Gothic Romances and Ghosts Galore! with J. Ann Thomas - The Spirit Collection of Thorne Hall

Marissa chats with J. Ann Thomas about her new adult gothic ghost novel, THE SPIRIT COLLECTION OF THORNE HALL. Also in this episode: the unpredictability of being a podcaster with children, how publishing can be a roller coaster of a career, creating love interests that are not perfect but are perfect for the character, using a real house and its blueprints and diagrams to keep track of ghosts (!), using real people (alive and dead) to inspire characters, character names, narrating your own audio books, and so much more!  

Show Notes: 

Ventfort Hall Museum in Lennox, MA: https://gildedage.org/ 

MOMA Mourning Clothes exhibit: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/death-becomes-her

Child Ballads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Ballads 

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Transcript

[00:11] Marissa: Welcome to the Happy Writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers more books to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thank you so much for joining me. I am gonna do things a little out of order today and start with introducing my guest before I tell you the thing that is making me happy. So, for starters, I am so happy to be talking to today's guest. She holds a master's degree in vocal performing from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and teaches diploma program Language and Literature at an international baccalaureate school in my hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Writing as Jamie Thomas, she was the author of the Asperfell trilogy, and her debut adult novel, the Spirit collection of Thornhall, comes out on February 11th. Please welcome my dear friend, J. Ann Thomas.

[01:10] J. Ann: Hello. I am so thrilled to be here today.

[01:14] Marissa: I am so excited to have you. And the reason I wanted to wait and do my. My happy thing after your introduction is because the thing that's making me happy is that you are here with me in person.

[01:25] J. Ann: I am. And I believe it's your first time having a guest in person.

[01:29] Marissa: 224 episodes in. And this is my very, very first time getting to welcome a guest to my office to record live. Well, not live live, but I have recorded with friends. I mean, a lot of our mutual friends have been on the podcast, but it was, like, during COVID and so we couldn't actually be in person.

[01:49] J. Ann: And it is a splendid office, you guys. It is heaven.

[01:54] Marissa: Have you noticed, was the chandelier here last time you were here?

[01:57] J. Ann: No, it's new, and it was my.

[01:58] Marissa: Christmas gift, and I love it.

[02:00] J. Ann: So do you see the work on the.

[02:02] Marissa: Oh, I know.

[02:03] J. Ann: I'm sorry, guys.

[02:04] Marissa: It is crystal.

[02:04] J. Ann: It is brass. It is ornate. It is gorgeous.

[02:07] Marissa: It kind of looks like something you would see in Thorn Hall.

[02:10] J. Ann: It really does, actually.

[02:11] Marissa: You really could.

[02:12] J. Ann: You can imagine it.

[02:15] Marissa: Okay, so if any listeners. I just want to point out, if any listeners happen to live. You don't have pants on.

[02:25] J. Ann: I thought you guys were in a video call. I was playing at the park, and I accidentally slid down the slide and there's a big, giant puddle because there was a dent in the slide.

[02:35] Marissa: All right, honey. Thanks for letting me know. So exciting. Thanks, honey. All right, if that was not coming through on the audio, Delaney just poked her head in to let us know that she fell into a puddle off of the slide at the park and got her pants all wet. And so she's pantsless, has no pants on, and she also offered us some McDonald's.

[03:02] J. Ann: Yeah, it's a Happy Meal sitting right there by the door. See, things are more fun and nominal.

[03:07] Marissa: This interview is going exactly how I wanted it.

[03:10] J. Ann: Exactly. Wow.

[03:13] Marissa: Okay, on that note, if you happen to live in the Tacoma area, please mark your calendars for February 11th at 6:00 in the evening. I. You can take them again.

[03:25] J. Ann: I am dying.

[03:26] Marissa: Okay, sweetheart, would you please let your sister and Mikayla know that we are recording in here? So let's go somewhere else. Go down to Nana's or something. I really don't want it, honey, but thank you. Chicken nugget.

[03:41] J. Ann: I'm dying. Oh my gosh.

[03:46] Marissa: We just started recording and it's just like falling apart on us immediately. Okay.

[03:52] J. Ann: I do like taking up. Yep.

[03:54] Marissa: All right. I'm just going to apologize to our editor, Deke. Sorry, dear. Not sure what you want to do with all that. I defer to you. All right, if you happen to live in the Tacoma area, please mark your calendars for February 11th at 6:00. When I will be joining Jamie for her book launch party at the newly opened Grit City Books in Tacoma. So hope to see lots of our listeners there.

[04:21] J. Ann: Yes, please come support this amazing independent bookstore on 6th Avenue Avenue.

[04:26] Marissa: All right, so the first thing I always want to ask all my guests. What is your origin story? How did you get into book writing to begin with?

[04:35] J. Ann: Oh, God. I think the first book I ever wrote was in a spiral bound notebook in middle school when I was supposed to be doing other things like math.

[04:44] Marissa: I had a few of those and it was that.

[04:48] J. Ann: That was like that origin there. But my first time actually sitting to write a novel, I was student teaching. And that's crazy because it's a lot of work and you're doing a lot of writing work anyway. But a lot was happening in the world, politically, socially at the time. This would have been around 2017. And I had this idea rattling around that sort of became asperfell. It morphed and shifted as those ideas do when we finally sit down to write them. But I never intended it to be anything. It was just a story I couldn't get out of my head and sat down. And here I find out many years later that those are the ones that persevere. That lot of people sit down to write a book or to start or have an idea. It's that tiny percent that actually finish it that end up. And I did. And so right around the time I got my master's in teaching and got my teaching certificate, I finished this Book and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I actually ended up reading it out loud to my husband, just sort of as a. Here's what I did. You want to hear this? And at the end of that, he was like, you know, you should try to publish this.

[06:01] Marissa: You read it out loud to him.

[06:03] J. Ann: I did.

[06:03] Marissa: That seems very ballsy.

[06:05] J. Ann: I did. It was one of those, like, evening reading times in bed. For some reason, we were just. I was like, you don't want to hear this thing. So. So I read it out loud to him.

[06:15] Marissa: Wow.

[06:16] J. Ann: And actually it helped so much because if you don't know if you are a writer listening to this, always read your work out loud if you can, because you discover a lot of mistakes. You discover a lot of things that don't quite flow the way that you hope they're going to. So, yeah, that was sort of what gave me the push to go after the whole publication, and the rest is history.

[06:39] Marissa: So then what happened? So you finished writing it, you read it to your husband? I assume some revisions happened at that point. What about when it came to trying to get published?

