Sarah McColl, Author of JOY ENOUGH
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:28]I'm really excited to be here today with Sarah McCall,
[0:31]the author of Joy Enough.
[0:33]Sarah was the founding editor of Yahoo Food.
[0:36]She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence and was a McDowell fellow.
[0:40]She was also nominated for a push guard prize.
[0:42]Sarah's work has been published in House Beautiful, Bon Appetit,
[0:45]the Paris Review, McSweenies, ModernLoss.com,
[0:48]and other publications.
[0:49]She currently lives in Los Angeles.
[0:51]So welcome, Sarah.
[0:52]Thanks so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:55]Thank you for having me.
[0:57]It's such a pleasure.
[0:57]I just finished your book because I was telling you,
[0:59]and I have a million things to ask you and I'm so excited that you're here.
[1:03]So thanks so much for coming.
[1:04]You're my first interview.
[1:05]So yes, so I'm very excited to.
[1:07]I'm very gentle.
[1:08]I'll be very kind.
[1:10]And you were a good way to start.
[1:12]So can you start by just telling listeners what Joy Enough is about?
[1:16]Yeah.
[1:17]I felt growing up like I was compared to my mom a lot.
[1:20]Probably this is a common experience for girls,
[1:23]but people, whether they were family members or my mom's friends,
[1:26]would say you're just like your mother,
[1:29]or you look just like your mother.
[1:31]And I had this curiosity about,
[1:34]well, what does that mean?
[1:34]Like who is my mother?
[1:36]So on one hand, it's kind of about the desire to figure out
[1:42]who my mother is outside her role as my mother.
[1:45]Who is my mother as a person?
[1:47]Who is my mother as a woman, as a friend, to her friends?
[1:51]And so I was always asking her growing up,
[1:54]what were you like when you were my age,
[1:56]when I was in elementary school, and when I was in high school,
[1:59]and when I was in college.
[2:00]But the answers were sort of unsatisfying.
[2:04]And when I write, I think there is usually some sort of thing
[2:08]I want to know, there's like a quest of discovery to it.
[2:11]So I think I just wanted to find out, well,
[2:15]who is my mother?
[2:16]Who was she?
[2:17]And as a result, what does that mean about who I am?
[2:21]And how are we different as women and as people?
[2:26]So that's part of what it's about.
[2:27]It's also about her getting cancer
[2:31]when I was in my early 30s.
[2:33]And really, that being an opportunity for us
[2:36]to talk about the big things in life,
[2:39]because that was always very much our relationship was getting
[2:43]to the meat of it.
[2:44]She wasn't a small talk person.
[2:46]So cooking for her and spending time with her at her house
[2:49]and just trying to figure out, well, what does life mean?
[2:52]And what does our relationship mean?
[2:54]And yeah, it's awesome.
[2:56]And you also went through a divorce around the same time.
[2:59]Yeah.
[3:00]With sort of you, you're almost coming of age.
[3:03]Yes, yes.
[3:05]Yeah, it's divorce.
[3:07]It's my divorce.
[3:08]It's her divorce.
[3:09]It's love.
[3:10]It's men.
[3:11]It's sex.
[3:12]But really at the core of it, I think, is our story
[3:15]on a relationship between a mother and a daughter
[3:17]and two women.
[3:18]And it's so lovely to put that at the center, also,
[3:22]because we're so used to seeing romantic tales
[3:26]as kind of the central narrative of a woman's life.
[3:30]And this is a love story in a way.
[3:32]I mean, I really loved my mother
[3:34]and our relationship was very intimate,
[3:36]but it is between women.
[3:38]So it felt that felt good.
[3:40]I didn't mean to suggest it was really about her.
[3:42]Oh, no, not at all.
[3:43]I know it's really about you, man.
[3:45]And that was amazing.
[3:46]It's just adding that.
[3:47]But I'll let you do what's done.
[3:49]It's an important detail.
[3:50]I mean, just because a lot of the time,
[3:52]I feel like the threads of your own life were going through.
[3:55]Yeah.
[3:56]I mean, how can they not?
[3:57]Right.
[3:58]Well, anyway, so I found your writing style
[4:01]to be absolutely amazing.
[4:03]I kept, so I have your book here.
[4:06]I kept like dog-hearing pages and being like, oh,
[4:08]that was such a beautiful expression.
[4:10]And I would stop and reread it.
[4:12]The writing, I don't know how you mastered.
[4:14]I'm going to read a few examples.
[4:15]So thank you so much.
[4:17]So when you were talking about your mom's family
[4:19]as a description, this just like sums everything up.
[4:21]You wrote, her father shook the ice in his bourbon and ginger
[4:24]as well.
[4:24]He told jokes at a dinner table tight
[4:26]with seven plates of spaghetti.
[4:28]I mean, you're like right there.
[4:30]You're like, you don't have to tell how many.
[4:32]Similarly, like everything.
