wattpad
The Star Who Lost Her Shine by Alex Huey Evans (debut picture book, coming Summer 2026) — alexhueyevans.com | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
The Keeper by Tana French
Works by Clarice Lispector

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Follow Krisserin and Kelton:
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Instagram: @keltonkin, @keltonwrites
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Krisserin's Substack: krisserin.substack.com

Music by Golden Hour Oasis Studios

Krisserin 0:01

Hey, Kelton.

Kelton 0:02

Hi Chris.

Krisserin 0:04

Hi mom. Hi Chris. Hi, Kelton.

Speaker 0:10

I'm Krisserin Canary. And I'm Kelton Wright. Follow our quest to publish our first novels from first drafts, to query letters through inevitable rejections

Speaker 2 0:19

and hopefully eventual success

Speaker 0:20

from California to

Speaker 2 0:21

Colorado. This is pen pals.

Krisserin 0:24

Thank you. Glad to be here. Listeners on the podcast this week, we have our number one fan. My mom is here. This is Kennette Canary for everyone listening. My mom, she is also an artist and a writer and pen pal, super fan, and is in Los Angeles this week to help me while my husband is in Asia. So we thought we'd have her join for a little bit. Oh, and just say hi. Hello. Hello guys. I love this.

Kelton 0:51

we're always asking everyone's origin story, and now we have yours, Krisserin,

Krisserin 0:57

He's sitting right next to me. That's true. Oh, you are the creator of my existence. Yeah.

Kelton 1:04

I need to know, I need to know from your perspective, Kennette, when you knew that Chris was gonna be a writer.

Krisserin 1:10

Third grade when she was reading this book about a little mouse and she looked at the back cover, which is like a synopsis. Then she sort of copied it and she felt so proud and she put it in a contest that she won. So she plagiarizes and I told her, you could have done better than that. And, uh. I just noticed that I would write and she would be right there writing her own little story. So it was so cute and she surpassed me by going to college and getting a degree, which was something I wanted to do and never had the opportunity to, and I kinda live vicariously between you and her watching this podcast and learning about things I'd never even realized, such as the self-publishing, which I did, uh, such as. Agents, which I never even thought of. So I'm from this generation that's not computer savvy, but I really wanna learn about it. And she's helped me. You've helped me on writing. So that's sort of when I realized she was a writer and she's a better writer than me, but that's not true. We have our different styles. That's true. Yeah.

Kelton 2:35

well now I wanna read some of your writing.

Krisserin 2:38

Oh, well it's on Amazon. I could do a plug, right?

Kelton 2:42

Yes.

Krisserin 2:42

I told her, she's like, are you gonna plug my book? And I was like, yes, absolutely. I have, I have a self-published book, Mary Magdalene's Once Upon a Time. So it's on Amazon, it's been there forever, and I think one person has actually bought it, so, um, yeah, my book's there and then I have another book that, I wrote about my experiences working for the fire department, and there are a lot of people who have tragedies in their lives and have come back out the other side, and I thought, it is sad that these people haven't got a voice. So I wrote this story called. Book of Claire, and it's a woman who has had trauma in her life and she writes, she's trying to get through it. So she's writing things down and we share her experiences. And, her way of coping is to fantasize and create. A fantasy world, it helps her. So that's called the Book of Claire on Wattpad.

Kelton 3:39

I love that.

Krisserin 3:41

Oh, thank you.

Kelton 3:42

Krisserin 3:42

I don't,

Kelton 3:43

sort of perfect 'cause we do, we are talking about self-publishing

Krisserin 3:46

I know that was, yeah. It's the energy of the universe. I, I should do tarot cards too. You used to do tarot cards. I, I used to. Long time ago. Then I got Christian.

Kelton 3:58

Well.

Krisserin 3:59

She got Christian and it was not allowed. Oh.

Kelton 4:04

um, I'll carry on the Pagan tradition for you.

Krisserin 4:07

Oh, thank you.

Kelton 4:08

pull some cards today.

Krisserin 4:09

Okay. Do you have any more questions for my mom?

Kelton 4:12

to plug Krisserin,

Krisserin 4:14

I love it.

Kelton 4:14

just selling her books and

Krisserin 4:16

Yeah. Yeah, she's, don't ask me any more questions. You know, I don't remember that, that plagiarism story, the same. I remember it differently. Oh, do you? I remember, I told this story to Kelton before, how it was like, I basically like whole cloth copy someone else's story. I didn't remember. It was a published book. Yeah. I remember copying my classmate and I was like, I can write better than my class. Yeah, that's happened too. Oh. Just she was searching, searching for a voice and it was not hers.

Kelton 4:47

Listen,

Krisserin 4:47

what?

Kelton 4:47

somewhere.

Krisserin 4:49

Well, nine years old, old don't. Artists start. Eight. Eight. Copy. Other painters work. That's that's true. Okay. Practice. Practice. Yeah. That's good. That's really good.

Kelton 4:59

yeah. I knew there was like an idiom in there somewhere about copying an imitation.

Krisserin 5:03

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, true. That's so funny. Mom. Thank you guys for having the podcast 'cause it is very educational. It's helpful. I was gonna say, is there anything else you wanna say? Any words of advice or, or, or wisdom for Kelton? Well you're in the phase that I remember very distantly. 'cause my oldest is in his fifties, but. That time I do remember is I never got any sleep, so I, I empathize with you and, I remember what Margaret Atwood said about women writers that you will always be interrupted and we just have to deal with it. So. So, uh, it's your advice, mom. We'll just have to deal with, you just have to deal with it.

Kelton 5:53

Margaret Atwood

Krisserin 5:54

It's, it's really uplifting. It's tough. It's tough being a woman. It's tough being a writer and creative. Yeah. And raising children, and raising a husband, raising a husband.

Kelton 6:06

that's the one.

Krisserin 6:07

Yes. I understand. Yeah. But you still, you did it and you know, you're still writing. You've been, how long have you been writing for? Oh, I've been writing since I was a teenager. Yeah, since I was a teenager I wanted a voice and I was the oldest of eight kids and nobody heard me, so, yeah. And the ult? Well, we were.

Kelton 6:27

is always there for us, thankfully.

Krisserin 6:28

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we were talking about it on the way, we dropped off the kids this morning who were you talking, you were talking about actually she was, we were talking about Lady Gaga. Of all people. Yes. Aw. Because Ren is in a, a, a little monster phase now. We've been listening to a lot of Lady Gaga in the car and she goes, how does someone raise a child like that? How does someone, and we watched So confident. Yeah, so confident and artistic unabashedly. Uh, uh, I am me and this is it. So take it or leave it. I don't care. I thought that was amazing of her and I, I said to her, we were talking about also, we watched piece by piece, the Lego movie about Pharrell Williams last night, which is so good. And if you haven't, if anyone who hasn't seen that, she go watch it. Mm-hmm. Because basically him telling his whole life story through Legos, and he has synesthesia so he can see. Music and he showed, they used Legos to show him building beats and it's really cool. Anyway. We were talking about how, how do you raise a child to be so self-confident and assured that they could just be creative and be themselves? And I told mom, I was like, you did it with me. You encouraged me. And always, absolutely I wanted everything that I didn't have that she could have. So and so now I'm trying to. Do give it back to her. Thank you. Let's read things. Thank you. Let's write, let's do fun things together. Yeah, fun things together. Alright, well thanks for coming on the pod. Well, thanks for having me being the number one fan. Alright. It was very nice to have a direct conversation with you, so you guys

Kelton 8:08

wonderful to meet you.

Krisserin 8:09

Oh, thank you. Me too. You all righty. Bye-bye. Bye, mom. How you feeling? You sick.

Kelton 8:16

No, I'm, um, well, yes, kind of. Um, I had a, I had quite a, a week,

Krisserin 8:24

Ugh.

Kelton 8:24

um, on Saturday morning I woke up with

Krisserin 8:29

Oh, that's right. I read. I read about that. I read about that.

Kelton 8:33

I, yeah, I had a really severe case of vertigo. It's only the second time I've ever had it, so it's still pretty novel and, and, I don't really have a routine for managing it.

Krisserin 8:43

It is so debilitating.

Kelton 8:45

it's really debilitating. We were in the desert, you know, hours away from all of my creature comforts and

Krisserin 8:51

yeah.

Kelton 8:51

and stuff. And, uh, so I. I still am recovering from it now, like five days later, like I can feel my eyes shaking while we're doing this. And then of course, in the middle of that I also got my period,

Krisserin 9:07

Ugh.

Kelton 9:08

and then I got an allergy attack that is still persisting. Um, so

Krisserin 9:14

What the fuck?

Kelton 9:15

Krisserin 9:15

You need to, like,

Kelton 9:16

quite bad.

Krisserin 9:17

you need to do, I feel like you need to do some magic. I feel like there is like some cleansing, some salt at your doorstep like. Something.

Kelton 9:29

thankfully I do have time for a little witchcraft today, and I did a little future spell casting yesterday in that I booked a facial and a massage. I

Krisserin 9:39

love that.

Kelton 9:40

and a lash lift. I was like, okay, you know what, we're putting some stuff on a

Krisserin 9:44

Fuck yeah.

Kelton 9:45

take care of herself.

Krisserin 9:46

Yes.

Kelton 9:48

so it, I am feeling very. tired. Because I keep waking up in the middle of the night with the spins. So it's just been, it's been hard to get over. I haven't been able to like get into a doctor. I know a lot of people listening deal with vertigo and I've done all the like Ely maneuvers and that stuff, like I'm doing, I know enough people with vertigo that. had a quite a team in my arsenal once I got home to be like, do this, do this, do this. And I've done all that stuff. So it is getting better. But, my body is, you know, I have a long history with health anxiety. I'm mostly better now, but I, there's some learned patterns in that, like. When my body goes into freakout mode, like my brain is like, what the fuck is happening?

Krisserin 10:29

Yeah.

Kelton 10:30

like, not only am I managing the vertigo, I'm managing a

Krisserin 10:33

Your anxiety.

Kelton 10:34

around it.

Krisserin 10:36

Yeah.

