Still Writing
Corey Ann Haydu and Sara Zarr are two mid-career novelists who have lived through industry shifts, burnout, reinvention, and the constant recalibration that comes with staying in a creative career. They get together every couple of weeks to ask each other: are we still writing?
Still Writing
6. False Dichotomies for Simple Minds
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode: The joys of multiple POVs, Sara asks a secret question, and a robust current events section in which we fail to solve a centuries-old problem in literary discourse.
Some Margin Notes:
- The Recovering & Splinters by Leslie Jamison
- Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
- Klara & the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia
- Widow's Bay & DTF St. Louis
- Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
- The Most Important Book of Every Year (part I)
More about Sara Zarr
More about Corey Ann Haydu
Theme music: Creative Commons Deep Friendship by Lobo Loco is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Hi, I'm Sarah Czar, and I uh write novels and some other things. Hi, I'm Corey Ann Hidu, and I write for children, young adults, and adults.
SPEAKER_01I'm coming to you live from my sister's house. Live, I'm coming to Corey live from my sister's house. By the time you're listening to this, I'll be back at my house. Um yeah, so if if you hear any unusual noises or echoes
Intro & Check-in
SPEAKER_01or pitter patter of tiny cat feet or the sound of boxes being opened or taped shut, it's because my sister just moved into this house, and my mom drove down from where she lives, and I drove from Salt Lake, and we've had like a whole Mother's Day sister weekend, and I have not thought about things like my day job or my writing deadline for the last four or five days. So I gotta get my head back in the game. Um, how are you? I'm good.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah. I uh I also feel a little bit distracted, but not for any good reason like that. Um just it's just because you're an unusual. Yeah, I don't even know what to make of you in this new setting with this whole new energy. You've done so many bananograms, you're like a whole new person now.
SPEAKER_01We've done bananograms and we've done Farkel, and took me a minute to figure out the how Farkel works. I would like to know. Let's test the reader mail function on our BuzzSprout page and see if anyone knows what Farkel is.
SPEAKER_03Please can't wait to find out. And we play a lot of games here, so this is it's exciting to learn of a new one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can't say it's like a game of skill, but it's fun. And you get to say Farkel. Um anyway.
SPEAKER_03Are you still writing? I am still writing. Um I have been maintaining this like one week of middle grade, one week of adult novel um routine that I'm in, and it's going pretty well. I definitely I wish I could do like a month of each. Um, but I just need to be making progress on both at like a more expedited rate than that would allow. Although I guess mathematically, like maybe it would all be the same. But in my head, I have to be doing a a week on and off. Um, what it's really illuminating for me right now is that I seem to have like fully transitioned back into a person who believes more in pantsing after like a really long period of time of becoming what a journey. I was like a full-on pantser and then sort of really bought into like the cult of plotting, you know, but really it was all um I really drank that Kool-Aid. I passed it on, like I was really involved. I taught, I taught people about how plotting could really help them and outlining. And listen, I I'm I'm working from an outline on the middle grade, so I I clearly still like believe, believe in it um on some level. And maybe for maybe it's about what type of story I'm trying to tell, but it really not. They weave in and out.
SPEAKER_01No, you're right. It's for simple people with simple minds.
SPEAKER_03You're you know what? That makes me feel better because you are right. Like within within working from sort of an outline and an uh, you know, a more planned out idea, I am obviously still doing a lot of improvisation.
SPEAKER_01You never know what's gonna happen when you start. No, right. No, but it helps to like have a vague idea of where you're headed.
SPEAKER_03I guess it's how vague I want that idea to be keeps changing. And I'm in a period of time where like what really makes me feel in the zone is that idea being real vague. And um like anything could happen.
SPEAKER_01Anything could happen. Like it could turn into a different someone else could be the main character than you thought, even that much?
SPEAKER_03Maybe not that much, but like the sort of where exactly the focus on the adult novel is keeps shifting a little bit in a way that I actually think. I mean, talk to me in a few months, maybe I'll totally have changed my mind on this. Exactly. Um, but something about like letting myself sort of shift where the focus is and what the even a little bit what the vibe is, um is feeling really good and feels like it's clarifying rather than like scattering. Um, I feel like I'm zoning more and more into like a specific type of novel rather than like just resting on the basic idea. It's letting the idea become like more complicated, but then over time also more narrow. Um and it's really going to unexpected places, and I'm really letting myself spend time in a lot of different types of scenes, different people's sort of parts of the story.
SPEAKER_01Do you think that's also partly a function of the fact that it is an adult novel where you just have kind of a wider playing field? Yes, definitely. And that it's not under contract.
SPEAKER_04Um did I bury the weed?
SPEAKER_01Well, I was thinking like this was an option. Well, maybe it isn't. It's an option, it's an option, but yeah, it's not under contract.
SPEAKER_03No. Um, one is one is fully under contract and the other isn't. And listen, I am also I am having a good time writing the middle grade as well. Um that one really, because I've been through so many drafts of it and so many false starts, it it's it needed something.
SPEAKER_01That's a little bit more like this is my job right now.
SPEAKER_03Maybe I don't know. I mean, the worry is that that comes through in the writing, you know. Like I don't, I certainly don't want that to come through in the work. So I think I'm I guess the work is it's oh, it's almost like for the adult, I have to bring in that like, hey, this is a job too. You can't just like play around forever. And then for the middle grade, I have to remember to bring in the like, hey, this also has to feel like play and discovery and um energy. So it's you know, either you really do need both. It's a false dichotomy. You really need both. You really need like the fun and the play to be there on the page. And like it ultimately someday does have to turn into a book with a beginning, middle, and end and some sort of satisfying arc, hopefully, unless it's like wildly experimental. But I don't think that's my You do you, yeah. I don't I don't suspect that that will be my path. Um, so anyway, it's sort of like I'm in a science experiment because I'm doing them both on and off. And so each week I'm really able to feel where I'm at and juxtapose it against the previous week. Um so yeah, that's nice. It's been the middle grade week this week, which is good.
SPEAKER_01And it's also is it I would imagine if you're taking a week away from each, you're automatically in that process, you're giving yourself a kind of perspective. Like you're getting you're getting a week away from each one every week.
SPEAKER_03I feel very aware of that, of the like, oh, I don't know if I would have come up with like this take on this scene if I hadn't taken a week off from it. Yeah, I'm definitely like, oh, this is not quite where I thought I was going last week or where I left off. I had an idea of where it would go. Um, but I don't remember what it was. So guess it's gonna do this other thing.