[4:34]Then you were on a walk and you said,
[4:35]there were no cars on the road.
[4:36]And the hem of my skirt fluttered at my knees
[4:38]and the humid breeze.
[4:40]The sound of fireworks in the distance.
[4:41]Here, fireflies.
[4:43]I wanted to tie myself up in his arms
[4:45]and he wanted to be the rope.
[4:46]I mean, these are the you.
[4:50]When you're in the car later, you wrote,
[4:51]we spent the rest of the summer at this about your mom.
[4:53]We spent the rest of the summer driving the long way places.
[4:56]And when we arrived, sat in parking spaces
[4:58]with our seat belts on.
[5:00]Yeah.
[5:01]I love talking in the car.
[5:02]Oh, like, those are the best conversations.
[5:05]Totally.
[5:06]But like, you just, you didn't have to,
[5:08]there's so much you didn't have to say.
[5:10]Yeah.
[5:11]I'm not explaining this very well, but.
[5:12]No, you are.
[5:13]I mean, it's like what you're leaving out.
[5:15]But the words you're choosing and the visuals say more
[5:20]than it was, it was a warm summer day.
[5:22]And we took a lot of cards when we were on our way
[5:24]to the doctor and did it out.
[5:26]We put off and stuff.
[5:27]Like, I feel like right now, I was like, you know,
[5:29]I often found myself did it again.
[5:30]You're just like, boom, in it.
[5:32]And your last one that I wanted to read,
[5:33]which really, I don't know.
[5:35]It was like almost like sexual in the sense.
[5:37]You're on an airplane.
[5:39]You said, I fished my fingers inside the slit
[5:41]of the shiny pouch and looked down at Brown, Colorado,
[5:44]rugged as a cowboy's callous hand.
[5:46]That was about opening a bag of peanuts.
[5:49]I never thought about it before, but it is kind of sexual.
[5:51]I was like, whoa.
[5:53]I mean, yikes.
[5:55]I'll never open a bag of pretzels and see why again.
[5:58]I'm like, I don't know.
[6:00]So I have about your writing itself.
[6:02]Did you learn to write like this?
[6:04]Has this always been your style?
[6:05]I know you've gotten an MFA and all of that,
[6:07]but tell me about that more.
[6:08]Well, no, I mean, the short answer is no.
[6:11]I don't think I always wrote like this per se,
[6:15]but I've always loved poetry.
[6:17]I think back, like one of the most formative writing
[6:20]experiences for me in my life was 730 English class
[6:25]with Catherine Lant, shot up to Catherine Lant
[6:28]to 100 in Central High School.
[6:30]I remember she read us this Marie Hal poem.
[6:33]If you read any Marie Hal, she's wonderful.
[6:35]And she's actually the reason I first went to Sarah Lawrence,
[6:38]even though I'm not a poet and she's a poet,
[6:40]but I just thought, well, I want to be at whatever school
[6:43]she's at.
[6:44]But it was this poem about, it's called What the Living Do.
[6:47]And I just had tears in my eyes, 730 in the morning.
[6:52]And I think I've just always loved poetry.
[6:55]So I started writing poetry.
[6:57]I've always read a lot of poetry.
[6:58]And that image sort of like Carl young database of like,
[7:03]you say an image and it's so resonant.
[7:08]Everyone knows what it feels like to click the seat belt in
[7:12]and be in the car beside someone.
[7:14]So if I say that, I don't have to go on and on and say,
[7:18]we felt so close together side by side.
[7:21]It's like, you've been there.
[7:22]You know what it feels like.
[7:24]But I have a very visual memory as well.
[7:26]So I think I was trying to make the most of that.
[7:29]Because I'll remember, oh, I remember that day.
[7:32]And so when I was wearing a red scarf and the sun was really
[7:36]bright, so I like writing in that very visual way.
[7:39]And I think you're right.
[7:40]It does kind of do a lot of the work for you.
[7:43]There's a lot I don't have to say.
[7:46]I mean, that's to say you're like a short cutting this book.
[7:48]And then you know, it's brilliant.
[7:50]It's like, it's really, I felt like I hadn't read anything
[7:53]similar since the year of magical thinking by Jonditian.
[7:55]I mean, like, I'm done.
[7:58]Thank you.
[7:58]I can walk out now.
[7:59]And my work here is done.
[8:03]No, that's the best compliment in my world.
[8:05]I love her.
[8:06]I love her.
[8:07]I mean, he doesn't know.
[8:08]She's great.
[8:09]My other question, joy enough as a title.
[8:11]Yeah.
[8:12]What were your other, like, top three?
[8:15]Did you have any other components?
[8:17]Yes.
[8:18]The title is really hard for me.
[8:19]I think I'm good at titles for essays.
[8:22]They always come really easily to me.
[8:24]I'm happy with them.
[8:26]But this was really hard because I felt like it's somehow had
[8:30]to encapsulate everything, but how do you encapsulate everything?