Kelton 10:36

I think I did really well this time, but it was like getting the period and getting the allergy attack like at the same time I was. Stop it. I am busy managing things, so like, but what a blessing that the child went back to daycare this week. So I did actually have some time to just like, you know, breathe and despite it all, I wrote 1,567 words. So I did hit that goal. Thankfully the rest of the goals that we had, that I had been like bludgeoning myself with at the end of last week's episode, I did like right after we recorded. So I did one more unstuck prompt. I did review my sample chapters for, literary magazines and I sent one of them to the Sun Magazine. and then I

Krisserin 11:34

You did everything. You're like, I had vertigo and I just accomplished all my goals anyway.

Kelton 11:39

vertigo didn't start until Saturday. All of this happened on Thursday.

Krisserin 11:43

Okay.

Kelton 11:43

I wrote yesterday, so I wrote with like a little bit of vertigo, but, it was at the tail end but the other stuff I did all on that Thursday after the call. And I, I read my short story slug again and was like. This is about something I've worried about with Slug for years is that it is literally just the beginning of a novel and I read it again and I was like, it is, this is the beginning of a novel. So I was like, all right, let's leave slug alone. Don't read it. Don't bother with it. Like you can write that book once. Anita, keep is finished.

Krisserin 12:17

You literally accomplish all of your goals. I was just, I'm looking at them in our, in our document. I accomplished none of mine. I did nothing. Well, hold on. That's not quite true. I actually did go buy, I went to Barnes and Noble and, which I know people have given me crap about going to Barnes and Noble, but there's no small bookstore near. People, there's no small books, there's no small bookstore, independent bookstore. In my proximity, I would have to drive to like, I think Tarzan is the closest one. And for me to accomplish goals, it has to be somewhat.

Kelton 12:53

Yeah, you

Krisserin 12:54

Convenient. Yeah. I did buy four. I bought I think Plow shares, Granta Zeva in the Paris Review, by the way. I went and sat down, like on the floor at Barnes, so Noble, and they have a, in the magazine section where all the, the literary journals are. There were literary journals, like actual issues of them that. Were from like the spring of 2023. I was pulling them out and looking at which ones to buy. And some of them were so old. I think only one of them, and it might have been Granta, was from the spring of 26. Everything else was fall of 25. So some of them had been sitting there for years and not purchased. But I did buy them. Did I read them? No, but I bought them. I did one, one thing on my goal list. It was mine were 1500 words, an unstuck prompt, another, another Marion draft, and, buying some journals and reading them. It was just, this week's been crazy. My mom was like, how do you, how do you.

Kelton 14:07

husband's gone. Your mom is in town. Like, you know, I know in, in that scenario when there's like new help in town, it's like, oh, I'll get more done. But it's like, you wanna hang out with those people

Krisserin 14:15

Yeah, it's true.

Kelton 14:16

time.

Krisserin 14:18

It's true. And I mean, just to talk through the things that I've done this week. It's been a crazy week at work. We planted a tree yesterday for Earth Day at my school with my mom and my daughter. We went and saw Project Hail Mary. I took her to see Project Hail Mary, which actually was very inspiring even to see it the second time. It made me think about elements of my story and another short story that I've been working on in a different way. And it made me think that. I'm really bad at not like rereading things or rewatching things, but I feel like as a writer you notice things more on the second go around. And I just wish I had more patience to do that because it's really hard for me. But, you know, when they talk about reading as a writer, if I'm reading something for school, I will read it like two or three times. I don't know why I can't do that for myself, you know? I will also say,

Kelton 15:15

but I'm only doing it for my favorites. Like, I'm

Krisserin 15:19

yeah.

Kelton 15:20

I'm not going back to be like, wow, that was a really challenging book. Let me see how the author put it together.

Krisserin 15:26

Yeah.

Kelton 15:26

no, like I, that sounds really romantic. But that's not what this girl is doing.

Krisserin 15:34

I do feel like I was thinking about you in your screenwriting class. I do feel like, I. The thing that I noticed this time around with Project Ha and Mary, and it's not spoiling anything, was just, I feel like when I write or When I've written stories that have flashbacks, I, I thought that there had to be a specific rhythm of it. And what I liked about the movie, and I don't remember how they did it in, I think it was very different in the book, is that the flashbacks were perfectly timed to give you a piece of information about the story that you didn't know before. And I really appreciated that as a viewer. I mean, movies, I think, do a really good job of that just by, by nature of its structure. But yeah. Oh, I had my new student orientation on Monday for grad school. That was fun.

Kelton 16:21

Hey, how was

Krisserin 16:22

Yeah, it was great. From what I can tell in my cohort, there's one man and we're all, all women in this MFA

Kelton 16:32

Listen. I love that.

Krisserin 16:34

Yeah. I did buy my ticket to, I'm flying into Santa Fe, which I guess I'm like, should I have flown into Albuquerque 'cause I guess they're relatively close. But I had to stop over either way. But I bought my ticket. I'm gonna be staying in the dorms. I'm excited. It was really cool. I've gotta get 20 pages. Yeah, I've gotta get 20 pages together for that. So I'm actually thinking that my short story will be the thing that I submit for a workshop. 'cause it still needs work. It's a little bit long. I've gotta cut 15 pages, but we'll figure it out. But yeah, that was, it's been a

Kelton 17:06

awesome.

Krisserin 17:07

busy fricking week really.

Kelton 17:09

Yeah. You

Krisserin 17:11

but.

Kelton 17:12

goals.

Krisserin 17:14

I did, I made an eye appointment. I cooked my kiss to the dentist, like all this stuff. Read how to get a tooth pulled at the dentist. It was, uh, it wasn't bad. She was so brave. I was so proud of her. She just like,

Kelton 17:27

nice.

Krisserin 17:28

yeah, yeah,

Kelton 17:30

we, okay. so we were just talking to your mom about self-publishing and I really, it is amazing timing because that is exactly what we're talking partially to our guest about today. we're having Rachel Maddox on, who was suggested to us by, my friend Katie Hawkins Scar, who writes my sweet dumb brain on Substack. You should read Katie's work if you haven't already. It's really moving and just form feels like. Reading, like a friend's warm hug. and so as soon as Katie suggested someone I was, I think we were both like, yeah, I trust you.

Krisserin 18:03

Yeah, and you know what I was thinking about this. We. I've had so many people on the pod who just slid into our dms or have suggested a friend. I love it. I really do feel like we're building this community of friends that are trying to publish or are publishing and are out there working toward the same goal. And it feels really nice. It feels really, really nice. Another listener, Sarah, Revs and did a roundup of all the podcasts that she listens to and included pen pals. And it really warmed my heart to be included. And then I will say we had another, another listener reach out who is a big fan, and she messaged me just to say how much she loved the podcast and she has a book coming out. It's a kid's book, and it's called The Star Who Lost Her Shine, and her name is Alex Huey Evans. And so I'm, we're gonna include a link to Alex's book in the show notes. Everyone, if you have a kid or you know a kid, please consider pre-ordering her book and supporting the Pen Pals community. I just love it. It just makes me so happy. Our little friend group. Yeah. So please reach out to us and email us and let us know what you're doing because I love this feeling of being able to uplift each other. We're all in the trenches together. We'll get there. So we're so excited to have Rachel on the podcast, Rachel Maddox. She's the author of Life Expectancy, a memoir, as well as the Short Story Collections, the Void Notes on a few miscarriages and third person notes on a first year. Her essays, features and reviews have appeared in the Oxford, American, Virginia Quarterly Review, garden and Gun, and elsewhere after many years in Atlanta, she lives with her family in Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she grew up. Life expectancy is a millennial coming of age memoir about growing up mortal in the American South at the turn of the 21st century. Obsessed with the question of how to live when you know you're gonna die. All right? Without further ado, yes, let's talk about death. Alright, here's Rachel. All. do you think Helton and I sound alike?

Rachael 20:20

Oh, um, ooh. At first I was struggling. Today I finally had a breakthrough. I don't know what it was. I think it was after listening, this is gonna make me sound like such a suck up. After listening to Kelton by herself, talking to Courtney Maum when it came back into the outro, I was like, okay, now I know the difference. Like, I don't know you, you like your different shaped blobs in my mind now.

Krisserin 20:46

Okay.

Kelton 20:47

Yeah,

Rachael 20:49

So, and now that I'm seeing you, it's like you're very different looking. And I, like, I'd seen pictures and I was like, I don't know how these women look so different and sound so the same to me. But I have like,

Kelton 21:00

we're just,

Rachael 21:01

all my regular podcasts are like gay guy and then a woman. So it's like very easy.

Krisserin 21:05

Uhhuh Uhhuh.

Kelton 21:07

we're a couple of harmonizing altos over here. I

Rachael 21:09

yeah,

Kelton 21:10

help this week that I'm sick, so.

Rachael 21:12

a little dier.

Kelton 21:14

Yeah.

Krisserin 21:15

I will say, I don't know Kelton if you had this experience, but you know, we met at Headspace before I joined I listened to a lot of the meditations with Andy putty comb, and his voice is so particular and it's like in your ear so clearly, and it feels so intimate. And then you meet him in person and it's like, don't talk to me. I'm deeply uncomfortable. I know.

Kelton 21:42

it is.

Krisserin 21:43

you had that experience,

Kelton 21:45

no. Yeah, yeah. I did, I did. I think he's used to that probably.

Krisserin 21:49

Yeah, probably.

Kelton 21:51

mean, could you, you meet him through like an A SMR setting, you know, and then in person he's like, can you please stop talking to me?

Krisserin 21:58

Yeah. And then he go, he went on Ellen and she said he sounded like the Geico Geck.

Rachael 22:04

Oh no. Oh, I would love a guided meditation by the Geico gecko.

Krisserin 22:09

All right. Well, I

Rachael 22:11

Yeah.

Krisserin 22:11

just listen to Headspace

Rachael 22:12

Great. Okay, great.

Krisserin 22:13

I'm really excited to talk about your self-published memoir, life Expectancy. I don't know where Kelton just went. She completely just banged

Rachael 22:22

It took her, she's gotta blow her nose. I'm.

Krisserin 22:24

Poor thing. Um, so I think to start, my mom and I just read your like first opening

Rachael 22:33

Oh my gosh.

Krisserin 22:34

Yeah. We were really enjoying it. And are we just gonna talk about death for an hour?

Rachael 22:39

Oh, sure. Totally fine. Or moms too.

Krisserin 22:43

Our moms or whatever? Kelton's back. Everything. Okay.

Kelton 22:47

Yeah. Speaking of death, I feel like it.

Rachael 22:49

Oh, hello?

Krisserin 22:51

Welcome back. So I am shocked that you had friends that hadn't considered the fact that someday they were gonna die.