SPEAKER_01When you go back, like say it's a middle grade week and you haven't looked at it for a week. How much are you rereading what's already there? Is it just like the little bit before? You kind of skimming through the whole thing. Do you know about how Rita Williams Garcia reads every time she sits down, she reads from the beginning? Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03I that's the dream. I think I heard her say that. Yeah. That's it. I would, that would be my ideal. I have to force myself to not do that and to like choose. I think I'll choose a week that's the reading back week because I'll get lost in that. Um yeah, yeah. I have to sort of do the pushing forward. And it's almost like the pushing forward is like um the work I do to earn the reward of getting to start from the beginning and see sort of what what's coming together and what paths I've been on and what paths I'm forgetting to explore. All that is like what I like but yes.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's like in the last episode we were talking about how when you go back and read, you see all the things that are planned and that are helpful. And I imagine, like for Rita, with a book like I want to say A Sitting in St. James, but I might not be getting that title exactly right. Um, like a complicated YA historical fiction. Yeah. I don't know how you go, especially when you're getting toward the end. How do you go back? Uh anyway. Isn't that the whole day? I that's amazing.
SPEAKER_03Like I would love, I let's get Rita on and just deep dive on that.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's a reason she's always winning awards. Like she's very connected to her work. Yeah, I love that. Like I I feel like I take every opportunity in life to say this, but when I think about middle grade novels, I do feel like possibly my favorite of all time is One Crazy Summer. Uh yeah. Yeah. I I mean thinking about the ones I've read in adulthood, you know, not thinking back to my childhood. But as an adult, I've read that like three or four times now, and I never reread it. Wow. It's just incredible. It's a masterwork of middle grade, I feel like. Yeah. Anyway, shout out to Rita. I love that.
SPEAKER_03I don't know that I've reread a middle grade novel in adulthood. I have to think about that. Um, Sarah are you still writing?
SPEAKER_01I very piecemeal and slowly, but yes, I am. Um, I think I've reached a point of acceptance with this YA that it's just gonna be slow. I'm in a different time in my life and in my career. Um you know, no one's beating down the door like when Sarah Cars next, it has to come out this year. It has to, you know. Um, and that reflects in the amount of you know, how quickly I hear back on things from publisher side, all of that. And so I'm just trying to lean into that and being like, great, I'll just take however much time I need to make it good.
SPEAKER_03Enjoyment in that, like I'm yes, enjoying the side of my career. I'm enjoying that this part of my career with the time.
SPEAKER_01It's all well and good if you're not dependent on the delivery payment, which I'm not, fortunately. So but but back when I what didn't have a day job and I was depending on delivery payments, I could never reach that sense of letting go of just being like, it's gonna take as long as it takes. I always felt like, especially given how slow things could be on the publisher side, I just always felt like I have to do my part as a counteract that. Yeah, like as efficiently as I can. I don't know. I feel much more like I think this is also being in my 50s because I feel this way about life in general. It's like, well, at this point, it kind of is what it is, and like don't sweat the small stuff, and like I don't know, but what I'm really enjoying about my book right now is it it's not it's not tech uh I was gonna say it's dual point of view, kind of, kind of not. The other point of views are more like interstitials, okay. But still, I just love I think it would be very hard for me um at this point to go back to just writing a single point of view book in any category. Yeah. I just I hate that feeling of being trapped in a really close point of view. And I love being able to write like these other sections and bring in other experiences and like see the main character through someone else's eyes and see experiences through someone else's eyes, and getting to know like what is the journey that that interstitial character is going on that the main character doesn't know about, and how is that all gonna there's things those characters are never gonna know about each other, but the reader will know, you know. Just I love that. I loved that about how to save a life, which is why it was such a fun writing experience, and I love doing it with this book, and uh the idea of going of writing a single point of view book feels like oh god, so claustrophobic to me. Like the idea just makes me shudder. I don't know, is it even yeah, sorry. Well, I was thinking like, even well, let's say I wrote another middle grade novel, which I don't intend to do, I don't have middle grade ideas. But if I were, if someone was like, we will pay you so much money, Sarah Zar, to write just a standalone literary middle grade, because we know how well those do. Um, and if I had to do it, the idea of like doing a single point of view, it might just kill me. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03It's it's funny because I was how to save a life your first dual point of view? Yes. That's interesting, and I feel like that was not at a totally dissimilar timeline in terms of when you started publishing to when I did my first dual point of view, and also have all maybe I've had one or two single point of views since then, but like ever since doing that, I find I'm having trouble telling the stories in one point of view. So even my my last two middle grades have been dual point of view. Obviously, my adult had sort of a roaming point of view. Anyway, I it's it's interesting. Like I've gone on the same journey of like that really contained first person present, like yep.
SPEAKER_01Which kind of felt like a little bit of a rule when I started. Yeah, a hundred. And YA, like YA is this like very close first person voice, and that's all it is. Yep. Um, and then sort of branch out from that with how to save a life, and then with Lucy Variations, be third person. Although I'm trying to think. No, I think everything was first person up till Lucy Variations. I loved writing third person. Uh I don't know, you can do anything you want now, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, but I do think it's interesting to feel out that progression. My for the first book I wrote that never got published was actually a multiple, it was a four perspective novel that was like I was not ready for. Like it didn't do, I wasn't able to do it justice at that time, which is really interesting to think about too.
SPEAKER_01That is the thing. I think books wait ideas. When I think about my third book, Once Was Lost, I had an idea for that book probably like 10 years before that, like late 90s. Um, well before any of my first books were published. I had an idea for that, and I tried writing it, and I just wasn't good enough. Yeah. And um then I was like, okay, I think I finally, with my third one, I was like, I'm ready to, I feel like I know what it takes to write a book, and I'm ready to stretch on this one. And that one was, I believe, I believe the first draft I turned in of that was third person. And then my editor was just like I think this wants to be first. And I was like, okay. Yep. I I, you know, there's only so many things you can try at once, and that one had a lot of plot to it that I was trying to figure out.
SPEAKER_03So um well, and sometimes the sometimes the ambition is to make it like really um far-reaching and uh creative in particular ways, but sometimes the ambition is about like accessibility to the reader, uh and that both of those are are valid, I think. Like yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think for a book like that where you're taking a fairly, I don't want to say esoteric, but it was a it was a book where the main character was struggling with like her religious beliefs and also like the sense that something was going on with her parents and her dad is a pastor, and like a lot was going on and the plot, I think I think you would lose in that book the internal journey of that main character if you were also trying to do it in in third person. That would just be like a more plot-focused story. So I think my editor Jen Hunt, wherever you are, thank you, um was right about that. Well,
The Secret Question
SPEAKER_01guess what? What? I think you know what.
SPEAKER_03I'm scared. Is it time for a secret question?