[06:49] J. Ann: I. I pursued a path that I think several years going on, I might have done differently, but also not because I think it worked out in a really spectacular way. But do you remember how Twitter was really big around 2018, 2019, and there were a lot of those pitch events. And so I had queried some agents, as one does. You know, you look up the process for this whole thing and wasn't really getting anywhere. And so there a science fiction and fantasy pitch event. And so I put my pitch out there and it got liked by the editor in chief of a small independent press. And he and I connected and we chatted and I took a shot on Uproar because I really loved this guy. Well, not, you know, that kind of. Anyway, spoiler alert. This man is now my agent. So he would laugh so hard if he heard this. He has quality people. I loved his editing style. I loved his enthusiasm for the novel. And this was a brand new, small publishing house. And so I took a shot on that and worked with Rick Lewis and Asperfell came out to rave reviews. And it was a tremendous experience working with him as an editor. He is phenomenal. The kind of editor that makes you sound better than you are. And unfortunately, this was Covid book came out February 20, 2020. So remember that Barnes and Noble laid off a lot of their buyers, so books just sat languishing in warehouses in person. Events were canceled. My second book, the Sequel to Asperfell was done in quarantine, my quarantine book. That was rough. But Uproar ended up going under. And so it's interesting you might say, oh, gosh, that's the end of it. That was, you know. How on earth did you have a career beyond that? Well, Rick decided lean into that more agent side of being an editorial agent. His connections in the industry, and we ended up partnering in that capacity. And so he is actually the agent who sold Thorn. Okay. And so who worked with me on Thorn. And then Asperfell will have a second life. And. Sorry, editor, if I need to say this, but I'm assuming that the announcement is made by then. He actually was able to sell it to a wonderful publishing house and it will be re released. The original two books with the third one finally finished in 2026. If we can't have that in there, then we'll take that out. But yeah.

[09:38] Marissa: So, Deke, we're not entirely sure the announcement's gonna happen before the 20th.

[09:43] J. Ann: We are really. Fingers crossed. It should.

[09:45] Marissa: So. Fingers crossed.

[09:46] J. Ann: So fingers crossed. But if we have to go back to Thorne. So he is the agent then, that I worked with who sold Thorn to Alcove. And they are an imprint of Crooked Lane with distributing through Penguin Random House. And I will work with him on my next novel. So while Uproar may not have lasted as an independent press, it still gave rise to my relationship with Rick as an agent. And so he still works hand in hand with me in my career. And he is such an extraordinary human being. And I am so, so, so lucky that I could still have him in my team and in my corner.

[10:22] Marissa: Yeah, I know. We often talk about publishing and the career of publishing as being a bit like a roller coaster.

[10:28] J. Ann: Oh, my gosh.

[10:29] Marissa: Yes. And I don't know how we've been friends for a few years now, and I've definitely watched you ride the roller coaster.

[10:36] J. Ann: Oh, my gosh. And everybody tells me it's a marathon, not a sprint. And that you might have these moments where you break into a sprint and then really long periods of waiting and where things happen behind the scenes that you're not beyond your control. And so much of it is luck and timing. And a really good team, of course, matters a lot.

[10:58] Marissa: Yeah. And especially an editor. An editor that you trust. And an editor. And I assume even as your agent now it sounds like he's doing a ton of really great editorial work with you.

[11:08] J. Ann: Yeah, he's one of. We have agents that are just solely on the Sales side of that. And then we have some agents who have had careers editing or writing themselves and who are editorial agents. And it can take a little longer, obviously, to get the book sold, because you go through rounds of edits than with that agent before it ever is sold to your acquiring editor. But a really good product, then a really solid book gets out there into the world. And so for me, it's worth it to put your best book forward.

[11:39] Marissa: Oh, all the time. Yeah, absolutely.

[11:41] J. Ann: Especially with somebody, again, that you trust. And this man knew Asperfell so well that from all of our discussions and descriptions, he actually could draw, like, a fully rendered map of the prison, just in talking about turns and which corridors would lead which way. And somebody who knows your work really that well, you can have such great discussions. And that can be really helpful because sometimes it feels like we write in a vacuum. It's a very lonely profession sometimes where these worlds are in our heads and there are people in our lives. I'm assuming, Jesse, that you talk with about plot things and characters.

[12:20] Marissa: You assume wrong. You assume wrong. I hardly ever talk with my family about writing, which is not. They are so supportive. And Jesse, my husband, you know, so great in a million different ways. But no, I found it to be unhelpful talking to him about story and plot and characters. And so I go to you for that. Or Kendara are, you know. Really?

[12:46] J. Ann: Yeah. My husband, admittedly, is not great with the. You know, the minute we talk about, like, oh, hand placement in a romance scene, he's like, I'm out of here.

[12:56] Marissa: No, he's not volunteering to help choreograph this.

[12:59] J. Ann: Oh, no, no, no. He's like, red face, just. But there be times when I can be like, you know, what would, you know, let's talk about this decision between these two characters. And he'll be really helpful. But then other times, like you said, it's just, you know, do you think the dress would be celery or like a celadon? And he's like, I. I've gotta pick your bag. I've gotta go take out the trash. But having Rick being so knowledgeable of that world, he could be like, well, would that make sense within these parameters that you've set? And so that is amazing having somebody with such. All that collected knowledge of your work to be able to talk to so great editors, great agents.

[13:38] Marissa: Yeah.

[13:39] J. Ann: Wonderful tool.

[13:40] Marissa: Worth their weight in gold. And beta readers, too.

[13:42] J. Ann: Yeah. Critique partners are the best.

[13:44] Marissa: Yeah. Because you never can see it all yourself. I mean, you get so into the weeds on things. It is absolutely impossible to be objective about your own work, especially when you're getting toward the end of the, you know, third, fourth draft, it's like, I have no idea what's good anymore or what needs to change.

[14:02] J. Ann: Yeah. And especially if you have somebody being like, trust me, this. This isn't working. And you're clinging to it because. No, I spent so much time on this, and I. Yeah, but should it be there? And then you're like, you know what? You were right.

[14:15] Marissa: They make you think about things.

[14:16] J. Ann: Yeah, they do. And it hurts. You know, that whole kill your darlings or, well, not kill them. Maybe move them to a Word document.

[14:24] Marissa: Save them for some later bonus content later.

[14:27] J. Ann: Exactly. But, yes, other people. It is. You know, it's invaluable having that support system, whether it is our writer friends or our editors or our agents, not our husband.

