Delia Owens, Author of WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:12]This episode has been sponsored by Bookhampton.
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[0:28]I'm really excited to be talking to Delia Owens, Delia Owens' novel, where the craw
[0:33]dad sing was Reese's book club pick in September, and is now a best-selling novel.
[0:39]She is the co-author of three internationally best-selling nonfiction books as well about
[0:44]her life as a wildlife scientist.
[0:46]A winner of the John Burrow's award for nature writing, Delia has been published in
[0:49]Nature, the African Journal of Ecology, and others.
[0:52]She received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Georgia and got her PhD
[0:56]in animal behavior from UC Davis.
[0:59]She wrote Cry of the Calahari about her years living in the African wild studying lions
[1:05]and hyenas, along with Mark Owens.
[1:07]She also co-wrote the eye of the elephant and secrets of the savannah about her years
[1:12]studying elephants.
[1:14]After 23 years of living in Africa, followed by her time in the Rockies, she currently
[1:18]lives in Idaho with her husband and many elk deer and moose.
[1:21]Hi, Delia, how are you?
[1:23]Good.
[1:26]Thanks so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[1:29]Thank you for having me.
[1:30]I appreciate it.
[1:31]I can't believe your book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for like 11
[1:35]weeks now.
[1:36]Is that right?
[1:37]That's crazy.
[1:38]Well, please.
[1:39]12 weeks.
[1:40]Oh my gosh.
[1:41]Congratulations.
[1:42]Thank you.
[1:43]It's very exciting.
[1:44]Oh.
[1:45]Sorry.
[1:46]I have to ask you something.
[1:47]Okay.
[1:48]I'm new to Instagram, but is this the same people I talked to have been communicating on
[1:53]the Instagram?
[1:54]Yes.
[1:55]Oh no.
[1:56]Yes.
[1:57]Yes.
[1:58]I've been seeing your mom still have time to read books.
[2:01]Yes.
[2:02]Thank you for all of that.
[2:03]Of course.
[2:04]Yeah.
[2:05]No, I've been reading your book and, you know, I like to snap pictures while I read.
[2:07]And yeah, that's me on Instagram at Zebioans and at Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[2:12]So thanks for writing back.
[2:13]It always gives me such a thrill.
[2:15]Oh, thank you.
[2:16]And thank you for having me on the podcast.
[2:18]This is fun.
[2:19]Sure.
[2:20]So you are this amazingly accomplished animal and wildlife researcher.
[2:24]You're like a modern day Jane Goodall.
[2:27]You spent 23 years living in Africa.
[2:30]Is that right?
[2:31]Observing and writing, but all sorts of animals.
[2:33]That's true.
[2:34]Yes.
[2:35]That's been 23 years.
[2:36]Yeah.
[2:37]And now you just tried your hand at fiction and look what happened.
[2:39]It's this amazingly incredible beautiful novel.
[2:42]So how did you do it?
[2:44]Like how did you decide to write a novel and literally how did you do it?
[2:48]Did you take a class?
[2:49]Did you read about it or did you just try?
[2:51]I read books.
[2:52]I read novels.
[2:53]I didn't find the transition hard at all.
[2:56]Non-fiction books that I co-authored.
[2:59]They were written in story fashion in a way.
[3:01]They had a beginning, middle, and end.
[3:04]And but writing, I describe it this way.
[3:07]I like to write horses a lot.
[3:09]And I live in Northern Idaho and I can take my horse
[3:12]and just ride anywhere.
[3:14]And writing in non-fiction, the other books,
[3:17]are sort of like writing a horse inside of a corral.
[3:20]You know, there's a big fence.
[3:22]There's a timeline.
[3:23]You have to, the timeline has to be accurate.
[3:25]The characters have to be real.
[3:27]You might want to change this or that,
[3:29]but you can't because it's non-fiction.
[3:31]When you write fiction, it's like taking your horse
[3:34]and just, you know, clicking him and going as fast
[3:37]as you want across the meadow, up the mountains.
[3:40]There was a freedom to writing fiction.
[3:43]My imagination just went a little bit crazy.
[3:46]And I found it a lot of fun.
[3:49]I found it inspirational.
[3:51]And how did you come up with this story?
[3:55]Also from my experiences in Africa,
[3:58]I lived a very isolated life.
[4:01]And so I was very curious about how isolation affects
[4:04]the person I wanted to write a novel about that.
[4:07]But also as I was observing the lions,
[4:09]I go out every afternoon late in afternoon
[4:12]and follow the lions through the night.