[8:34]So there were other contenders.
[8:36]I really loved the joy of death because I thought it played on the joy of sex and the
[8:43]joy of cooking, both of which are prominent in the book.
[8:49]But I think from a marketing standpoint, it's like people want to read about death, but
[8:56]they need to be, they need to maybe take the back door into death.
[9:01]So yeah.
[9:03]That was a contender.
[9:04]What else?
[9:05]Oh.
[9:06]When I wrote it as the very first version, it had some very long, garbled, pretentious title,
[9:15]like the life and death of celestial objects or something.
[9:18]You know, it's like, oh my God, get a grip.
[9:21]So yeah, it was hard.
[9:22]It was really hard.
[9:23]But I think I, you know, you start looking at poetry and you start looking at quotes.
[9:28]And this is from Emily Dickinson Letter.
[9:31]She says, the mere sense of living is joy enough.
[9:34]So I think that felt like that's, that's pretty much it.
[9:37]That, that feels right.
[9:38]That's awesome.
[9:39]And I love this cover too.
[9:40]It's like simple yellow cover with these little dots.
[9:43]Anyway.
[9:44]Isn't it so transcribing in a case anyone happens to be wondering through a bookstore right
[9:47]now?
[9:48]I love it.
[9:49]I think they did such a great job.
[9:50]But they did.
[9:51]It's really awesome.
[9:52]So your mom gives you a lot of great advice throughout the book, including about parenting
[9:56]itself.
[9:57]And at one point, she says, there is no reward in the end.
[9:59]My mother said it.
[10:00]parenting. The only reward ever is ongoing. It must be the day itself, which really hit home
[10:06]for me with four kids, because sometimes I'm like, well, I know this Saturday is really long
[10:11]and we're running place-to-place, but like, if not for this, then what? Like, this is what it's
[10:14]all about is days like today. Like, how do you feel like your mom's advice on parenting really
[10:19]hit home for you? Well, she had four kids too, right? So yeah, the idea that there's no award.
[10:26]You know, you're not going to get a medal, right? It's not like, I think that, you know, I don't
[10:31]have kids, but I sometimes sort of jokingly call this book, my firstborn. And I think that it relates
[10:39]to writing and for me in the sense that, and really everything, and not just parenting, but
[10:44]everything, writing just like, approaching day-to-day life. The pleasure, I have to find pleasure in
[10:51]the work. Great. Like, this is so amazing getting to sit here with you, and I'm so excited to go
[10:57]to a party later and celebrate the book coming out. But that is a sort of version of an award,
[11:05]or like, you know, the award in the end. And as much as possible, I think it's so important to
[11:12]enjoy the doing and the process of things. We live in such results-oriented culture and a product
[11:20]oriented culture. So I think writing is so much like life and parenting, where it's like,
[11:26]are you in it? Are you enjoying the doing? I mean, if you're not, God, like, what's the point?
[11:31]Why were we, why bother, right? Totally. Yeah. I had coffee with a girlfriend the other day,
[11:36]and we're both trying to write novels. And I was telling her how, like, stressed I was,
[11:42]and she was talking about it. And then I was like, you know, I realized the other day, like,
[11:45]I don't have to do this. Yeah. Like, nobody's sitting out there waiting for my book.
[11:49]Nobody asked me to write a book. I'm not like, you know, Michelle Obama. Like, if I don't want
[11:54]to do it, I don't have to do it. I'm not going to stress it. Like, if I'm not enjoying it,
[11:58]why am I doing this? Like, what is it for? So I feel like same thing with kids, really. I mean,
[12:03]it's like, I chose to have kids. I'm choosing to do these things, but it still doesn't always make
[12:07]it like stress free. But I don't want to say it's not your, you're not going to remember that
[12:11]every second of every day. But when you can remember it, it's powerful. I have this friend who says,
[12:17]you literally don't have to do anything you don't want to do. And it's like, well, that's kind of
[12:22]not true. I mean, we have to do our taxes and stuff. But for the most part, it's pretty true.
[12:27]Like, you can just decide, why am I doing this thing? I don't want to do. Yeah. I don't have to.
[12:32]Yeah. I'm an adult. I could just turn this podcast off. Yeah. Come on.
[12:35]Get out here. Let it marry. Let me out. Let me out.
[12:39]Oh, my gosh, too. Okay. So your mother also said about parenting,
[12:42]my last parenting question about your mom, which is another example of your beautiful writing.
[12:46]You said introduced to the cocktail party or turning to a fellow dinner guest.
[12:50]She could see the boredom in their eyes when she said she was a mother. But hers was the real
[12:54]work. She thought the kind that defines a civilization. Her materials were empty toilet paper rolls
[12:58]smeared in peanut butter, rolled in bird seed and hung from the honeysuckle bush outside the dining
[13:03]room window. So beautiful. Thank you. I feel like I used to feel that same way when I was like,
[13:08]it didn't party and my twins were really little. And I was like, yeah, I'm a mom and mom.