[14:40] Marissa: Sometimes they're supportive in a different way.

[14:43] J. Ann: In a different way. Yes.

[14:45] Marissa: Okay, so here we are. Your first adult novel. Because Asperfell was ya. Correct.

[14:50] J. Ann: You know, it's funny, I never wrote it intending it to be ya, but I think that's how it read.

[14:55] Marissa: Okay.

[14:56] J. Ann: And I'm actually really glad that I didn't stick to my guns on saying no. I assumed it would be adult because so many young readers have discovered it. My bonus child goes to Stadium High School. Yes, that Stadium High School. The Castle High School in Tacoma that was made famous by the film 10 Things I Hate about you. And she has gotten in close with the librarian there because, you know, us bookish girlies get in with the librarians. Librarians are the best. And they are reading Asperfell in their book club this month. So I'm actually going to visit their school this next week and chat a little bit. So I am glad that it didn't get shelved as purely adult, because I think when it was first reviewed, people said, oh, it's got great crossover. And I was like, to my editor, what does that mean? But it just means more people will.

[15:45] Marissa: Get to read it.

[15:47] J. Ann: So now that I've written Thorne and I've looked back, yeah, I think it definitely is more of a young adult coming of age, even though the characters, I think, are a little too old to maybe be considered ya. Okay. Which then opens that discussion, what exactly is ya? And where do characters?

[16:04] Marissa: And why can't we do new adult? And I hear so many of my guests on this podcast have been like, well, it's supposed to be new adult, but because publishing won't let that happen, we had to decide which direction.

[16:15] J. Ann: Exactly. And I actually think it probably should be. I believe Bryony, when the book starts, is 20.

[16:22] Marissa: Okay.

[16:22] J. Ann: And where you could maybe see that one foot or the other, the love interest is 29.

[16:29] Marissa: Oh, yeah.

[16:30] J. Ann: So then you're like 28, 29. So then you're like. Oh. And then you've got supporting characters who are all in their mid to late 20s. So you're looking at this as coming of age, but it isn't quite young adult. You've got mostly adults, but that's where everybody has shelved it.

[16:48] Marissa: And so don't put us in a box publishing.

[16:50] J. Ann: Yes. But I guess I should be excited that that does open the door to younger readers and older readers alike, because YA is read by a lot. I think it's a wide age range of people.

[17:05] Marissa: Very much so, yeah. No, and I think more than. I mean, statistically, I want to say that more than half of the readers of young adult fiction are not young adults.

[17:13] J. Ann: Exactly.

[17:14] Marissa: Yeah, yeah.

[17:14] J. Ann: No, it's completely true. But yes, I will echo that sentiment from your other writer friends. Come on. Publishing new adult, I think it would work really well.

[17:26] Marissa: I feel like a lot of things would easily fit into that gap.

[17:29] J. Ann: Yes, I do.

[17:30] Marissa: If, you know, I think it's just Barnes and Noble. Just doesn't want to add another shelf.

[17:33] J. Ann: Exactly.

[17:34] Marissa: Oh, my goodness.

[17:34] J. Ann: Oh, come on. We've got the room.

[17:37] Marissa: Okay. But here we are. Your first official, official novel. Yes. Although I would say even this book, again, the characters are aged up a little bit. There's some spice to it a little bit. But I think young adult readers, like, I can see this one again, having a very crossover. Lots of crossover appeal.

[17:56] J. Ann: Yes, absolutely. Because it's horror, but it's cozy horror. It's got a little spice, but it's not explicit.

[18:06] Marissa: There's lots of action, very fast paced.

[18:08] J. Ann: Yeah. So I definitely do think that younger readers could enjoy this one too.

[18:12] Marissa: Absolutely. All right, so with that, tell listeners a little bit about the spirit collection of Thornhall.

[18:20] J. Ann: Oh, my goodness. So I'm a gothic girly through and through. Victorian Gothic literature was a staple of my young adulthood as a reader. And then when I was studying to become a teacher, sort of my. My wheelhouse there, just loving Daphne du Maurier and Edgar Allan Poe and the Bronte sisters. And so Asperfell was marketed a bit as gothic fantasy. And I would say yes for the first one, but it definitely stuck with the more epic fantasy for the second and third. But Thorn is absolutely gothic fantasy romance. Although I would say horrormance, maybe. Like horror romance. Is that a thing? I'm gonna make it a thing.

[19:05] Marissa: Let's make it a thing.

[19:06] J. Ann: But I'd always wanted to do a haunted house.

[19:09] Marissa: Because you've done it.

[19:11] J. Ann: Well, yes, if you have loved Shirley Jackson and Guillermo del Toro and any of that, you want to do a haunted house. And I really did. It originally was going to be from the perspective of one of the spirits.

[19:26] Marissa: Oh, interesting.

[19:27] J. Ann: And nobody steal that idea, because I think I might still do it someday. But it slowly kind of evolved. And the three characters that I had started out with playing around with scenes were actually elegy and Fletcher and Adelaide. And so this idea of this lavish Gilded Age setting amongst the very wealthy tenants of the Berkshires and this haunted mansion. And so I was like, yeah, yeah, I could see something from this. And then it became the idea of a lot of haunted house novels. The ghosts are these very shadowy presents. Presences, Presences. I swear. I know. Grammar, guys.

[20:11] Marissa: They're like little gifts.

[20:12] J. Ann: Presents, gifts, old gifts. They leave around dead birds and such. So often they are these malevolent presences sort of lurking and in the shadows and writing things in the dust and slamming doors and those quintessential hauntings. And I wanted the ghosts to be a little bit more like revenants, which, according to Francis James, child, in the child ballads that feature so heavily in the novel, are more corporeal, they're more visitation. And so I wanted them to be a little bit more like a physical presence that interacted with elegy and sort of that idea came forward as well. What about a collection of spirits that are bound to this house and that she is raised alongside? And from there, the idea just flowed in terms of having this collection of spirits that are bound to the house, that have been bound to the house for 126 years, so have interacted with her family and her ancestors and her. And that are just as much characters as any of the living there, with all their own personalities. And instead of being this sort of malevolent shadows, these are people that she interacted with as a child, played games with, cried with, practiced sewing with, sang with as much family as her actual living family.

[21:37] Marissa: You didn't touch on the romance at all. It's like, there's a great romance in this. Like, yes, there's a haunted. There's hauntings. Yes.

[21:46] J. Ann: And I should actually. The romance is kind of the.

[21:48] Marissa: It's missing from that pitch.