SPEAKER_01It's time for a secret question. I'm so nervous. Well, this is a good one because I actually I jotted it down, and then I actually haven't really had time to think about it. So we'll both be kind of talking through it. Okay, great. In the last episode, we talked quite a bit, quite a bit. Listeners have no idea how much of the Lena Dunham conversation I edited out. I know it was still so long. We talked quite a bit about Fame Sick. Yep. And also, um I was reading I'll See You When I When I'm Home by Hala Allion, which I said Alton in the last episode, and I corrected it in the notes, but I'm saying it verbally now. And by the way, that book was a finalist for memoir Pulitzer. Oh. And, you know, we both read and enjoy memoirs. And we've both written personal essay, which in a way is like mini, mini memoir. Yes. So, and then you made a comment when we're talking about the Lena Dunham book, like, I could never be so like self-revealing, um, or just let let the flaws show to the extent that she does. So my question is kind of like have you ever thought when you read a memoir you really enjoy, do you start thinking, I really want to write a memoir? And then what stops you?
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow. That's a great question. I it's funny, I have uh pitched really casually um to like an an editor who's a friend a memoir idea of years ago now, you know, maybe seven years ago. And the problem was I was not willing. I I wanted to write about um, I guess I don't want to say too much in case I ever like pursue this again. But I wanted I I had an idea of like a sort of an archetype of a per a type of person I am and how that relates to like a bookish life and how that relates to um sort of working working through the world. But I didn't want to get too specific about things like my family or um your personal life, your relationships, yeah. Like I wanted to explore this sort of archetype and I and I had a willingness to, you know, there's like one section of things, sure, happy to talk about that. And then sort of another section that um yeah, feels like something I wouldn't be ready to open myself up about.
SPEAKER_01And is that about thinking about the disapproval or judgment of others, or is it about like something about how you perceive who you are?
SPEAKER_03I think there's multiple. I think sort of the first restrictive thing is other people's privacy. Like how do you tell your story without um interfering with other people's privacy and and anger confronting anger around the choice to be open about about other people's lives. That feels really really complicated to me. The next thing that comes in is I have a really strong feeling around mistakes and like ugliness and um like you know, in interior ugliness, um, and mistakes and ugliness. That like that's fine and everyone has it. And like I'm very happy to share all that in of course, present company excluded, obviously. Um I'm very happy to like share from that place um in my speaking life, like in my relationships, in the real world, that's really where I am comfortable, is uh is sort of presenting all of me and trying to let that make it okay for everyone else to present all of them. But when I think about the rest of the world, I know that they're not bringing that a lot of readers are not bringing that kind of compassion even to fictional characters.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, so they're certainly not going to to nonfictional ones. Um and actually, it's really funny. The essay, I published an essay. In in people a month or two ago about a friendship spat up. Tied into uh Mothers and Others Strangers, one of those. Yeah. And I believe it still only has one comment. I I decided I wouldn't engage with comments and then was like, oh, don't worry, no one's, it's not getting tons of comments. But it immediately like it published and within seconds got one comment, which is um, you sound, it was like, you sound exhausting. Uh that's probably why this friend doesn't want to be your friend anymore. Thank you, stranger on the internet, for your input so much. I opened myself up and uh talked about like sort of the less attractive parts of myself. And thank you so much for seeing them and fully rejecting them. You see me. I am exhausted. Uh so yeah, I having that experience, and I was really able, like that, I found that funny, partly because that essay was about me at like 25. And it felt like, yeah, no, that was sort of the point of the essay, was like I was not in a great place. That was this was not an essay celebrating how fun I was to be friends with at 25. That was not the intention of the essay. Uh so anyway, with that, I really did think it was hilarious. But I know that if I wrote a whole book, I would have to be presenting like the unattractive sides of myself because that's what I'm interested in as a writer. That's what I do in fiction. And I don't know that I can withstand at this age. Maybe in 10 years or 20 years, I'd have a little more fortitude around it. But at this age, I think it would still feel really bad if there wasn't just one comment saying how exhausting I am, but like a groundswell of Goodreads reviewers just talking about, you know, what an insufferable person I am and siding with people who have hurt me or situation, you know, siding with the the sort of villains of my life. That would, I don't think I'm there yet. Uh so but but the first thing that comes up is the wanting to protect sort of other people's privacy. I think other people. And then this is the secondary, this would be the secondary concern of oh, they'll really, because they will. If I just think about how mad people get at my fictional characters. And I'm never, I'm certainly not interested in an essay about or a memoir about how great I am. So that leaves me writing a memoir about mistakes I've made and having the whole world have an opinion on that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Similarly, I don't think about telling other people's stories because when I think about the things I'm interested in telling about myself, it doesn't necessarily involve other people. It's not so much about relationships, but more experiences. And I I think whenever I read a memoir that I'm enjoying, I start thinking in memoir, and I'm just writing down little snippets of stuff. And I think I have an interesting. I'm sure everyone's like, I think I have an interesting life.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I hope you know, I actually think most people don't, but I I love that.
SPEAKER_01I hope everyone feels you think most people don't think that no, or that most people don't have an interesting life. I think a lot of people don't think that.
SPEAKER_03I think everyone has an interesting life. I think everyone does, yeah. Or I certainly hope they think they do. That would be great.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I grew up in an interesting in San Francisco in the 70s in the Jesus movement, as that was like changing into what we now know is the evangelical church. I that was very formative for me. I think that's interesting. There's the alcoholic parents part of it. But what I think about is more I think all my loved ones would have to die first. Yeah. And then I'd be fine with it. I don't really care what strangers might say. I just would not want to hurt anyone living. Right. Yeah, I mean, I guess like what you're saying, it's protecting, it's not, it's not so much that I'm telling my side of a story about something that is their story to tell, but just like, you know, there's some things I'll never tell. And then is that really a good memoir if I'm keeping secrets?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. When we, I mean, a lot of what we talked about with Lena's and also Lindy's was like that willingness to really, and I presume most of them have, both of them have secrets, I would certainly think still. But there feels like a willingness to not have any secrets. And in fact, the parts of the books that are like most annoying to me are when they reference something that they're not gonna tell me all of. Uh, I think there I think there's some dates. We need names, names, dates, entire conversations. It's like when you have, I don't know if your husband does this, but if I have a conversation with my husband and he and there's something, you know, a little gossipy that happened, I'm like, oh my God, so what did what did he say and what did she say? And then what happened? He's like, Oh yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was sort of, he seems sort of mad and she seems sort of upset, and then it was over. And you're like, what? No, like where's the transcript? I need every beat.
SPEAKER_01I do actually do have that issue with my husband, but it's not it's not that he doesn't know, it's that he's so ethical.
SPEAKER_03Oh no.
SPEAKER_01He doesn't include, he doesn't see the like, your spouse is that's like naturally. If you if someone says, like, keep this, I'm telling you this in confidence, that doesn't apply to your spouse. Right, unless very specifically stated. Yeah, so I feel like he should tell me everything. But so when he knows something is told to him in confidence, he keeps that confidence. So the headline here is I have a great husband who's very trustworthy.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01But that can be very annoying.