[13:12]They're like, okay. Now what do I have to talk about? Right. Right. But what she was saying,
[13:17]like, and then she went on to say even how she was like, sort of anticipating her depression
[13:22]when her kids were going to, right, kids meeting you. But her kids were going to leave the nest.
[13:26]Yeah. And she was like mourning it before it even happened, which I think is sort of one of
[13:30]these crazy parts about parenting. Like, you know, it's ending. Well, life to, I mean, not just
[13:35]parenting. Like, as you go through, it's like, oh, it's way to sort of ending. And I don't know.
[13:40]I, a friend of mine over the summer started calling it the fleetings. Like, your sense that I,
[13:45]yes, for me, it started happening in my 30s where it's like, you know, I'll be walking down the street
[13:52]and the leaves look a certain way. And I feel happier or whatever. But all of a sudden, I'm just
[13:57]seized by the most incredible sort of bitter sweep. But like, pain and happiness that like, this
[14:04]moment is so great. I'll never have it again. And I'm going to die. So I'm not the only one.
[14:11]No, no, you're not. So the fleetings. Yeah. I love that. The fleetings. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, that's
[14:16]that's the best. I'm going to like think about that next time. That's amazing. Let's shift gears
[14:22]a tiny bit and talk about food because I know food editor started the, you know, yeah, who food
[14:27]thing and cooking in this book was such an important piece of the book. How you cooked for your mom
[14:32]and you were like determined that she wouldn't lose weight. And yeah, her body was sort of
[14:36]fighting against retaining food at all. And you said sort of how cooking helps you. You said,
[14:42]cooking was a meditation. I thought it anchored me in my body. Here was my hand holding a knife
[14:46]slicing through celery. Here I was standing on the black in my kitchen tile of my first department
[14:51]in Brooklyn, listening to records, making dinner. Here I was, I thought, living. So I feel like you,
[14:55]well, tell me, you tell me, how does cooking help you? It's so embodied, you know, I feel like
[15:02]I can be in my head a lot. Probably as you are too. Yes, we have a case of the fleetings. So kids
[15:09]or cooking or anything that makes you feel really in your body and kind of getting out of your
[15:15]head, I think can be so such a powerful way to return to the moment. So yeah, it's like, it's kind of
[15:23]like knitting maybe too where it's like, you know, you're slicing an onion. It takes enough of your
[15:28]concentration that you're sort of present for it. But it is that meditative sort of like
[15:34]a little bit of attention so that your mind doesn't get busy, but also a kind of placid attention.
[15:42]So yeah, cooking for me just like really, it's not just that it's embodied. It's so sensory too,
[15:47]you know, it's like the smells and the colors of, I love a farmer's market. Like the French breakfast
[15:53]radishes and, you know, that crazy cold Robbie or whatever the things are. It's just like,
[15:58]it's such a feast of of the senses and it just really helps me be present. But at the same time,
[16:06]I think especially working in food media, I used to kind of glorify food in this way. Like it
[16:12]took on an outsized kind of importance in my life, you know, as my daily life felt a little bit
[16:19]unsatisfying, you know, commuting and, you know, like email and whatever the daily life stuff
[16:25]is suddenly like dinner takes on this incredible importance. It's like, okay, well, today sucked or
[16:32]it was hard, but like I'm going to make the most incredible thing. And it's a lot of pressure, you
[16:39]know, and I think about women who are, you know, trying to not just women, but like it often
[16:44]ends up being the woman who is trying to like put it dinner on the table five nights a week or
[16:49]after working, raising kids, whatever. It's like this extra pressure. So I kind of ended up finding a
[16:57]middle ground with food where it doesn't have to be such a big deal, you know, I'll make a big
[17:02]pot of beans and we'll have tacos, you know, it doesn't have to be a big production. And I think
[17:08]that was kind of finding, again, back to this idea of like being present in the moment,
[17:14]joining the process as opposed to putting all this pressure on an end product.
[17:19]Do you miss of being in the food business side of things like the food world, the food like
[17:24]reporting and all that? I mean, I miss like comp dinner or like getting invited to to come and
[17:32]sample all the cocktails at some place with great pizza. But no, I mean, what I love about,
[17:38]I feel like I could still be in it as much as I as I want to. And what I've always loved about
[17:43]food writing, like I love MFK Fisher, I love Amanda Hesseur, I love Ruthie's. I love all these
[17:49]writers, Laurie Cohen, you know, so any kind of entry point to talking about what matters,
[17:57]like all I ever want to do is really talk about love, meaning of life, sex, that's based art.