[21:51] J. Ann: And of course, it would not be a Jamie Thomas book if it didn't have romance now, guys, I gotta tell you, my husband is so annoyed with me because I am a romance girly. I cut my teeth on Jane Austen. I am a romance girly through and through to my detriment. Because sometimes if a film or a show or a movie doesn't have it, I don't want anything to do with it.

[22:10] Marissa: You know, I struggle too. I struggle to really care about characters if there's not and a romantic story.

[22:17] J. Ann: I love love and I love the relationships between people. I love romance. I'm just gonna say it, guys. And so my husband will be like, come watch this movie with me. I'll be like, is there any romance in it? No. All right, well, I'm gonna go rewatch this thing I've seen for 20. He's just like, oh, my God. And so of course, I knew there had to be for it to really have that. That gothic vibe love and all sorts of kinds of love. But in this case, not a horrifying Nosferatu kind of love or a crimson bee kind of love, but a genuine love story, which was so much fun to write because I'd never written a very obvious sort of love story with aspr. Phil, there is one, but it's a little more like annoyances to lovers sort of thing. And it's more of a side plot. But this is very central because the, you know, the whole plot of this book, this action would not happen without this relationship. And I actually, I really loved swapping the trope here. So in Asperfell, I had sort of the grumpy sunshine, but in the traditional sense where he's the grump and she's the sunshine. And here I've got Elegy, who is so incredibly strange, having grown up around, well, ghosts and commanding spirits and being, you know, in this manner, trapped in time, wearing clothing 100 years old and having really no idea how to be in our modern world. And then you have a very vibrant and alive and forward thinking man who is the more sunshine, whereas she is just very prickly and awkward and strange. And so that was fun getting to flip that trope on its head and play around with, with that for once in my writing. And he is just lovely. He's so great.

[24:01] Marissa: I love.

[24:02] J. Ann: Oh, my gosh. And I finally got that wonderful milestone for anybody who writes romance where a great reviewer called him her newest book boyfriend. Oh, 100%.

[24:15] Marissa: No, I was stooning. I mean, this is one of those books where, you know, 60% of the way in. I wanted to start like, throwing things like, why have they not kissed yet?

[24:27] J. Ann: Oh, my goodness. I. I will tell you a story then. So I recorded the audiobook for this and with my performing arts background. And two days ago, the scene we started out reading in the studio in Seattle was the sex scene. Right. Right out of the gate.

[24:43] Marissa: Did you get a good night's sleep? Here we go.

[24:46] J. Ann: And I kind of. It was an interesting one, doing that with somebody in the booth next to you. You're reading that. And she had to kind of stop and she's like, you know, we're going to start over. Because she's like. She had read the book. She's like, readers are waiting for this. We're waiting for this chapter. You need to make this good. And I'm like, oh, God. No pressure. But that was a little nervousness for me. But those moments with these two together, I had a huge smile on my face just writing it, you know, blushing, giggling, kicking my feet, just. Oh, my goodness. And so I loved writing. The romance aspect of this.

[25:21] Marissa: No, it's a really great romance. And I think part of the reason it works so well is not only because they are very opposite. And of course we got the opposites attract and they compare, complete each other, blah, blah, blah. But you just get the sense that he is so exactly what she needs.

[25:35] J. Ann: Yes.

[25:35] Marissa: You know, someone. The only person in the entire world who could lure her away from this house.

[25:41] J. Ann: Yeah. And who I think gives her everything she needs as well. And one of those. I really was very keenly, like, this cannot be this white knight thing. I need it to be more of a support. What do you need? I want you to be able to. To take control, make your own choices, become who you're meant to be. How can I support you in that way? And so for me, I think that that is what she needed in order to decide to take that step and be brave and overcome. And so for me, that is what a real true love is. Is that support where you want that person to be just as happy as they can be, as fulfilled as themselves as they can be. And you are that partner. That. That, like you said, doesn't complete them, but that, you know, helps and nurtures them.

[26:32] Marissa: Yeah.

[26:32] J. Ann: To really.

[26:33] Marissa: Because it really lends itself to the. The happily ever after. Then, like, you feel like, you know, what they're going to be. Okay.

[26:39] J. Ann: And you feel like that that's earned.

[26:40] Marissa: Yes.

[26:41] J. Ann: You know, rather than it just being like, you know, there's a contract in romance novels where to be a romance, it's got to have a happy ever after. And sometimes you're like, did it deserve to end that way? And so you do want to feel like that happy ever after is earned, that these people are going to be like you said, okay, yeah. And as you see, well, and I won't spoil too much, but I do feel like, yeah, like that perfect person for you or almost an imperfect person that is perfect for you in a way. You're that partnership together between you.

[27:21] Marissa: And I feel like that's a good way to even think about when it comes to creating love interests. Perfect love interests are boring, Right. Nobody wants the knight in shining armor who has no flaws and blah, blah, blah. But to write someone who is flawed but is perfect for the protagonist, like, that's the challenge, right?

[27:42] J. Ann: Yeah. And that's what I think we look for in our real lives. Because perfect just. That's like you said, it's boring. It's very rare to find that. And really what you're saying is, well, perfect for who? For me. And I think it's a perfect partnership is two imperfect people that really complement each other. And so I think that that was. That was them.

[28:03] Marissa: Yeah.

[28:04] J. Ann: For me.

[28:10] Marissa: Hey, happy writers. I am so excited to let you know that Amplify Marketing Services just completed their free 10 session video series designed to help authors like you succeed. The content for this in depth series was shaped by the input from 28 publishing companies and the result is a comprehensive resource that includes everything publishers wish their authors knew. You can explore this free course@amplifymarketers.com Authors all right, let's talk about the ghosts.

[28:53] J. Ann: Oh, God.

[28:54] Marissa: There are 15 of them.

[28:55] J. Ann: 15? Yep.

[28:57] Marissa: And they all have a name and they all have a personality and they're all like, kind of tied to different places of the house. And they all have, like different creepy death things around them, like how they died or like weird wounds that they have. How did you go about creating the collection and then how did you keep them straight?

[29:16] J. Ann: Okay, so I actually did use a map of the house. I had blueprints of. Well, and I should pause and say that Thorn hall is actually based on a real place, Ventford hall in Lenox, Massachusetts. So where the story actually takes place is a real Gilded Age mansion. And it is a Gilded Age museum. You can visit it just as I did when I went out to do all the research for this. And so I had blueprint and yes, I did change a few things, tweaked things here and there, but I had this sort of map where I knew where various Spirits were most of the time because they do traverse. And then I had backgrounds for all of them because they do have an interesting connection in certain ways that I. Again, you know, spoilers. But so I did have all these backgrounds for them. Now some of them are actually based on people that I encountered when I was in Lennox.