SPEAKER_03That would be enraging for me. I love gossip so much that would destroy me.
SPEAKER_01I know. I want to understand, I want the details. Yeah. Um, I'm I'm interested to see. I know Melinda Lowe. Hi, Melinda. Um, I think her next book is gonna be a memoir, and that's coming out. Oh, and then our Pulitzer Prize winning friend Dan Krause has that partially devoured book coming, which I believe is uh a kind of memoir.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, it's kind of like a memoir told through the lens of the Knight of the Living Dead, which is I think a cool way to cool way to do it if you allow. I think it's a way to do it that allows some really specific walls and the choosing the right lens can sort of solve a lot of the problems you and I are talking about, I would imagine, where you can tell a story about you and an aspect of who you are, but within a really structured situation that doesn't expose you or make you need to go into all these other areas that you don't really want to get into.
SPEAKER_01Even like, did you read um The Recovering by Leslie Jameson? Yes, yeah. So even that book, which I love that book, I think it is so beautifully written. Her follow-up straight to Splinters. She has a structure. Part of it is like looking at the relationship between writers and drinking.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So like every other chapter is like, now I'm gonna talk about Ernest Hemingway and his drinking. There's like an academic Yeah, but then the then the other chapters are her experience and her relationship with drinking, and she does get into a a fair amount of the nitty-gritty of her relationships, but not in a gossipy way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Just in a really I feel like she has the perfect balance of like revel self-revelation. Yeah. And having there's it, there's still a boundary in a hundred other people. And and it's also just exquisitely written her prose.
SPEAKER_03Yes. I read um Splinter Splinters or Splintered, which is her memoir about her her divorce. Uh and similarly, there's something about her writing in particular that has a like cerebral quality to it that makes it feel less, I mean this as a good thing, less raw on the page, and like it has more heft intellectually in some way that would feel, I think offers a type of safety too. I also just did an event with EJ Dixon, who wrote uh a book called One Bad Mother. She's a journalist who's written probably a lot of essays and things that people have read, um, Rolling Stone and The Cut and all over the place. But that book is not a memoir, but she does sort of have this inevitable minor thread of exploration about her own mother that weaves in there through this broader conversation around how bad mothers are portrayed in pop culture. And that also felt like a s a safer way to bring yours to bring yourself to the page, but with some like padding around it or well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think if you're not a celebrity, yeah, you need something to hang your story on.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01You know, because a celebrity is just hanging it on the fact that I am a celebrity and people just want to know everything about me. If you're not, you need to find, like with the Halla Allian book, finding a metaphor between like a personal sense of exile with like a literal exile. Um she's a Palestinian American. Yeah. She writes a lot about life in like going to college in Beirut, and just sort of it's this ongoing metaphor through the whole thing where she's talking about both like events, like world events, geopolitical events, and her own life, and and they connect. But also that book is extremely fragmentary, almost like some of it's almost like little prose poems. Um oh, that's cool. I don't know. I feel like maybe one day I always have notes going for this like one day memoir. And yeah, maybe one day I'll do it. And I I mean I could leave out some of the more personal stuff and focus on the being a child of this religious movement and how that formed me, but also looking back at my family history, which is very much like a working class kind of like great-grandparents who were sharecroppers in the south, and then on the other side mill workers in Pennsylvania and just how that hardship trickles through the whole family tree. Um yeah, maybe someday if any of my editor friends are listening and you wanna sign me up for that book, slide into my slide into my DMs.
SPEAKER_03Let's make it happen, guys. I would I could see myself doing something in a a different form, like a memoir in verse or a graphic memoir, those are that a form would interest me in the same way, sort of that academic padding would interest me.
SPEAKER_01Maybe someday. I just think it's interesting. We're fundamentally novelists and and think about transforming things into fiction. And so when I think about what would it take to get me to write a memoir and go through all that, um, a lot of money.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, let's make it happen. We can do it, we can manifest that. We have our current events section coming up.
SPEAKER_01This is a big one. Well, it doesn't have to be big. First of all, we alluded to this already. Our friend Dan Krause
Current Events and Oh BTW What Is Art?
SPEAKER_01won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for Angel Down, which is just I love it. He's one of those people I could never be envious of because I know how hard he works and how he approaches his work. And he's never like trying to write like the award-winning book or anything. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um so congrats, Dan. Yeah, congratulations. I agree. He's always uh helps me ground myself in the value of doing the work and pushing yourself and trying to shut out the other noise that gets in there, which is a struggle is a struggle for me for sure. So I uh very, very deserving and exciting.
SPEAKER_01Haven't read the book, don't know if I will ever read the book. It is about World War One. Um Angel Down in one sentence. Oh yeah, it's one sentence and like we were mentioning, looking forward to his memoir coming soon. Yes. Um this was a funny thing. One of our mutual writer friends, she has children who are, you know, kind of in the acting world. In um, so she subscribes to a lot of like casting calls and casting Instagrams. And she came across one that says audience member, book tour event, $70 for estimated two hours of work. They want real people ages six or over, non-union, locations, Chicago, Miami, Florida, uh, Chicago, Miami, Austin, apply. Um, need positive and enthusiastic audience members of any ethnicity or gender for children's book signing event. Must either be a child with their guardian or be a guardian and have a child with you. So you can't just drop your kids off and get the 70 bucks.
SPEAKER_03Or just go by yourself.
SPEAKER_01You also can't just be a sort of creeper at a no, you can't just be a creepy adult um with you as this is a kids' event celebrating a child, a child author. Okay, wait a second. I miss that. No, it's gotta be a children's author, right? I don't know. Celebrating a child author. This really makes it interesting. Please ask questions about the book and attend the signing. $70 flat fee.
SPEAKER_03Now, if this is a child author, I'm gonna feel less depressed about the entire enterprise because I don't want a child author to have events that all of us have had. That's like where it's when no one shows up to the birthday party. You know, is your mom gonna ask a question about the book?
SPEAKER_01We've all been there. Oh, she's definitely if it's my mom, she's definitely asking a question.
SPEAKER_03Uh my dad always offers to like get up there and give a speech or something. Uh so anyway, if this is a child author, I'm in support of the child author having a chance. I I'm in support of them having an audience. But if this is a children's author, children's author, then I feel really depressed about what are we even doing.
SPEAKER_01If it's a children's author, I feel not just depressed, I feel curious, let's say. Um, and I'm I'm not gonna lie, I did a tiny bit of like just the barest amount of googling with some of these details to try and figure it out, but then I realized I don't actually care. I just thought it was interesting. But yeah, now that now that I'm because I actually, this is the first time I've read it aloud. I just kind of skimmed it before. Yeah. If this is a child author, oh now I feel terrible for even bringing it up.