Rachael 23:01

Oh yeah.

Krisserin 23:01

don't all children go through a moment when they're like, my mom is gonna die, my dad is gonna die. I feel like, isn't that a rite of passage, this existential realization that we're not on this earth permanently. How did your

Rachael 23:15

I don't know.

Krisserin 23:17

28 years of living without that realization

Rachael 23:19

My guess, and it's funny, like we're still very, we're still close, and I should ask her about it sometimes now that I've put her on blast in the literal first paragraph of the book. But having gone through the process of also reexamining my entire childhood, I think I have an extra good memory my childhood. And so my guess is if someone's like in their twenties or thirties and they're like, oh my God, wait, I didn't realize this. Maybe you did, but you just forgot.

Krisserin 23:42

maybe.

Kelton 23:42

of people

Rachael 23:43

I've had to relearn so many things.

Kelton 23:46

You can also grow up just in the safety of religion

Rachael 23:49

Yeah, that too.

Kelton 23:50

where like a lot of people, like when they death is, more like a, a doorway and so they don't really think of it as an ending. They're just like, well, I go to this really cool place where all my pets are waiting for

Rachael 24:01

Exactly.

Kelton 24:02

like when you're, when you're like seven or eight, and that's the mythology around it. I can see how people get to 28 and are like,

Rachael 24:10

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense too. Like, I mean, I grew up, this is in the book too, so I don't wanna be so repetitive, but maybe it's promotion, I don't know. But I grew up Episcopalian, which is like pretty chill, relatively, but like

Kelton 24:23

Rachael 24:24

tin, oh, what's up?

Krisserin 24:27

Is that Catholic light?

Rachael 24:28

Um, kind of, yeah, they're like, it's

Kelton 24:31

Catholic, but you can get divorced

Rachael 24:33

yeah, it's like all the pomp and circumstance, but like none of the Latin and none of the intense psychological damage. It's pretty easy to drift out of is what I've found. I didn't realize this for a long time. It's very like, well we don't really know. Do you get to heaven? Just do your best, like really chill about it.

Kelton 24:50

Yeah. It's like Christian without the youth pastors.

Rachael 24:53

Yeah, we still had some, but we were let's watch, um, let's talk about how much we love Rushmore and play Trivial Pursuit. And but then I had friends in high school that were like super conservative Baptist, and they were like, you, um, doesn't count that you were baptized as a baby. I thought I was on top of it, but they were like, doesn't count. And they're like, you're definitely gonna go to hell if you're not doing exactly what we're doing. Um, or that's what their church said. But so yeah, that was, I grew up in Tennessee, so it was like the soup that we emerged out of, but I think a lot of people get out of that mode, especially when they're living on their own and they're like, oh wait, hold on. What if I don't believe this? And if I pull this one Jenga block, like everything falls down because then I have to reckon with. Not only my childhood and my parents feeding me information that I no longer believe, but also what happens to me if there's not a heaven and not a hell? Do I just rot in a box? Do I get scattered into the wind? Like literally

Krisserin 25:50

Yeah. We become warm food. We, we

Rachael 25:53

best case, hopefully. Unless you're like, we talk about death practices, that might be a whole other conversation. Or you just sit there looking like a weird version of yourself in a weird, very expensive box for the rest of the planet's existence. I know.

Krisserin 26:08

I don't wanna rot. I just sprinkle me in my favorite place. well, tell me a little bit or tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book. Now this, you know, obviously it's something

Rachael 26:19

Yeah.

Krisserin 26:19

came, like you, you definitely fixated

Rachael 26:22

Yeah.

Krisserin 26:23

What about this moment in time now made you go back and write about

Rachael 26:28

Well, that is a funny question 'cause I did not write this book now. I actually started writing the book, uh, around the time of this conversation that happens in the first chapter, which was like 20, I think that was 2012. And I had been like, ever since I was a child, I was like, I'm gonna write books. I'm gonna write books. Then I was like in my twenties being like, well, what, you actually have to have something that you write about. You can't just like poop out a book. So I was like, what is it gonna be? And I kind of landed on oh, this is the thing that I felt really drawn to was figuring out oh, there's this divide between me and like the world. I feel like whether or not that was actually true. So I kind of started just like writing towards, like trying to figure out that question of like what was the deal with my childhood relationship with death? And then I worked on that book for a long, long time. I think I had a first draft in like 2015 and then. Got an agent in 2017. We worked on it for several years together and it was finally ready to go out on submission in 2021. So it was on submission for a really long time. Just like none of, neither of us were talking about it. We were obviously once it didn't happen in the first couple months, it was kinda like, hoo, maybe we'll just, maybe it, maybe it'll just take a long time. And then I had a baby in 2022 and then I quit my job and then my family moved from Atlanta back to our hometown of Chattanooga. And then I kinda landed back here and I was like, okay, that book's not selling. It's been. Three years on submission. Not even a, no, not even just like total crickets as far as I'm aware. I think it went out during the first flush of hot facts summer. Everyone was like, yeah, roaring twenties and then whatever. COVID was not done yet, so all plans were scrapped at the end of that summer. And I think it just it kind of just got lost and I wasn't a celebrity. I didn't have a huge platform. It was like a relatively quiet book. It was gonna be one of those, a small quiet, I mean, maybe I'm underselling it, but I didn't have, I had expectations that it would sell, but I didn't have expectations that it was gonna be the next, you know, Reese Witherspoon movie or something. So yeah, I revised it between 2024 and 2025. And then that's, so that's where it came from. So it wasn't even now. And the reason of why now, it was like, 'cause I had to get it out.

Krisserin 28:49

Yeah,

Rachael 28:49

to be done with it. I had to

Krisserin 28:51

close the

Rachael 28:52

act and I like, thought about it. Like one option was just like scrapping it and moving on. And I was like, I really psychologically don't think I can move on from this. I probably could have, but I was like, no, I really want it to exist. So that is why now. And it's because of the past, what year is it now? 20, 26, past 14 years of work. It's 'cause I was like, I either have to stay in this mode forever or just move on and do and get this out here and go live the rest of my life.

Krisserin 29:19

So what was the conversation like with your agent going on submission, not hearing anything?

Rachael 29:27

It was hard. I mean like we had worked on it for, at that point, like almost four years together.

Krisserin 29:32

Wow.

Rachael 29:33

she's incredibly patient. Like we're kind of, we kind. I feel like we have a relationship that's hopefully gonna go on for many, many years. So I didn't see it as like a, you better sell this book, or I'm like, hopping over to the next person. She was such a good reader of the book, gave so many good edits, not just as a agent and like thinking about it as like the product that the publishers would be receiving it as, but as a reader and as someone that was like getting to know me through the process. So we had a lot of really, really good creative conversations for many years before this. So we had this level of trust and then she was positive about it. She was like, okay, we have high hopes. And then when those high hopes were kind of fading, she was like, you know what? I've sold books after 18 months that were excellent books and had great lives. And then she had a baby, then I had a baby, and life just kind of happened and we would check in every so often and she changed jobs and changed agencies. So it was just kind of this rock that was getting kicked down the road. And she was always very positive, but she was never blowing smoke up my ass, if that makes sense. When and when we had the conversation I was like, I think I just have to take this back and do it on my own. She was like, alright. She helped me a lot with the launch. Even one day she will hopefully make five or $10 off of me. 'cause she's put in quite a lot of work.

Krisserin 30:42

It's crazy to think that agents do all of that work

Rachael 30:44

I know. And I know some, I've heard of people like losing their agents 'cause their books didn't sell. So hopefully, I mean, I was always like, I like to pick a person, like I'm married to my high school sweetheart, which is kind of like a creepy thing for some people. And I was like, I pick a person and I stick with it. I'm not like gonna beep pop around. I'm like, okay, I'm married to my agent for life, which I know isn't true, but I want you to be 60-year-old and selling my book when I'm 60 years old. Like my third book probably at that point. But.

Krisserin 31:10

Rachel, what's your star sign?

Rachael 31:12

Oh my God. I actually, not to sound like such a suck up, but I looked this up because you guys were talking about yours. I down, I re downloaded CoStar for the first time. I'm a Scorpio. I'm a Scorpio. I got my whole,

Kelton 31:26

a book about death.

Rachael 31:27

yeah,

Kelton 31:28

surprise.

Rachael 31:29

uh, let me look all, all this. I'm a, um, Scorpio with a Taurus moon and an Aries rising.

Krisserin 31:38

Mm-hmm.

Rachael 31:39

all this and I was like, I don't know. Something about being in my forties and having stuff kind of more settled than the last time I looked at it. I was like, Ooh, oops. This is sounding very real.

Krisserin 31:48

That Taurus Moon is your loyalty For sure. Yes, absolutely. love that. I'm, I'm a very, like, loyalty is super important to me and I consider

Rachael 31:59

Yeah.

Krisserin 31:59

Loyal person, so I completely understand. I understand. That's great. I did have another question,

Rachael 32:06

Oh sure.

Krisserin 32:07

had, to ask you.

Rachael 32:09

I dunno. I was like, I gotta, I gotta get on this, on this level.

Krisserin 32:13

It's just fun. It's fun. I mean, Kelton's the witch between the two of us so

Rachael 32:17

Oh, great. Oh yeah.

Kelton 32:19

I am curious though, I wanna know a little more about your agent relationship

Rachael 32:23

Oh yeah,

Kelton 32:23

an area that a lot of people don't think about. Now you, you have a project you're promoting on your own. Obviously your

Rachael 32:29

yeah.

Kelton 32:30

involved, but what is the expectation of you from your agent now? You know, like you said,

Rachael 32:36

yeah, good question.

Kelton 32:37

a lifelong relationship. So

Rachael 32:39

Yeah.

Kelton 32:40

are you, what are you guys doing?

Rachael 32:42

well, we're emailing every, so often I'm sending her a list of, I'm like, here's little more drawings for your refrigerator. Here's all the things I did this week. So right now I think, I mean. Uh, we've been working together since 2017, so we, I feel like we're good at having space and then when I've got something, um, I kind of give it to her. I told her I was gonna write an essay that she was gonna help me place, and I haven't done that yet, but maybe this summer. But yeah, I know she's there, which is good. And so, um, that just takes a huge, a huge load off.

Kelton 33:11

Interesting. I hadn't thought about essay placement with agents. Has she done that work with you already?