[30:16] Marissa: Oh, interesting.

[30:18] J. Ann: So there are right out the gate in chapter two, you get the two elderly women who play whist in the. In the parlor there and who are just absolute body ridiculous Victorian women. So Eugenia and Mabel. And they were based on a two ladies that I met. Oh, gosh. If they're out there. You know, guys, I didn't really mean for you to appear this way in this book, but you inspired me. So they were these two friends who had been friends for decades, and they met at church and they were visiting Lenox on one of their many day trips where they just get together. And they were in their 70s and they just day trip everywhere, and they were at this place drinking wine, just cackling and having the time of their lives. And I just, I got to talking to them because as my husband will tell you, I can talked to. Well, I talked to you. That's how I met you. I just went up to you in a wine bar. Are you an author? You look very familiar.

[31:19] Marissa: Like, should we share our friendship origin story on this podcast? Because I do think it's kind of hilarious. It is hilarious. So, guys, now we're on a detour.

[31:27] J. Ann: I accosted this woman in a wine bar. So I met these two women and I just fell in love with their friendship. And so obviously within the collection, it's got to be a bit darker, but so a lot of them are pieces of people that I met while I was there. And then a lot of it just became okay. If you're looking at the time of the first summoning, which the first death would have been in the Revolutionary War. So in the 1700s. And then you're looking all the way until the mansion in 1890s or so. I wanted to pluck pieces from history that had taken place in that town. So Amos, the ghost in the basement, with a nice little habit of ripping people's faces off because he lacks one of his own. That accident at the Lenoxdale Glassworks was a real event in Lennox. And so I wanted to pull a character from that. There was illness that swept through at that time. So you have Adelaide, who died in an illness. I wanted to pull in from that. So a lot of this was historical events. That happened in the Berkshires, in Massachusetts, in Lenox, and that I pulled these characters from time to represent those periods of history during that time. And then also looking at who would act best upon elegy in terms of character development. What is she going to get growing up 25 years in this house from each of these spirits? What do each of them teach her, impart to her, the impact they have on her? And so then it was creating that, and some of it was just, you know, visuals and aesthetic. You know, I really loved having the morning who stands at the bottom of the staircase and with those big black veils because you aren't allowed to see her countenance. And having her, you know, as this sort of way of passing time and as this way of observing everything. And that. That sort of Gideon vs. Hester kind of vibe with that, the calliope, with the child ballads, bringing those in. So they really served a huge. You know, each of them served a function within the house, not only in what they brought in terms of the historical context, but in how they impacted elegy and her upbringing there.

[33:37] Marissa: Was it difficult? Because that's a lot of characters to keep track of. But you also. You have to remind the reader as we go without just like, inundating the reader with, you know, and here's 15 ghosts. Remember them? You know, you kind of have to scatter it throughout.

[33:57] J. Ann: Yeah.

[33:58] Marissa: Did you like. Do you have, like, an Excel spreadsheet where you're like, okay, we've got these ghosts in this chapter and these ghosts in this chapter. Or how did you keep.

[34:07] J. Ann: Yeah, it was basically when I would set a scene, I would have to think, where is everybody right now? If it's by day, who would be nearby elegy at this point? Who would be drowsing in the shadows, but who might be in the next room over? Who might be listening? Who might be here? It's during the night, though. Any of those scenes at night where the house is basically theirs and they are corporeal and walking amongst them. If this scene is taking place in this room, who is nearby? What impact would the action have had from that scene on their state at the time? And as you see in various scenes, Elegy can sort of reach out and not see them, but feel where everybody is, what they're doing kind of their. Their state, which is, you know, that's what being the master or mistress of Thornhall entails. So it was up to me to sort of think of. And again, just knowing the house by heart, being able to Close my eyes. And I could. Okay, walk in. And I could literally trace the entirety of this mansion, all, you know, 28,000 square feet of this, just by being that intimately familiar with the house. And I wouldn't say the house is a character in itself. There have been books I've read where the house is a little bit in that way. But when you have. Usually with a gothic novel, the setting is so vastly important as a character. Not that it is sentient, but just the setting there, because a lot of it is descriptors of setting readers into that scene.

[35:40] Marissa: It really sets the mood.

[35:41] J. Ann: Yes. And so while you're describing all this antique furniture. Oh, there's this gut, you know, so part of it was almost that was setting that scene of. All right, here's what's happening. Here's who's nearby. Here's how they're going to impact the scene with elegy. So it did take a lot to. It wasn't. I was not able to pants this. I know that, you know, we've talked. You've probably talked with people about pantsing and plotting. I am a huge, heavy plotter, and for a novel like this, you had to.

[36:09] Marissa: Yeah.

[36:09] J. Ann: And diagram, you know, came into things.

[36:13] Marissa: I would love to see your diagrams. Bonus material.

[36:17] J. Ann: Yeah, well, my husband and I have planned. My husband's in tech guys, and so he has been working with website things. And we want to do a lot of extra content where.

[36:28] Marissa: Oh, yeah.

[36:30] J. Ann: All of these pictures that I took event when I was there, profiles of our spirits, diagrams. All of the costumes that Elegy wears are actual clothes that are in the metropolitan market.

[36:41] Marissa: I knew, I knew. Just like reading your descriptions of clothing, I'm like, she's describing a real thing. They're all real.

[36:48] J. Ann: Yes, they are all real. All the designers, all these costumes. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute. If any of you ever get out to New York, to Manhattan to go, it is the best. I saw an exhibit of mourning clothes years ago, and it was about the business of mourning and talking about the, you know, how this business just exploded in the Victorian era because of needing to wear certain colors when you were in various stages of mourning for different, you know, members of your family and how this became this enormous industry. And so a lot of the clothing is actual, real clothing that she wears. And so gonna have some of that. The playlist. So the child ballads that are included in this novel.

[37:31] Marissa: I wanted to talk about the child ballads. Yes.

[37:34] J. Ann: And so those are all completely real. My husband and I are going to record. I'M going to dust off my music degree and we're going to record.

[37:42] Marissa: Do you want to pause for a second? Because obviously, you and I. I have heard you talk about this book as you've been writing.

[37:47] J. Ann: Yes, yes. The last few years.

[37:49] Marissa: I always thought that you were saying child, as in a small person, child ballads. But no, Child is the name of the person who collects them. I just wanted to clarify so, because that really kind of threw me.