[4:13]And, you know, I began to realize that the animals
[4:17]I studied, the pride of lions, the herd of elephants,
[4:21]the pack of hunters, those tightly bonded groups
[4:25]are not made up of both sexes.
[4:27]They were made up only of females.
[4:29]The males come and go for breeding and mating purposes,
[4:33]but the females are the one that formed
[4:35]these tightly bonded groups that last all of their lives.
[4:40]And I had had close girlfriends when I was at home.
[4:43]And suddenly, I didn't have a group.
[4:47]And I realized the importance of having a group.
[4:52]And I wanted to write a story that would tell and show
[4:58]and make people feel what it's like
[5:01]when you don't have a group
[5:03]and how it affects your behavior.
[5:04]Hey, you wrote this great line.
[5:06]You had Mabel Telkaya in the book.
[5:09]You need some girlfriends on,
[5:10]because they're forever, without a vow.
[5:13]A clutch of women is the most tender,
[5:14]most tough fleece on earth.
[5:18]It's true, girlfriends are so essential.
[5:20]They are, and we have a very strong genetic propensity
[5:25]does not just that we like to be with girls.
[5:27]It's all of our ancestors, all primates live
[5:32]in this type of society with a group of females,
[5:34]but troop of baboons.
[5:36]And so we have the genetic propensity for that.
[5:39]It's not just something we've thought up on our own.
[5:42]It's very strongly written in our genes.
[5:45]And we feel it deeply when we're isolated
[5:48]from that type of group.
[5:50]And what amazed me was when I came back from Africa
[5:53]after living in remote settings.
[5:55]I'd come back and visit my friends in the cities
[5:57]and find out that some of them in today's world
[6:01]felt just as isolated as I did.
[6:04]They might live in a city with a million people,
[6:06]but they didn't have that strong group anymore,
[6:09]the kind that I have when I was growing up.
[6:12]So I think a lot of people experience loneliness
[6:15]and abandonment and rejection.
[6:19]And so I felt that that was a story
[6:22]that a lot of people might be interested in reading
[6:24]is how to deal with this.
[6:25]Absolutely.
[6:26]I guess you were right, huh?
[6:28]I'm feeling now like I should be making more time
[6:31]for girls dinners than I have been.
[6:33]I feel like as a mom, one of the first things I cut out
[6:36]is like, well, I don't have time to see my girlfriends.
[6:38]I'll, you know, I'll do that another time.
[6:40]I have to be with my kids or this or that
[6:42]or working or something.
[6:43]But I feel like you've just given me an excuse
[6:46]to do what I want with my friends.
[6:50]Well, it's not just fun, it's very important.
[6:52]It's very important for the companionship.
[6:55]Our ancestors survived because they had a group.
[6:59]You know, single mom in the wilderness of Africa,
[7:03]it doesn't last as long as a group.
[7:06]And so the best of all,
[7:09]okay, so to be with your girlfriends
[7:10]and the children all together.
[7:11]I mean, that's what's normal.
[7:13]Right, that makes sense.
[7:15]So you had this, you had the, you have ring the kids.
[7:18]Yeah.
[7:19]So you had this revelation, you know, connecting
[7:22]women's friendships in the wild.
[7:25]And you wanted to talk about that in a novel.
[7:27]And yet you came up with this amazing storyline
[7:30]with different characters and drama and courthouse scenes.
[7:34]And how did you get from step one to step two?
[7:38]Like how did you make that happen?
[7:40]I was determined to write something that would be
[7:43]very readable and exciting.
[7:45]I'm terrified of boring the reader.
[7:47]I don't want the reader to be bored.
[7:49]So I knew there had to be a lot of things happening.
[7:52]And I actually came up with the ending.
[7:54]I don't remember where I was or how,
[7:57]but I came up with that ending and I thought,
[8:00]wow, I have to write a book that fits the ending.
[8:03]And she said, I didn't start there literally
[8:06]and write backwards, but I knew how I wanted it to end.
[8:10]And then I started at the beginning and again,
[8:13]rating a story with the different characters together
[8:16]that could lead to that ending.
[8:18]And I wanted to have a mystery that would have clues.
[8:23]The clues are hidden in all sorts of strange places
[8:26]within the story.
[8:28]And I wanted to bring that part into it.
[8:31]A mystery that someone could solve, the clues are there.
[8:35]If you go back and read, I've had readers go back
[8:37]and read the second time and they say,
[8:39]I can't believe how you just told us everything.
[8:42]The clues are there, but they're hidden
[8:44]and they don't see them sometimes until the end.
[8:47]Yeah, I was tempted to reread it.
[8:49]I was literally sitting there next to my husband
[8:51]and I kept grabbing him and I'm like,
[8:52]oh my gosh, this is just happening.