Rachael 33:16

she has the last thing that I like really published that wasn't like my own newsletter or like a friend's newsletter. I wrote an essay about, I had four miscarriages before I had my daughter. And weirdly Bigfoot became kind of a spiritual talisman during that time. So I wrote this kind of goofy essay about like cryptozoology and reproductive reproductive struggles. And she was like, alright, let's see who wants it. And Oprah daily published it and I was like, this never would've occurred to me on my own. I never ever would've been like, yes, Oprah Daley, let's see if they want something by me. But that was like,

Kelton 33:52

who wants some Bigfoot Fanfic. Oprah Daily.

Rachael 33:58

So yeah, I think it can really help to have someone that's like, I mean, I have a decent mind for entrepreneurial stuff. I mean passable, but having someone who's not involved in my own personal ego or my own personal sense of myself when she's looking out here. Like, here's the editors I know that are gonna like buy something. Like that's really, really useful.

Kelton 34:16

Yeah.

Rachael 34:17

Um, yeah. So

Kelton 34:19

cool.

Rachael 34:20

was, that was a long time ago at this point. That was like 2022, which seems like ancient history. But,

Kelton 34:26

How did you get, how did you get your agent? What was that process like for you?

Rachael 34:30

when I finally had the book in a place that felt like. Passable. I'd worked on a lot with my writing group. I just cold queried, like I had a whole spreadsheet and it was summer 2017 and I just sent a lot of absolutely cold emails to everyone that seemed like even remotely a good idea. And I think in that time, I started writing the book the summer around the time that Leslie Jamison's empathy exams came out, like a bunch of personal, nonfiction essays, memoirs by younger women, was kind of popping off in a, as much as that kind of thing can. So by 2017 it was kind of more obviously, I don't know, it felt like a more sure bet in 2017 than it did in 2021 even so there was some interest and I had maybe three agents that. Were reading it and wanted to talk, which I, if, if I was queering it now, I feel like they would be just like crickets. But I had three and I was weirdly like for work or maybe with my husband's work, I was, I was gonna be in New York just by happenstance. And I was like, oh God, I gotta pull, like a power move. I gotta be like, I am going to be in town briefly, like, would you like to meet with me? So I wound up having three conversations and then just picked the one that I felt like I had the best rapport with and the best connection with. She was from South Carolina and went to school in Mississippi and Virginia. She has an American studies, like southern studies degree. So I wasn't having to explain myself as a southerner. Which weirdly I did feel like kind of, I often feel like kind of like a. I have some things to answer for some reason when I'm talking to someone that's like, grew up in Manhattan, went to school in Manhattan, worked in Manhattan,

Kelton 36:08

Yeah.

Rachael 36:09

might go to

Krisserin 36:11

who's

Rachael 36:11

Rockaway Beach occasionally. I know. And I'm just like, I don't wanna answer the questions that you're trying to ask me. Although I really screwed it by getting a Kudzu tattoo. They're like, you know, like the most cliche. But yeah, we had a great, we just had a good rapport and I felt like also that, she got the book, she was excited about it. We were like roughly the same age. Not that that really would've mattered. Like maybe an older agent would've had more wisdom, but I just felt like we had a really good vibe and that has continued. So I think I got lucky in a way. Like I've had friends that had agents that wound up having to kinda, part ways for various reasons, even though they had a good first relationship. But, um, yeah.

Krisserin 36:52

yeah. It's not uncommon.

Rachael 36:54

Not at all. Yeah, I know. Um,

Krisserin 36:57

at all.

Rachael 36:58

especially if a book doesn't sell, then it's kinda like, is it you? Is it me?

Krisserin 37:01

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachael 37:02

we both realized that it wasn't either one of us, it was the marketplace.

Krisserin 37:08

Yeah, I

Rachael 37:09

I don't know who will be able to see the big, the big fat air quotes. The, the marketplace.

Krisserin 37:14

Kelton 37:14

I think they can

Krisserin 37:15

people who like, watch the video,

Rachael 37:16

Okay, great.

Krisserin 37:17

on YouTube week.

Rachael 37:19

That's for them.

Kelton 37:20

we can feel those, those quotes

Rachael 37:23

Great.

Krisserin 37:24

Yeah.

Rachael 37:25

It's in italics. It's like the italics of like every other letter is capitalized. You know, the, my,

Krisserin 37:34

So I've gotten this question a lot and I, I wonder, Kelton, if you've had it, where people will be like, why don't you just self-publish? Why

Rachael 37:40

oh,

Krisserin 37:40

just self-publish? Like it's the easiest thing in the world to just

Rachael 37:43

yeah,

Krisserin 37:44

on your own.

Rachael 37:45

yeah.

Krisserin 37:45

I look at it and I'm like, oh, you gotta do all your own marketing. You gotta

Rachael 37:49

Yep.

Krisserin 37:50

you gotta do it all by yourself. I'm curious. When you made the decision, what were your expectations and then how were those expectations completely, you know, uh, changed? When you went through the process, what surprised

Rachael 38:05

That's a great question. I feel like asking that of someone whose book is still like, in flux and hasn't even reached its semi-final form is like a different question than someone who is feels they're like, this book either dies or I do it myself. So it's kind of like, why did you choose to grab the rope that was dangling over your head and climb up it? It's like, well, that's how I was gonna get outta the deep dark hole. I wasn't like fantasizing for years about a rope. I would rather have not been in the hole and had a nice ladder or something. But, it just was the choice that I had, to put it out on my own. There were micro choices within that. For a while I was like, well, maybe I'll serialize it on a newsletter or maybe I'll just like, you know. Print it, more like a magaziney type thing. I mean, for years I joked about just like tweeting the Google Doc. That was my backup plan for a long time. Because I just want it to exist. And then I was like, well, if I'm gonna make it exist, like I at least need to make it

Kelton 39:04

really exist.

Rachael 39:04

look good and like make it look as real as possible. But I think there are a lot of authors now I've learned this from the internet, that they kind of were like, feel like they're face, they're like at a crossroads. They're like, should I trad pub or should I self pub? Which I think is more of a legitimate question if you're writing certain kind of like genre fiction that tends to have a very active readership no matter how it comes to you. But for like literary memoir, it's like not the choice.

Kelton 39:35

with some like larger audiences, people are like, oh, I went self pub. And it's like, well, yeah,

Rachael 39:40

Yeah.

Kelton 39:40

was an easy choice for you because you had 45,000 subscribers,

Rachael 39:45

Yeah,

Kelton 39:45

500 of them will probably convert, you know, and you'll, you'll make like some money off of this. But

Rachael 39:51

yeah, I was recently, yeah,

Kelton 39:53

outside of that reality is scarier. You don't

Rachael 39:57

Yeah.

Kelton 39:58

that just kind of sells it a little bit for you.

Rachael 40:01

Yeah. It was like the practical thing of who do I know that was actually gonna buy this? And then there was a thought of like, is this shooting myself in the foot? Actually, because self-publishing doesn't, still doesn't have a great reputation. I feel like, I mean, in the world of substack, books, people, it's really been like interesting to watch. I feel like the past th like the past months as my book has been coming out, I've been reading more about self-publishing in kind of more mainstream publishing. Thought leadership, I don't know, substack people. And it's almost like a begrudging acceptance that it's a reality, as like a, as like an economic reality. A lot of these big self pub authors are getting like big deals like the Theo of Golden author and a lot of fantasy and romantic people. But I can kind of, I mean, I might just be projecting, but there's almost a kind of like swallowing bile before they start talking about it. Like, yes, there are a lot of really excellent self-published worth. I'm like, have you, have you read any, can you actually think of any? Or are you just trying to be like, kind of nice? But I had a lot of bad feelings about it too. But it's still like there's a. There's like a stank on it that

Kelton 41:08

Yeah.

Rachael 41:09

you kinda have to work through. Yeah. Yeah. So

Krisserin 41:13

plenty of self-published books. I had no, I, I, I don't know who published a book,

Rachael 41:18

That's also, yeah,

Krisserin 41:19

you know, um, books that I have gotten recommended or I, you know, that are on book talk that are like, oh yeah, this. Book was great. And so I'll add it to my TBR or it's on Kindle Unlimited and I'll download it and then I realize afterwards like, oh, this was self,

Rachael 41:35

yeah,

Krisserin 41:36

Oh cool. It was great. I loved it. I read three of 'em. Gimme more. You know,

Rachael 41:41

yeah,

Krisserin 41:42

I think that the difference is do you get your book known and into the world? And if you have a writing community, that really

Rachael 41:49

yeah,

Krisserin 41:49

'cause you can come on a podcast and talk

Rachael 41:51

yeah,

Krisserin 41:52

and, and get people to, to share it. And I feel like if you don't, the thing that people are thinking about is like, um, someone who's just like shooting something into the void and not doing anything

Rachael 42:04

yeah.

Krisserin 42:04

Yeah.

Rachael 42:05

One thing that really helped turn my mind around when I was considering self-publishing is realizing how much work even traditionally published authors have to do to promote their own stuff. I started this when I had the fantasy of I'm gonna send it off to my publisher and they're gonna do all the work. And that might have been true in like 2012, but it's not true now. I would have to be out here like doing my song and dance routine, even if I got like an actual, that's not fair to say, like a traditional publishing deal. Like I would still be out here being a clown on Instagram probably.

Krisserin 42:37

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kelton 42:39

Absolutely. I mean, they all have, you have to be like,

Rachael 42:42

Yeah.

Kelton 42:43

like literally anything,

Rachael 42:45

Yeah,

Kelton 42:46

like, buy it.

Rachael 42:48

please.

Krisserin 42:49

Yeah.

Rachael 42:49

Yeah. But I've heard from people that are like, especially people like. At bookstores or publishers that I've talked to that are like, you wouldn't believe, like the people that just kind of like expect us to have a book, even if they're like traditionally published. Just to have, why don't you, why don't you stalk my book? Like, why aren't you talking about my book? Some authors I think have a sense of entitlement that it will just go out there and it's like, oh, well you do have to be like building all these relationships too. Start 10 years ago, join a book club, and then your friend Megan, well bring in her sister-in-law and then she'll have tell you about her favorite podcast. And

Kelton 43:22

That's the

Rachael 43:23

You have to start 10 years early.

Krisserin 43:26

I have maybe an ignorant question just because I don't

Rachael 43:29

Oh yeah.

Krisserin 43:30

it,

Rachael 43:30

oh.