SPEAKER_03But um But those are two totally different things.
SPEAKER_01I think still still it's still a little silly. Although if it's a child author, like they're not gonna have existing fans. You know what I mean? Like they need to seed the bed a little bit. Yes. Like gosh.
SPEAKER_03I still don't know that there's a why are we doing tours if there's no one to go to the events? And is it all just a weird ego thing we're perpetuating at a certain point? That that's what started to get me depressed. Hitting, yeah. And all of us just trying to show how legitimate we are by having this crowd of people, whether or not it's people that actually want to see you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, which you can also do. But now, yeah, and maybe we'll just close this section.
SPEAKER_03I'm going. If it's a child author, I'm gonna bring my children, we're gonna support this kid. Yeah, you're you're gonna fly to Miami. Sure am. Family trip right now.
SPEAKER_01So many bucks. Yeah, interesting. And I do think if I were, let's say I was, let's say it's an adult author, yeah, and writing a children's book, and um you posted this. First of all, my question is would this be something like, was this the choice that a freelance publicist made? Was this the author? Could it be the bookstore? Um, and then I would be so worried that someone would find out somehow.
SPEAKER_04Oh my God.
SPEAKER_03I couldn't, I really could not handle this type of situation. I would be so scared of being found out. The anxiety, I wouldn't sleep ever again.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, since we're just talking about difficult things, okay, so there was a little dust up in the children's writing community in the last few weeks. The sitting um ambassador for chur for children's lit had a book come out. Did his book come out? Yeah, or is it like an arc? Okay.
SPEAKER_03No, it came out.
SPEAKER_01And there was like a line in there that a bunch of people um objected to, kind of commenting on the overall quality of children's literature. But it was just people really honed in on this one sentence without knowing, oh, maybe like what's the context it's in and what's the rest of the book about? And let's unpack this and like, is there some truth to it? Um, and so what was interesting to me one is kind of like the very to me outsized reaction that people had about that. And I I understood to an extent the feeling, like the emotions that it triggered in people, but then the way they expressed those emotions was a lot, and you're on threads and I'm not, so you you saw a lot more of this than I did. But I think the interesting thing is this question of what who gets to say what is art, who gets to say what is good, this has been an argument for like centuries. It it comes around in different ways in our modern times, usually on social media. But this has been, I mean, one of my like driving quotes in my writing life is this um Iris Murdoch quote about love, I'm gonna get it slightly wrong, but love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than yourself is real, and it's kind of like love. She's and she's equating love and art. So like that's kind of one of the jobs of art, is like I'm not the only real thing in the world. Um and that quote came from an article like in the I think it was in the 1950s, where literary figures of the day were kind of going back and forth in these public essays in a little bit of a argument, symposium, whatever you want to call it, uh, around the question, what is art? And it's just not something that's gonna be resolved. And I think what's interesting to me about the reaction to this current uh permutation of this question is just kind of a deep offense at the idea that like there might be bad books being published. Where I feel like we all know that most movies, music, books, TV shows, most of them are not art and they're not great, you know, and then there's like a percentage of really good stuff. Is it art and does it matter? I always think about what Barry Moser used to say, which is don't even worry about whether or not what you're doing is art, just do the best you can in good faith, and then time will tell. Like if we're still talking about this thing in 50 years, maybe it was art, and other people will get to decide that. You as the creator don't get to decide. And maybe even don't get to decide about it for other people's work, especially if it's like in the moment. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03What was your takeaway from the threads discourse? I haven't read the book, so I am not gonna speak to the book at all.
SPEAKER_01Although it sounds like, well, maybe you're gonna, it sounds like people are you know that. they've read the book and seen it in context, they're like, oh.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there seems to be different takes from librarians versus authors. And I and I am reading all with interest and I am reading all commentary with interest and engagement is all I want to say about that. But what I will say, it's so funny, I think we I think we have different takes on this somewhat in that I think I'm unconcerned with the idea of art when it comes to not to my own work. I think I'm concerned with artistry when it comes to my own work. When it comes to books I am really just interested in people reading. And I think what was especially you know you were saying how do you even know for me especially when it comes to children's books but honestly any book like how do you know if a kid will read it the end like that as especially and I'm coming at this certainly as a parent and a parent to an eight year old and an almost four year old. So reading is like so big and particularly in this moment with so many other competing things particularly you know video games and computers and phones and whatever it is kids are using finding the avenue for kids to become readers is for me the determining factor of whether or not that book should be published. Now whether or not I like it if it's great art if it stands the test of time.
SPEAKER_01I mean we are talking about the taste of five year olds.
SPEAKER_03Right. Like those are sort of other questions, right? But when I think about children's literature and again not mine, I care a great deal about mine being beautifully written and mine being executed.
SPEAKER_01But feel settled with yourself as a writer because if you're writing something you know would not live up to your own standards for what you want to do with your work then what am I you're not going to do that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right. But when it comes to the books that get published that I am not working on myself, I literally couldn't care less what my children are reading if they are reading. So for instance when I was growing up I was sort of not allowed to read the Babysitters club. So I would go to the library and I had to sneak I mean I was allowed but really only it was like a library book I could take out from the yes I wasn't going to receive that from a bookstore for Christmas. It was you were going to get the newberry box set. Yes it was my like secret pleasure. And now I kind of think of that as so silly because ultimately if you are eight and you are reading like you did it. That's the whole thing. And you will then grow up and you will not continue to read the Babysitters club probably you will find other things to read and maybe those things will be literary fiction and maybe those things will be Lena Dunham's memoir and maybe those things will be romance novels or thrillers whatever it's sort of beside the point. And obviously if a kid is reading it and it's children's literature then you did it. That's the whole thing. That's all that matters and so it's yeah I I think there is a metric. It's whether or not kids want to read it. And I'm just really attached to the importance obviously of kids reading it's been like one of the best parts of parenting is watching my both kids love books, but watching the older one who can now read independently read and believe like believing in the idea that as long as she's reading that's good and she will continue to find more and more complicated texts. And I'm sure that not every kid goes on that journey. I will say for my kid she started with graphic novels and some of them that I understand like Babysitter's club and some of which I don't really get the appeal of as much and then has continued to at so at a certain point she was like huh these graphic novels take me like 25 minutes to read. I would like to find a more complicated like thing that will take me longer and also I love graphic novels. There's ones that are artistically complicated but they're fast right like you can read them relatively quickly. So now she'll read books with chapters and um she'll read she'll read the action you know she'll read Babysitter's club the novels and she'll read Wayside Sideways stories from Wayside School, which I loved growing up and I think if I had policed like what it was she was reading because I thought it was kind of stupid like what's that doing that's stupid go watch TV I it's like if they're reading you one and if the kids like it then is it good to me necessarily no reading books with it is good.