[8:53]Oh my gosh, I shall never believe the outcome.
[8:57]I couldn't believe it.
[8:58]If you go back and read it again,
[9:00]you will find that the clues are there.
[9:02]And the way you write is so vivid and expressive.
[9:05]It's truly unique, the way, the analogies even that you use.
[9:10]This one time you wrote,
[9:12]when you were talking about Kaya venturing into town
[9:13]to go grocery shopping, you say,
[9:15]mostly the village seemed tired of arguing
[9:17]with the elements and simply sagged.
[9:20]And that was after all the other ways
[9:21]you described the village.
[9:22]And I thought that simple sentence was so perfect, right?
[9:25]It's just like captured everything you wanted to say
[9:27]about that town, the reader instantly knows.
[9:29]What you're talking about and you can see it in your head.
[9:32]Have you always been able to just write so lyrically
[9:35]does it something that comes naturally to you
[9:37]or something you've had to practice?
[9:40]I tried to write nonfiction that way as well.
[9:43]And I think I did to a certain extent.
[9:45]It's more limited when you write nonfiction.
[9:48]But I love that type of writing.
[9:50]And you have to be careful because I don't think as a reader,
[9:54]I don't like to read too much description.
[9:56]You know, I like putting too much sugar in your coffee or your tea.
[10:00]You don't want, there's a fine line, I just don't like a book that has too much description.
[10:06]It's getting the right words, not a lot of words, but the right words.
[10:11]And so I worked on that, and it took me years to write this, because I didn't just sit
[10:16]down and write it and wouldn't go.
[10:17]I worked on it all in and off.
[10:19]And over the years I found myself improving, I think, getting better at writing descriptions.
[10:25]I love that part of it.
[10:27]How long did it take to write?
[10:30]I'm embarrassed to say this.
[10:31]No, don't be embarrassed.
[10:32]I worked on it for 10 years, but I had another job.
[10:38]I mean, I was back from Africa, but I still have a project going on in Africa, just
[10:44]doing fundraising and doing conservation work here in the United States.
[10:48]So I had a day job, and again, living in the wilderness, but it was a job.
[10:53]And so I would get up at 4 or 30 every morning to write on this book.
[10:58]And then I would get discouraged after a year or so, and I'd put it away.
[11:03]Sometimes I put it away for a couple of years.
[11:05]So it's not like I was working on it for 10 years, but over a period of 10 years I worked
[11:11]on it.
[11:12]And I actually think putting it away and letting it rest so to speak helped.
[11:18]Because then you go back to, when I go back to a doctor, I think I had, I was a bit of
[11:22]judge of what was actually working and what wasn't working.
[11:25]And then you finished writing your book and sent it out and tell me what happened next.
[11:29]Oh, well, oh gosh.
[11:31]Really?
[11:32]Yeah.
[11:33]I want to know.
[11:34]Do you mind?
[11:35]Do you mind?
[11:36]I'm curious.
[11:37]Well, I'd published three co-author, three nonfiction books, so I thought, well, I'll
[11:45]just send it to those people.
[11:46]Well, it's taken me so long to get this written that honestly most of those people
[11:52]were retired and moved on.
[11:55]And so I felt myself in that cold world of not having an agent or a publisher.
[12:03]And then I sent, so I sent it out to some of the agents that I'd had.
[12:08]I sent it out to the agent that I'd had from a very first book, a wonderful man named
[12:13]Peter Matson.
[12:15]And he said, he said, I love this story.
[12:18]He said, I'm not going to be the one to represent this to publishers because I'm almost
[12:24]retired, but I'd love to help you edit it.
[12:26]And he took many, many months to help edit it for me.
[12:31]And he said, OK, now it's ready to send it out.
[12:33]And I just thought that was beautiful for him to come back and help me knowing he was not
[12:38]going to be involved with the publication of it.
[12:41]That's amazing.
[12:42]And so from there, like everybody else, I got the writer's market off the shelf and
[12:46]started sending it cold calls to other agents within a few days.
[12:51]I got a great agent, Russell Galen, and he came back and he said, OK, this is it.
[12:55]We're going.
[12:56]And he sent it out.
[12:58]I got five publishers who wanted to publish it.
[13:01]And so from then it was just a wonderful, you know, happened pretty fast.
[13:07]But it had been very slow up for that point.
[13:10]And then next thing you know, it's come out and Reese Witherspoon picked it as her, you
[13:15]know, book club pick.
[13:16]Right.
[13:17]How did you respond to that?
[13:18]Did you know who Reese Witherspoon was?