Krisserin 43:30

are, are you having conversations with booksellers to get your book into bookstores?

Rachael 43:36

This is one thing that I've really had to learn, the difference between fulfillment and distribution. I don't know if this is like too wonky, but, so I go through Ingram's. Okay, great.

Krisserin 43:44

Yeah, let's wonk.

Rachael 43:45

I publish the book through Ingram Spark, which is I upload all the files, they do all the printing and the delivery. Like I can order a box of books. Any bookstore can go into Ingram, which is like the software, the program they use to like order books for the store. And wholesale it. Or the more I talk, the more I'm like, is that what it's called? Like a bookstore, like the bookstore down the street from my house can order it through Ingram. Just like they would order any other book like Stephen King or you know, Lena Dunham, anybody.

Krisserin 44:18

Mm-hmm.

Rachael 44:19

But, so I thought that was distribution. That's not distribution. That's fulfillment.

Krisserin 44:25

Mm-hmm.

Rachael 44:26

What distribution is, and this is the key, I was just having a conversation with a guy named Andrew Mack, who runs a small press out of North Carolina. They do a lot of poetry and he's like, we are talking about getting a distributor, but it's, it just changes, the way you get money. But if you don't have this distributor, who's the person with the sales reps, they're talking to the bookstores, they're putting your books in, the catalogs, they're pushing it out there. That's what the bookstore is getting most of their books from. That's what a bookstore like, wherever you guys live. That's how they would possibly know about my book for the most part. There was a couple bookstores, like Malaprops in North Carolina. I had a friend pre-order the book through them and they were like, oh, we're gonna stock it. 'cause we saw we got a pre-order. So like sometimes something like that'll happen. But most of the time it's through a distributor and their sales reps. So, or it's from an author being like, I wanna have an event there. Can you support my event by buying some books or just going to them one-on-one. I sent emails, I've sent postcards, here's the information. But most like a bookstore in Kansas City or Portland or New York City. There's not a reason that they would care about me, a person from Chattanooga, Tennessee. But I've had a lot of good, really good luck with our local bookstores who are like, yes, you're here, you have a community here and in Atlanta too. So it's kind of weird. Uh, this is like the wonky stuff that I didn't know anything about at all.

Kelton 45:49

I mean, I don't

Rachael 45:50

So that's

Kelton 45:50

this. I don't when you go to self-publish, what is even the first step of that when you made that,

Rachael 45:57

Ooh,

Kelton 45:58

the rope, when you were like, there's that

Rachael 46:00

there's the rope.

Kelton 46:01

Assuming you have like it edited and polished and

Rachael 46:04

Yeah.

Kelton 46:05

the next steps to like, I'm gonna self-publish this

Rachael 46:08

Um, yeah, the first step was that I hired a dear friend of mine who's an excellent copy editor to do a copy edit on it. So that was, yeah. And then I just googled like how to self-publish and I found, this is, I, this is a good first step. The Reddit, this Reddit community self-publish r slash self-publish. So a lot of that was like mostly learning through other people's, like bone headedness and their mistakes. 'cause a lot of it seems I published my first book, it's 300,000 words of dragon detective fantasy fiction with a memoir twist. And I don't understand why it's not selling. And I'm like, okay, I need to take notes. But the first like technical step is buying ISPN numbers. Did you know you can just buy ISPN numbers, the long number that's on the back of every book. There's a, there's there, there's a dealer, Balker, B-O-W-K-E-R.

Krisserin 47:01

want selling I sbn

Rachael 47:02

I know, I was like going to the guy with like, he's like, you want these, you want these? But yeah, you can buy like a bulk pack. I bought 10.

Krisserin 47:11

nice.

Rachael 47:12

I was like, well, might as well like shoot for the stores. But if you want your book to be available through any retail platform, like whether it's Amazon or your local bookstore, you have to have an ISBN number. So I did that and then I like just kind of mucked around for a while. I actually published two, like technically maybe chat books, but I guess called them the little books that were like very short essay collections that I had written from a newsletter like about a year before that. So I was like, I need a test project that's not like the entirety of my hopes and dreams. So I, I used some of my isvns on those and like I. Kind of ran it as a test to see like, how does this actually work? What are these gonna look like? Are they gonna look like crap? Are they gonna look pretty good? They look pretty good. And then what is the response if I do nothing? I was like, what's my baseline if I just like post about it on Instagram a few times? Um so that was good. I feel like if anyone's considering self-publishing, like having like a little test project is really, really useful.

Krisserin 48:12

It's very scientific of you.

Rachael 48:13

yeah. Surprisingly, yeah. I'm not a scientist, but I was like, I like to have a plan and know what's gonna happen before it happens, which is pretty unfortunate. 'cause most of the time you don't get that.

Krisserin 48:24

Well, you got your baseline

Rachael 48:26

Yeah.

Krisserin 48:26

know what you can work off of

Rachael 48:28

Yeah.

Krisserin 48:28

goals. That's really cool.

Rachael 48:30

And that's another thing is that there's just no real, sharing of information, even in like traditional publishing, most authors are kept really in the dark about what their sales are. If their publisher is like happy or unhappy, what they should expect for sales. I know that like advances kind of set this high expectation for what might sell and then when a book is not actually selling, there's just a lot of obscurity around everything and especially with cell publishing. So I've been trying to like grab every little bit of information that I can.

Krisserin 49:03

Yeah. It's really hard to know even, you know, for the books that when you walk into a big Barnes and Noble and you see

Rachael 49:09

yeah.

Krisserin 49:10

like, are these successful? It's really no,

Rachael 49:12

Yeah.

Krisserin 49:12

you assume. You assume that they're selling well.

Rachael 49:15

Yeah.

Krisserin 49:15

when you, right. When you walk in the front door. But it's, it is, it's like a black box. It's very gate kept information overall.

Rachael 49:24

'cause people pin all their like hopes and dreams and sanity on these things

Krisserin 49:29

Yeah,

Rachael 49:29

where it's really like you don't even know what you're pinned onto.

Krisserin 49:33

I know. I think what it comes down to is how you felt at the end of it, where you were just like, I have to get this out. This is something that I spent a lot of time on and that I care a lot about. And it's really about the art more than the, all of the ephemera that comes, around it.

Rachael 49:49

Yeah,

Krisserin 49:50

so that's interesting. So the book, the distributors have sales reps and the sales reps talk to the book sellers and that's how books get into bookstores. Look

Rachael 49:59

yeah.

Krisserin 50:00

something.

Rachael 50:01

I mean, I am not an expert, so I could be wrong. Maybe you'll have some, very informed listeners who correct you, but that's my understanding. In addition to my local bookstore will stock, stock a book 'cause someone saw it online or like someone pre-ordered it and they'll get another copy. I think that's like the, the wonder and magic of local bookstores is that there are actual humans and some Barnes and Nobles, I feel like the staff are like maybe empowered to have that idiosyncratic discretion. But yeah, for the most part it's distributors.

Krisserin 50:28

So tell us about how it's been going on the promotion

Rachael 50:30

Oh.

Krisserin 50:31

Yeah,

Rachael 50:32

Um, it's been going good. It's going, going well. Good or well, um, I think, yeah. Um, as of yesterday I've sold 200 copies,

Krisserin 50:41

that's.

Kelton 50:42

awesome.

Rachael 50:42

which is like tomorrow. It's been out for a month. So that was kind of like my. I don't know. I was like, it'll be nice if it sells 200 copies. It would be really nice if it, if I broke even, but I recently did my taxes and realized how long it's gonna be, before I actually break even on what I've put into it.

Krisserin 50:58

Nevermind the, for the 10 plus years you worked

Rachael 51:01

Right. Yeah. And that really, honestly, like after you work on a book for a really long time, you're like, what would the appropriate amount of money to be to make up for this? Like a billion dollars, a trillion dollars? There's no, yeah, there's no way. But yeah, so it's been going well, I realized after the book came out, like I don't know when to stop promoting it. So that's been kind of a, a source of some, some

Kelton 51:26

Yeah,

Rachael 51:26

know. Until there's, until I'm I absolutely have to work on the next thing, but I'm like, I'll give it through the summer. Let's see. But yeah, it's going well. People have read it. That I don't know, which is really exciting, but also people that I do know have really showed up in a way that has made it feel really, really special. For a while I was like, well, just my friends and family will buy it. But a lot of people's friends and families don't care and don't support their work they kind of do, but they're like, ugh. They seem not genuinely involved, but like having a community I realized is the thing that is making this successful. My mom's friends came to my book launch that I've known since I was a teenager and people that I've met through the bookstore, like the book club at the bookstore came to it. It was hosted at our, my local bookstore book and cover because like when we moved here a couple years ago, I joined the book club and got involved in the community. So it's really been like a almost like. Rachel Maddox, this is your life. I didn't know that. I was like fostering all these relationships really until I saw them all in one place and I was like, oh shit. I wasn't like exploiting them to sell a book, but like the fact that, all these people have showed up has been really amazing. And then also the strangers on the internet being like, I love this. Oh, I got both.

Kelton 52:39

That is the best feeling.

Krisserin 52:41

the best feeling when you, someone you've never met before. Reach reaches out and tells you how much your art means to them. That's the

Rachael 52:48

Yeah, It's the dream and it's wild. I'd be like looking through, I mean like I have to read my own, I don't have to, but I am reading my own Good reads reviews, which I would say

Krisserin 52:56

supposed to do

Rachael 52:57

you, I would like, I probably shouldn't be, but here I am checking every day and I'm like, oh my God, this is truly the most like. This sounds like someone crafted an AI review to make this the perfect review for me. But I trust that it's a real person. 'cause she got it on net galley. Yeah. But I have a whole other conversation is like the author scam emails that are written by AI that are, they truly are like, this is the most generous read of my book. And I'm like, this was written by a non-human entity that is just trying to get me to respond so they can take my money.

Krisserin 53:31

Ugh.

Rachael 53:31

That's a whole separate thing.

Kelton 53:34

What a world I.

Rachael 53:35

a world.

Krisserin 53:36

Well,

Rachael 53:36

But it's been going well. It's been going really well.

Krisserin 53:39

speaking explicitly of humans. You had mentioned a writing group. I would love to

Rachael 53:43

Oh yeah.