[38:02] J. Ann: Some of them are really horrifying.

[38:03] Marissa: Yeah, they're scary.

[38:04] J. Ann: They're really scary.

[38:05] Marissa: They're dark.

[38:06] J. Ann: They are, for those of you that don't know, a collection of about 305 really old folk ballads. A lot of them from England, Scotland. Ireland, but some from the United States. We're not that old, though, so most of them are from overseas. But a Harvard professor in around 1895 feared that if nobody wrote these stories down, they would cease to exist. And indeed, a lot have probably been lost to time, which is terrible. And so he collected all of these ballads, these stories. Now, I say folk songs, but Child didn't really care much about the music. He was an historian, so for him, it was mostly the story. So he didn't collect notations, which is why there are so many different versions of the melodies of these songs. He could take that or leave it. It was the stories for him. And so he collected these stories and bound them together in this collection. And so I had sung many child ballads when I was still performing years ago, and I didn't intend to use it as a framing device. When I first started writing, it worked its way in there.

[39:14] Marissa: Okay.

[39:15] J. Ann: And then it suddenly. It just was like, oh, okay. And suddenly it's important. And then it became this framing device. And so I think I feature the full text of about 7 or 8. I referenced many more, but as I said, there's about 305 of them. And they are vital then, to this plot as a way that elegy commands and controls and soothes and entertains these spirits by singing these old, ancient folk songs.

[39:44] Marissa: Was her name always elegy?

[39:45] J. Ann: It was. Which means a lament for the dead. And so I think one of the very first scenes I actually wrote didn't make it into the novel. It was. I thought I would pull one over on my editor or my agent and do two prologues. Not one, but two. Because I was like, listen, we're gonna get to the point where people will let us have prologues. He's like, that's hilarious. You are so funny, Jamie. This novel has no Prologues. It was gonna have two epilogues, too. Epilogue. The first epilogue time. It does have one.

[40:18] Marissa: I kind of have two epilogues in a book.

[40:20] J. Ann: That's good. Okay, tell me how that goes, because.

[40:22] Marissa: I know I'll be waiting to hear notes from my editor.

[40:24] J. Ann: So I will let you know. No prologue. So I was like, okay. Okay. So the prologue begins, chapter one. And then scenes from the second prologue, which was Elegy's birth, and then her name being given to her by these spirit that is singing the child ballads in the shadows. So an elegy, a lament for the dead. It. Parts of it then were reworked in. Because, guys, that's what we do sometimes when we're asked to cut things as we work them back in somehow.

[40:51] Marissa: I will not.

[40:53] J. Ann: I will not cut it completely. And so her name always was Elegy.

[40:57] Marissa: Okay. See, I just. I love that because I feel like there's some things that our subconscious knows what it's doing, but we don't consciously understand it yet. But, like, sometimes you just have to trust that. Okay. I feel like, you know, these ballads, they're important to the story, or it's speaking to me in a way, so I'm gonna go with it. And then, lo and behold, it becomes like, this incredibly important element to the story.

[41:20] J. Ann: Do you have any characters that are iconically named who weren't always named that, or were they always.

[41:28] Marissa: Oh, gosh, that's a great question. I honestly don't know. I'd really have to give it some.

[41:35] J. Ann: Thought because sometimes we do. We have a character named all the way until the end, and then we're told, oh, it's too many words that start with this letter, or it just doesn't sound right. And so then we go back and change them, but they weren't originally named that.

[41:52] Marissa: Yeah, and some characters, like, their name is just. It just comes to you and you're like, that's who they are. And then some characters, you struggle, you try out one thing, and, ah, it doesn't work. And then you try something else. And.

[42:04] J. Ann: Yeah, yeah, I. Okay, guys, I'm really bad with two brackets and the word placeholder in my novel. So right now I am about 30,000 words into my next draft. And I have a lead character who is called Placeholder because I haven't found his name yet. This is a matrix.

[42:28] Marissa: So you didn't even give him a fake name in the meantime, like, I'll usually be. For a main character, I'll just throw in something.

[42:35] J. Ann: It's a larger than life Character that is not human. And so for me it's just like, no, I gotta.

[42:41] Marissa: This recording is done. That's you and I, we're gonna name this character today.

[42:46] J. Ann: And so, yeah, he is just not. But elegy always was elegy.

[42:50] Marissa: Yeah.

[42:51] J. Ann: And a lot of the old names. These are all names taken from census stuff in. In Massachusetts at the time. That would have been popular at the time for the ghosts or for people that were the living characters so that that could mesh with. Because I tried to be as accurate on historic details as possible. So when it came to any of the clothing, you know, for example, or the type of typewriter, things like the methane lamp, which is a real thing, any of that stuff, from the make and model of the Rolls Royce to the plaster ceilings, I really tried to have it be as historically accurate as possible since it is a real place and a real time in history.

[43:33] Marissa: So pretty much you chose not to write a historical novel and yet you gave yourself all the work required to write a historical novel.

[43:41] J. Ann: Yes, and actually I loved it. In another life, I should have been an academic doing research, making no money at a college because research was so fun. Yeah. And addiction.

[43:51] Marissa: Well, yes. When you're traveling to the Berkshires and going to the Museum of Modern Art or whatever.

[43:57] J. Ann: I love traveling. Why not for writing? No, and I know you have traveled for.

[44:03] Marissa: It's the best. Nothing like, you know, what tax write off.

[44:06] J. Ann: Honestly, it is so great. I think as profell was something I could write from my office because it's got. It's completely fantasy. So it's like, well, you know, why is this the way it is? Well, because I said so. I make the rules in this world. But if you're gonna set something at a real place or it's gonna be inspired by.

[44:24] Marissa: Yeah.

[44:24] J. Ann: Like a project I know you have coming up, then you really do owe it to.

[44:29] Marissa: It's so helpful. And I'm not saying it can't be done, you know, just doing long distance research. But it really makes a difference if you are able to immerse yourself in a place.

[44:40] J. Ann: Yes, absolutely. So if you. If you can, if you are somebody who is writing about a real place or inspired by. But yeah, I needed to make sure that the. That the real things were. But then when it came to, of course, the ghosts, it was like, well, that's, you know.

[44:53] Marissa: Yeah.

[44:54] J. Ann: Knuckle crack. That's my own.

[44:55] Marissa: Here we go.

[44:56] J. Ann: It's my own. Let's sit down and talk about this. So.