[13:19]Like, do you watch TV?
[13:20]I knew who she was as an actress.
[13:23]I do not watch TV.
[13:24]I haven't seen that TV program that apparently doing great.
[13:28]It's a great show.
[13:29]I haven't.
[13:30]But I've seen, I knew her as an actress, and I didn't even really know she had a book
[13:34]club.
[13:35]But then once my book came out, I started paying attention to things like that.
[13:38]So I did know that she had it.
[13:41]And my editor called me one day, and I have to say that my editor, my partner has just
[13:45]been the greatest publishing house to work with.
[13:48]I just have such a great relationship with them.
[13:50]And my editor called to say that Reese had chosen my book for the September book of the
[13:55]month.
[13:56]Did you get out the champagne?
[13:57]Oh, yes.
[13:58]I did.
[13:59]And seriously, the next week I was in the best summer list.
[14:04]Wow.
[14:05]It's amazing.
[14:06]And so it meant so much to me, how it was so true.
[14:08]I'm just feeling so grateful.
[14:11]I'm obviously, I'm excited and happy about how well the book is being received.
[14:16]But I also just feel so grateful for so many people have helped to make this happen.
[14:21]You don't do it by yourself.
[14:23]And I feel like being an author today, you have to do a fair amount of self-promotion,
[14:28]right?
[14:29]Like, you have to be willing to hit the road and go out and do the tours and post on
[14:34]be on social media and all that.
[14:35]Are you comfortable with all of that?
[14:37]Oh my gosh.
[14:38]I thought that I just refused at first to go on social media.
[14:41]I'd never been on social media.
[14:42]I had no idea what, how to do it.
[14:45]And they kept encouraging me, hopefully they forced me.
[14:51]And so I tried it and I can understand why people like it because you have this instant
[14:57]connection with people who read the book.
[14:59]And I don't have time to do a lot of.
[15:02]I still don't understand.
[15:03]Most of all, I know that probably half the things I put on there end up somewhere else.
[15:06]I don't know.
[15:07]But it's been very fun to connect with people who are reading the book and at that part
[15:12]I've enjoyed.
[15:13]I have to say, and I know we briefly about this at the start.
[15:17]But when I like to have the ability to say that you're reading someone's book and have
[15:22]that actual author write you and be like, hey, I'm so glad you're reading my book.
[15:26]For me as a reader, that is just the coolest thing.
[15:29]Every time that happens with any author, just I get such a thrill.
[15:33]I'm sure other readers feel the same way and it's nice to hear how it is from the
[15:37]author side as well.
[15:38]I get the same feeling as a thrill and I love sometimes when you'll see a discussion going
[15:42]along between two readers, you know, well, about what they thought was ending and you
[15:47]know, and you come in and say, and you could come in and put your tears in.
[15:51]That's amazing.
[15:52]And no one can argue with you.
[15:55]You also incorporated a lot of poetry.
[15:58]Are you a big fan of poetry?
[16:00]Some of the poems, let me just read one or two.
[16:02]If you wrote this Galway canal poem from Moz book, the Kaya finds and it says, I have
[16:08]to say, I'm relieved it's over.
[16:09]At the end, I could only fill pity for that urge toward more life.
[16:12]Goodbye.
[16:13]And then you have the Amanda Hamilton, many, many poems, but the one that she first reads,
[16:18]trapped inside love is a caged beast eating its own flesh.
[16:22]Love must be free to wander to land upon its chosen shore and breathe.
[16:25]So tell me about your relationship to poetry.
[16:27]Are you a big fan?
[16:29]Do you like to write poetry yourself?
[16:30]I do.
[16:31]I've written poetry all my life.
[16:33]I'm not saying I'm good at it at all, but I find it, it was just come to my mind a lot
[16:38]and I feel a lot when I write poetry.
[16:42]And I feel that the words themselves can be so inspiring to readers.
[16:50]People who love good prose and literature, even if they don't have time or the inclination
[16:57]to read poetry, I think when they do read a verse, they feel a lot.
[17:04]That was the number one thing I wanted about this book is I wanted people to feel.
[17:09]And I think poetry makes you feel.
[17:11]And you can say, you can get your thoughts into a few words.
[17:16]And you can do it in a way that it's like putting a drug straight into your bloodstream.
[17:22]You have to read a whole novel sometimes to feel certain things and get the point.
[17:29]But a poem can say so much in a few words.
[17:32]And I think that's the reason it's so powerful.
[17:34]This is great.
[17:35]You speak the way you write.
[17:37]You speak just as beautifully with so many.
[17:39]No, you have so many analogies and ways for me to conjure up like visually what you're
[17:44]saying.