Krisserin 53:44

community and, and your writing group and how that,

Rachael 53:47

I, the, my book wouldn't exist without my writing groups, in 2014 and I was like very. I don't know if I wanna do this. I dunno if this is for me. I don't have an MFA, I didn't go to grad school in part 'cause I was like, those workshops sound terrifying. I grew up as like a, I'm gonna write one draft and it's gonna be perfect and if it's not perfect I don't wanna hear anything about it. And then in 2014 I met, some women that, or one woman, Stacy Mattingly, who's incredible, she's teaching in Boston and she. I don't know if she'll listen to this, but Stacy, I love you. In Atlanta, she was starting a group of, like a writer's group that would meet at, this amazing arts facility in Atlanta called the Goat Farm. There were actual goats. It was incredible. And she got all these women together that were just like in all these different genres and disciplines. And it was pretty regular. It was a weekly thing. Someone would submit, everyone would provide feedback. And then started off very as professional as something like that can be. And then we all became incredibly intensely, interwoven in each other's lives. And that went for several years and then kind of disbanded as people moved to other cities. And from those, from that group, like I, another group spun off. That was my two, just two friends that became really close friends that I knew I could send at any moment. I was like, I have a new chapter, can you read it? And they would give me like, excellent feedback. And on their own work, I've learned so much from reading. Poetry and fiction, which are not my genres, and how to give feedback and how to think about things as a reader and as a writer at the same time, it's almost hard to talk about because it, the book absolutely wouldn't exist, not just without the structure, but without the relationships and the encouragement. It wouldn't be real. It wouldn't be real without them.

Krisserin 55:26

I want a writer's group. I

Rachael 55:27

Oh my gosh.

Kelton 55:28

Krisserin 55:29

a writer's group.

Rachael 55:30

Well, you guys have such a special thing going on. The way that you kind of set goals for each other every week and then check back in. That felt really familiar to me. What are we gonna do? What can we do together? And what can we make that fits like our own personalities and our own projects and I'm just gonna work on this. I'm gonna try the post-its on the wall. That didn't work.

Kelton 55:45

Yeah.

Rachael 55:46

we all saw what worked and what didn't work for other people and it just, I mean, it. Doing it alone is just crazy making. I mean, you have to be alone so much of the time anyway that you need to have this other person that can understand you.

Krisserin 55:58

Yeah. There is

Kelton 55:58

Yeah.

Krisserin 55:59

though about getting together every week and

Rachael 56:00

Oh yeah.

Krisserin 56:01

each other's work and eating snacks and

Rachael 56:04

Oh yeah. During COVID we tried to meet still 'cause we were all in different cities and it was just like good kind of, but not the same as being in the same place even.

Kelton 56:12

Yeah.

Rachael 56:12

if that's all you have too, then that's like better than nothing.

Krisserin 56:16

yeah. It's.

Kelton 56:16

Yeah. You're really making me wanna look at my library's clubs. I've been like, I know you're familiar, both of you. I've been in the toddler trenches,

Rachael 56:25

yeah.

Kelton 56:25

about to turn two

Rachael 56:26

Oh yeah.

Kelton 56:27

I, a lot of the stuff that I had participated in prior to him existing is in the evening.

Rachael 56:34

Yeah.

Kelton 56:35

right now, I, I am bedtime,

Rachael 56:38

Yeah.

Kelton 56:38

I don't, I can't be at a thing

Rachael 56:42

Yeah.

Kelton 56:44

and so I'm like waiting for that.

Rachael 56:46

Yeah.

Krisserin 56:46

this is the, this is the thing that's.

Kelton 56:49

Well once, once the weaning is

Rachael 56:52

Oh yeah.

Kelton 56:53

bedtime can be completed by somebody else, like I, it will open up my calendar to participate in these sorts of things. And so I know that my, my library has five different book clubs, minimum. Like they have

Rachael 57:05

Yeah.

Kelton 57:06

clubs and I think there's like two writers groups. I know there's a writers group in the town over that focuses more on poetry, but even knowing them, I mean, you know, one of that, that group has our state poet laureate in it. So

Rachael 57:18

Oh yeah.

Kelton 57:18

could at least be like, here are the poems I'm writing for my child.

Rachael 57:22

Oh, you really just need one person to vibe with. And then even if you're in a group and it's not working, you can kind of be like, me, me, let's get outta here. Like,

Kelton 57:31

Yeah,

Rachael 57:32

let's go do our own thing.

Kelton 57:34

totally.

Krisserin 57:36

Yeah.

Rachael 57:36

But it can take, I mean like, I lucked out, but I've definitely, I'm probably over the years met people that were like, let's do, let's exchange some writing. And I'm like, I don't think that's going. I'm already, I'm spoken for you kind of just know. You just know when you meet a person, you have to hold onto them like really tight no matter where they are.

Krisserin 57:55

Yeah, it's especially, I mean, in, in Los Angeles, there's a lot of writers and a lot

Rachael 57:59

Oh yeah.

Krisserin 58:00

of library things, and I've dipped my toe in, but I'm always a little nervous. But I would love, a, you know, west Valley Women's Women's Writers Group. Sorry. I feel like that would be really fun. I'm, I was like already thinking, I'm like, where could I, where could we, where could we meet up?

Rachael 58:16

Oh yeah. Having a set place and just a set time and like never changing it. Even if someone's I've got a thing. It's like, well, you just won't be there that time. We're not gonna like try to chase everybody's schedules.

Krisserin 58:26

no. Finding a day that works for everyone is hard. You gotta stick to it

Rachael 58:30

Yeah, and to be very clear, all of this happened in my life before I had a child.

Kelton 58:36

Rachael 58:37

Kelton 58:37

that clarity.

Rachael 58:38

pre COVID, pre-child, like I had a day job at a tech company the whole time I was working on the book, the first nine drafts. So that also, like Pat, I feel like I should have said that earlier, that patted everything out. It wasn't like, it wasn't like there was any kind of financial stakes involved. Yeah, I wrote the book while I had a job and no kid, and I published it while I had a kid and no job. So that's my advice.

Krisserin 59:03

How old is your daughter now, Rachel?

Rachael 59:05

She's three and a half this week.

Krisserin 59:06

Okay.

Rachael 59:07

And I remember being in the breastfeeding trenches for sure. I don't, I wrote some during, her first year, but my brain was just occupied with so much else. Hormonally, logistically, like kelton, you're gonna get, you're gonna get out of this and you're gonna be like, one day you'll have a day and you're like, oh, there I am.

Kelton 59:29

That's the short story I'm gonna write is a woman getting her powers back after she weans her child.

Rachael 59:34

Oh yeah. I was like, oh yeah, you are, you have powers. But they're just like directed somewhere else right now.

Kelton 59:41

yeah.

Rachael 59:42

Yeah.

Kelton 59:43

being siphoned.

Rachael 59:44

Yeah.

Krisserin 59:45

Literally,

Rachael 59:46

Yeah.

Krisserin 59:48

Rachael 59:48

You're in it. You're in it still. I mean, you probably know this, but like you'll be, but if you're in it, that means you'll be out of it.

Krisserin 59:54

Yes.

Kelton 59:55

Yeah.

Krisserin 59:55

That's what I said. I said, I

Rachael 59:57

Yeah.

Krisserin 59:58

I forgot. My kids are seven and 12.

Rachael 1:00:00

Oh my gosh.

Krisserin 1:00:01

of it already.

Rachael 1:00:02

I've forgotten what a 2-year-old is like, even.

Krisserin 1:00:05

I, I couldn't tell you. Also, my daughter was two during COVI.

Kelton 1:00:10

Oh yeah.

Krisserin 1:00:10

I was drinking a bottle of wine at night, so I don't

Rachael 1:00:12

Oh no. Who were any of us?

Krisserin 1:00:16

Yeah,

Kelton 1:00:17

Uh,

Krisserin 1:00:19

Oh, man. Well, Rachel, I would love to hear, we like to ask our guests what their top three books are.

Rachael 1:00:28

Ooh. Top three ever,

Kelton 1:00:31

it can be ever,

Rachael 1:00:32

Krisserin 1:00:33

We're very

Kelton 1:00:34

or, it can be like, what's top of mind

Rachael 1:00:36

top of mind? Okay,

Kelton 1:00:37

gimme three books,

Rachael 1:00:39

good. 'cause I was thinking about this earlier. The book that I am still thinking about the most that I read recently, is by this little guy named George Orwell. I think he's gonna be really big,

Krisserin 1:00:54

worried You said little guy. I was like,

Rachael 1:00:57

just a little guy named George. I read, I'm gonna say it, and in my Tennessee voice, I'm gonna sound like such a redneck homage to Catalonia, which is like his account of serving in the Spanish Civil War, which I knew nothing about. I haven't actually read 1984 despite being born in 1984. But I got a used copy of this and I was like, this sounds topical. All these fighting fascists and whatnot. It is just like the most, it was the most riveting. Read I've had in a really long time. Like his prose is just incredible. His thinking is just so clear about the worst, worst, most horrible things. It was funny, it was harrowing. I would, it doesn't seem like an really obvious recommendation, but I really loved it. Like reading it in my daughter's room and like semi-darkness waiting for her to go to sleep is where I read it. And I just finished the audio book of I love Taana French, who is an American writer who passes really well as an Irish person, but she just released, a new book like the Last in a trilogy, called The Keeper. And I did the audio book of that and I loved it and I'm so sad that it's over. And the next book that I'm really excited to read is something by Clarice Lispector, a. Person I know through the bookstore near my house, who was also a bartender at the bar, like next door was hyping her up and I had just Googled her and realized she looks like my paternal grandmother. So I was like, the stars of a line. I need to read some Clarissa Specter. I don't know what it'll be, but that's what's she's next.

Krisserin 1:02:27

Very nice. I was also born in 1984.

Rachael 1:02:30

hello.

Krisserin 1:02:31

I'm older than you

Rachael 1:02:33

Which month? Wait, you're a month. Oh yeah, October. Okay.

Krisserin 1:02:36

is October, November.

Rachael 1:02:38

Yeah. Scorpio starts like October 24th because I, my daughter is on the 22nd, so I almost was a Scorpio giving birth to a Scorpio, which people were scared for me, but I was like, okay, I don't know. She's a Libra.

Krisserin 1:02:51

I'm

Rachael 1:02:52

don't know. With that

Krisserin 1:02:53

Very cool. So what is the non Southern way to say that book? Is it Homage

Rachael 1:02:58

to Catalonia, I don't know, like homage. I'm sure this, you guys know that, like the words that you only ever read,

Krisserin 1:03:05

Yes.