SPEAKER_01It is good you did something right and then that won't get ruined for them until high school.
SPEAKER_03Exactly when they're forced to read a whole bunch of other Catcher in the right I love catching the right oh well that's where we're different um so that's you know I guess I I think art matters for the writer and then when it comes to children's books I think story and whether or not kids want to read it is kind of the whole point.
SPEAKER_01When I was uh I had these friends who had four daughters like middle grade age and the the youngest ones were twins and maybe I was like babysitting them when they were nine or ten just hanging out with them and the they wanted they were obsessed with this one series of chapter books I don't even remember what it was and they wanted me to read it out loud and it was killing me because they were so to me they were so bad whatever it was that appealed to them did not appeal to me which is correct because I was a full grown adult. Yes and they were children. But I also think one of the I realized like at a certain point oh one of the things that is appealing to them about this series is like this is the first series they read independently. So they liked to like read it by themselves and then also have you read it aloud. Yeah yeah totally so they were thrilled their relationship with it had to do with oh this is the first like book series I read by myself during my own before bedtime reading time and I could read it and the plot was easy to follow and the words weren't too big. Yeah and to me it was like if they asked me to read it aloud I was like no God not again.
SPEAKER_03I think that's true even of the like IP like the only picture books that I really like struggle with and do become like a a mirror image of my parents being like do we really have to get that are the ones based on the TV shows, right? So like she sees like a Daniel Tiger my four year old sees like a Daniel Tiger book at the library that's just like a retelling of the episode of Daniel Tiger that she already knows and she wants that one. And listen I will still bring that home because again it's a book where at the library she's excited like I think that's kind of the whole thing. But I think I think it's partly that it's like she's familiar with these characters and this situation. So she can look through it on her own and have some sort of experience of the story and doesn't need me I mean she still wants me to read it ultimately but she can engage with it at a different level and that even those books that like I think even I think every author regardless of how they felt about you know this this month's kerfuffle around around this this book and and this quote I think we can all agree like those you know I don't think any of us are like but the Daniel Tiger retellings of the episodes we really care about those um even those for me like I I can't deny their value if they have created a situation where my kids are excited to go to the library to get a pile of books. And that's yeah and maybe I will feel differently when like I don't have young kids who I'm trying to indoctrinate into the reading life.
SPEAKER_01I do think it shifts like this is one of my issues I've always had with this part of the industry is I I think once you get especially into young adult and then middle grade medium like that's I do think like a weeding out happens of just like you're at this more formative stage. Also you're really not children I will just die on this hill that teenagers are not children. They're not adults but they're not children like 13 to 17 and I do think at that point like you wouldn't want them if all they read was books based on Marvel movie characters. I don't know if that's all they read you might develop some concern if they weren't also you know having school reading that was more thoughtful or more challenging. I do I think one I think one reason people get upset and emotional because for a long time children's and young adult publishing was seen as a lesser form of publishing or a lesser form of writing we as authors of those types of books have and had like a chip on our shoulder about it or like a feeling like we have to we're getting so much criticism from people out there that don't even take what we do seriously. We have to defend all of us regardless equally and like everything's good and you can't poo-poo anything. And I think we didn't make space for the kind of criticism that maybe need needs to happen in this space. Especially as as the boom in YA coincided with the explosion of Twitter. Yeah you know it is unseemly to just like go online and like say like this book is not good or this is like poorly written or this is like there just wasn't space for criticizing anything. If you did that you were seen as like a traitor like we already have enough yeah enough criticism a pill battle to prove that like what we do is legitimate I don't know I just think people are a little oversensitive about just the idea that like not every book is great. Okay they're not all equally good just because like there's two different things there's yeah my kids reading it and it's helping them develop a love of reading great that doesn't mean it's a good book um and I for me I have a way of judging whether a book is good or not that I know not everyone agrees with me about and I learned that when I was a national book award judge because we all had really different yeah takes on what makes a good book. So you know you can't even like agree on what makes a good book. So in a way it's a pointless conversation. I don't know why we just spent all this time on it except it was definitely it was definitely in the current events water I just think there's gotta be a way to have these conversations without it turning into whatever it turned into.
SPEAKER_03I wonder if some of the language of good and bad is like partly what's unhelpful because what I hear you saying is like intellectually complicated books or creatively complicated books versus books that are I don't I don't know what the other word is.
SPEAKER_01But the yeah maybe like good and bad are not helpful helpful words because how about great and shitty perfect better words uh yeah I mean there was a certain era where I started to feel like young adult novels just felt like I was reading Mad Libs where it's like oh insert character name here and emotion and you're just like plugging in yeah yeah totally whatever and I was like what you know why and I think that's what people who use a I I I AI to write that is what the AI is basically doing. It's like I know these patterns I know these tropes I'm gonna plug in boop boop boop so I think in this era it's also about like is this coming from a human place and experience that in itself already separates it from what's not coming from a human place or experience.
SPEAKER_03And I guess yeah I mean I guess that's kind of what I meant is like at a certain point does it matter if what we're competing with is something is like this whole other thing that isn't books and isn't stories and isn't at now isn't even humans. Let's hold on with everything we've got to human written books.
SPEAKER_01And yeah that there should be a space to talk about how intellectually complicated or um creatively ambitious or like I don't know if I don't know if complicated or ambitious is is what I'm thinking, but like honest like intellectually and creatively honest. Yeah. Which again is a very subject subjective thing. Oh but I know when I read it and feel it you know yeah okay well glad we we solved that that's good solved that problem came to zero conclusions.
SPEAKER_03I also had to delete threads unfortunately because after that I you know those that conversation I was fine with and then somehow my my algorithm on Mother's Day became two things which was parent moms mostly complain oh all moms complaining about whether or not their adult children called them and that was like a bunch of threads and then whether or not um pet parents pet moms are can celebrate Mother's Day and those two topics were so contentious on my feet that I was like I gotta get out of here what am I doing? No more threads well Mr.
SPEAKER_01Donut did not call me and so I did not celebrate Mother's Day as a cat mom. He did not call me he did not send a card that's messed up that is messed up according to my husband he just like threw up on the bedroom rug so well that's telling what did I ever do to that cat get on threads let them know I remember when threads first was released I went on and it was like the worst of all the social media so bad there's people who've gamed some algorithm they've figured out a way to get things that are not bad but for it's my fault.
SPEAKER_02I'm clearly leaving something that was like the worst takes about writing it's all I got to read it too much.