[44:58] Marissa: All right. So I was going to talk A little bit more about you getting to do the audiobook narration, which is super cool and unique and very few authors get to do that. Do you want to just talk briefly about how that came about?

[45:12] J. Ann: Yeah. I kind of suspected early on when I was writing it that I would throw my hat in to narrate it. My voice sounds very tired today because I just did this this past week. So it's had a little bit of a workout. But I have a performing arts degree and a background in opera and in musical theater. And not only that, but I get a lot of practice. I teach language and literature at an IB world school and I read aloud a lot. And so when I was writing, I was like, you know, how cool would it be if I did this? You know, Asperfell the characters, it's all a British fantasy world. And so I couldn't touch that. That was a British actress. But I was like, this is a contemporary American gothic. I love that performance aspect of reading aloud. I have a very different, you know, narrator voice and all of that. So I was in Italy actually when I found out that the audiobook had been sold. And I said to my editor, you know, I would love to throw my hat in the ring. Would dreamscape consider it. And authors normally don't like you said. And so they kind of tried to talk me out of it. And I was like, no, no, no. I just, I really want to try. So I had to audition. So I sent in a five minute long clip of me reading a scene that I really love. And I heard back and they were like, yeah, your connection to the material and your narrating voice is great. I was like, yeah, I've had a lot of this, but it is still really physically taxing, very mentally taxing. So they booked me a studio in Seattle, Cedar House with Lisa there. She is amazing. She is a narrator herself and then does about a book a week recording audiobook in her studio. And most of the voice recordings for author narration are nonfiction.

[47:04] Marissa: Makes sense. Yeah.

[47:04] J. Ann: And so I came in there and I did it over four days. So we did about six hours, you know, plus a day. But it is really difficult but so rewarding because these are our words and we wrote them, but we, you know, hear them in our heads. And to being able to use our own inflections and pronunciations and to feel like I'm sitting there with a book in front of a classroom reading this story out loud just feels like I'm telling a story. And so I had a blast. It was amazing. I don't know if I'll ever get to do another one again, but I adored it. And I know you narrated an audiobook.

[47:42] Marissa: I do. I narrated the Happy Writer, which is coming out next week. So. Yeah. And again, nonfiction for me, so slightly different, but it was really cool. I mean, it was fun. I enjoyed it. It's just like a totally different skill set.

[47:57] J. Ann: Yes, it is.

[47:58] Marissa: And yeah. But no, it was. I was really enjoyed it as well.

[48:01] J. Ann: I don't know about you. I screwed up so many times.

[48:04] Marissa: Oh, constantly. You're constantly misreading things or stumbling or mispronouncing. Yes. Yeah.

[48:10] J. Ann: Or you say to. When it's supposed to be a pawn or just what have you. And so you get used to having.

[48:16] Marissa: And then also, like, sometimes you're reading things and you're like, I don't like how I wrote that. Can I change it?

[48:23] J. Ann: That happened a lot, actually. And I'd be like, oh, my God, who wrote this? Make a note on here to, you know, tell the author that this is really clunky because sometimes we write and it looks good. Yeah. And I think when you read it in your head, it's. It's. It's one thing, but spoken, you're like, oh, that did not sound the way I thought it was in my head, writing it.

[48:45] Marissa: Yeah. So again, if you can take the time to read your work aloud, it really does make a difference.

[48:51] J. Ann: It does. It helps a lot because the flow of certain sentences. And I got, you know, gothic Y with this one. So there was like, a paragraph that's a single sentence because it is long, ornate sentences and. And narrating those is a little tough. Yeah.

[49:06] Marissa: You have to pace yourself. Gotta take breaths.

[49:09] J. Ann: Yeah. And figure out, you know, what part of this goes with this and this.

[49:14] Marissa: So.

[49:14] J. Ann: Yeah. But it was an amazing experience. I'm so glad I got to do it.

[49:17] Marissa: So I love that. And I was definitely thinking that I would ask you to sing one of the ballads.

[49:22] J. Ann: Oh, God.

[49:23] Marissa: But I won't. I won't. Because we're actually running out of time. But it was in my head, like, I wonder if she would if I asked her.

[49:33] J. Ann: I am performing one, though, at our launch event.

[49:36] Marissa: Oh, that's awesome. I'm excited to hear it.

[49:38] J. Ann: Yes.

[49:38] Marissa: Because I loved reading this book, but a part of me wants to listen to it on audiobooks to hear you sing this. The ballads.

[49:44] J. Ann: I hate to disappoint you. The audiobook. Decided to have them all spoken.

[49:48] Marissa: No.

[49:50] J. Ann: However, I talked with the producer, and they are going to be bonus content on My website.

[49:56] Marissa: Okay.

[49:57] J. Ann: My husband is going to do. Do the guitar accompaniment.

[50:00] Marissa: Oh, okay. That's neat.

[50:01] J. Ann: So we are actually going to. Because it would have been acapella, but I was like, you know, I really love the idea of having that. The folk guitar. And like Marissa's husband, my husband is a guitar player as well, so he's going to play and I'm going to sing the True lovers Farewell at the book launch. And my sister is a violinist in there and she's going to come and do the violin. And so. And I think we might also do let no man steal your time or the wife of ushers. Well, I'm not totally sure.

[50:31] Marissa: Well, you need to go and get practice. Don't just happen.

[50:35] J. Ann: They don't. For those who are curious as to what they do sound like, on my website, there is a playlist for Spotify and for Apple music. And it has music that is inspired by the book that I listened to when I was writing it. And then it has modern get recorded versions of many of the ballads that are in the novel. So you actually can go. If you go to my website and you can hear the whole playlist. If any of you are getting the novel, then next month you could listen to it while you're reading, which I listened to this exact playlist while I was writing. And then on my website will be live recorded performances of my husband and I performing them just for fun.

[51:15] Marissa: That's awesome.

[51:15] J. Ann: And some bonus content again, some of those costumes and some of those locations and videos and pictures I took so that you can kind of immerse yourself in the world of Thornhall.

[51:26] Marissa: Awesome. Okay, let's do a quick bonus round. What book makes you happy?

[51:32] J. Ann: Oh, my gosh. You guys are going to think I'm so cheesy when I say this, but Anne of Green Gables.

[51:38] Marissa: Not cheesy.

[51:39] J. Ann: Okay.

[51:40] Marissa: My girls. You know, I'm always reading books to my girls. And like the last four times we've had to pick a new book to read as a family. I was like, let's do Anne of Green Gables. And they keep shooting it down. And I think this next time I'm just going to veto them. Nope, I get to pick this time.