Rachael 1:03:07

like.

Krisserin 1:03:07

Yes.

Rachael 1:03:08

I still remember reading the Babysitters Club and being like it was total chose. It was total chose when the twins were playing in the backyard.

Krisserin 1:03:16

What is

Kelton 1:03:17

That's amazing.

Rachael 1:03:18

Chaos.

Krisserin 1:03:20

Oh, I like that. You got it. I was like, chose,

Kelton 1:03:23

Krisserin 1:03:24

chose.

Kelton 1:03:25

is constantly correcting not only how I pronounce words, but my usage of them.

Rachael 1:03:30

Oh no.

Kelton 1:03:30

He's just, he's really, really smart. And so I, I, I appreciate that. He's like guiding me along. But every once in a while I do have to push back on him. 'cause I have such a much more fantastical use of language than

Rachael 1:03:43

Oh yeah.

Kelton 1:03:44

he's a little autistic, so he'll be like, is autistic. So

Rachael 1:03:48

Oh,

Kelton 1:03:48

be like, that's not what the word means. This is what the word means. And I'm like, I'm a writer. I can make a word

Rachael 1:03:54

I could make it work. What's a word that you made mean?

Kelton 1:03:58

We were, camping in our neighbor's van this past weekend we were talking about the setup within the van and I was saying there's like a, a bed platform and the bed platform is sitting in a space in the van that I thought could have been like a little lower or a little higher. That just felt like a weird space. And I was like, the undercarriage beneath the bed feels really encumbered by where the bed

Rachael 1:04:23

Kelton 1:04:23

And he was like, it can't be, can't be encumbered by it. Like that's to be unencumbered is to lift a weight and there is no weight upon it. And I was like, that space could feel the weight of the bed above it. If you anthropomorphize the

Rachael 1:04:40

yeah.

Kelton 1:04:40

it could feel anything. And he was like, that's not how spaces work.

Rachael 1:04:45

I wanna be a

Krisserin 1:04:46

total sense when you said it, it made sense to me.

Rachael 1:04:49

as a true millennial. As a true millennial. I'll quote the Simpsons and say, that was a perfectly chrom.

Kelton 1:04:56

Thank you. Thank you.

Rachael 1:04:59

I also like undercarriage, which I've used mostly in the context of like my own body recovering from childbirth.

Krisserin 1:05:05

I was like, where are we going with this? 'cause I went, my brain went the same to the same place. Awesome. Well, Rachel, it's been so

Rachael 1:05:15

Oh, this is so great.

Krisserin 1:05:16

Yeah,

Rachael 1:05:17

keep talking. I don't know.

Krisserin 1:05:19

I got nothing else to do today.

Rachael 1:05:21

Tell me, can you tell me about what you're, what you're working on? Or is it like too much to talk about?

Krisserin 1:05:25

Yeah. We can talk about

Rachael 1:05:27

I've been trying to figure out, like from listening to the episodes, I'm like, I think, okay, it's fiction, but like, what is it?

Krisserin 1:05:32

Yeah. I,

Kelton 1:05:32

funny to hear from your perspective that

Krisserin 1:05:35

yeah. Tell us

Kelton 1:05:35

we, 'cause Krisserin and I, you know, it's like we've been talking about these projects for so long that I think sometimes we forget to like explain to new listeners like what

Rachael 1:05:45

Yeah. Oh, I think that's great though. It's like, um, little breadcrumbs. You gotta, I'm like going back in time, but I do want, I do wanna know. I do wanna know,

Krisserin 1:05:56

I guess, we need to be better about being like, you know, it's like when you read a, a second book or a third book in the writer book. back and kind of retell something that's happened. I'm like, binge reading these books. I know. I just read that book. I don't need

Rachael 1:06:10

I know.

Krisserin 1:06:11

I, I didn't forget.

Rachael 1:06:12

I know.

Krisserin 1:06:12

Um, but I guess we need to do some of that bread crumbing for, for our listeners. So I write fiction. I have a YA speculative fiction

Rachael 1:06:20

Ooh.

Krisserin 1:06:21

with, my agent out right now,

Rachael 1:06:23

Ooh.

Krisserin 1:06:24

going out and I It is, yeah. It's why speculative fiction, science fiction,

Rachael 1:06:31

Great,

Krisserin 1:06:31

like that. I also have short stories that I'm working on and I'm gonna start my MFA program in

Rachael 1:06:38

Ooh,

Krisserin 1:06:38

So I'll, my plan is to, there's a book that I actually, similar to you, I wrote the first draft of it, of it, gosh, I think it was, I finished it in 2013

Rachael 1:06:49

big year figure year

Krisserin 1:06:51

Yeah,

Rachael 1:06:51

for the millennials.

Krisserin 1:06:52

Yes. I went back to it. I wanna say recently and did a big edit of it, but it still, it's a big book. The first draft was 140,000 words, and

Rachael 1:07:03

Yep.

Krisserin 1:07:05

it is like the book that when I knew I wanted to be a writer. It's carrying all the themes that are most important to

Rachael 1:07:12

Yeah.

Krisserin 1:07:13

and alcohol and, and, uh, intergenerational trauma and all of those fun lighthearted

Rachael 1:07:19

stuff.

Krisserin 1:07:20

Yeah. So, my hope is that through the MFA program, I'll be able to finally finish that book and

Rachael 1:07:26

Yeah.

Krisserin 1:07:27

publish it. But

Rachael 1:07:28

what MFA program is it?

Krisserin 1:07:30

it is the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa

Rachael 1:07:33

Ooh,

Krisserin 1:07:33

residency, MFA.

Rachael 1:07:35

that sounds really nice.

Krisserin 1:07:37

really excited

Rachael 1:07:38

love Santa Fe.

Krisserin 1:07:39

Yeah, I was just talking to Kelton. I had my orientation on Monday and got to see all the faces of my classmates and it was like all women in one man. And, I could just tell we're gonna have a blast.

Rachael 1:07:50

Oh, and you get to go to Santa Fe every so often. Oh, nice. Oh man. Maybe I do need an MFA. In, in green chili cheeseburgers.

Krisserin 1:08:02

Yeah, maybe you just need a week away

Rachael 1:08:03

I think I just need a vacation.

Krisserin 1:08:05

and you'll be good. Yeah.

Kelton 1:08:08

Yeah, when we host our retreat, maybe we'll do it somewhere in New Mexico and,

Krisserin 1:08:12

That's the

Rachael 1:08:13

Oh man. Oh yeah. Courtney. Courtney. Mom's like writing workshop thing. I was like, maybe I should apply.

Kelton 1:08:19

Rachael 1:08:19

I have a couple days.

Krisserin 1:08:20

incredible. That's gonna, that's way fancier than I think what we'll do.

Rachael 1:08:26

Wait, Kelton, tell me about your book.

Kelton 1:08:28

Um, well, I have a paused project right now in nonfiction proposal, loosely titled The Ecology of Belonging, which

Rachael 1:08:35

Ooh.

Kelton 1:08:36

like the conditions for growth for humans to find places where they actually belong and thrive.

Rachael 1:08:41

Oh, oh, nice.

Kelton 1:08:42

and that I had queried a few agents and I got some really, really, really, really helpful feedback.

Rachael 1:08:48

Yeah, like the helpful rejection is so like, oh, thank you actually.

Kelton 1:08:52

yeah, it's so generous. And so I have tabled that because I was a little dejected about having to, having spent so much time and then having to spend so much more time.

Rachael 1:09:02

Yeah.

Kelton 1:09:02

away from that momentarily and we'll be thinking about that this summer. 'cause I'm, this summer I'm writing a, an essay series. I'm writing letters to the places I've lived before, and then I'm actually gonna send those letters to those places. So whoever lives there now will like,

Rachael 1:09:17

Oh, my God.

Kelton 1:09:18

of what it was like living there in 2009 and 2010. and so I think that's gonna help me kind of think about the proposal and like where we

Rachael 1:09:26

Yeah.

Kelton 1:09:26

means to us. But in the

Rachael 1:09:28

Oh my God, I love that.

Kelton 1:09:29

Kind of an American Gothic, fiction novel, a loosely titled Amita Keep, that is like fun and wild and like lots of like problems with time.

Rachael 1:09:40

Yeah,

Kelton 1:09:41

so that's what I've promised Krisserin and I will get her first draft of that by the end of the summer.

Rachael 1:09:46

that's exciting.

Kelton 1:09:47

Yeah,

Krisserin 1:09:47

Rachael 1:09:48

Um, I,

Krisserin 1:09:48

I should have mentioned I'm working on a, a, a fun romance book, and that is the draft that I'm going to give to Kelton

Rachael 1:09:54

Oh, great. Okay. Well, you guys have a lot of, a lot of things. I'm like, I like it.

Krisserin 1:10:01

Rachael 1:10:01

I just started a thing that I just thought of. Have you read yesteryear? The book that just came out about the like.

Kelton 1:10:06

the mail

Rachael 1:10:07

Okay. Several things you just said, made me think of that. Like very specifically.

Krisserin 1:10:12

That's the one

Rachael 1:10:12

I think

Krisserin 1:10:13

into a movie

Rachael 1:10:14

probably,

Krisserin 1:10:15

what's her

Kelton 1:10:16

Hathaway.

Krisserin 1:10:17

Yeah. She just bought the rights to it.

Kelton 1:10:18

Yeah.

Krisserin 1:10:20

I love it. Trad wife gets dumped into the time that she,

Kelton 1:10:25

Yeah. It's ama amazing premise for a book. I

Rachael 1:10:28

Yeah.

Kelton 1:10:28

to read it.

Krisserin 1:10:29

Yeah.

Rachael 1:10:29

I just started it.

Krisserin 1:10:31

course correct the

Rachael 1:10:32

Krisserin 1:10:32

from the romanticization of the,

Rachael 1:10:34

God.

Krisserin 1:10:34

ified

Rachael 1:10:35

Oh yeah.

Krisserin 1:10:36

Please. Do you really wanna go back to the time when polio existed?

Rachael 1:10:41

Do you, do you, do you?

Krisserin 1:10:43

do you

Rachael 1:10:45

Although I read the first chapter and then I was like, I should make my child dinner. I'll make her some eggs. Like I'm not the cook in our family. And I have felt this need to be like, I'm gonna make my child some eggs. So

Krisserin 1:10:59

Yeah.