SPEAKER_01Not interested not interested not interested it's still just like forcing it down my throat. Yes if you're not writing X many minutes a day you're not even okay hey you know what's fun to talk about um things that we're we're reading and listening
Margin Notes
SPEAKER_01to and watching and yeah it's time for margin notes that's I know what in the last episode I tried like inserting these little musical like breaks I like maybe I should just sing them it's time for margin notes I've been talking a lot during this section and I it's very annoying when I go back and edit and hear how much I talk it's great I hate myself.
SPEAKER_03So why don't you start okay sure so reading wise I just had to look up the author because I realized I hadn't written down the author and I apologize if I pronounced incorrectly but I am reading a book I'm loving that I think was pretty popular you know five years ago or so called Clara and the Sun by I love a book that doesn't explain all the world building and the reasons and what it all means up front and let's see and that the book is about the discovery of the world have you read him before I don't think did you ever read Never Let Me Go? Oh yeah of course yeah that's no well there you go so that's the same I mean but it's the same where you're discovering what's very similar very similar um in that in that way in particular but really across the board.
SPEAKER_01Did you read Claire and the Sun I um started it and then I started it on audio. Okay. And I'm trying to remember and then I think it was like our bedtime audio listen and if we finished it before we had to return it to the library I don't remember how it ends but I definitely read the first half. Okay. It's very It didn't grab me in the same way as Never Never Let Go or Remains of the Day yeah I might like it more than Never Letting Go.
SPEAKER_03It's very prescient about AI. Um oh yeah maybe because it was 2021 I believe when it came out and boy is it asking questions that are very current 2026. So I think it's really worth a read in this particular moment. It's what's also special about his work is like it's very accessible in terms of you're not like oh okay it's gonna be dense writing I'm gonna have to work to get through sort of the paragraphs I mean I I can read it at the end of the day and get really swept up even though I'm tired and my brain is not necessarily in like its full capacity, which I really appreciate because it's complicated and interesting and juicy and beautifully written. It just isn't dense dense writing and it it's just great and I'm learning so much about world building and trusting your reader and yeah letting the world building be the plot sort of and I would like to incorporate some of that I don't know how much you're able to do that in children's I don't know if I have the skill to pull it off the way something like Clear in the sun is pulled off but I've really I'm really learning a lot. Do you feel like it almost it almost could be a YA book almost oh yeah I mean yeah the characters are young I mean Never Let Me Go was a bit that way also totally yeah both have the best what I love about YA uh but yeah but are not YA but absolutely I and I and that's a question for another day like what would have made it YA but I highly recommend it. I think it's excellent it's really readable it's it's really artful and interesting and then I am watching a show I'm loving this might be the scripted show my husband and I have liked best in a long time that we've both been on the same page about have you watched DTF St.
SPEAKER_01Louis no um the premise didn't excite me okay but now I've heard a lot of good things about it so I may it's great.
SPEAKER_03Again I think I think I'm drawn to it for a similar reason in that the world of it really exists on its own and has a clarity to it. It has a real style and tone in the same way Clara and the Sun has like a real style and tone and it's like kind of comedy and kind of like really intense relational drama and kind of a couple of like mystery as well and it's got a lot going on. It's great performances and it has like a real funniness to it that I think is unexpected and kind of dark and interesting and we're both really into it. We've watched a lot of things lately that I'm finding it hard to want to watch at the end of the day and this is not one of those I'm excited to watch it I'm very curious about what's going on and I really like the style of humor and the characters that are like a little there's a real wackiness to the characters that really doesn't usually work for my husband in particular or me either necessarily but is really working for both of us. So that's been another Another big win. I'm gonna give it I'm gonna give it a shot, give it a chance. Okay, great. And then the the last thing I was gonna mention that I I sent to you, and maybe we'll do a longer conversation about it sometime, but there was a two-part um Substack essay situation from dear head of mine, Sean Delone's Substack, about the defining book of each year of the last, I think, 10 years.
SPEAKER_01And it was a combination of personally defining or culturally defining?
SPEAKER_03Culturally and like literarily. So what sort of defined the types of books? Like was this, like one of the differentiations, and I I don't recall what the books were, but there was like a slightly more popular book that he ended up not choosing because it represented more like the end of an era of book, whereas the slightly less popular book represented more like the beginning of a new era of type of book. And so he chose like the one that was starting something rather than the one that was of a of a piece with a bunch of other books. And you sent me that link, but I didn't know. I really recommend reading it. It's really fun to read. And he does a combination of he's taken like reader polls, it seems, and then posted that and taken that into account on some level, and then kind of chosen his own like thesis for each year. Uh, and then with like some runner-ups. And then he also does like a runner-up section that's about the most interesting book. So he'll choose like the defining book and then like two or three really interesting books that also came out that year, sort of off a little bit off the beaten path. Um, it's a great little, it's just a fun read. I I am a list person. I like like lists of things and rankings of things. And this one I found really interesting from both a literary and a publishing perspective.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Yeah. Yeah, I need to take a look at that link. I'm not a list and ranking person. No. I I in fact, I'm like a little averse to it.
SPEAKER_03Really? I that surprises me. I thought I thought we would be aligned on the we're really discovering a lot of a lot of differences.
SPEAKER_01I don't even know how we're friends.
SPEAKER_03I know. We're let's throw in the towel.
SPEAKER_01We had a good run. I I mentioned I was like having this Mother's Day weekend out of town, and there was one night where my sister was off doing something else. And so me and my mom were gonna watch a movie, and I was asking her, like, and she and I have similar tastes in movies, and whereas my sister's taste is a little different than ours, and then there's places where they all mesh. Okay. But but both my mom and um I are fine with like things that are a little bleak, no happy ending, um, bad things happen. Did you do great with my husband? Um, she's less excited about those types of movies. But my so when she was gone, I asked my mom a few things, and then we were, I said, Have you ever seen Five Easy Pieces? And she's like, Yeah, it's been a long time. Um, I said, Maybe we could, I've been thinking about re-watching that. But then I was thinking about movies from that era, and so then I said, like, have you seen Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore? She said, No, I don't think I've ever seen that. So have you seen it?
SPEAKER_00I don't know if I seen before I know a lot about it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah. It's Ellen Burston and Chris Christofferson and the amazing Diane Ladd, aka Laura Darn's mother. Anyway, so we watched that and my mom loved it, and I just really enjoyed that. It was probably like the third watch of that for me. Nice. And it the humor is very oddball, and it's very, it's came out in 1974, very much of an era where like the idea of being a single mother and figuring it out was kind of newer, especially as not not in real life, but newer in terms of being portrayed. Yeah. And my mom was effectively a single mom in the 70s and you know, struggling. And it's just funny, and it's also kind of serious. Like there's some stuff that's like it would be presented differently in 2026 for sure, but but Ellen Burston, it's all about Ellen Burston, she's so good in this, and then Diane Ladd also has an amazing turn as a like side character.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_01Uh, one of Martin Scorsese's earlier films. I don't think I've watched it.