[18:04]It's like art, love, sex, the meaning of life. That's all I really want to talk about. So if food
[18:08]can be a way into those and it often is in like the beautiful food writing, then yeah, I miss it,
[18:14]I'm all for it. I want as much as possible in my life. So after your, I keep jumping around,
[18:22]I'm sorry, but there's like so much I wanted to find out. So that demise of your marriage
[18:26]sort of dovetail the whole timeline of your mother's illness. And then after she passes away,
[18:32]you go into this new phase where you're more exploratory and, you know,
[18:36]caten around. Okay, caten around, thank you. And you wrote, pleasure became the escape hatch
[18:41]of my grief. I loosened the valve in me that had been turned right tight and my skin became my
[18:46]sail, directing me toward an island of belief. I mean, literally every time I read one of these
[18:52]sentences, I don't usually read this much, like this many quotes, but I'm sorry, I just have to
[18:56]like keep reading. So that turned to pleasure and all that. Did you feel like that helped,
[19:02]like, can anything really help after a period of loss like this? Like, do you regret it? Are you
[19:07]happy about it? How do you feel about it? I think it did. This is a great question. I think it did
[19:13]help in the sense that I was so into all my feelings, you know, we were talking about feeling things
[19:20]deeply. And I was so feeling my grief and so deep in my grief that it kind of, I thought it was
[19:28]great to like go completely to the opposite and really feel pleasure or excitement. You know,
[19:37]in the book, I had this friend who says, I think it's great that like you're dating, you know,
[19:43]what are you going to do? Feel the full weight of your sadness. And I was feeling the full weight
[19:48]of my sadness, but it also created space to like, I think grief kind of expands you or any kind
[19:56]of emotional experience, expands you. And so...
[20:00]There was room, okay, to feel some good stuff too.
[20:03]And also I've been married all through my 20s, you know?
[20:07]And I was roasting chickens when I guess other people
[20:11]were going out.
[20:12]So yeah, it was fun.
[20:14]I thought it was really fun.
[20:16]It seemed to me that actually like,
[20:18]oh, this is the great time to be dating
[20:20]when I'm a confident 30-something woman.
[20:23]I don't feel as attached to these situations
[20:27]or looking for some kind of validation
[20:29]that might be otherwise.
[20:30]So yeah, I thought it was fun.
[20:32]Tell you about things that can help.
[20:35]You just wrote this modern-loss article,
[20:38]which is so beautiful.
[20:39]Thanks.
[20:39]And as we were just talking,
[20:40]Rebecca Silver was on my podcast in the past,
[20:43]and she was amazing too.
[20:44]Yes.
[20:45]In your article, first of all, you say to your mom,
[20:47]like you're talking about how you feel things
[20:50]so deeply and your mom says to you,
[20:52]you feel things very deeply.
[20:53]Your highs will be higher and your lows will be lower.
[20:56]And I literally like jump back from the screen
[20:58]and I really like, because my mother says the same thing
[21:00]to me all the time.
[21:02]So I was like, can't wait to talk to her.
[21:03]So this sort of extreme highs and lows,
[21:06]how do you think this experience of emotions makes you,
[21:11]how do you think it informs your writing in particular?
[21:14]And then also, how does it make you feel the grief
[21:16]even that much more intensely?
[21:18]Yeah.
[21:19]I mean, so it's weird writing a memoir, right?
[21:22]I mean, you're like, here are my guts on the page
[21:25]or here's my experience on the page.
[21:27]And I think on the one hand, it's very exposing.
[21:33]But on the other hand, I think emotional experience
[21:37]is so universal that it's not like I feel like something
[21:41]is really being revealed that's so private.
[21:44]It actually is like, oh, well, you know what I'm talking about,
[21:46]right?
[21:47]And that's what's so satisfying when you write
[21:50]about an emotional experience is having people say,
[21:53]oh, yeah, I got it.
[21:55]I felt that or thanks for putting
[21:56]into words, something that I felt.
[21:58]So I mean, I feel like it's so,
[22:01]I almost don't even know how to say it's
[22:03]and how it's informed my writing
[22:05]because I just feel like emotion,
[22:07]my writing is so saturated with emotion in some ways.
[22:11]Like even those images that you're mentioned,
[22:13]they're so saturated with emotion too.
[22:16]Yeah.
[22:17]Like my mom used to say, feeling is living to me.
[22:21]And I really identified with that, you know,
[22:24]feeling like that is the way I experience the world is
[22:28]in today's a happy day.
[22:29]And tomorrow's a sad day or whatever they may be,
[22:34]that colors everything.
[22:35]So kind of just along for the ride,
[22:38]there's this tarot card of, you know,
[22:40]I think it's like the two of Pentacles
[22:42]where there's a wave in the background
[22:44]and there's the ship going on the waves
[22:47]and this guy's juggling the two pentacles.
[22:49]And it's like, oh, yeah, you just got to kind of go up
[22:52]with the ups and down with the downs
[22:53]and ride those waves.
[22:55]So I'm up for it, I think.
[22:59]Tell me a little more about the process of writing this book.
[23:01]How long did it take?
[23:02]Where would you write?