Rachael 1:11:00

maybe it'll have the opposite effect on me.

Krisserin 1:11:02

oh. No, you're like, I'm gonna start wearing floor length skirts and maybe I will go to a Baptist church.

Rachael 1:11:08

God no. Never. Sorry. Not to yuck your yums, but

Krisserin 1:11:13

listen

Rachael 1:11:14

for me.

Krisserin 1:11:15

That

Kelton 1:11:15

how our listeners, where they can find your

Rachael 1:11:18

Oh. You can find them. Let me start over. Wow. I just got into like social mode and I like forgot my entire life. My book is available anywhere you buy books online for sure. Please don't use Amazon, but if you have to, it's there. If you want it from your local independent bookshop, you'll probably have to special order it, but that would actually be great because then maybe they'll see it and know that there's interest and stock it. But yeah, bookshop, anywhere that you can, anywhere you can buy a book. The Life Expectancy, a memoir is the name of it. And then I have two other ones called The Void and Third Person, which are like the little books that are also available. They also have ISBN numbers.

Krisserin 1:12:01

And

Kelton 1:12:01

For them.

Krisserin 1:12:01

more about your books and your website, which is

Rachael 1:12:04

Yeah, Rachel Maddick stock. Yep.

Krisserin 1:12:09

x.com. And where can they find you on social media?

Rachael 1:12:14

Um, also Rachel Maddox at Instagram.

Krisserin 1:12:17

Amazing.

Rachael 1:12:18

no longer on TikTok. I gave it a good, a good shot, and Instagram is the way my brain is broken, so that's where I am.

Krisserin 1:12:25

Yeah, it's hell there. I don't wanna be there either.

Rachael 1:12:28

I'm like,

Krisserin 1:12:28

spent a lot of time on Saturday going through my personal account

Rachael 1:12:33

Oh, yeah.

Krisserin 1:12:33

pals account, removing the auto opt-in AI feature that they just

Rachael 1:12:39

Oh no. I got a one more thing.

Krisserin 1:12:42

I know this is another thing you have to do,

Rachael 1:12:46

It was,

Krisserin 1:12:46

man. All right, Rachel, it was so great to

Rachael 1:12:48

this was so fun. This was so fun. Thanks for

Krisserin 1:12:52

book life expectancy.

Rachael 1:12:53

please, please do that.

Kelton 1:12:55

just did.

Rachael 1:12:56

Oh my gosh. Let me know when I can pre-order all of your mini books and I will.

Krisserin 1:13:01

We will for

Rachael 1:13:01

Or if you need a publisher, I have like six ISBN numbers left. So no four. Just four. Just four. But I'll give you each.

Krisserin 1:13:10

Thank you. You'll give us a deal.

Rachael 1:13:12

Oh yeah. Or you could just buy your own.

Krisserin 1:13:16

I love it.

Rachael 1:13:16

It's like, yeah, yeah. Why not? Why just stock up.

Krisserin 1:13:19

thanks, Rachel.

Rachael 1:13:20

Thanks y'all.

Kelton 1:13:25

You know, it's interesting with self-publishing, I'm so glad that we finally had someone on because it's, it's when I, we mentioned painters in the intro and I was just thinking about how like, painters never had like agents, you know, it was just like they made the paintings and then they were like, look. And like I love that about writing, the idea of just being like, I wrote it. Look and not letting a publisher kind of limit your options to being like, well, no big people wanted it, so I guess I'm just gonna hide it in the closet. Like, you still made that art. So, Rachel's really making me think about my future as a writer.

Krisserin 1:14:03

Yeah. And one thing I didn't mention of the million things I did was last week is I went to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, and it was a zoo. I really miss. They used to have it at UCLA and it was, I, in my opinion, better, but that's not just because I don't wanna drive downtown and go to USC and because I went to UCLA, but I just think it was like a. Better. Like a more, there's more room. Like more room to breathe. There are a lot of indie publishers there and I think that we forget that there are these other paths. I was thinking of Allie Gordon and how she got her book published and you know. There is another writer who's from Chiwan Choi and he, we, we interviewed him at a, or I interviewed him at a WP and he said It's 20 25, 20 26. This is 20. I don't remember when a WP was. Stop asking for permission to publish your work. You've got to get, like, get your stuff out there. I think that, yeah, there are people who are very lucky who just like fall into traditional publishing paths. If you really want to get your story told, I think especially in memoir, I think in in essays, think about taking it by your own hands and making it happen. That's another thing that that Lego movie made me think about is Pharrell tells the story of how he was just unapologetically ambitious. He knew that his beats were amazing and he like. Broke down rooms and jumped on desks and just made it happen for himself. And I feel like with, as writers, we gotta do that. We gotta be unapologetically ambitious about our art. So thank you Rachel. Thank you. It was inspiring. I feel so inspired.

Kelton 1:15:51

Yeah, me too. Once this allergy attack

Krisserin 1:15:54

Oh,

Kelton 1:15:54

over, I'm gonna be unstoppable.

Krisserin 1:15:57

I just, I wish I could like. Go through the screen and, and give you a hug. I'm so sorry.

Kelton 1:16:03

That's my goal for the week ahead is to get a lot of hugs.

Krisserin 1:16:07

Your goal was also one last feeding last week. How did that go?

Kelton 1:16:13

Um, that one

Krisserin 1:16:13

Like, oh, okay.

Kelton 1:16:15

Um, so we have, we have a little reverse psychology trick that is working.

Krisserin 1:16:19

Hmm.

Kelton 1:16:20

has this thing where like if, if we put out like blueberries for breakfast and then they're still there at lunchtime and we're like, you can have some of those blueberries. He's like, they're old. And so I started telling him that this milk is old. I was like, this milk's old. There's new milk in the fridge. And you can see his little brain going, oh, this milk is old. I've been drinking this milk for two years. And he started to be like, new milk, please. And so that, that has reduced, we were down one feeding, so that has worked to just trick him and be like, this milk's old. And

Krisserin 1:17:01

Kel, you're,

Kelton 1:17:02

old food.

Krisserin 1:17:03

you're so smart. Wow. What a kid. Ugh. I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear it. I like that. My mom's advice is you just have to deal with it.

Kelton 1:17:14

Yeah, I mean, she's right. And just in the broader sense of like parenthood, like you just have to deal with it.

Krisserin 1:17:22

Yeah, I mean my, my mom as you you've heard, is very encouraging, but I, she's also the eldest of eight kids and very, was very tough on me growing up too. Just like, figure it out, dust off your pants, get up and do it again. So I'm not surprised that that was her advice to you.

Kelton 1:17:40

I did, after this past week though, like writing the 1500 words, that was like a scene and a half. For me, and I think like that's just gonna be my goal for this week as well. I don't wanna add anything else to the plate. I don't have any idea what I'm writing for the Sunday newsletter, so I'll also have to get that done. and so I that for next week, it's just 1500 words. Again, that felt accomplishable. I did that in an afternoon,

Krisserin 1:18:06

I love that. What?

Kelton 1:18:07

time, I'll write more.

Krisserin 1:18:10

Exactly. So your goal this week is 1500 words.

Kelton 1:18:14

Mm-hmm. And to be gentle with myself, I think, oh, you know what? No, I'm retracting gentle and I'm adding spell craft as mentioned previously. I need

Krisserin 1:18:24

I was so surprised when you said, I wanna be gentle with myself. I was like, yes.

Kelton 1:18:29

Krisserin 1:18:29

Kelton.

Kelton 1:18:31

is like something that is not productivity oriented. Like I did get a free moment yesterday. I had like two hours free in the afternoon. I didn't have any work to do. I'd finished writing and I was like, oh, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna organize part of what's his closet. And I was like, so excited and they found it so relaxing to do, you know? So like, that's my kind of being gentle with myself. But I think this week it's like h how do some magic, do some tarot readings, do some spells. 'Cause I think you're right. There's like something, there's something clogging up my energy and, I need to get it out. I.

Krisserin 1:19:13

I think so too. I think so too.

Kelton 1:19:16

Any spells, if you have any spells you like, please send them to official pen pals pod@gmail.com. We would like to know your spells or witchcraft. What are your goals, Krisserin.

Krisserin 1:19:28

Ugh. I mean, I think I just need to repeat what I said I was gonna do the previous week 'cause I did none of it. I do have to get 20 page, I have until June 22nd to get my manuscript together for my MFA program. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I get to like pick a mentor. I get to pick from their roster. I'm like, could Tommy Orange be my mentor

Kelton 1:19:52

Oh my

Krisserin 1:19:52

male writer?

Kelton 1:19:53

cool.

Krisserin 1:19:54

Yeah. I'm really

Kelton 1:19:55

writer.

Krisserin 1:19:55

male writer who I love. But I'm excited I get to choose my mentor, so I'll probably work on my short story, maybe write a little bit three times. I'm gonna do my three times.

Kelton 1:20:07

Ooh, three times. Okay.

Krisserin 1:20:09

Mm-hmm. I think that'll be helpful for me. I'm, I'm coming up on a very busy time. In May, I'm gonna go to four different states in, in. Like seven days for work and for fun. So I need to, try and front load some work. I don't think I wanna have any time to write while I'm in Missouri, Nevada, Utah, and Illinois.

Kelton 1:20:32

Oh God, what a list.

Krisserin 1:20:36

Oh, well, pen pals, family, friends, buddies, we would love to hear from you. We really would. If you, are a writer and you're struggling, let us know. We would love to hear from you and offer you some words of encouragement. You can reach us at official pen pals pod@gmail.com. Follow us on all the places we're at Pen Pals Pod. We did publish our Substack with our unofficial syllabus. So if you wanna go on Substack and check that out, we would love to hear what books are on your unofficial syllabus. You can, follow Kelton at Kelton kin read her writing at shing log stack substack.com. You can follow me at @krisserin on TikTok or read my writing@chris.substack.com. And that's it from us Kelton. I hope you feel better.

Kelton 1:21:25

Thank you so much. It kind of matches how, my protagonist feels in the novel, so maybe it'll help me write accurately.

Krisserin 1:21:32

There you go. Looking on the sunny side. All right, Kelton

Kelton 1:21:35

when your characters get sick.

Krisserin 1:21:39

writing advice. All right, everybody. Happy writing.

Kelton Wright

Co-host

Krisserin Canary

Co-host