[17:45]It's perfect.
[17:47]I don't feel that way, but no, it's true.
[17:50]You do the same your website too.
[17:51]I felt like I didn't want to stop reading your website where it's usually just very
[17:57]functional copy years was you even gave away the first two chapters or parts of them on
[18:02]your website, which I thought was really unusual, but really great.
[18:05]Well, thank you.
[18:06]Yeah, I was new with all that learning.
[18:11]So you've had this amazing success.
[18:13]I'm sure you're just riding the way for a while.
[18:15]Do you have ambitions to write another book?
[18:17]Do you feel like you finally checked this off your list?
[18:19]How do you feel about about writing books at this point?
[18:22]Oh, I definitely.
[18:23]I've started another one.
[18:24]I have an idea for another one.
[18:25]I want to continue where the crawdad's seeing is a socio-biological drama.
[18:33]It's a drama, a story, a thriller, a murder mystery, a love story, but also it asks some
[18:42]very serious questions about why humans behave the way we do.
[18:48]That is the central theme.
[18:50]And I want to continue with that theme.
[18:52]I want to write another book that's also a drama, a love story, and I don't know if
[18:58]there'll be some sort of mystery, some sort of compelling story, but with some serious
[19:04]questions.
[19:05]And I have to say that I'm a little bit disappointed that right now there's so much
[19:10]going on with this book, which I'm thrilled about, but it's a little bit harder to sit
[19:15]down and get into the zone of writing, which I'm lucky I can find that zone and get into
[19:21]that zone, but it's a little bit difficult right now.
[19:24]But I'm trying not to be too hard on myself.
[19:27]I should give myself some time to enjoy this book, but I am working on the second one.
[19:32]That's exciting.
[19:33]I think you definitely owe yourself a little time to kick back and soak it up.
[19:38]Thank you.
[19:39]Thank you very much.
[19:41]I appreciate that.
[19:43]So for aspiring writers out there, and I know we talked a little bit about your transition
[19:47]of fiction, but what advice would you give?
[19:50]What if there's someone out there who also has just an ending in mind the way you did?
[19:53]What would you say to those people?
[19:54]What advice about the whole road to publication and writing and everything?
[19:58]The most important thing is that you have to buy.
[20:00]leave, and everyone will tell you how difficult it is, and it is difficult.
[20:05]The writing is difficult, the process is difficult, then getting someone to read it.
[20:11]Never mind finding an agent is getting an agent to read it, because there are so many
[20:15]manuscripts that follow their desk every day.
[20:18]So you have to believe in it, and you have to really work at it.
[20:22]You know, get up for 30 every morning and work on it, and it just takes a huge amount
[20:28]of work.
[20:29]But you can't let that stress interfere with your creative.
[20:33]It's being creative that visually connects with another person.
[20:41]You know, words don't necessarily connect.
[20:43]It's the creative words that speak to someone, and it's real important to try to get
[20:48]to that place within your own heart that you feel like that you have this that you
[20:55]want to say, and you want somebody to listen.
[20:58]And when you start feeling that, when I wrote, it was almost like I had the reader sitting
[21:04]in the chair next to me, and I was always saying, okay, I do not want to bore the reader.
[21:10]I don't want to confuse the reader.
[21:12]I'm very, very conscious of the reader when I write, and I think that's sort of a cue
[21:18]to people to keep in mind, don't forget the reader.
[21:22]Absolutely.
[21:23]That's my advice.
[21:24]That's good advice.
[21:25]So are you involved?
[21:27]I'm sure this is going to be a movie.
[21:29]Is there what can you say about that?
[21:32]Nothing.
[21:33]Okay.
[21:34]All right.
[21:36]I'm sorry.
[21:37]I just said, I just thought you never know.
[21:40]You never know.
[21:42]Well, it was so nice chatting with you.
[21:46]I loved your book and it was so just transported into the whole marshland and all the characters
[21:54]and I feel like it gave me this whole other experience as a, you know, as I'm living here
[21:59]in the middle of Manhattan and New York City and just to be able to escape just by opening
[22:04]a book into the world that you painted for me was a real treat.
[22:08]So thank you for that.
[22:09]Well, thank you, Zibi.
[22:10]It's been so nice to meet you on Instagram.
[22:14]I never thought I'd say that to anybody, but it's been so fun.
[22:17]And a nice talk to you now.
[22:20]I really appreciate your support and good to see you, Adam.
[22:24]I really appreciate your time.
[22:26]Thanks so much.
[22:27]Okay.
[22:28]I can't take care.
[22:29]Bye-bye.