[51:55] J. Ann: Because what we're doing, it is the most uplifting, cozy, warm, wonderful book. And it was one of my favorites when I read it as a young child. And I still reread it every now and again, especially when I'm feeling like things aren't all right in the world, because a book like that makes me realize that There is so much joy to be found in the world and within myself. And you look at Anne as just this pinnacle of perseverance and an imperfect person, to be sure. Very, very flawed. And yet, you know, we root for her, we cheer for her, we love her. And I just. Ann inspired me to become a writer, to become a teacher. I live the Anne Shirley life daily. I. And so I do. I do have a beef, though. I have a small beef. Yeah.

[52:48] Marissa: Oh, boy.

[52:50] J. Ann: I really don't love that. Both in this and in Little Women, which is another one of my happy books, the male love interest did tell Jo and Anne, respectively, that they should write what they know. The people right here in Avonlea. And I wanted to look at that and say, you know, if somebody had told Mary Shelley that we may not have the science fiction fantasy genre, yes, there is a great benefit in writing what you know. But there was nothing wrong with Anne's boundless romantic imagination or Jo wanting to write about scimitars and pirates. And I do think that it was a little patronizing to limit your imagination to what we know. Because as women back in that time, what would Joe and Ann have known? And that would have been a domestic life. Even Anne, you know, being a teacher and eventually being a wife and mother being, you know, and Joe, same thing. It would have been a very small life that they would have known. I think let's write what inspires us and what's out there in the world and imagine greater for ourselves. So that is my beat. And I have never told anybody that in, like, a public forum, because somebody's gonna come at me for this.

[54:07] Marissa: Here we are spilling secrets.

[54:09] J. Ann: But I do think that write what you know, there wouldn't be some Marissa Meyer books on the shelves.

[54:16] Marissa: No, I've said. I have been public before and have said that my least favorite writing advice is the write what you know advice. I think it's bad advice. I tell people, write what you're curious about.

[54:26] J. Ann: Yeah. So, you know, shame on you a little bit. Gilbert, I love you and Professor Behr, you know, but I think that let women write what inspires them, what they're curious about. And sometimes that is other worlds and sometimes that it's okay. But it is my happy book.

[54:44] Marissa: No, it's a good one for sure. What are you working on next?

[54:49] J. Ann: Speaking of being inspired, I might travel again, actually, this summer, out to Italy, because while I was there, I became inspired by some of the Renaissance architecture, some of the ancient Catholic church rituals, the capuchin bone crypts, and had Been wanting to write something that was a little bit of a more religious inspired fantasy set in Italy and so dealing with demons and angels and Paradiso and the inferno and some really fun light hearted stuff like that.

[55:31] Marissa: Yeah.

[55:31] J. Ann: And so right now I am drafting that novel. I might go out to Italy again this summer solo though, because when I travel for writing, I go solo. But this will be, if I do go my first time out of the country solo and make it a duet come in.

[55:45] Marissa: I can tell there's an invitation brewing.

[55:47] J. Ann: There is. I think you'll see that that's my night project. I also have one that is more of a contemporary, because Thorn is contemporary, but it's also not, if you think about it, it is very. And so I do have one that is set contemporary that deals with witchy things and that is a little bit more heavy on the spice romance. So I've got two projects going on.

[56:12] Marissa: Nice.

[56:12] J. Ann: So, yeah, so many things to look forward to. I'm a slow writer, though. I am very slow.

[56:18] Marissa: You're faster with me. We've established this, guys.

[56:21] J. Ann: Write with Marissa if you can. Because with Marissa I can do 2000 words in a day. Otherwise that would take me like five days. So, you know, if you have a Marissa lying around that you could take on writing, it's a clickety clack.

[56:37] Marissa: It's the clickety clack that it's like I just gotta keep going because she.

[56:40] J. Ann: Is so focused and just so prolific and, and it really inspires. I think it's that zone of proximal development. And so I'm so glad that I accosted this woman while she was writing on her own in a wine bar a couple years ago and just approached her just because I'll do that, I'll do that with anybody. But yep, I, I, I'm slow, but I'm hoping to speed up a little bit. I would like to do a little bit more structured time, that this is the time I write every day. Okay. And not save it for the evening that I'm usually an evening writer and I'm so tired.

[57:11] Marissa: I'm an evening writer as well. There have been periods of my life where I forced myself to be a morning writer.

[57:17] J. Ann: How did that work out?

[57:18] Marissa: Well, I mean, you got to do what you got to do, but I prefer afternoon evenings.

[57:22] J. Ann: Yeah, yeah, I do too. There's something about the night and the candles and the music and all that. But I, I'd like to become like an afternoon right when I get done with teaching so that I'm not so tired yet, so I'll let you know how that goes.

[57:34] Marissa: Okay, well, good luck. All right, lastly, where can people find you?

[57:39] J. Ann: Okay, so I left the cesspool that is Twitter. I refuse to call it X. And I have found great fun over on Blue sky and on Instagram and then Threads, which has been really fun. Great community of writers there. So I would say Instagram and Threads would be the best place. So. J. Ann Thomas, author, my website, J. Ann Thomas, author as well, and especially for some of those bonus things there and then reach out to me. I'm one of those people that loves hearing from readers and fellow writers. So feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to, especially with any questions about Thorn. I'd love to talk all things, any of the historical things, the little Easter eggs in there.

[58:22] Marissa: Awesome. Jamie, so lovely to have you in.

[58:27] J. Ann: My home, in my office.

[58:28] Marissa: So glad we got to do this.

[58:29] J. Ann: Yeah. Your first time in person. Yay.

[58:33] Marissa: Readers, be sure to check out the Spirit collection of Thorn Hall. It comes out on February 11, but you can pre order it today. Of course, we encourage you to support your local indie bookstore, but if you don't have a local indie, you can also check out our affiliate store@bookshop.org shop marissamyer next week I will be joined by Joanne Levy once again as we celebrate the release release of my newest book. The book that is of course inspired by this very podcast. It is called the Happy get more ideas, write more words and find more joy. From first draft to publication and beyond, I always have to like to stop and take a breath after seeing that title.

[59:18] J. Ann: It's a long title.

[59:19] Marissa: It's a long title. It is. I hope you will join us for that. Please leave us a review and follow us on Instagram Happywriter podcast. And don't forget to check out our merchandise on Etsy. Until next time, stay inspired, keep writing and whatever life throws you today. I hope that now you're feeling a little bit happier.