SPEAKER_03I think I've thought about watching it a bunch, and that I haven't actually watched it.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's this child actor in it who's just so natural and great. And it really is like a mother child story, so it seemed nice for Mother's Day weekend. That's great. Um, and then I've been listening to the audio for Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, and that's been like the bedtime audio listen. Yeah. And I'm enjoying it so much, and it took me a while. I'm like, I'm kind of 50-50 on Ann Patchett. Like, oh, interesting. Some hit, some don't. And always takes me a little bit, like I have to kind of commit to it. So I'm really glad I did. It's read by Meryl Streep. It is, it has such a dreamy quality to it. And especially like we've been listening to it at night, so partly it has a dreamy quality because I am on the cusp of falling asleep. But the book does have a very dreamy quality. It's like set in the pandemic time. A mother and her daughters are kind of, and the dad are like put together on this farm, and the mother's like telling her life story. And what was so becoming so strange for me while listening is that a few years ago I listened to Meryl Streep's memoir. And I'm I'm getting confused about like, are Ann Patchett and Meryl Streep friends? Did Anne Patchett base this character on Meryl Streep? Because I know like Meryl Streep went to Yale drama and then did Summerstock, and it's a lot and had a relationship with a kind of known actor, but didn't end up marrying him. And so I've been very confused because it's reading it, and I'm just like, I keep thinking this is Meryl Streep's memoir. But that's the way it's written. Like it's so real. Ah, so real. It's so believable and so credible, and especially the audio of just there's nothing about it that makes you that takes you out of the dream of just like that makes you go, oh yeah, this is a novel. It is just seamlessly real. Yeah. And part of that again is a tribute to Meryl Streep as a reader. But I'm just enjoying it so much. And I'm only like halfway through, but so much has happened, and so I don't know how it's gonna all turn out. But Tom Lake loving that.
SPEAKER_03I have not listened to it. I read it, and boy, do I love that. I am like a I'm a big Ann Patchett fan in general. Tom Lake might be my favorite. It does feel like it's particularly written with me in mind. It's like mother, daughter, and theater. And acting, yeah. I mean, it's a lot of things that I care about, but boy do I love that book. And I read that book and um Demon Copperhead right around the same time. And I mean, I could have just like thrown in the towel at that point, right? Those are two of two such unbelievable feats, uh, incredible books. And I I pair them together in my head as like I read that and then I read that, and it's like, oh my god, stories, books, words. It's incredible. I anyway, I love it.
SPEAKER_01And both kind of examples of making your job as a novelist, I'm not gonna use the word easier, but hanging it on something. So hanging it on like the David Copperfield type story, or hanging it, uh, the R Town. Our town. Dorton Wilder, our town is sort of like a framing piece of the Tom Lake book. And that just gives it's not about that, it just creates like a touchstone so the author can always like go back to something solid while you're exploring all this stuff and going in all sorts of directions. You can always like come back to that central device or through line. It's just so smart. And writers do this because we need something. Yeah. Yep. Uh, so that's been great. And then for TV, uh new show on Apple TV, uh, Widow's Bay, which when I read the description of it, I was like, I don't, I don't know, but let's just none of our other shows were dropping, and we just needed we did something. The first episode, we haven't laughed out loud like that in so long.
SPEAKER_03Fun.
SPEAKER_01It the setup is kind of it's kind of like Jaws, where there's a mayor of a small town who's trying to get more tourism, and then there's a sheriff of the same small town, and people in the town going, actually, bad things are happening here. We don't, this is not the time to invite more people to come. And then it's also a little bit of Twin Peaks with just like the local color in the town, and then like truly some truly creepy supernatural stuff, and you're watching the mayor just be in denial. Um, it's by created by Katie Dippold, and so she did she was a writer on Parks and Wreck. She wrote the um the movie The Heat with Sandra Bullock and Lisa McCarthy. Of course. She created the show. It's just got a sense of humor that we love. I love it. Um it's time to let Corey get back to her life, but yeah, what are you? Oh, me? Yeah, what are you thinking about for the week ahead? I'm having trouble with the fact that we're like halfway through May already. Yeah. I'm away in a fantasy land at my sister's new house right now, but I'll be driving back home and gotta get back to like uh like day job, life responsibilities. I've been in a nice, I think this has turned into an actual vacation in a way I didn't expect. And it's been very nice. I don't really want to leave. I could stay here forever, but my son, Mr. Donut, is waiting for me at home.
SPEAKER_03It's nice you haven't disowned him after the Mother's Day Snafu. How about you? Um, I am trying to figure out when it's time to like show my agent what I'm working on with the adult novel. So I would like to take some steps towards that. Maybe this is a conversation too that we can have in the next essay, like what or in the next podcast. But what is the moment that that at what stage in the process should I be doing that? Is now the time? I know she is eager to see something. What do I what how do I need to feel about it? How much do I need to know about the project to be able to show her and get useful feedback on some level?
SPEAKER_01How how firm do you need to be in your vision before she's like not a share it without someone knocking you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or that there's even a point. Like I don't want to show it to her and then be like, well, I already changed my mind about everything. So get it, making sure I'm on solid ground to show without wasting anyone's time. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01That is a good question. Yeah. Maybe we can talk about that next time. And uh we mentioned this last time, but there will be now there will be a gap. A gap, yeah. Um, between episodes. I think I'm gonna try and edit this one quickly and get it on schedule for Monday, but um then there will be a gap as we figure out our summer schedules. And oh, I meant to mention to you that one of your children's dentist appointments is on our podcast calendar. So you might want to make sure perfect you're gonna get it in the correct notification from the right place. Would that even happen? Or I can just remind you when our appointment goes.
SPEAKER_03That would be great. I actually, that was my clue to you that I'd like to start taking over. I'm just trying to delegate. Don't let just delegate it.
SPEAKER_01Uh you can find out more about me and my book at sarazar.com my book. Find out more about me and all my 12 books. There you go. At Sarah Zar.com. I've been getting back on Instagram a little bit. Uh I have a newsletter. That's it.
SPEAKER_03How about you, Corey? You can find out more about me at core and hadoo.com and core and hedo on Instagram and Substack. And uh yeah, still still a great time to buy mothers and other strangers if you haven't yet.
SPEAKER_01It's never too late.
SPEAKER_03Never too late to get on.
SPEAKER_01This is this idea that like, oh god, like if you in the first like X number of weeks that your book is out, it has to do this or else it's game over.
SPEAKER_02It's never too late, but sooner the better. It's also never too early. Now's the perfect time. Um, all right. Take care, Corey. Great to see you. Good to talk to you, Sarah. Bye.