[23:03]When did you write?
[23:04]I wrote from home mostly.
[23:06]I wrote it over three years.
[23:09]I was in graduate school
[23:10]and I actually didn't think I was writing a book
[23:13]for a long time.
[23:14]I sort of thought I was writing essays
[23:17]and then I thought, oh, this is just my weird art project
[23:22]that will never be published.
[23:24]Yeah, it really was clear.
[23:26]And it would never be published.
[23:28]I said, yeah, it was over the course of three years
[23:30]and in workshop.
[23:32]And then, you know, I kind of just,
[23:34]sometimes when you really want something,
[23:36]like to write a book,
[23:37]which I think I've probably wanted to do
[23:38]since I was started my first diary and first grade,
[23:43]you almost don't want to say out loud.
[23:44]Like, I'm writing a book
[23:46]because then it might not happen
[23:48]and then everyone will know you didn't do it.
[23:50]So I was just kind of chugging away at it, I guess.
[23:53]And then, but I kept sending it out.
[23:56]I'm kind of, okay, I had my spreadsheet
[23:58]of my agents and they'd write back,
[24:01]they'd say no and then I'd send it to the next one, you know?
[24:05]So yeah, I queried agents for a year.
[24:09]I got like 17 passes and then I remember the day
[24:14]I got an email back from my agent now, you know?
[24:17]She just, no reservations, kind of.
[24:19]She was like, I would love to represent you
[24:21]and I just remember crying like all the way down Broadway.
[24:25]Like I was teaching a class and then I left
[24:27]and I was just like, oh my God.
[24:28]Because you start to feel like, am I crazy?
[24:31]Like, does this thing that I want so much?
[24:33]Like, am I crazy?
[24:35]And then to have someone say, no, no, you're not.
[24:38]I believe in you, like, let's do this or every writer.
[24:41]I mean, that's just like, support comes in lots
[24:44]of different ways throughout the process,
[24:46]but every time you get it, it really means a lot.
[24:49]Because we're also insecure, right?
[24:51]I mean, I think that's a universal probably.
[24:55]Well, writers in particular.
[24:57]No, for sure.
[24:59]So your book is now literally about to come out.
[25:01]By the time this airs, we'll have already come out.
[25:03]What's the best thing that you could imagine happening
[25:05]to you right now?
[25:06]Like, what's the best thing is someone could say or do
[25:09]the best response you could dream of getting?
[25:11]Like, is there something that you're just
[25:14]you're really longing for in this sort of aftermath?
[25:16]I know it's about the process and that this, you know,
[25:19]but now that we're in the reward time.
[25:21]Right, right.
[25:22]I mean, the Joan Gideon comment is pretty much the best.
[25:27]So that's a gold star.
[25:29]You know, I mean, I want like,
[25:31]what anybody probably wants of their book, you know,
[25:34]a rave in the New York Times book review
[25:36]and movie option and never to have to do paid work again
[25:41]that I don't want to do so that I can just spend the rest
[25:44]of my days living in my feeling life and writing about it.
[25:48]But yeah, I mean, I was thinking about what do I want
[25:52]out of this and, you know, I always,
[25:55]only ever wanted like six people to read.
[25:57]I was like, if just six people read my book
[26:00]and think it's great, like, that'll be great.
[26:04]So I feel like I'm kind of, you know, I've eclipsed six
[26:08]at this point and gotten some good feedback.
[26:12]And it's so hard.
[26:13]This part is so hard.
[26:14]Writing is so private and all of this is so public.
[26:19]So it's just, I don't know.
[26:20]The great reviews are great.
[26:22]My family keeps saying just enjoy it.
[26:24]This part is like the victory lap
[26:26]or you did the work that you could do.
[26:28]So I just keep thinking to myself, you know,
[26:31]I wrote the book I wrote at the time that I wrote it
[26:33]and I like it and I hope other people like it.
[26:36]Other people will like it.
[26:38]Yeah, and yeah, if I win like some awesome literary award,
[26:42]great, that'll be wonderful.
[26:45]I bet yeah.
[26:46]I feel like I put you on the spot with that question.
[26:47]I apologize.
[26:48]No, no, I haven't actually asked that before
[26:50]but I thought you'd have an interesting answer,
[26:52]which you did.
[26:52]But I also feel like you are helping people,
[26:56]not only the people going through loss
[26:57]of someone really close to them,
[26:59]but also I feel like you're helping people
[27:01]with their own relationships with their close family members.
[27:05]Like I've gone through a lot of loss in my life too
[27:07]and I always feel really connected to stories
[27:10]about other people's loss.
[27:11]Obviously every situation is different
[27:13]but some of the feelings, like when you read someone
[27:15]else's experience, it makes you, I don't know.
[27:18]You know, just in the way that when you're in the world
[27:20]and you bond with somebody, it's like the same sort of feeling.
[27:23]But I feel like this book also is gonna be so helpful
[27:26]for people with all their various relationships,
[27:28]especially this mother-daughter relationship
[27:30]and how many moms and daughters have really complicated relationships
[27:33]and this is a great way for people.
[27:36]Like I imagine people are gonna stop you and say like,
[27:38]thank you for reconnecting me with my mom.
[27:41]Or thank you for helping me see her as a person.
[27:45]Or apologize.
[27:46]Amazing.
[27:47]Is that sort of how I, like that's some of the things
[27:48]I took out of it, like your mom is so humanized in this book
[27:52]not as a mom, but like who she really is.
[27:55]Yeah.
[27:56]I don't know.
[27:57]Well that to me, like in terms of, you know,
[27:59]what's the best thing that could happen
[28:02]whenever people say to me, like,
[28:04]God, your mom sounds cool.
[28:06]Or like your mom is so alive on the page.
[28:08]In some ways that it's like the best,
[28:11]I don't wanna sound corny,
[28:13]but I am a little bit corny, so I can't help it.
[28:15]You know, she, like she lives in the book.
[28:19]And if it becomes a shorthand for people that's like,
[28:23]oh, this is a way to tell my mom, I see you and I love you.
[28:26]Just here's this book.
[28:28]I mean, that's amazing.
[28:29]That would be, you need to do it like a Mother's Day push.
[28:32]I love the marketing place.
[28:33]I think it is.
[28:35]If it's not, it will be.
[28:36]Okay.
[28:37]I will post this on Mother's Day.
[28:38]Okay.
[28:39]I'll remind me if I forget.
[28:40]My mom used to say that having kids is like,
[28:44]that we all walk around with this idea
[28:46]that we have some semblance of control over the universe, right?
[28:49]Like, oh, if I do this, I'll get this result.
[28:52]And that's why I've got to be on my mark all the time
[28:55]so that I can control the outcome.
[28:57]But when you have kids, it's like,
[29:00]oh, now I'm aware that I have absolutely no control
[29:04]over whatever is going to happen in life.
[29:06]So I think I've been thinking about that
[29:09]in the publication process because it's like,
[29:12]oh, yeah, I did the part that I had some control over,
[29:16]which was writing.
[29:17]But now I have no control over what happens from here on.
[29:22]And you kind of just got to like go with it, you know?
[29:27]But I think there's something really relieving
[29:30]and sort of like takes the pressure off to be like,
[29:33]oh, I'm putting all this pressure on myself
[29:35]to control outcomes that is actually an illusion.
[29:39]So why don't I stop pretending
[29:41]that I have any control over outcomes
[29:43]and just let it rip, you know?
[29:45]Or let what happens and let the chips fall where they may.
[29:49]So I'm keeping that in mind.
[29:51]Good.
[29:52]So you moved to LA for my mark.
[29:54]Yeah.
[29:55]How do you like living there?
[29:56]I love LA.
[29:57]I hadn't moved anywhere since I was 22.
[30:00]So when you move later in life, it's a different experience.
[30:04]So that it's a tricky transition,
[30:06]but now I pretty much love it.
[30:08]I mean, I really was charmed by LA in December,
[30:12]like Christmas with palm trees and New Year's
[30:16]and the desert.
[30:16]Yeah, I like it a lot.
[30:18]We just did that too.
[30:19]It was pretty awesome.
[30:20]I was like, I've never been in LA
[30:23]when it's like all the, like the Santa is like
[30:25]over the, you know, it's awesome.
[30:27]Or like all people put on their cars
[30:30]those root offices on the sofa.
[30:33]Yeah, my kids love that.
[30:34]Thank you.
[30:35]Okay, so you've abandoned New York,
[30:37]but you're here for your lunch.
[30:39]And so you're teaching writing out there or online,
[30:41]or how would you do it?
[30:42]Yeah, I mostly teach online post-secondary
[30:44]and college level teaching right now
[30:46]with Gotham writer's workshop.
[30:48]And yeah, I love teaching creative nonfiction
[30:51]because it's just like, oh, yeah, let's get to the real stuff.
[30:54]Like what have you learned and let's write about it.
[30:57]So I love teaching.
[30:58]And I've also loved my teachers.
[31:01]Like I feel so grateful.
[31:03]I mean, I know I mentioned Catherine Lent
[31:05]at the beginning of this podcast,
[31:06]my sophomore English teacher,
[31:07]but I really feel like I lucked out
[31:10]with a lot of great teachers.
[31:12]The people who hand you the books that change your life,
[31:14]I mean, that is such a powerful relationship.
[31:18]You know, I thought I captured the castle on your,
[31:21]on your bookshelf.
[31:22]It becomes this shorthand.
[31:23]I mean, not just, hey mom, I see you.
[31:26]Here's this book like about a mother and a daughter,
[31:28]but like, any kind of,
[31:30]it becomes like a shorthand for a way to see the world.
[31:33]Like if someone says, oh, I love Wallace Stegner
[31:36]and you're like me too, you know,
[31:39]it's really elemental.
[31:41]Yeah.
[31:42]Yeah.
[31:42]And giving someone that experience like,
[31:44]that's part of why I do this podcast really is like,
[31:47]if somebody says like I read whatever book
[31:50]because you talked to the author and maybe wanna read it
[31:52]and then I got this amazing experience.
[31:55]I got to live through their world.
[31:56]And like there's like nothing better.
[31:58]No.
[31:59]That's like a TV show.
[32:00]It's not the same.
[32:01]It's like you're immersed in it
[32:02]because you like put yourself in the book.
[32:05]Yeah.
[32:05]You know, it's like you get, I don't know.
[32:07]And you like to put things like you take,
[32:09]you're literally like have someone else's words
[32:12]in your body, you know.
[32:14]So yeah, it's super powerful.
[32:17]And then when you got to teach teenagers,
[32:19]which I do in the summer,
[32:20]and they like are so ready to have their minds blown
[32:23]that when you blow their minds,
[32:24]it's the most satisfying experience in the world.
[32:28]Are there a few things that you teach your students
[32:30]or that you would say to aspiring authors,
[32:32]any tips or things that you always, you know,
[32:34]that they have to know or advice or...
[32:37]I think read, you know, I think like
[32:40]I just read everything and read outside of your time too.
[32:45]You know, I think like when you're in the book world
[32:49]or aspiring to be in the book world,
[32:51]you can kind of, there's a tendency,
[32:53]I think, to focus on,
[32:54]well, what are the new books coming out
[32:56]and what's fashionable right now?
[32:58]But I love going way back, you know,
[33:00]I was rereading a nice name and I love her writing
[33:05]and like go back, go back, read broadly, read poets.
[33:10]My favorite prose writers or poets, it's not fair,
[33:13]but it may get to do it all.
[33:15]And yeah, I think reading is really important.
[33:19]I have this author, Jamie Brenner,
[33:20]who's coming on the podcast soon for her.
[33:22]She's written several books,
[33:23]but she's coming back on for her,
[33:25]coming on for her upcoming book, I called Drawing Home.
[33:28]Anyway, she just posted on Instagram
[33:30]this whole section of the library of Judas Krantz.
[33:32]Not was, do you remember?
[33:33]Oh, yes, yeah.
[33:34]That was like, those were my first like grown-up fiction
[33:37]for my mother, like gave me,
[33:39]cause I was a huge reader.
[33:40]And she was like, you can get inspiration from anywhere.
[33:42]You know, that was like so true.
[33:44]I mean, these were like, you know, the first like,
[33:47]anyway, they don't always have to be
[33:49]they don't know it's old,
[33:50]it can be anything from any era
[33:53]that really speaks to you and like makes you think
[33:55]a certain way.
[33:56]Weird stuff, you know, comic books, graphic novels,
[33:59]like all of it.
[34:00]And the reason why I think it's important
[34:02]is because, you know, you're asking me earlier,
[34:04]like, did you always write this way?
[34:06]And it's like, no, because every,
[34:09]the more you read, the more you realize,
[34:11]oh, you can do that.
[34:13]Like us so often will read something happy.
[34:15]Like, oh, I didn't know you could do that.
[34:16]You know, people, other writers make you aware
[34:19]of what's possible.
[34:20]And I just keep one, you know,
[34:23]want to invent new ways of saying the same old thing.
[34:26]We're all saying the same old thing about everything.
[34:29]You know, there's nothing new under the sun,
[34:30]but like, we can, but our consciousness
[34:35]gets put on the page in new and interesting
[34:37]and beautiful ways.
[34:38]So yeah, I just want to keep seeing those,
[34:40]discovering those.
[34:41]Well, that was amazing.
[34:43]And I truly adored your book
[34:45]and you're writing style in general
[34:47]and I want you to write more books
[34:48]and I hope you're planning on it.
[34:49]Are you planning on it?
[34:50]Yes, I hope I get to.
[34:52]Yes, I hope yes.
[34:54]Yeah, did you start one?
[34:56]No.
[34:57]Yes, I started, I've started something new
[34:59]and I'm very excited.
[35:01]I think it's novel.
[35:03]And oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[35:06]Anymore?
[35:07]No, I think that's all I can say for now.
[35:09]Yeah, because you said you don't want to tell anyone
[35:11]you're writing a book, so you know.
[35:13]Well, we won't hold you to it, but anyway, thank you so much.
[35:15]Thank you so much for coming and being here in person
[35:18]and sharing this launch week with me.
[35:20]It was a blast.
[35:20]Thank you.
[35:21]This episode has been sponsored by Bookhampton.
[35:24]Bookhampton.com.
[35:25]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound
[35:28]for the audio editing and mixing.
[35:29]Thanks for listening to Momstone.
[35:31]Have time to read books.